xxx. 1(!) In this highly excited state of mind, as he prays in the

dimly-lighted sanctuary, he thinks of his most ardent wish, and expecting that now or never his prayer shall be heard, he is prepared to discern a sign of its acceptance in the slightest occurrence. As the glimmer of the lamps falls upon the ascending cloud of incense, and shapes it into varying forms, the priest imagines he perceives the figure of an angel. The apparition at first alarms him; but he soon regards it as an assurance from God that his prayer is heard. No sooner does a transient doubt cross his mind, than the sensitively pious priest looks upon himself as sinful, believes himself reproved by the angel, and—here two explanations are possible—either an apoplectic seizure actually deprives him of speech, which he receives as the just punishment of his incredulity, till the excessive joy he experiences at the circumcision of his son restores the power of utterance: so that the dumbness is retained as an external, physical, though not miraculous, occurrence; [129] or the proceeding is psychologically understood, namely, that Zacharias, in accordance with a Jewish superstition, for a time denied himself the use of the offending member. [130] Reanimated in other respects by the extraordinary event, the priest returns home to his wife, and she becomes a second Sarah.

With regard to this account of the angelic apparition given by Paulus,—and the other explanations are either of essentially similar character, or are so manifestly untenable, as not to need refutation—it may be observed that the object so laboriously striven after is not attained. Paulus fails to free the narrative of the marvellous; for by his own admission, the majority of men have no experience of the kind of vision here supposed. [131] If such a state of ecstasy occur in particular cases, it must result either from a predisposition in the individual, of which we find no sign in Zacharias, and which his advanced age must have rendered highly improbable; or it must have been induced by some peculiar circumstances, which totally fail in the present instance. [132] A hope which has been long indulged is inadequate to the production of ecstatic vehemence, and the act of burning incense is insufficient to cause so extraordinary an excitement, in a priest who has grown old in the service of the temple. Thus Paulus has in fact substituted a miracle of chance for a miracle of God. Should it be said that to God nothing is impossible, or to chance nothing is impossible, both explanations are equally precarious and unscientific.

Indeed, the dumbness of Zacharias as explained from this point of view is very unsatisfactory. For had it been, as according to one explanation, the result of apoplexy; admitting Paulus’s reference to Lev. xxi. 16, to be set aside by the contrary remark of Lightfoot, [133] still, we must join with Schleiermacher in wondering how Zacharias, notwithstanding this apoplectic seizure, returned home in other respects healthy and vigorous; [134] and that in spite of partial paralysis his general strength was unimpaired, and his long-cherished hope fulfilled. It must also be regarded as a strange coincidence, that the father’s tongue should have been loosed exactly at the time of the circumcision; for if the recovery of speech is to be considered as the effect of joy, [135] surely the father must have been far more elated at the birth of the earnestly-desired son, than at the circumcision; for by that time he would have become accustomed to the possession of his child.

The other explanation: that Zacharias’s silence was not from any physical impediment, but from a notion, to be psychologically explained, that he ought not to speak, is in direct contradiction to the words of Luke. What do all the passages, collected by Paulus to show that οὐ δύναμαι may signify not only a positive non posse, but likewise a mere non sustinere, [136] prove against the clear meaning of the passage and its context? If perhaps the narrative phrase (v. 22), οὐκ ἠδύνατο λαλῆσαι αὐτοῖς might be forced to bear this sense, yet certainly in the supposed vision of Zacharias, had the angel only forbidden him to speak, instead of depriving him of the power of speech, he would not have said: καὶ ἔσῃ σιωπῶν, μὴ δυνάμενος λαλῆσαι, but ἴσθι σιωπῶν, μηδ’ ἐπιχειρήσῃς λαλῆσαι. The words διέμενε κωφὸς (v. 21) also most naturally mean actual dumbness. This view assumes, and indeed necessarily so, that the gospel history is a correct report of the account given by Zacharias himself; if then it be denied that the dumbness was actual, as Zacharias affirms that actual dumbness was announced to him by the angel, it must be admitted that, though perfectly able to speak, he believed himself to be dumb, which leads to the conclusion that he was mad: an imputation not to be laid upon the father of the Baptist without compulsory evidence in the text.

Again, the natural explanation makes too light of the incredibly accurate fulfilment of a prediction originating, as it supposes, in an unnatural, over-excited state of mind. In no other province of inquiry would the realization of a prediction which owed its birth to a vision be found credible, even by the Rationalist. If Dr. Paulus were to read that a somnambulist, in a state of ecstasy, had foretold the birth of a child, under circumstances in the highest degree improbable; and not only of a child, but of a boy; and had moreover, with accurate minuteness, predicted his future mode of life, character, and position in history; and that each particular had been exactly verified by the result: would he find such a coincidence credible? Most assuredly to no human being, under any conditions whatsoever, would he concede the power thus to penetrate the most mysterious workings of nature; on the contrary he would complain of the outrage on human free-will, which is annihilated by the admission that a man’s entire intellectual and moral development may be predetermined like the movements of a clock. And he would on this very ground complain of the inaccuracy of observation, and untrustworthiness of the report which represented, as matters of fact, things in their very nature impossible. Why does he not follow the same rule with respect to the New Testament narrative? Why admit in the one case what he rejects in the other? Is biblical history to be judged by one set of laws, and profane history by another?—An assumption which the Rationalist is compelled to make, if he admits as credible in the Gospels that which he rejects as unworthy of credit in every other history—which is in fact to fall back on the supranaturalistic point of view, since the assumption, that the natural laws which govern in every other province are not applicable to sacred history, is the very essential of supranaturalism.

No other rescue from this self-annihilation remains to the anti-supernatural mode of explanation, than to question the verbal accuracy of the history. This is the simplest expedient, felt to be such by Paulus himself, who remarks, that his efforts may be deemed superfluous to give a natural explanation of a narrative, which is nothing more than one of those stories invented either after the death or even during the lifetime of every distinguished man to embellish his early history. Paulus, however, after an impartial examination, is of opinion that the analogy, in the present instance, is not applicable. The principal ground for this opinion is the too short interval between the birth of the Baptist, and the composition of the Gospel of Luke. [137] We, on the contrary, in harmony with the observations in the introduction, would reverse the question and inquire of this interpreter, how he would render it credible, that the history of the birth of a man so famed as the Baptist should have been transmitted, in an age of great excitement, through a period of more than sixty years, in all its primitive accuracy of detail? Paulus’s answer is ready: an answer approved by others (Heidenreich, Olshausen):—the passage inserted by Luke i. 5; ii. 39 was possibly a family record, which circulated among the relatives of the Baptist and of Jesus; and of which Zacharias was probably the author. [138]

K. Ch. L. Schmidt controverts this hypothesis with the remark, that it is impossible that a narrative so disfigured (we should rather say, so embellished) could have been a family record; and that, if it does not belong altogether to the class of legends, its historical basis, if such there be, is no longer to be distinguished. [139] It is further maintained, that the narrative presents certain features which no poet would have conceived, and which prove it to be a direct impression of facts; for instance, the Messianic expectations expressed by the different personages introduced by Luke (chap. i. and ii.) correspond exactly with the situation and relation of each individual. [140] But these distinctions are by no means so striking as Paulus represents; they are only the characteristics of a history which goes into details, making a transition from generalities to particulars, which is natural alike to the poet and to the popular legend; besides, the peculiar Judaical phraseology in which the Messianic expectations are expressed, and which it is contended confirm the opinion that this narrative was written, or received its fixed form, before the death of Jesus, continued to be used after that event Acts i. 6 [141]. Moreover we must agree with Schleiermacher when he says: [142] least of all is it possible to regard these utterances as strictly historical; or to maintain that Zacharias, in the moment that he recovered his speech, employed it in a song of praise, uninterrupted by the exultation and wonder of the company, sentiments which the narrator interrupts himself to indulge. It must, at all events, be admitted that the author has made additions of his own, and has enriched the history by the lyric effusions of his muse. Kuinöl supposes that Zacharias composed and wrote down the canticle subsequent to the occasion; but this strange surmise contradicts the text. There are some other features which, it is contended, belong not to the creations of the poet; such as, the signs made to the father, the debate in the family, the position of the angel on the right hand of the altar. [143] But this criticism is merely a proof that these interpreters have, or determine to have, no just conception of poetry or popular legend; for the genuine characteristic of poetry and mythus is natural and pictorial representation of details. [144]

§ 19.

MYTHICAL VIEW OF THE NARRATIVE IN ITS DIFFERENT STAGES.

The above exposition of the necessity, and lastly, of the possibility of doubting the historical fidelity of the gospel narrative, has led many theologians to explain the account of the birth of the Baptist as a poetical composition; suggested by the importance attributed by the Christians to the forerunner of Jesus, and by the recollection of some of the Old Testament histories, in which the births of Ishmael, Isaac, Samuel, and especially of Samson, are related to have been similarly announced. Still the matter was not allowed to be altogether invented. It may have been historically true that Zacharias and Elizabeth lived long without offspring; that, on one occasion whilst in the temple, the old man’s tongue was suddenly paralyzed; but that soon afterwards his aged wife bore him a son, and he, in his joy at the event, recovered the power of speech. At that time, but still more when John became a remarkable man, the history excited attention, and out of it the existing legend grew. [145]

It is surprising to find an explanation almost identical with the natural one we have criticised above, again brought forward under a new title; so that the admission of the possibility of an admixture of subsequent legends in the narrative has little influence on the view of the matter itself. As the mode of explanation we are now advocating denies all confidence in the historical authenticity of the record, all the details must be in themselves equally problematic; and whether historical validity can be retained for this or that particular incident, can be determined only by its being either less improbable than the rest, or else less in harmony with the spirit, interest, and design of the poetic legend, so as to make it probable that it had a distinct origin. The barrenness of Elizabeth and the sudden dumbness of Zacharias are here retained as incidents of this character: so that only the appearing and prediction of the angel are given up. But by taking away the angelic apparition, the sudden infliction and as sudden removal of the dumbness loses its only adequate supernatural cause, so that all difficulties which beset the natural interpretation remain in full force: a dilemma into which these theologians are, most unnecessarily, brought by their own inconsequence; for the moment we enter upon mythical ground, all obligation to hold fast the assumed historical fidelity of the account ceases to exist. Besides, that which they propose to retain as historical fact, namely, the long barrenness of the parents of the Baptist, is so strictly in harmony with the spirit and character of Hebrew legendary poetry, that of this incident the mythical origin is least to be mistaken. How confused has this misapprehension made, for example, the reasoning of Bauer! It was a prevailing opinion, says he, consonant with Jewish ideas, that all children born of aged parents, who had previously been childless, became distinguished personages. John was the child of aged parents, and became a notable preacher of repentance; consequently it was thought justifiable to infer that his birth was predicted by an angel. What an illogical conclusion! for which he has no other ground than the assumption that John was the son of aged parents. Let this be made a settled point, and the conclusion follows without difficulty. It was readily believed, he proceeds, of remarkable men that they were born of aged parents, and that their birth, no longer in the ordinary course of nature to be expected, was announced by a heavenly messenger [146]; John was a great man and a prophet; consequently, the legend represented him to have been born of an aged couple, and his birth to have been proclaimed by an angel.

Seeing that this explanation of the narrative before us, as a half (so called historical) mythus, is encumbered with all the difficulties of a half measure, Gabler has treated it as a pure philosophical, or dogmatical mythus. [147] Horst likewise considers it, and indeed the entire two first chapters of Luke, of which it forms a part, as an ingenious fiction, in which the birth of the Messiah, together with that of his precursor, and the predictions concerning the character and ministry of the latter, framed after the event, are set forth; it being precisely the loquacious circumstantiality of the narration which betrays the poet. [148] Schleiermacher likewise explains the first chapter as a little poem, similar in character to many of the Jewish poems which we meet with in their apocrypha. He does not however consider it altogether a fabrication. It might have had a foundation in fact, and in a widespread tradition; but the poet has allowed himself so full a license in arranging, and combining, in moulding and embodying the vague and fluctuating representations of tradition, that the attempt to detect the purely historical in such narratives, must prove a fruitless and useless effort. [149] Horst goes so far as to suppose the author of the piece to have been a Judaising Christian; whilst Schleiermacher imagines it to have been composed by a Christian of the famed Jewish school, at a period when it comprised some who still continued strict disciples of John; and whom it was the object of the narrative to bring over to Christianity, by exhibiting the relationship of John to the Christ as his peculiar and highest destiny; and also by holding out the expectation of a state of temporal greatness for the Jewish people at the reappearance of Christ.

An attentive consideration of the Old Testament histories, to which, as most interpreters admit, the narrative of the annunciation and birth of the Baptist bears a striking affinity, will render it abundantly evident that this is the only just view of the passage in question. But it must not here be imagined, as is now so readily affirmed in the confutation of the mythical view of this passage, that the author of our narrative first made a collection from the Old Testament of its individual traits; much rather had the scattered traits respecting the late birth of different distinguished men, as recorded in the Old Testament, blended themselves into a compound image in the mind of their reader, whence he selected the features most appropriate to his present subject. Of the children born of aged parents, Isaac is the most ancient prototype. As it is said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, “they both were advanced in their days” (v. 7) προβεβηκότες ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις αὐτῶν, so Abraham and Sarah “were advanced in their days” ‏בָּאִים בַּיָמִים‎ (Gen. xviii. 11; LXX: προβεβηκότες ἡμερῶν), when they were promised a son. It is likewise from this history that the incredulity of the father, on account of the advanced age of both parents, and the demand of a sign, are borrowed in our narrative. As Abraham, when Jehovah promises him he shall have a son and a numerous posterity who shall inherit the land of Canaan, doubtingly inquires, “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” κατὰ τί γνώσομαι, ὄτι κληρονομήσω αὐτήν; (sc. τὴν γῆν. Gen. xv. 8. LXX.): so Zacharias—“Whereby shall I know this?” κατὰ τί γνώσομαι τοῦτο; (v. 18.) The incredulity of Sarah is not made use of for Elizabeth; but she is said to be of the daughters of Aaron, and the name Elizabeth may perhaps have been suggested by that of Aaron’s wife (Exod. vi. 23. LXX.). The incident of the angel announcing the birth of the Baptist is taken from the history of another late-born child, Samson. In our narrative, indeed, the angel appears first to the father in the temple, whereas in the history of Samson he shows himself first to the mother, and afterwards to the father in the field. This, however, is an alteration arising naturally out of the different situations of the respective parents (Judges xiii.). According to popular Jewish notions, it was no unusual occurrence for the priest to be visited by angels and divine apparitions whilst offering incense in the temple. [150] The command which before his birth predestined the Baptist—whose later ascetic mode of life was known—to be a Nazarite, is taken from the same source. As, to Samson’s mother during her pregnancy, wine, strong drink, and unclean food, were forbidden, so a similar diet is prescribed for her son, [151] adding, as in the case of John, that the child shall be consecrated to God from the womb. [152] The blessings which it is predicted that these two men shall realize for the people of Israel are similar (comp. Luke i. 16, 17, with Judges