for whom St. Matthew wrote, were the body of Jewish converts at his time, viz. at latest A. D. 66. The Nazarenes and Ebionites of whom Epiphanius speaks A. D. 370, were posterior to the former three hundred years. The Nazarenes, indeed, were a sect of the Hebrew Christians, holding some tenets peculiar to themselves, and separated from the main body; the name having been first applied to those who, banished from Jerusalem by Adrian, A. D. 130, settled in the north of Galilee. The Ebionites, by some authors confounded with the Nazarenes, by others distinguished from them, appear to have for the most part agreed with them in their main opinions and character, but to have been separated from them by some partial differences. We are told first " on the authority of Epiphanius and Jerome, the narrative of the miraculous conception appears to have been wanting in the copy used by the Nazarenes and Ebionites." This statement is not quite correct. Epiphanius treats of the Nazarenes and Ebionites as two distinct sects. former, he tells us, use a full copy of St. Matthew; the latter use one much altered, and deficient in the two first chapters, as it begins with the account of the baptism. St. Jerome frequently mentions "a Gospel according to the Hebrews which the Nazarenes use," and by this he probably intends the Ebionite Gospel mentioned by Epiphanius, but he no where testifies the fact of its wanting the two

The

1

first chapters. Epiphanius also says of the Nazarenes, that sect of Hebrew Christians who are commonly understood to have held other opinions, that he cannot affirm for certain, whether they believe that our Saviour was begotten of Mary by the Holy Ghost; a doubt which implies the persuasion on his part, that some Jewish Christians, at least, received the accounts. St. Jerome expressly says of them, that "they believe in Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin." But who, let me ask, is Marcion?-an unjustly reputed heretic? No: Marcion maintained notions the most wild that can be conceived. He affirmed, that our Saviour was man only in outward figure; that he was not born like other men, but appeared first on earth in a full-grown form. He rejected the Old Testament, and mutilated the New where it contained quotations from the Old. He received only eleven books of the New Testament; no Gospel besides St. Luke's, and this completely disguised by alterations, interpolations, and omissions, of which a long account is given by Epiphanius. His copy began thus: In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Christ descended into Capernaum, &c. And this is the Marcion whose authority is to invalidate St. Luke. 2

1 Quarterly Review on the Improved Version, vol.i. p. 324. 2 Ibid. p. 326.

Belsham. I understand all this differently. If, however, you reject it, I state, in the third place, that St. Luke does not mention, in his preface to the Acts of the Apostles, that his Gospel contained any thing more than records of the public ministry of Jesus, and makes no allusion to the remarkable incidents contained in the two first chapters, which, therefore, probably were not written by him.

Witness. Your objection amounts only to what you are pleased to term a probability, which is no argument, and much less any proof, against the validity of the chapters in question; and even this only arises from St. Luke having, in the preface to the Acts, made no allusion to the incidents in these chapters. Neither did he make any allusion to the remarkable incidents in the third chapter, when John baptized Jesus, and a voice from heaven declared him to be his beloved Son; so that there is the same ground for the probability of the spuriousness of the third, as of the two first chapters.

Belsham. The subject of the two first chapters and the third chapter are very dissimilar, and infinitely distant in importance.

Priestley. Justin Martyr is the first writer who mentions the miraculous conception.1

Belsham. He is so: but, in the fourth place, if the account of the miraculous conception of Jesus

History of Early Opinions, vol. iv. p. 107.

be true, he could not have been the offspring of David and Abraham, from whom it was predicted the Messiah should descend.

Witness. Both Joseph and Mary, the reputed father and the actual mother of Jesus, were de scended from the same lineage, and this lineage was to be traced, according to all Jewish law and custom, by the side of the espoused husband of Mary. It is granted on all hands that Matthew, who wrote principally for the Jews, carries his genealogy to Abraham, through whom the promise of the Messiah was given to the Jews; but Luke, who wrote for the Gentiles, carried his genealogy to Adam, to whom the promise of the Saviour was made in behalf of all his posterity: now, from Abraham to David the two genealogies coincide, and it must be remembered that both Evangelists published their Gospels at a time when the general tables of pedigree were still preserved, and when every genealogical title which proposed to trace the descent of one who claimed to be the expected Messiah, would be inspected with the most scru pulous and jealous anxiety; and we have no where read that any objection to the accuracy of the Evangelists was raised by their contemporaries.1

See the full consideration of this subject in the note to the ninth section of Townsend's first volume of "The New Testament arranged in Chronological and Historical Order,” p. 51.

Belsham. This is a subject of far too great intricacy to be discussed here. I proceed, therefore, to the fifth objection. There is no allusion to any of these extraordinary facts (the miraculous conception and birth) in either of the succeeding histories of Luke, or in any other books of the New Testament.1

Witness. Could we admit, which we cannot, that "no allusion is made to these events in any other passage of the New Testament," we could by no means allow that this applies as an objection to the miraculous birth exclusively. Many highly important facts of our Saviour's history are not alluded to in other parts of the sacred writings. But, far from conceding the point, I positively aver that most frequent allusion is made to the accounts of his supernatural birth. I affirm, that this fact is implied throughout his whole history; that it is implied wherever he is spoken of as being God himself, and the Son of God; that it is supposed and understood in the whole doctrine of the atonement. I maintain also, that where we read, "God sent forth his Son, born of a woman," we have not merely an allusion to his miraculous conception, but an express mention of it. It is clear to the most superficial reader of the "Improved Version,” that the translators think proper to pervert, to

Note to Luke, ch. i.