d the Virginity of Mary
was a part of the formulated Christian belief."* How could the
belief in the Virgin-Birth have taken such undisputed possession
of so many widely separated and independent Churches unless it
had had Apostolic authority?+ What other explanation can be given
for the fact? There is as complete a consensus of tradition as could
reasonably be asked for. It is impossible to imagine that the
doctrine of the Virgin-Birth can have been suddenly evolved in the
early years of the second century. The only adequate explanation is
that it was a substantial part of the Apostolic tradition. It may
be worth while here to quote the words of so distinguished a
scholar as Professor Zahn, of Erlangen. "This [the Virgin-Birth]
has been an element of the Creed as far as we can trace
it back; and if Ignatius can be taken as a witness of a
Baptismal Creed springing from early Apostolic times, certainly in
that Creed the name of the Virgin Mary already had its place ....
We may further assert that during the first four centuries of the
Church, no teacher and no religious community which can be
considered with any appearance of right as an heir of original
Christianity, had any other notion of the beginning of the [human]
life of Jesus of Nazareth .... The theory of an original
Christianity without the belief in Jesus the Son of God, born of
the Virgin, is a fiction."#

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* See Texts and Studies (Cambridge, 1891), vol. i. No. I, p. 25.
+ "Ecquid verisimile est, ut tot ac tantae [ecclesiae] in unam
fidem erraverint?"--Tertullian, De Praescript, cap. xxviii.
# "Dies aber ist ein Element des Symbolum gewesen, so weit
wir dasselbe zuruckverfolgen konnen; und wenn Ignatius als Zeuge
fur ein noch ateres, aus fruher apostolischer Zeit stammendes
Taufbekenntnis gelten darf, so hat auch in diesem bereits der
Name der Jungfrau Maria seine Stelle gehabt . . . Man darf ferner
behauften, dass wathrend der ersten vier Jahrhunderte der Kirche
kein Lehrer und Keine religiose Genossenschaft, welche sich mit
einigem Schein des Rechts als Erben des ursprfinglichen
Christenthums betrachten konnten, eine andere Auschauung yon dem
Lebensanfang Jesu yon Nazareth gehabt haben, als diese .... Dass
die Annahme eines ursprunglichen Christenthums ohne den Glauben
an den yon der Jungfrau geborenen Gottessohn Jesus eine Fiktion
ist."--Zahn, Das Apostolische Symbolum, pp. 55-68.
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Opponents of the Virgin-Birth occur, indeed, in the person of