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 VIRGIN

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VIRGIN

Zahn ("Einlcituns in das Neue Testament", 2nd ed., II, 406, Leipzig, 1900) does not hesitate to say that Mary is pointed out by these expressions aa the bearer of the traditions in Luke, i, ii.

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 the M iddle Ages he is at t imes called the" chaplain ' ' of Mary (cS. Du Cange, "Gloss, med. et inf. latinitatis", s. V. "Capellani"; ed. L. P'a\Te); J. Nirsch ("Das Grab der hciligen Jungfrau Maria", 51, Mainz, 1896) calls St. Luke the Evangehst of the Mother of God, believing that he wrote the history of the irifancy from her mouth and heart. Besides, there is the imphed testimony of the Evangelist, who assures us twice that Mary had kept all these words in her heart. But this does not necessitate an immediate oral com- munication 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 naturallj' 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 (i, 5, to ii, 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, and laws, and peculiarities are intro- duced without any further explanation; the "Mag- nificat", the "Benedictus", and the "Nunc dimittis" are filled with national Jewish ideas. As to the style and language of the history of the infancy, both are so thoroughly Semitic that the passage must be re- translated 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 ("A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke" in "The International Critical Commentarj-", Edinburgh, 1896, p. 7); it is more credible that the Evangehst utihzed a memoir written by a Jewish Christian, possibly a convert Jewish priest (cf. Acts, vi, 7), perhaps even a member or friend of Zachary's family (cf. Blass, "Evangelium secundum Lucam", xxiii, Leipzig, 1897). But, what- ever may be the immediate source of St. Luke's account, the Evangehst knows that he has "diligently attained to all things from the beginning", according to the testimony of those "who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Luke, i, 2). As to the original language of St. Luke's source, we may agree with the judgment of Lagarde ("Mitteilungen", III, .345, Gottingen, 1889) 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 (cf. Gunkel, "Zum rehgions- geschichtl. Verstiindnis des Neuen Testaments", pp. 67 sq., Gottingen, 1903). But these proofs are not cogent; St. Luke's Hebraisms may have their origin in an Aramaic source, or even in a Greek origi- nal composed in the language of the Septuagint. Still, considering the fact that Aramaic Wiis the language commonly spoken in Palestine at that time, we must conclude that Our Blessed Lady's secret was originally written in Aramaic, though it must have been translated into Greek before St. Luke utilized it (cf. Bardenhewer, "Maria V'crkiindigung" in " Biblische Studion", X, v, pp. 32 sq., PVeiburg, 1905). As the Greek of Luke, ii, 41-.52, is more idiomatic than the language of Luke, i,. 5 to ii, 40, it has been inferred that the EvangeUst's written som'ce reached only to ii, 40; but as in ii, 51, expressions are repeated which

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occur in ii, 19, it may be safely inferred that both passages were taken from the same source.

The Evangelist recast the source of the history of the infancy before incorporating it into his Gospel; for the use of words and expressions in Luke, i and ii, agrees with the language in the following chapters (cf. Feine, "Eine vorkanonische Ueberlieferung des Lukas in Evangelium und Apostelgcschichte", Gotha, 1891, p. 19; Zimmermann, "Theol. Stud, und Krit.", 1903, 250 sqq.). Harnack (,Sitzung.sbcr. der Berlhier Akad., 1900, pp. 547 sqq.) and Ualman ("Die Worte Jesu", I, 31 sq., Leipzig, 1898) suggest that St. Luke may be the original author of his first two chapters, adopting the language and style of the Septuagint; but Vogel ("Zur Charakteristik des Lukas nach Sprache und Stil", Leipzig, 1897, p. 33) and Zahn (Einleitung, 2nd ed., ii, 406) 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 ("Das Kind- heitesevangelium nach Lukas und Matthiius" in "Texte und Untersuchungcn zur Gesch. der alt- christl. Literatur", X,v, 319, Leipzig, 1897) torecon- struct 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 ("Die Quelle der kanonischen Kindheitsgeschichte Jesus", Gottingen, 1900) believed that he had found the common source of the canonical history of the infancy in the so-called "Protevangehum Jacobi", which, according to him, was WTitten in Hebrew by an Egyptian Jew 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 the canonical Gospels. All we can say, therefore, concerning St. Luke's source for his history of the infancy of Jesus 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 of Our Blessed Lady.

III. The Virgin Birth in Modern Theology. — Modern theology, adhering to the principle of his- torical development, and denying the possibility of any miraculous intervention in the course of history, cannot consistently admit the historical actuahty 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 extraordinarj- births of the heroes of other nations (Gunkel, "Zum rchgions- gesch. Verst. des N. T.", p. 65, Gottingen, 1903); the original text of the Gospels knew nothing of the virgin birth (ITsener, "Geburt und Kindheit Christ!" in "Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wissenschaft", IV, 1903, 8). Without insisting on the arbitrariness of the philosophical assumptions implied in the position of modern theology, we shall briefly review its critical attitude towards the text of the Gospels and its attempts to account for the early Christian tradition concerning the virgin birth of Christ.

A. Intigrity of the Gospel Teil. — WelUiausen ("Das Evangehum Lukii", Berlin, 1904) 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 WelUiausen; for he showed that the two chapters in question belonged to the author of the third (Jospel and of the Acts (Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. preuss. Akad. der Wissen- schaften zu Berlin, 1900, 547). Holtzmann ("Hand- kommentar zum Neuen Testament", I, 31 sq., Frei- burg, 1.SS9) considers Luke i, 34, 35, as a later addi- tion; Hillmann (" Die Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu nach Lukas kritisch untersucht" in "Jahrb. fiir protest.