The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-24
THE SPIRITUAI, VAL LJE
 OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH

| BY THE RIGHT .IEv. {
 Biahop of the Protestant Epissepel 2 2 7 Every incident, or alleged incident, in the biogfaphy of the great is of interest In the case of Our. Lord 1t is markedly 70 in that we have at most but fragments of His history. All we know of His birth, infancy and child hood is related in the first two chap ters of St. Matthew and. the first two cha apters of St. Luke Eliminate those and nothing remains excepting rather loosely connected record of the three closing years of His. life on earth.
 Today, their historicity so far as it touches the Virgin Birth is challenged. In the judgment of some-there is no unanimity of opinion among scholars the portion of the Third Gospel deal ing with the Virgin Birth (Luke l :34 f.. and the parallel passage in the first chapter of the First Gospel (Matt. 1S-25) are not part of the original gospel, and therefore the Gospel of the Nativity as we have 1t cannot be ac- cepted as presenting the truth of what actually occurred. Of course it does not necessarily follow, allowing that these passages were added to the original documents at a later date, that their credibility is thereby vitiated. A treasure discovered late is none the less a treasure. We are dealing, with period of history where oral tra- dition carried much of the burden now borne by literature, and carried it well, and with subject matter that would in the nature of the case be guarded by family reticence. Moreover for the balance of his gospel St. Luke was partially, perhaps chiefly, dependent on oral tradition. If doubt is raised as to the hisoricity of the Virgin Birth on the score of silence elsewhere throughout Scripture on the subject, the argument would apply with equal cogency to all topics treated in the first two chapters of St. Luke and of St. Matthew.
 Our Lord, Himself, so far as we have record of His words, makes no reference to the Virgin Birth. There are a few texts here and there in the New Tes- lament Gas c. 2. John I, IS; Gal. ". 4 ; Rom. 1, 8, which may be interpreted as indicating knowledge of the Virgin Birth by their authors, but they are too conjectural to cite. as reliable evidence There is no proof that during St. Pauls time belief in the Incarnation depended upon knowledge or acceptance of the Virgin Birth. Whether or not he and his contemporaries themselves knew of it, belief in it was certainly not pre- sented by them as condition of disci- pleship.
 This is not the occasion on which to attempt to argue the whole question on the grounds of scholarship. For our purpose it will suffice to make certain statements which, l believe, af- ford little ground for dispute:
 l. The matter is; not one of text. Neither in the case of St. Luke, l, 34, f., or St. Matthew l, 1925, is there texturaI ground for their omission. This does not apply to Matt. l. 16, where there are varying texts.
 2 The problem is inherent in the narrative as it stands. That is to say, side by side with the two-fold narrative of the Virgin Birth there are contradic- tions or seeming contradictions Of 1t. What the scholars are after Is an ex- planation of the fact. They did not create the problem.
 8. The net result of their work thus far is to suggest that the balance of argument may be or is, in their Judg- ment, against rather than for the tra- ditional belief. They have formulated doubt with no unanimity of opinion in their theories concerning 1t.
 Alt should be borne in mind that the Virgin Birth is not the outstanding, l. lx- s,nasAanf tn tho chapters under fires, The object for which they were written was obviously to center attention on the character of the Hero of the narrative, the condi- tions attending His conception and birth being but a basket for the jewel therein enshrined-"that which is to be born shall. be called holy, the Son of God.' Such is the theme both of the first two chapters of St. Luke, which Renan terms the most literary of the gospels" (Les Evangiles, Oh. XIiIl and also of the first two chapters of St Matthew. At this point it is worth noting that the author of St. Luke is counted by the archaeologist and Pau line scholar, Ramsay, to be a first rank historian. and, worthy of being named with Thucydides est. Paul the Traveller, Chap. D.
 5. The work of scholars on texts and their origin does not form the whole or the only support of the structure of truth in a matter where faith is con cerned. There are other pillars of the house. The effect of belief in the Virgin Birth is so inextricably bound up with the Gospel of the Nativity, In fancy and Childhood, that you must reckon with it as an outstanding and dynamic influence of Christian history.
 Speaking in terms of the history of Christendom, the subject of the Virgin Birth cannot be detached from it's Scriptural contact and dealt with as an isolated incident. The whole of the Gospel of the Nativity stands together the story of Zacharias and his great sons birth : the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her unparal- leled act of faith; three of the greatest hymns of Christendom (Magnificat, Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis, to say nothing of the Herald Angels song, which contains the wisdom of the ages and the sole hope of mankind in the brief compass of eleven Greek words) ; the story of the manager and the shep- herds: the figure of the apprehensive Joseph, the visit of the Magi, the mur- der of the innocents; the single glimpse of the boy Christ and of His conduct in the home. All of these rich and spiritually unique incidents crowd around the nativity and pay homage to the Babe, who, according to the record, was born of Virgin. Textually speak ing, it would be dishonest to>eliminate the Virgin Birth in the interest of his toricity and claim the balance, or DOT tions of the balance arbitrarily select ed, as true to fact. What is said of the figures and the pictures of the Sis.