Cerinthus, the contemporary of St. John, and later on among the
Ebionites, mentioned by Justin Martyr.* But they reject the
Virgin-Birth, because they reject the principle of the Incarnation.
"There are no believers in the Incarnation discoverable who are not
believers in the Virgin-Birth."+ The two truths have been held
together as inseparable. There has never been any belief in the
Incarnation without its carrying with it the belief in the
Virgin-Birth.

--
* Dial cum Tryph., 48, 49.
+ Gore, Dissertations, p. 48.
--

II

THE GOSPELS OF ST. MATTHEW AND ST. LUKE

But if such was the belief of Christians everywhere in the early
years of the second century, can we trace the evidence further
back? In answering this question, we are brought face to face
with the Gospels. But first it must be noted that the positive
evidence for such a subject must, in the nature of the case, be
much more limited than the evidence for the Resurrection. The
Apostles were primarily witnesses of what they themselves had seen.
There are two persons, and two only, from whom we could reasonably
expect to hear the truth about the mystery of the miraculous
Conception--Mary and Joseph; and when we open the Gospels we have,
as everybody knows, two narratives of the Nativity--St. Luke's
and St. Matthew's.

(I) St. Luke, in describing the Nativity, is using an Aramaic
document. There is a great difference in style between the preface,
which is his own, and that of the narrative which follows. It was
an Aramaic document (as Godet, Weiss, and Dr. Sanday agree); but
more than this, as Bishop Gore has pointed out: "It breathes the
spirit of the Messianic hope, before it had received the rude and
crushing blow involved in the rejection of the Messiah."* The
Christology of the passage is pre-Christian: "He shall be great,
and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall
give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign
over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there
shall be no end."+

--
* Gore, Dissertations, p. 16.
+ St. Luke i. 32, 33.
--
"How can all this," Dr. Chase asks, "be the invention of a believer
in the Messiahship of Jesus when the Jews had rejected Him, and
when the Resurrection and Ascension had raised the conception
of His Messiahship to the height of a spiritual and universal
sovereignty? The Christology of these passages is a striking proof
of their primitive character."# It is