Virgin Birth of Christ

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Thedogma which teaches that theBlessed Mother ofJesus Christ was avirgin before, during, and after the conception and birth of herDivine Son.

The Virgin Birth in Catholic theology

Councils and creeds

Thevirginity of ourBlessed Lady was defined underanathema in the third canon of theLateran Council held in thetime ofPope Martin I, A.D. 649. TheNicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, asrecited in the Mass, expressesbelief inChrist "incarnate by theHoly Ghost of theVirgin Mary"; theApostles' Creed professes thatJesus Christ "was conceived by theHoly Ghost, born of theVirgin Mary"; the older form of the samecreed uses the expression: "born of theHoly Ghost and of theVirgin Mary". These professions show:

Church Fathers

The perpetual virginity of our Blessed Lady was taught and proposed to ourbelief not merely by the councils and creeds, but also by the earlyFathers. The words of theprophet Isaias (vii, 14) are understood in this sense by

St. Jerome devotes his entire treatise against Helvidius to the perpetualvirginity ofOur Blessed Lady (see especially nos. 4, 13, 18).

The contrary doctrine is called:

St. Epiphanius probably excels all others in his invectives against the opponents ofOur Lady'svirginity (Hær., lxxviii, 1, 11, 23).

Sacred Scripture

There can be nodoubt as to theChurch's teaching and as to the existence of an earlyChristian tradition maintaining the perpetual virginity of our Blessed Lady and consequently the virgin birth ofJesus Christ. The mystery of the virginal conception is furthermore taught by thethird Gospel and confirmed by thefirst. According to St. Luke (1:34-35), "Mary said to theangel: How shall this be done, because Iknow not man? And theangel answering, said to her: TheHoly Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called theSon of God." The intercourse of man is excluded in the conception ofOur Blessed Lord. According to St. Matthew,St. Joseph, when perplexed by the pregnancy of Mary, is told by theangel: "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of theHoly Ghost" (1:20).

Sources of this doctrine

Whence did theEvangelists derive their information? As far as weknow, only two created beings were witnesses of theannunciation, theangel and the Blessed Virgin. Later on theangel informedSt. Joseph concerning the mystery. We do notknow whether Elizabeth, though "filled with the Holy Ghost", learned the fulltruth supernaturally, but we may suppose that Mary confided the secret both to her friend and her spouse, thus completing the partial revelation received by both.

Between these data and the story of theEvangelists there is a gap which cannot be filled from any express clue furnished by either Scripture or tradition. If we compare the narrative of the firstEvangelist with that of the third, we find that St. Matthew may have drawn his information from theknowledge ofSt. Joseph independently of any information furnished by Mary. The first Gospel merely states (1:18): "When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child, of theHoly Ghost." St. Joseph could supply these facts either from personalknowledge or from the words of theangel: "That which is conceived in her, is of theHoly Ghost." The narrative ofSt. Luke, on the other hand, must ultimately be traced back to the testimony ofOur Blessed Lady, unless we are prepared to admit unnecessarily another independent revelation. The evangelist himself points to Mary as the source of his account of the infancy ofJesus, when he says that Mary kept all these words in her heart (2:19, 51). Zahn [1] does not hesitate to say that Mary is pointed out by these expressions as the bearer of the traditions in Luke 1 and 2.

A. How did St. Luke derive his account from the Blessed Virgin? It has been supposed by some that he received his information from Mary herself. In theMiddle Ages he is at times called the "chaplain" of Mary [2]; J. Nirsch [3] calls St. Luke theEvangelist of theMother of God,believing that he wrote the history of the infancy from her mouth and heart. Besides, there is the implied testimony of theEvangelist, who assures us twice that Mary had kept all these words in her heart. But this does not necessitate an immediate oral communication of the history of the infancy on the part of Mary; it merely shows that Mary is the ultimate source of the account. If St. Luke had received the history of the infancy from the Blessed Virgin by way of oral communication, its presentation in the third Gospel naturally would show the form and style of its Greek author. In point of fact the history of the infancy as found in the third Gospel (1:5 to 2:52) betrays in its contents, its language, and style a Jewish-Christian source. The whole passage reads like a chapter from the First Book of Machabees; Jewish customs, andlaws and peculiarities are introduced without any further explanation; the"Magnificat", the"Benedictus", and the"Nunc dimittis" are filled with national Jewishideas. As to the style and language of the history of the infancy, both are so thoroughlySemitic that the passage must be retranslated into Hebrew or Aramaic in order to be properly appreciated. We must conclude, then, that St. Luke's immediate source for the history of the infancy was not an oral, but a written one.

B. It is hardly probable that Mary herself wrote the history of the infancy as was supposed by A. Plummer [4]; it is more credible that theEvangelist used a memoir written by a JewishChristian, possibly a convert Jewishpriest (cf.Acts 6:7), perhaps even a member or friend of Zachary'sfamily [5]. But, whatever may be the immediate source of St. Luke's account, theEvangelist knows that he has "diligently attained to all things from the beginning", according to the testimony of those "who from the beginning were eyewitnesses andministers of the word" (Luke 1:2).

As to the original language of St. Luke's source, we may agree with the judgment of Lagarde [6] that the first two chapters of St. Luke present a Hebrew rather than a Greek or an Aramaic colouring. Writers have not been wanting who have tried to prove that St. Luke's written source for his first two chapters was composed in Hebrew [7]. But theseproofs are not cogent; St. Luke's Hebraisms may have their origin in an Aramaic source, or even in a Greek original composed in the language of theSeptuagint. Still, considering the fact that Aramaic was the language commonly spoken in Palestine at that time, we must conclude thatOur Blessed Lady's secret was originally written in Aramaic, though it must have been translated into Greek before St. Luke utilized it [8]. As the Greek of Luke 2:41-52 is more idiomatic than the language of Luke 1:4-2:40, it has been inferred that theEvangelist's written source reached only to 2:40; but as in 2:51, expressions are repeated which occur in 2:19, it may be safely inferred that both passages were taken from the same source.

TheEvangelist recast the source of the history of the infancy before incorporating it into his Gospel; for the use of words and expressions in Luke 1 and 2 agrees with the language in the following chapters [9]. Harnack [10] and Dalman [11] suggest that St. Luke may be the original author of his first two chapters, adopting the language and style of theSeptuagint; but Vogel [12] and Zahn [13] maintain that such a literary feat would be impossible for a Greek-speaking writer. What has been said explains why it is quite impossible to reconstruct St. Luke's original source; the attempt of Resch [14] to reconstruct the original Gospel of the infancy or the source of the first two chapters of the first and third Gospel and the basis of the prologue to the fourth, is a failure, in spite of its ingenuity. Conrady [15] believed that he had found the common source of the canonical history of the infancy in the so-called "Protevangelium Jacobi", which, according to him, was written in Hebrew by anEgyptianJew about A.D. 120, and was soon after translated into Greek; it should be kept in mind, however, that the Greek text is not a translation, but the original, and a mere compilation from thecanonicalGospels. All we can say therefore, concerning St. Luke's source for his history of the infancy ofJesus is reduced to the scanty information that it must have been a Greek translation of an Aramaic document based, in the last instance, on the testimony ofOur Blessed Lady.

The Virgin Birth in modern theology

Moderntheology adhering to the principle of historical development, and denying the possibility of anymiraculous intervention in the course of history, cannot consistently admit the historical actuality of the virgin birth. According to modern views,Jesus was really the son of Joseph and Mary and was endowed by an admiring posterity with the halo of Divinity; the story of his virgin birth was in keeping with the myths concerning the extraordinary births of the heroes of other nations [16]; the original text of the Gospelsknew nothing of the virgin birth [17]. Without insisting on the arbitrariness of thephilosophical assumptions implied in the position of moderntheology, we shall briefly review its critical attitude towards the text of the Gospels and its attempts to account for the earlyChristian tradition concerning the virgin birth of Christ.

Integrity of the Gospel text

Wellhausen [18] contended that the original text of the third Gospel began with our present third chapter, the first two chapters being a later addition. But Harnack seems to have foreseen this theory before it was proposed by Wellhausen; for he showed that the two chapters in question belonged to the author of the third Gospel and of the Acts [19]. Holtzmann [20] considers Luke 1:34-35 as a later addition; Hillmann [21] believes that the wordshos enouizeto of Luke 3:23 ought to be considered in the same light. Weinel [22] believes that the removal of the wordsepei andra ou ginosko from Luke 1:34 leaves the third Gospel without a cogentproof for the virgin birth; Harnack not only agrees with the omissions of Holtzmann and Hillmann, but deletes also the wordparthenos from Luke 1:27 [23]. Other friends of moderntheology are rather sceptical as to the solidity of thesetext-critical theories; Hilgenfield [24], Clement [25], and Gunkel [26] reject Harnack's arguments without reserve. Bardenhewer [27] weighs them singly and finds them wanting.

In the light of the arguments for the genuineness of the portions of the third Gospel rejected by the above named critics, it is hard to understand how they can be omitted by any unprejudiced student of thesacred text.

The friends of moderntheology at first believed that they possessed a solid foundation for denying the virgin birth in the Codex Syrus Sinaiticus discovered by Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson in 1892, more accurately investigated in 1893, published in 1894, and supplemented in 1896. According to this codex,Matthew 1:16 reads: "Joseph to whom was espoused Mary the Virgin, begotJesus who is called Christ." Still, the Syriac translator cannot have beenignorant of the virgin birth. Why did he leave the expression "the virgin" in the immediate context? How did he understand verses 18, 20, and 25, if he did notknow anything of the virgin birth? Hence, either the Syriac text has been slightly altered by a transcriber (only one letter had to be changed) or the translator understood the wordbegot of conventional, not of carnal, fatherhood, a meaning it has in verses 8 and 12.

Non-historical source of the Virgin Birth

The opponents of the historical actuality of the virgin birth grant that either theEvangelists or the interpolators of the Gospels borrowed their material from an earlyChristian tradition, but they endeavour to show that this tradition has no solid historical foundation. About A.D. 153St. Justin (First Apology 21) told hispagan readers that the virgin birth ofJesus Christ ought not to seem incredible to them, since many of the most esteemedpagan writers spoke of a number of sons of Zeus. About A.D. 178 thePlatonicphilosopherCelsus ridiculed the virgin birth ofChrist, comparing it with the Greek myths of Danae, Melanippe, and Antiope;Origen (c. Cels. I, xxxvii) answered thatCelsus wrote more like a buffoon than aphilosopher. But moderntheologians again derive the virgin birth ofOur Lord from unhistorical sources, though their theories do not agree.

The Pagan Origin Theory

A first class of writers have recourse topagan mythology in order to account for the earlyChristian tradition concerning the virgin birth ofJesus. Usener [30] argues that the earlyGentileChristians must have attributed to Christ what theirpagan ancestors had attributed to theirpagan heroes; hence the Divine sonship of Christ is a product of thereligious thought ofGentileChristians. Hillmann [31] and Holtzmann [32] agree substantially with Usener's theory. Conrady [33] found in the Virgin Mary aChristian imitation of theEgyptian goddess Isis, the mother of Horus; but Holtzmann [34] declares that he cannot follow this "daring construction without a feeling of fear and dizziness", and Usener [35] is afraid that his friend Conrady moves on a precipitous track. Soltau [36] tries to transfer thesupernatural origin ofAugustus toJesus, but Lobstein [37] fears that Soltau's attempt may throw discredit onscience itself, and Kreyher [38] refutes the theory more at length.

In general, the derivation of thevirgin birth frompagan mythology through the medium ofGentileChristians implies several inexplicable difficulties:

Besides, the very argument on which rests the importation of the virgin birth frompagan myths intoChristianity is fallacious, to say the least. Its major premise assumes that similar phenomena not merely may, but must, spring from similar causes; its minor premise contends that Christ's virgin birth and the mythical divine sonships of thepagan world are similar phenomena, a contentionfalse on the face of it.

The Jewish Origin Theory (Isaiah 7:14)

A second class of writers derive the earlyChristian tradition of the virgin birth from JewishChristian influence. Harnack [39] is of the opinion that the virgin birth originated fromIsaiah 7:14; Lobstein [40] adds the "poetic traditions surrounding the cradle of Isaac, Samson, and Samuel" as another source of thebelief in the virgin birth. Moderntheology does not grant thatIsaiah 7:14, contains a real prophecy fulfilled in the virgin birth of Christ; it must maintain, therefore, that St. Matthew misunderstood the passage when he said: "Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by theprophet, saying; Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son," etc. (1:22-23). How do Harnack and Lobstein explain such a misunderstanding on the part of theEvangelist? There is no indication that the Jewish contemporaries of St. Matthew understood theprophet's words in this sense. Hillmann [41] proves thatbelief in the virgin birth is not contained in theOld Testament, and therefore cannot have been taken from it. Dalman [42] maintains that the Jewish people never expected a fatherless birth of theMessias, and that there exists no vestige of such a Jewish interpretation ofIsaiah 7:14.

Those who derive the virgin birth fromIsaiah 7:14, must maintain that an accidental misinterpretation of the Prophet by theEvangelist replaced historictruth among the earlyChristians in spite of the betterknowledge and the testimony of thedisciples andkindred ofJesus. Zahn [43] calls such a supposition "altogether fantastic"; Usener [44] pronounce the attempt to makeIsaiah 7:14 the origin of the virgin birth, instead of its seal, an inversion of the natural order. ThoughCatholicexegesis endeavours to find in theOld Testament prophetic indications of the virgin birth, still it grants that the JewishChristians arrived at the full meaning ofIsaiah 7:14, only through its accomplishment [45].

The Syncretic Theory

There is a third theory which endeavours to account for the prevalence of thedoctrine of the virgin birth among the early JewishChristians. Gunkel [46] grants that theidea of virgin birth is apaganidea, wholly foreign to the Jewish conception ofGod; but he also grants that thisidea could not have found its way into early JewishChristianity throughpagan influence. Hence he believes that theidea had found its way among theJews in pre-Christian times, so that theJudaism which flowed directly into earlyChristianity had undergone a certain amount ofsyncretism. Hilgenfeld [47] tries to derive theChristian teaching of the virgin birth neither from classicalpaganism nor from pureJudaism, but from theEssene depreciation of marriage. The theories of both Gunkel and Hilgenfeld are based on airy combinations rather than historical evidence. Neither writer produces any historicalproof for his assertions. Gunkel, indeed, incidentally draws attention toParseeideas, to theBuddha legend, and to Roman and Greek fables. But the Romans and Greeks did not exert such a notable influence on pre-ChristianJudaism; and that theBuddha legend reached as far as Palestine cannot be seriously maintained by Gunkel [48]. Even Harnack [49] regards the theory that theidea of virgin birth penetrated among theJews throughParsee influence, as an unprovable assumption.

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