How Early Christians Viewed the Birth of Jesus

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“Can Scholars Take the Virgin Birth Seriously?” BR 04:05, by J. Edward Barrett, produced more letters to the editor than any other article ever published in this magazine. Of the 27 letters printed, only two suggested that Barrett’s exploration of the subject had any merit whatever. Such a response leads me to believe that a closer examination of early Christian views about the origin of Jesus is in order.

For believers and nonbelievers alike, the Apostles’ Creed represents the essence of Christian faith. It affirms: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary. …”

Far from being a central dogma handed down by the apostles, however, the virgin birth was for several generations but one of a number of ways in which Christians gave expression to their belief that Jesus stood in a special relationship to God.

Regardless of your opinion about the historicity of the virgin birth, it is important to recognize that in the earliest centuries of Christianity, Christians themselves held different opinions about the origin of Jesus.

One of these competing beliefs was the cosmic pre-existence of Christ. As late as the fourth century, the famous church historian Eusebius of Caesarea presented the creed of his church, which, instead of the virginal conception, spoke of Christ as “begotten before all ages from the Father.”¹

For many of the churches of the East it was the pre-existence of Christ rather than his supernatural conception in the womb of a virgin that was important for Christian belief.

Two centuries before Eusebius, Christian opinions were already divided. With the exception of Ignatius of Antioch,² the Apostolic Fathers, all of whom wrote prior to the middle of the second century, ignored the virginal conception of Jesus when they speculated about his origins. For example, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas (12:10) understands Jesus to be the son of God in a way that is irreconcilable with his being son of David. He rejects any human parentage for Jesus. Similarly, the Shepherd of Hermas (Similitudes 6.5–7) states that the son was the preexistent Holy Spirit that came to dwell in flesh.³ We cannot know whether the silence of the Apostolic Fathers indicated ignorance, or rejection, of the idea of virginal conception.

Justin Martyr, who wrote in the first half of the second century, acknowledged in his Dialogue with Trypho (48:4) that a number of Christians claimed that Jesus was of human origin. While he himself believed in the virginal conception, for him the idea was not essential to Christian faith.

Furthermore, two Christian groups of the second century explicitly rejected the virginal conception: the Gnostics and the Jewish Christians, sometimes called Ebionites. In his Ecclesiastical History (3.27.2), Eusebius writes that the Ebionites considered Jesus “a common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary.” Later in the same work (3.17) he reports that “the heresy of the Ebionites asserts that Christ was the son of Joseph and Mary.”

Many Gnostics had a docetic view of Christ, which means that they regarded him as a supernatural being, like an angel, who had no human nature at all. Thus any suffering on the cross or at the time of Christ’s death was illusory. However, some Gnostics agreed with the Jewish Christians. Irenaeus says of the Gnostic Cerinthus, for example, that “he represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation.”⁴

It is true that both Ebionites and Gnostics were dismissed as heretics by some Church leaders. But their views demonstrate that opinions about the birth of Jesus varied widely among second-century Christians. Furthermore, one cannot easily dismiss as a heretical aberration the Jewish-Christian view that Jesus had a human father, for it is the Jewish Christians who have the most valid claim to be the heirs of early Palestinian Christianity.

Looking to the New Testament itself, the virginal conception of Jesus plays a role in the theologies of only two authors, Matthew and Luke. Other New Testament writers are not only silent on the subject, they offer alternative images for affirming belief in the uniqueness of Jesus. Paul, whose letters from the 50s are the earliest New Testament writings, regards Jesus as son of God by virtue of his preexistence, an idea that he shares with the author of the Gospel of John. In Galatians 4:4 Paul asserts that God “sent forth” his son. In 2 Corinthians 8:9 Paul declares that “being rich, [Jesus] became poor for your sake.” “Being rich” refers to the preexistent state of Christ, “became poor” to his incarnation. 035Similarly in John 3:17: “God sent the son into the world. …” The idea that God sent the preexistent son runs throughout the Gospel of John.⁵ The Gospel of Mark, recognized by most scholars as the earliest of the Gospels, begins its narrative with the ministry of John the Baptist and John’s baptism of Jesus. Mark’s story includes neither the mode of Jesus’ conception nor details about his infancy.

Frequently, New Testament authors quote hymns or creedal formulas,⁶ summaries of the Christian message created early in the Church’s tradition. None of these statements mentions the conception or birth of Jesus. Sometimes they imply pre-existence; sometimes they affirm that Jesus is the son of God by virtue of his resurrection.^a

The images that today surround the celebration of Christmas represent neither the earliest nor the only ways of expressing faith in Jesus. The infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke, from which we derive these images, differ in a number of details.^b When Christians view a nativity scene containing shepherds and magi they are witnessing a harmonization of the stories in Matthew 1:18–2:23 and Luke 1:5–2:40 that are in some ways irreconcilable.

The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the reign of Herod the Great, that his mother’s name was Mary, that she was betrothed to Joseph, that an angel announced the birth in advance and instructed that the child was to be named Jesus and that the Holy Spirit caused Mary to conceive. They probably also agree that Mary was a virgin when she conceived, although some scholars suggest that Luke is not clear on this point. Unlike Matthew, Luke makes no explicit statement that Mary did not have sexual relations with Joseph after the annunciation. Joseph A. Fitzmyer argues, for example, “When this account is read in and for itself—without the overtones of the Matthean annunciation to Joseph—every detail of it could be understood of a child to be born to Mary in the usual human way.”⁷

Beyond these basic elements Matthew and Luke tell widely diverging stories. In Matthew, Joseph is the central character; the supporting cast consists of Herod, the magi and the slaughtered children. In Luke, Mary is the dominant figure; it is the yet-to-be-born John the Baptist (Luke 1:41–44), the shepherds (Luke 2:15–20), Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:25–38) who praise the child.

Luke and Matthew also differ in geography. Luke relates that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth, that they traveled to Bethlehem in connection with a census, that the infant was placed in a manger and that after he was circumcised and presented in the Temple in Jerusalem the family returned directly to Nazareth (Luke 1:26, 2:4–39). Yet an unbiased reader of Matthew would understand that Mary and Joseph lived in Bethlehem, that Jesus was born in Joseph’s house, that the family fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s threat and from there they returned to a new home in Nazareth (Matthew 2:1, 13, 23).

While Luke agrees with Matthew that Jesus was born before the death of Herod the Great, he connects the event of the birth with a Roman census taken when Quirinius was the governor of Syria. But Quirinius did not become governor until 6 A.D., some ten years after Herod’s death. Luke’s statement fits in with his theological purpose of placing his Gospel story in the context of secular history, but on the date of the birth of Jesus he is in error.

Both Matthew and Luke offer lists of Jesus’ ancestors (Matthew 1:1–17; Luke 3:23–38), although Luke places his genealogy outside the infancy narratives. Yet differences between the two lists are irreconcilable. Luke offers 77 names compared with Matthew’s 41. More serious is that the names differ more often than not. The two authors cannot even agree on the name of Jesus’ grandfather!

Both Matthew and Luke share a common problem: They want to link Jesus to David in order to demonstrate that he is the Davidic Messiah, as expected by some of their Jewish contemporaries. Their genealogical lists trace Jesus’ ancestry through Joseph, who is shown to descend from David, even though they do not regard Joseph as the natural father of Jesus.

Luke 1:36 states that Mary was related 036to Elizabeth; Elizabeth was of the tribe of Levi and thus not descended from David. Luke solves this problem by editorializing that Jesus was thought to be the son of Joseph who, according to both genealogies, was of Davidic descent.

Matthew follows his genealogy with a story in which Joseph is instructed to take Mary into his house. Joseph “did as the Lord’s angel commanded him; he took his wife, but did not know her until she bore a son” (Matthew 1:24–25). In effect, Joseph adopted Jesus as his son and, by adoption, made Jesus a descendant of David.

Both Matthew and Luke appear to have brought together sources with differing points of view. In Luke 1:26–35, for example, the angel announces to Mary that she is to give birth to the son of God, yet all of the stories in the next chapter take place as if that annunciation had never happened. Mary wonders about the meaning of the visit of the shepherds (Luke 2:19), and both she and Joseph are surprised when Simeon says of Jesus that he is “a light for a revelation to the nations and a glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). They also are puzzled by the behavior of the 12-year-old Jesus who sits in the Temple and debates theology with the experts (Luke 2:48–49). None of these events should have surprised someone who had heard the angelic prediction of Luke 1:32–35. Luke seems to have gotten the material in chapter two from a tradition that knew nothing of Mary’s own knowledge of her miraculous conception.

Luke also prefaces his account of the birth of Jesus with a story of the annunciation and birth of John the Baptist, which has no specifically Christian content. Most scholars are in agreement that Luke incorporated into his narrative this story, which originated among the followers of John the Baptist. Luke simply adapted this material to his theological perspective that Jesus was superior to his predecessor, John.

For both Matthew and Luke, the Old Testament was a valuable and even sacred source. Both Gospel writers employ the familiar images of the Hebrew Scriptures to create the nativity stories. At important points in Luke’s narrative, the characters break into songs based on the Old Testament. The magnificat of Mary (Luke 1:46–55), the Benedictus of Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah (Luke 1:68–79) and the Nunc Dimittis of Simeon (Luke 2:29–32) are all poems that breathe the air of Jewish piety. Parallels with the Old Testament and other Jewish literature are numerous. We note a few examples: Mary begins her Magnificat with the words “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit exults in God my savior” (Luke 1:46–47). Among Old Testament parallels are Psalm 35:9 (“Then my soul shall find gladness in the Lord and rejoice in his deliverance”) and Habakkuk 3:18 (“I will rejoice in the Lord and exult in the God of my salvation”).

The opening words of the Benedictus, “Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel” (Luke 1:68), are the closing words of three of the Old Testament psalms (Psalms 41:13, 72:18, 106:48). And when Zechariah sings of “salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us” (Luke 1:71), he is repeating another motif from psalms (Psalm 18:17: “He delivered me from my strong enemies and from those who hate me”).

In the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:29–32), the themes of seeing salvation, the sight of all the peoples, a light to the gentiles and glory for Israel echo motifs that go back as far as Second Isaiah:^c “The Lord has revealed his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation that comes from our God” (Isaiah 52:10); “I will give you as a light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:6); “I will … give to Israel my glory” (Isaiah 46:13).

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While it is possible that Luke composed these hymns himself, it is more likely that he lightly edited Jewish or Jewish-Christian poems and worked them into his text.

The Old Testament also provided the motifs for a number of details in the stories. The annunciations to Zechariah, husband of Elizabeth, and to Mary and to Joseph follow the pattern for angelic visitations in the Old Testament before the births of Ishmael (Genesis 16), Isaac (Genesis 17–18) and Samson (Judges 13). In all five cases (Jesus in Matthew and Luke, Ishmael, Isaac and Samson) we find many elements from the following pattern, consisting of five steps:

1. The appearance of an angel (or of God).

2. Fear or prostration of the person having the vision.

3. The divine message is given:

a. The person having the vision is addressed by name;

b. A qualifying phrase describes the person having the vision;

c. The person having the vision is urged not to be afraid;

d. The divine messenger says the woman is with child or is about to be with child;

e. The divine messenger says the woman will give birth to the child;

f. The divine messenger gives the name by which the child is to be called;

g. An etymology is provided, interpreting the name;

h. The future accomplishments of the child are predicted.

4. The person having the vision objects: How can this be? Or a sign is requested.

5. A sign reassures the person having the vision.⁸

In addition, Luke’s narrative draws on the account of the birth of Samuel.⁹ In some cases, Luke seems to have adapted his narrative language from the Old Testament stories. He introduces Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth (Luke 1:5) with the same formula that begins the story in 1 Samuel 1:1–2. Parallel, too, are the descriptions of the return home of Zechariah/Elkanah and Hannah, the conception of John the Baptist/Samuel and the response of Elizabeth/ Hannah in Luke 1:23–25 and 1 Samuel 1:19–20. Mary’s response in Luke 1:38 is too much like that of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:18 to be coincidental (Mary: “Behold, the Lord’s handmaid. Let it happen to me according to your word.” Hannah: “Let your handmaid receive favor in your eyes.”). Similarly, Luke draws on Judges 13:24–25 (Samson) and 1 Samuel 2:21, 26 (Samuel) in composing his summary statements about the growth of John the Baptist (Luke 1:80) and of Jesus (Luke 2:40, 52).

Matthew also made use of the Old Testament, adapting the stories of Balaam, Joseph and Moses. Balaam was a seer from the East who predicted that a star would rise over Israel (Numbers 22–24). In the Septuagint version of Numbers 24:17, Balaam predicts that “a star will arise from Jacob, and a man will stand forth from Israel.” That Balaam was a gentile and, according to Philo of Alexandria,¹⁰ a magus, or wise man, makes him a prototype for Matthew’s magi.

Other motifs in Matthew 2 come from the Old Testament stories of Joseph and Moses. When Joseph, the husband of Mary, dreams dreams and goes to Egypt, he repeats the behavior of Joseph the patriarch in Genesis 37. And the story of the wicked Herod who attempts to kill Jesus and slaughters the male children at Bethlehem is Matthew’s adaptation of the Old Testament story of the pharaoh who massacred the male children of the Israelites (Exodus 1:15–22).

The modern reader may be frustrated by these observations about the diverse sources of the Gospels’ nativity stories. They seem not to meet the needs of religious piety nor to satisfy the historian’s curiosity about what really happened. But they open to us new possibilities of understanding Matthew and Luke as creative literary figures—as theologians who used the materials at their disposal in the service of a message about God’s presence in the world. Their genealogies differ, for example, because they perform different functions. Matthew’s genealogy makes the theological affirmation that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah. Matthew 1:1 identifies Jesus as “son of David, son of Abraham,” that is, as the Davidic Messiah and a Jew. In his structuring of the genealogy into three groups of 14 generations each (Abraham to David, David to the Exile in Babylonia, and the Exile to Joseph, husband of Mary), Matthew makes David the point of transition between the first two sections (Matthew 1:6). And lest the reader miss the point, Matthew calls Joseph “son of David” (Matthew 1:20).

Luke’s intention, on the other hand, is to show that Jesus is the son of God. He places his genealogy after the baptism of Jesus, which concludes with the divine proclamation of Jesus’ sonship (Luke 3:22). Then Luke historicizes the title “son of God” by tracing Jesus’ ancestry back to God through Adam (Luke 3:38). Jesus is son of God not by adoption or preexistence but by genealogical descent!

Both Matthew and Luke grasped instinctively that theological truth is best communicated by telling a story. They reflected the religious views and used the literary tools of their own day, but they challenged their readers to experience truth by participating in a story rather than by reciting a creed or affirming a dogma.

Matthew and Luke also avoided the pious excesses of succeeding generations, which described the childhood of Jesus in grotesque fantasies. The apocryphal stories in the infancy gospel attributed to Thomas of a petulant Jesus who as a child used miraculous powers to perform magic or to punish persons who displeased him are far removed from the simple narratives of the canonical Gospels.¹¹

The two evangelists used different literary techniques. Matthew arranged his story in five scenes, each based on a fulfillment quotation from the Old Testament. He introduced each quotation with a formula: “All this happened to fulfill the word spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying …” (Matthew 1:22; compare Matthew 2:5–6, 15, 17–18, 23). Such fulfillment quotations are characteristic of Matthew.¹²

Luke used the Old Testament material in a more creative way. Instead of citing proof texts as Matthew did, Luke drew on Old Testament images to create carefully balanced scenes in which the characters carry the message. Hannah, for example, is the model for Elizabeth and Mary. The images of Elizabeth and Mary in turn parallel each other as a part of Luke’s method of paralleling John the Baptist and Jesus. Luke balances the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist (Luke 1:5–23) over against the annunciation of the birth of Jesus (Luke 1:26–38) and Elizabeth’s pregnancy and praise of God (Luke 1:24–25) over against Elizabeth’s praise of Mary’s pregnancy (Luke 1:39–45). Similarly he parallels the two stories of the birth, circumcision, naming and future greatness of John the Baptist (Luke 1:57–66, 76–80) and of Jesus (Luke 2:1–27, 34–40).

Yet differ as they may, the infancy 038narratives of Matthew and Luke have one thing in common: They are both statements of faith. Behind the images of Joseph the pious Jew; of Herod, a despotic king; of magi from the East; of pious Zechariah and obedient Mary; of simple people breaking into Spirit-inspired song is a vision of how God is present in the world. It is not the political and ecclesiastical power structures of the world that grant salvation. Matthew demonstrates that King Herod, advised by the religious establishment, creates havoc and suffering by trying to eliminate all possible threats to his power (Matthew 2:3–4, 16). Nor do miraculous births and angelic appearances assure success and avoid tragedy. Luke makes clear that Simeon knows that the infant Jesus “is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel” (Luke 2:34) and will bring pain even to his mother, Mary, who is told that “a sword will pierce your own soul” (Luke 2:35).

As statements of faith, the infancy narratives intend to evoke faith. But the faith in which they are interested is a faith that transcends the issues of whether the stories are true literally or symbolically. The question that Matthew and Luke pose to us is this: Do we share their vision of life structured around intangible values that come to expression in the life of a particular man? And can we make that vision a reality in our own lives?

“Can Scholars Take the Virgin Birth Seriously?” BR 04:05, by J. Edward Barrett, produced more letters to the editor than any other article ever published in this magazine. Of the 27 letters printed, only two suggested that Barrett’s exploration of the subject had any merit whatever. Such a response leads me to believe that a closer examination of early Christian views about the origin of Jesus is in order. For believers and nonbelievers alike, the Apostles’ Creed represents the essence of Christian faith. It affirms: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth; and in […]