without violating the principle of monotheism insepar-` able from the modern form of Judaism?

These questions remained long unanswered before finding solution in the reconstruction of primitive Christianity. Numerous sects arose external to the Church, composed of educated and wealthy Gentiles, who exhausted all the resources of imaginative piety in the vain attempt to reconcile Moses, Jesus, and Plato, through shifting combinations of theosophic mysticism. But the first heresy, which effected a permanent lodgment within the pale of orthodoxy, was the supernatural birth of the Messiah-a theory which, however irreconcilable with the true story of Jesus of Nazareth, harmonised with the popular aspirations of the second century for the exaltation of the Messiah, without disturbing the principle of monotheism.

As was the case with a constructive Resurrection, so also a constructive Incarnation was proved by the arbitrary interpretation of a single word in the Septuagint. In the authorised version of Isaiah vii. 14, we read :— 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son-which is more correctly translated— Behold, the young woman is with child, and beareth a son.' The Hebrew word hâalmâh is translated in the Septuagint by Taρlévos which denotes a virgin. Aquila of Pontus, and Theodotion of Ephesus, Jewish proselytes who published Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures in the second century, however, adopt the word veâvis, applicable to any young woman, married or single; and as Irenæus, when maintaining the theory of the Incarnation, discloses, in his arguments, that it never rested on any more reliable basis than the miraculous translation

and verbal infallibility of the Septuagint, which, he asserts, is the version from which Peter, John, Matthew, and Paul quoted the Prophets, we inevitably recognise a pious fiction of the second century in the dogma of the Incarnation.

Irenæus, however, seeks to establish the miraculous birth of Jesus through another line of argument. The genealogy contained in the Gospel according to Matthew traces the descent of Joseph through Jechoniah, thus denounced by the Prophet Jeremiah :-Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.' From this Irenæus infers that if Jesus were the son of Joseph, he would be the descendant of a disinherited man, and therefore not the Hebrew Messiah; and that the Holy Ghost had thus spoken respecting Jechoniah, that posterity might know that Jesus was not the son of Joseph! How analogous the paucity of wisdom by which men are governed and religions evolved!

3

Eminent apologists may, possibly, be prepared to show that Jeremiah, Matthew, and Irenæus are all equally right; but more sceptical inquirers may reasonably ask-Is not the erroneous interpretation of a single word, in a translation abounding with errors, more probable than the miraculous violation of a natural law, unattested by the shadow of a reasonable proof? The origin and growth of this superstition is obviously traceable to Christian piety desirous of exalting

1 Against Heresies, iii. 21.

3 Jer. xxii. 30.

2 Ibid. iii. 21.

the Hebrew Messiah. It was humiliating to listen to sneering polytheists contemptuously comparing the lowly birth of Jesus with the divine origin of the Olympian gods; accordingly, aspiring believers, beginning to inquire whether so great a personage as their Lord and Master-said to have restored sight to the blind, and even life to the dead-could be merely mortal, turned from the teaching of his own lips to the fascinating pages of the Septuagint, where imaginative theologians, by adopting the modern system of allegorical interpretation, could find ample confirmation of their most fanciful theories.

As we have already seen, the fiction of virgin maternity was discovered in Isaiah; and, in harmony with the custom of his age, some zealous apostle of the Incarnation interpolated Matthew with this mythical episode unknown to Jesus, Peter, John, or Paul, and if faithful Nazarenes denounced the pious fraud, they were accused of mutilating the Gospel, as if any possible motive for denying the miraculous birth of Jesus could have existed in the minds of men, who had received the doctrine through the autogram of a Galilean Apostle!

If any doubt remains as to the mythical origin of the Incarnation, it is removed by the language of Justin, saint and martyr of the second century, addressing the Emperor Antoninus, the senate, and the entire Roman people, in apologetic defence of the doctrine :- And when we maintain the supernatural birth of the Word (Logos) the first-born of God, we say nothing different from your own belief in the sons of Jupiter, more especially Mercury, the interpreting Word (Logos) and

teacher of all men.

Moreover, if Jesus be merely man,

he is worthy, on account of his wisdom, to be called the Son of God; for all writers (Heathen) call God (Jupiter) the Father of gods and men.'

If these broad views were acceptable to Roman polytheists, they might assume a dubious aspect in the eyes of Christian converts. Justin accordingly makes the startling announcement that the wicked Dæmons, whom he supposes to have deceived the human race in the name of the Olympian gods, having heard the language of the Hebrew prophets concerning Christ, put forward many as the sons of Jupiter, with the malicious design of identifying Jesus with the marvellous tales of the poets respecting Bacchus, Perseus, Hercules, and Esculapius! 1

Justin proceeds to prove this theory by facts! He quotes the following words of Jacob as a prediction committed to writing by Moses :-There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until he shall come for whom it is reserved; and he shall be the desire of the Gentiles, binding his foal to the vine, washing his robes in the blood of grapes.'

2

Justin, at variance with Matthew, declares that this is the prophecy which was fulfilled when Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem riding on an ass; and explains that, when the Dæmons heard this prediction, they said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter. They also included the ass among his mysteries, and taught that, after being torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. And because the prophecy did not name the Son of God, or mention whether he would remain on earth or ascend into 2 Gen. xlix. 10, 11.

1 1 Apol. liv.

heaven riding on the foal; or whether it would be the foal of a horse or of an ass, the Dæmons declared that Bellerophon, a man born of man, ascended to heaven. on the horse Pegasus. When the Dæmons also heard Isaiah say that he should be born of a virgin, and ascend into heaven, they pretended that reference was made to Perseus.'1

Justin records other demoniacal imitations of the career of Jesus, and finally consoles himself with the fact that none of the creatures of the Dæmons imitated the crucifixion because they did not understand the cross, although disclosed in a universal symbolism, ast by a common pickaxe, the yards of a ship, the human. form, and the nose on a man's face!2 In consideration of these and many other similar facts, Justin assures emperor, senate, and people that if they don't believe, he, at least, has done his best to produce rational conviction. It is important for our readers to recollect that this credulous saint, who thus professes to read the thoughts and record the actions of imaginary Dæmons, is one of the pillars of orthodoxy, the first defender of the faith whose works have reached posterity, the first professed expounder of Messianic Divinity which, in the hands of the more advanced theologians of the fourth century, was yet to attain consubstantial equality with the Supreme Ruler of the universe.

Trinitarian Divinity was not, however, reached through the fiction of a supernatural birth, which even Judeo-Christians might have accepted without disturbing the national faith in monotheism. Whilst the prodigy of virgin maternity had been in process of evolution, a 1 1 Apol. liv. 2 1 Apol. Iv.