Note 77 — Chapter III · ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS.—ITS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER.—VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH.

From these examples it might have been inferred that the narratives of the supernatural conception had possibly originated in a similar tendency, and had no foundation in history. Here however the orthodox and the rationalists are unanimous in denying, though indeed upon different grounds, the validity of the analogy. Origen, from a perception of the identical character of the two classes of narratives, is not far from regarding the heathen legends of the sons of the gods as true supernatural histories. Paulus on his side is more decided, and is so logical as to explain both classes of narratives in the same manner, as natural, but still as true histories. At least he says of the narrative concerning Plato: it cannot be affirmed that the groundwork of the history was a subsequent creation; it is far more probable that Perictione believed herself to be pregnant by one of her gods. The fact that her son became a Plato might indeed have served to confirm that belief, but not to have originated it. Tholuck invites attention to the important distinction that the mythi concerning Romulus and others were formed many centuries after the lifetime of these men: the mythi concerning Jesus, on the contrary, must have existed shortly after his death.77 He cleverly fails to remember the narrative of Plato’s birth, since he is well aware that precisely in that particular, it is a dangerous point. Osiander however approaches the subject with much pathos, and affirms that Plato’s apotheosis as son of Apollo did not exist till several centuries after him78; whereas in fact Plato’s sister’s son speaks of it as a prevailing legend in Athens.79 Olshausen, with whom Neander coincides, refuses to draw any detrimental inference from this analogy of the mythical sons of the gods; remarking that though these narratives are unhistorical, they evince a general anticipation and desire of such a fact, and therefore guarantee its reality, at least in one historical manifestation. Certainly, a general anticipation and representation must have truth for its basis; but the truth does not consist in any one individual fact, presenting an accurate correspondence with that notion, but in an idea which realizes itself in a series of facts, which often bear no resemblance to the general notion. The widely spread notion of a golden age does not prove the existence of a golden age: so the notion of divine conceptions does not prove that some one individual was thus produced. The truth which is the basis of this notion is something quite different.