Note 106 — Chapter III · ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS.—ITS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER.—VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH.

But there is much in this explanation which positively contradicts the text. In the first place, that Elizabeth should have learned the heavenly message imparted to Mary from Mary herself. There is no trace in the narrative either of any communication preceding Elizabeth’s address, or of interruptions occasioned by farther explanations on the part of Mary. On the contrary, as it is a supernatural revelation which acquaints Mary with the pregnancy of Elizabeth, so also it is to a revelation that Elizabeth’s immediate recognition of Mary, as the chosen mother of the Messiah, is attributed.106 As little will the other feature of this narrative—that the entrance of the mother of the Messiah occasioned a responsive movement in his mother’s womb on the part of his forerunner—bear a natural explanation. In modern times, indeed, even orthodox interpreters have inclined to this explanation, but with the modification, that Elizabeth in the first place received a revelation, in which however the child, owing to the mother’s excitement, a matter to be physiologically explained, likewise took part.107 But the record does not represent the thing as if the excitement of the mother were the determining cause of the movement of the child; on the contrary (v. 41), the emotion of the mother follows the movement of the child, and Elizabeth’s own account states, that it was the salutation of Mary (v. 44), not indeed from its particular signification, but merely as the voice of the mother of the Messiah, which produced the movement of the unborn babe: undeniably assuming something supernatural. And indeed the supranaturalistic view of this miracle is not free from objection, even on its own ground; and hence the anxiety of the above-mentioned modern orthodox interpreters to evade it. It may be possible to conceive the human mind immediately acted upon by the divine mind, to which it is related, but how solve the difficulty of an immediate communication of the divine mind to an unintelligent embryo? And if we inquire the object of so strange a miracle, none which is worthy presents itself. Should it be referred to the necessity that the Baptist should receive the earliest possible intimation of the work to which he was destined; still we know not how such an impression could have been made upon an embryo. Should the purpose be supposed to centre in the other individuals, in Mary or Elizabeth; they had been the recipients of far higher revelations, and were consequently already possessed of an adequate measure of insight and faith.