VII. The Pastoral and the Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse
Of the New Testament Writings, other than the First and Third Gospels, there remain the Pastoral and the Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse. Whether the Pastoral Epistles are the work of St. Paul or not, their silence regarding the Virgin Birth cannot be pressed. 1 Tim. iii. 16 (probably a fragment from an early Christian hymn) may or may not be significant in its silence; but, in either direction, the inference would be unsafe. These writings are much too brief and restricted in subject-matter to leave room for the argument from silence. The same view is also true of the Catholic Epistles. The Apocalypse contains one passage (xii) which has been thought to indicate the writer's knowledge of the doctrine,[27] but the inference is far from being certain, and, in any case, in view of the date of the Book, it would add nothing to our knowledge which cannot be learnt more clearly elsewhere.
VIII. Summary
We may summarize the historical results reached in the present chapter as follows:—
1. There is no certain instance of a New Testament writer who knew of the Virgin Birth tradition, and yet repudiated it. [pg 021] It is more than doubtful if an exception can be found even in the case of the Fourth Gospel, though the Evangelist makes no doctrinal use of the tradition. If the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews knew of the doctrine, the same is probably true of that writer also.
2. The doctrine had no place in the subject-matter of Apostolic preaching. This view is supported by all the available evidence. The silence of the Pauline Epistles, of the Acts, and of the Second Gospel can be explained in no other way.
3. The tradition was not a matter of public knowledge during the period covered in common by the Pauline Epistles, the Second Gospel, and Q.
4. It is also probable that the same conclusion should be extended to the period covered by the Second Gospel alone, if this Book is dated later than St. Paul's lifetime, as it usually is.
Until we have examined the Virgin Birth tradition reflected in the First and Third Gospels, it would not be right to discuss these results further, except to say that an historical argument against the Virgin Birth based on these conclusions alone would be precarious. The chief importance of the results reached is the help they furnish in deciding when belief in the Virgin Birth first became current.