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Whereupon an angel an- nounced that a child should be born to her; and the child, a girl, being born according to the prologue, was named Mary. (6) When the child was three years old she was taken to the temple, where she remained ten or twelve years, receiving her food meantime, it is said, from the hand of an angel. (7) Section 2. Girls develop early under the warm skies of Palestine, and the record is that the Lord at this time told Zacharias, the High Priest, to summon the widowers with their rods; and the priest took the rods and went into the temple to pray. On coming out and distributing the rods, a dove flew out of the one zvhich Joseph took, and lit upon his head. This was a sign that Joseph was to take the virgin ; but he objected that he was an old man, and had chil- dren, and Mary being so young, "he would appear ri- diculous in Israel." (8) Joseph's scruples, however, not being hard to overcome, he took the virgin to his home, and went away to building houses. The priests (5) That work is called the Protevangelium, or book of James. Luke very evidently had that work before him when he compiled his gospel, and he copies from it very liberally. (6) Mrs. Anna Joachim was therefore a grandmother of Jeaui. (7) Protevangelium, ch. 8 and 9. (8) Chaps. 8 and 9, Protevangelium: Joseph was about eighty years old and was the father of six children by a former wife. 44 A QUESTION OF MIR/\CLES thereafter selected Mary to spin the purple for a new veil for the temple. (9) Matthew says "before Joseph and Mary came to- gether, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost;" but Matthew fails to tell us zcho found her in that deli- cate condition. (10) The Book of James (11), however, supplies the missing link, for it says that Joseph on returning from abroad, found her with child and reproached her for her conduct. (12) *Tf I conceal her crime, I shall be found guilty by the law of the Lord ; and if I discover her to the children of Israel, I fear lest, she being with child by an angel, I will be found to betray the life of an innocent person. I will therefore put her away privately." Mary insisted that she knew not how it occurred. (13) But Luke tells a different story, for he says an angel came and told her that she had found favor with God, that "she should conceive and bring forth a son," and the angel added that "the Lord will give unto him the throne of his father David : and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever." (14) Mary could not understand how that could be; (9) Chap. 11, Book of James. If this be true Mary must have gone back to the temple soon after her espousal. (10) Matt. 1, V. 18. (11) The book of James is as well attested as either one of our four canonical Gospels, for in his colophon James says: ' ' I, James, wrote this history in Jerusalem ; and when the dis- turbance was, I retired into a desert place until the death of Herod. And the disturbance had ceased at Jerusalem. ' ' (12) C'h. 13 and 14, Protevangelium. The Protevangelium was not condemned by Pope Gelasius, who was Pope A. D. 494. (13) Book of James, ch. 13. (14) Luke 2, v. 27 and 35. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 45 whereupon the angel said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee; and the power of the Highest shall over- shadow thee ; and the holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of God." Yet this angel was wrong; for Jesus never gained David's throne. More- over the Book of James also contradicts Mary ; for it says that as she went for a pitcher of water, she heard a voice saying, "Hail, full of grace ! The Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women." She looked to the right and left, but could see no one; and, fright- ened, she went into the house and sat down to work on the purple. Another version says : "She saw a young man of ineffable beauty" who said, "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God." Luke says, "The angel of the Lord stood beside her" and said, "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God." (15) The High Priest seems to have known of the angel's visit to her, for when she finished the veil of the tem- ple and took it to him, he said to her : "The Lord has magnified thy name; and all the generations of the earth will bless thee." (16) This question here pre- sents itself : Was Mary living with her parents, or in the temple, at the time of the angel's visit to her? In (15) Luke 1, V. 30. Here the two narratives are nearly the same, except that Luke is somewhat longer. Evidently Luke copies James or James copies Luke. In this matter I hold with Dr. Schleiermaeher of Germany, that the evidence seems to point to Luke as the copyist of James. Luke certainly compiles from "many." (Luke 1, v. 1.) Was it an angel that saluted Mary, aa Luke has it, or was it a " young man of ineffable beauty ' ' that said to her she had found favor with the Lord God? Which? (16) Book of James, chap. 12. Luke 1, v. 28, says Mary is blessed among women. 46 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES either case, how is it that neither parents nor priests are mentioned as seeing the angel when he called? True, the High Priest seems to hai'c known of the matter, when she brought the veil to the temple; but how did he find it out ? Was he present at the "over- shadowMng," and if not, why was he so anxious to have the widowers call and one of them take this young girl by lot ? Section 3. \\q reach here some of the most ex- traordinary statements in all history. There never was anything like them before or since. Here is a young Jewish girl, only about fourteen or fifteen years of age, who has grown up in the temple or near there, with the priests and scribes. At this immature age she is betrothed in a peculiar manner, as we have seen, to an aged widower. Joseph is not at home when the angel visits his wife. (17) He knows nothing about those visits. They are all on the sly, as to him. Mary, Gabriel and the High Priest only are in the secret. Nor is Joseph consulted about when the Holy Ghost shall come upon his wife and overshadow her. But when he finds her in a delicate situation, he up- braids her and reproaches her, as we have already seen. But he does not act rashly ; he considers carefully, and concludes that, as she is so very young, he will not make her a public example, but will "put her away privately." (18) And while Joseph was ponder- (17) Neither Matthew, Mark nor John names the angel; but Luke mentions the angel Gabriel. (Ch. 1, v. 26.) (18) Matt. 1, V. 19. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 47 ing those things, he fell into a sleep; and in his dream the angel of the Lord appears unto him, and says: "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." Whether the angel awakened Joseph in talking to him we cannot say : but "on being raised from his sleep he did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him." (19) In other words, Joseph overlooked and forgave what he must have considered, to put it mildly, a very serious youthful indiscretion. Dreams are gossamer things to build a gospel upon : but such is the superstructure of our religion. "And Mary, it is said, arose in those days, and went with haste unto the hill country, a City of Judah" (20) to visit her cousin Elizabeth. The book of James (ch. 12) tells us that Mary went to her home and kid herself from the children of Israel. Which is right? Section 4. As to the parentage of Jesus, it would seem that one or the other of the following proposi- tions must be true : First : he was the son of Joseph and Mary: or, secondly, he was the son of God and Mary: or, thirdly, he was the son of Mary and some unknown father. We have already seen that Chapter One, Verses 18 to 20, of Matthew, disputes the pater- nity of Joseph, and sets forth that he was only recon- ciled to the situation by what the angel said to him in (19) Matt. 1:15 to 25. How did Matthew find out that the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream? (20) Luke 1:39. 48 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES his dream. Luke fully and explicitly agrees with Mat- thew (21), save only as to Joseph's peculiar dream and the reconcilation which it effected. Mark and John are both as silent as the tomb about Joseph's troubles and the angel's visit to him, and the paternity of Jesus.