ictory to the evidence in the gospels that Mary had other children
born after Jesus.

62. Moreover, the songs of Mary (Luke i. 46-55) and Zachariah (Luke i.
68--79) bear in themselves the evidence of origin before the doctrine of
the cross had transformed the Christian idea of the Messiah. That
transformed idea abounds in the Epistles and the Acts, and it is difficult
to conceive how these songs (if they were later inventions) could have
been left free of any trace of specifically Christian ideas. A Jewish
Christian would almost certainly have made them more Christian than they
are; a Gentile Christian could not have made them so strongly and
naturally Jewish as they are; while a non-Christian Jew would never have
invented them. Taken with the evidence in Ignatius (Ad Eph. xviii., xix.)
of the very early currency of the belief in a miraculous birth, they
confirm the impression that it is easier to accept the evidence offered
for the miracle than to account for the origin of the stories as legends.
The idea of a miraculous birth is very foreign to modern thought; it
becomes credible only as the transcendent nature of Jesus is recognized on
other grounds. It may not be said that the incarnation required a
miraculous conception, yet it may be acknowledged that a miraculous
conception is a most suitable method for a divine incarnation.

63. These gospel stories are chiefly significant for us in that they show
that he in whom his disciples came to recognize a divine nature began his
earthly life in the utter helplessness and dependence of infancy, and grew
through boyhood and youth to manhood with such naturalness that his
neighbors, dull concerning the things of the spirit, could not credit his
exalted claims. He is shown as one in all points like unto his brethren
(Heb. ii. 17). Two statements in Luke (ii. 40, 52) describe the growth of
the divine child as simply as that of his forerunner (Luke i. 80), or that
of the prophet of old (I. Sam. ii. 26). The clear impression of these
statements is that Jesus had a normal growth from infancy to manhood,
while the whole course of the later life as set before us in the gospels
confirms the scripture doctrine that his normal growth was free from sin
(Heb. iv. 15).

64. The knowledge of the probable conditions of his childhood is as
satisfying as the apocryphal stories are revolting. The lofty Jewish
conception of home and its relations is worthy of Jesus. The circumstances
of the