Note 80 — Chapter III · ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS.—ITS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER.—VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH.

A more essential objection80 to the analogy is, that the representations of the heathen world prove nothing with respect to the isolated Jews; and that the idea of sons of the gods, belonging to polytheism, could not have exerted an influence on the rigidly monotheistic notion of the Messiah. At all events such an inference must not be too hastily drawn from the expression “sons of God,” found likewise among the Jews, which as applied in the Old Testament to magistrates, (Ps. lxxxii. 6, or to theocratic kings, 2 Sam. vii. 14, Ps. ii. 7,) indicates only a theocratic, and not a physical or metaphysical relation. Still less is importance to be attached to the language of flattery used by a Roman, in Josephus, who calls beautiful children of the Jewish princes children of God.81 It was, however, a notion among the Jews, as was remarked in a former section, that the Holy Spirit co-operated in the conception of pious individuals; moreover, that God’s choicest instruments were conceived by divine assistance of parents, who could not have had a child according to the natural course of things. And if, according to the believed representation, the extinct capability on both sides was renewed by divine intervention (Rom. iv. 19), it was only one step further to the belief that in the case of the conception of the most distinguished of all God’s agents, the Messiah, the total absence of participation on the one side was compensated by a more complete superadded capability on the other. The latter is scarcely a degree more marvellous than the former. And thus must it have appeared to the author of Luke i., since he dissipates Mary’s doubts by the same reply with which Jehovah repelled Sara’s incredulity.82 Neither the Jewish reverence for marriage, nor the prevalent representation of the Messiah as a human being, could prevent the advance to this climax; to which, on the other hand, the ascetic estimation of celibacy, and the idea, derived from Daniel, of the Christ as a superhuman being, contributed. But decided impulse to the development of the representations embodied in our histories of the birth, consisted partly in the title, Son of God, at one time usually given to the Messiah. For it is the nature of such originally figurative expressions, after a while to come to be interpreted according to their more precise and literal signification; and it was a daily occurrence, especially among the later Jews, to attach a sensible signification to that which originally had merely a spiritual or figurative meaning. This natural disposition to understand the Messianic title Son of God more and more literally, was fostered by the expression in the Psalms (ii. 7), interpreted of the Messiah: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee: words which can scarcely fail to suggest a physical relation; it was also nurtured by the prophecy of Isaiah respecting the virgin who should be with child, which it appears was applied to the Messiah; as were so many other prophecies of which the immediate signification had become obscure. This application may be seen in the Greek word chosen by the Septuagint, παρθένος, a pure unspotted virgin, whereas by Aquila and other Greek translators the word νεᾶνις is used.83 Thus did the notions of a son of God and a son of a virgin complete one another, till at last the divine agency was substituted for human paternal participation. Wetstein indeed affirms that no Jew ever applied the prophecy of Isaiah to the Messiah; and it was with extreme labour that Schoettgen collected traces of the notion that the Messiah should be the son of a virgin from the Rabbinical writings. This however, considering the paucity of records of the Messianic ideas of that age,84 proves nothing in opposition to the presumption that a notion then prevailed, of which we have the groundwork in the Old Testament, and an inference hardly to be mistaken in the New.