(e and d.) That the visit of the wise men of the East, and the appearance to the shepherds, can both be true, is impossible. Luke is very precise as to the length of the stay of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus. It extended to the eighth day for circumcision, and to the thirty-third day after this for Mary's purification. Then they left Bethlehem for Jerusalem, there "performed all things according to the law of the Lord," and returned straight to Galilee. During the forty or forty-one days of the stay at Bethlehem—five miles from Jerusalem—the shepherds were spreading abroad "the saying that was told them concerning this child." That he was a "Saviour, born in the city of David, Christ the Lord." The visit of the wise men must have occurred in the course of these forty-one days. Their inquiry put all Jerusalem in a ferment, roused Herod's jealousy, set him inquiring where Christ should be born, induced the most eager desire to find the new-born babe, that he might remove such an obstacle from his path, all the while that the shepherds in the neighboring district were publishing the glad tidings of his birth. The wise men were guided by a star to the house where Joseph and Mary stayed, saw and worshipped the wondrous child, and were warned of God in a dream to depart to their own country privately; but no such admonition to keep silence restrained the outspoken shepherds in the close vicinity of Herod. To avoid Herod's wrath, Joseph "took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt," just at the time "when the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord," Herod being at Jerusalem, and having had his jealousy roused by the tale of the wise men. Can aught more utterly irreconcilable be imagined? As, then, the falsehood of the accusers of Susanna in the Apocrypha was detected, when they were examined apart by Daniel, on the one affirming that her crime was committed "under a mastic tree" and the other "under a holm tree," so such contradiction as that between Matthew and Luke wholly destroys the credit of both narratives. What is there for a conscience-satisfying belief to rest upon?
SECOND TEST.—The claim of the New Testament to represent the Jewish Jehovah.
1.. The deity begetting a mortal child by a mortal woman, was this a Jewish or a Gentile idea? That it was not a Jewish idea will be shown when the alleged fulfilment of Isaiah vii. 14,—"Behold a virgin shall conceive" &c., is considered. That it was a common Gentile idea is most manifest. A glowing account of Jupiter's commerce with the fair ones of the earth is to be found in his amorous address to his sister-wife Juno (Iliad, Book xiv. 280-353). The other gods and goddesses in like manner bestowed their favours on mortals, and begat mortal children. Plato was said to be the child of a virgin by Apollo. Apollo appeared to her betrothed in a dream, and told him his bride was with child, on which he delayed his marriage. What is this but the tale of Mary and Joseph in another form? Which is the original? Plutarch also mentions that a similar notion was held by the Egyptians, but of male gods only. "The Egyptians, indeed, make a distinction in this case, which they think not an absurd one, that it is not impossible for a woman to be impregnated by the approach of some divine spirit, but that a man can have no corporeal intercourse with a goddess." This is an exactly similar notion to Luke's "overshadowing" of Mary. "Out of Egypt have I called my son," is perfectly true in a sense. Confucius also, in one of the sacred books of the Chinese, refers to the great Holy One, who would appear in the latter days, born of a virgin, whose name shall be the Prince of Peace.
Similar, too, are the legends of the fabled founders of some, to whom so many of the civil and religious institutions of the city were ascribed. Romulus and Remus were sons of the war-god Mars. Their mother Rhea took refuge in a cave: the meeting of the god and the mortal was attended by prodigies: the heaven was darkened, the sun eclipsed: her celestial lover announced to Rhea that she should bear twin-sons, to be renowned in arms, and then ascended in a cloud from the earth. Servius Tullius, also, had a like origin. His mother, a slave in the household of Tarquin, beheld a divine appearance on the hearth, and afterwards was "found with child" by the god. The child, when born, was named Servius, from his mother's condition. During its sleep she saw its head surrounded by flames, which were extinguished when she awakened it. The founder, likewise, of the Sabine town of Cures was a son of Mars. His mother, a virgin of noble family, seized with divine favour, while dancing in the temple, entered the shrine, and became pregnant by the god. Her son, she is told, would be of superhuman beauty, matchless in deeds of arms. So that a Roman on his conversion had merely to transfer to Jesus a like belief to those in which he had been nurtured with reference to the births of the fabled founders and ancient kings of his own city, up to whom the political and religious practices which he had been taught to regard as sacred were traced. To him there would have been nothing incredible in the story of Mary's conception. The claim of the church of Rome to be the true church of Christ may thus, in a certain sense, be cordially acquiesced in.
2. The Son of God, by a mortal woman, brought up as the child of that woman and her husband,—Is that a proceeding proper to the deity of the Old Testament? The writings and the spirit of Moses and the prophets emphatically answer, No.
But it exactly corresponds with the Grecian legends of the "father of gods and men." The suffering hero Hercules, son of Jupiter and Alcmena, brought up by her and her husband Amphitryon, is a memorable pagan tale of a kindred character.
3. The birth of an illustrious personage made manifest by a star,—Is that consistent with the attributes of the Jewish Jehovah? The stars in the Old Testament are ever referred to as witnesses to the might of the Eternal, and those who sought to divine earthly events by their courses, conjunctions, or appearances, were treated with derision. "Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee." This is addressed by Isaiah, xlvii. 13, to the daughter of the Chaldeans, Babylon. Matthew's stargazing wise men would thus have been "spued out of the mouth" of the Jewish Jehovah.
CHAPTER II. THE SUPERNATURAL TESTIMONIES DURING THE LIFETIME OF JESUS
(a.) The descent of the Holy Spirit, like a dove, and the voice from heaven, at his baptism. (b.) The transfiguration, and the voice then heard; also the voice from heaven, mentioned in John xii 28-31. (c.) The testimony of the devils. (d.) The forty days' fast, the temptation by Satan, and the subsequent ministration of angels. (e) The earthquake and rending of the veil of the temple at the crucifixion.