The foregoing arguments are speculative; there are, however, more positive considerations to urge. In addition to what has been said, we may point out (3) the fact that St. Luke's writings left his hand without a painstaking final revision, and (4) the different effect upon the mind of a new piece of information as compared with a belief, which has been held for some time, and has already become an intellectual presupposition.
(3) That St. Luke's writings left his hands without a final revision is strongly supported by the literary phenomena of the two works. The clearest evidence is found in the Acts, in which we probably have a closer literary parallel to the Birth Stories of Lk. i, ii than in the rest of the Gospel itself. Writing on the Acts (Acts of the Apostles, Eng. Tr., pp. 203 ff.) Harnack gives a list of more than two hundred “instances of inaccuracy and discrepancy”. Harnack does not accept them all, and shows that they are of different types, many of them being comparatively trifling and unimportant. Some are cases of anacoluthon and of transition from indirect to direct speech and vice versa. There are also “cases where St. Luke introduces persons with a certain unconcern, or in other places seems to forget that he has already introduced them” (p. 230). Harnack points out that “the details of a story are here and there inserted [pg 081] later or again earlier than their proper place” (p. 227), and he asserts that “instances of redundancy, of awkward repetition, of silence upon important points, and of extraordinary brevity, can be adduced from different parts of the book” (p. 230). He finds “instances of discrepancy” in the three accounts of the conversion of St. Paul, the letter of Claudius Lysias, the report of Festus, the last speech of St. Paul at Rome, and in other passages (p. 231).
Adequately to enter into this very interesting question would take us too far beyond the limits of our main subject. It is perhaps not unfair to suggest that Harnack's long list, as given in pp. 203-25, is capable of very considerable reduction. There is great force in Ramsay's remark: “He who reads Luke without applying practical sense and mother-wit and experience will always misunderstand him”, and in his caution: “When you think you find an ‘inconsistency’ in Luke, you should look carefully whether you have been sufficiently applying these qualities, before you condemn the supposed fault” (Luke the Physician, p. 55). Ramsay himself admits, however, that there are inconsistencies which cannot be denied, and holds that they show that “the work never received the final form which Luke intended to give it, but was still incomplete when he died” (ib., p. 24). In his earlier work, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, Ramsay has made the same suggestion, illustrations of which he finds in Acts xvi. 19, 20 and xx. 4, 5.[75]
We may describe the impression which St. Luke, as a writer, makes upon us by saying that, while his work is marked by great literary art, and while it is characterized by many striking instances of historical accuracy, yet, at the same time, the [pg 082] Evangelist shows a certain unconcern in matters of detail (Harnack would call it “a certain literary carelessness”), the results of which would probably have disappeared had he subjected his works to a close final revision. If this view is just there is little weight in the objection that, on the theory we have stated, St. Luke's reconstruction might have been expected to be more drastic than it is. The inconsistencies he has left are like those which we find elsewhere and are a feature of his works as they stand.
(4) Our final argument is of a psychological kind. It rests, as we have said, upon the difference between an intellectual prepossession and the first effect upon the mind of new information.
The previous argument might seem to point in another direction. Will not the character of St. Luke's writings sufficiently explain the literary phenomena of Lk. i, ii, on the view that he taught the Virgin Birth from the first? In the light of the discrepancies which occur in the Gospel and the Acts, can we not believe that after all the Virgin Birth is an original element in the Gospel? This contention would be an example of what Harnack has called attempting to gather apologetic figs from sceptical thistles.[76] We do not think that in this case the harvest would realize expectations.
It must be remembered that the two cases are not parallel. In the one case we begin with a writer whose mind is filled with an intellectual presupposition, with a knowledge, that is to say, of the Virgin Birth presupposed. Under these circumstances the miracle must be “a necessary stone in the structure”, and its effect determinative. If the Virgin Birth had been known to St. Luke for some considerable time, we cannot think that Lk. i, ii would have possessed the features to which we have called attention in Chapter II. In the other case—that of our hypothesis—the Virgin Birth is a piece of new information, and, if this is so, we submit that inconsistencies left in the adapted narrative wear a different hue. It is one thing to introduce into a narrative what is inconsistent to one's presuppositions. It is quite another thing not to perceive inconsistencies at once, when our knowledge is enlarged by a totally new fact. A presupposition is much more despotic than a subsequent discovery.
It is common knowledge that the implications of a new point of view are not always immediately recognized. For a time old and new live together. It is not by any means an easy task to introduce into a narrative, constructed under the guidance of alien presuppositions, a fact of an entirely new order. That St. Luke should have performed his task so well argues no little skill in literary craftsmanship. That his work was not completely done is after all no more than we might expect. From the standpoint of literary exactitude, no doubt the better plan would have been to rewrite the narrative, or at least to subject it to a rigorous pruning. But we ought not to complain if these things have not been done. St. Luke was probably too much of an artist to feel the merciless logic of his new information; and the result is a compromise.
In connexion with our theory we do not think that this is an unreasonable view to take. The difficulties are certainly much greater upon the theory that St. Luke knew of the Virgin Birth from the first. Granted certain presuppositions, and we can say with good reason what a writer like St. Luke would not be likely to do. Assume the entrance of a new fact, transforming by a whole world of difference the writer's point of view, and who can say just what he would do? We can say, of course, that he would introduce his new knowledge, if persuaded of its truth; but when we come to the details of reconstruction, we are face to face with the uncertainties of the personal equation. The logical procedure is drastic revision. If the writer stops short of this, as he may very well do, and attempts to fuse his material, seams must show and markings remain. This is precisely what we find in Lk. i, ii. In i. 34 f. and its context we can detect the seams; in c. ii we can see the markings.
It will be recognized that the situation is quite different on the view which credits i. 34 f. to a later Christian editor. Against this theory the objection we are considering has much greater force. For it is unlikely that the redactor would approach the Gospel with a knowledge of the Virgin Birth but lately gained. On the contrary, it would probably be a doctrine with which he had long been familiar. Accordingly, in addition to the other objections that we have raised against the theory of late interpolation, it would be legitimate to ask, Why has the redactor [pg 084] not done his work better? Our own hypothesis—that St. Luke had only just entered into a knowledge of the new tradition—is, indeed, the one theory where we have the least need to ask this question.