PART II.
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MIRACULOUS BIRTH OF CHRIST JESUS.
According to the dogma of the deity of Jesus, he who is said to have lived on earth some eighteen centuries ago, as Jesus of Nazareth, is second of the three persons in the Trinity, the Son, God as absolutely as the Father and the Holy Spirit, except as eternally deriving his existence from the Father. What, however, especially characterizes the Son, and distinguishes him from the two other persons united with him in the unity of the Deity, is this, that the Son, at a given moment of time, became incarnate, and that, without losing anything of his divine nature, he thus became possessed of a complete human nature; so that he is at the same time, without injury to the unity of his person, "truly man and truly God."
The story of the miraculous birth of Jesus is told by the Matthew narrator as follows:[111:1]