The one man who might be most inclined to doubt the historical fact of the Virgin Birth on natural grounds (because he was a physician) was the third Evangelist, Saint Luke. And yet he tells us the most about it. From the beginning Our Lord had many enemies. Certain aspects of His teaching were denied by heretics but there was one teaching that no early heretic denied and that was that He was born of a Virgin. One would think that this should have been the doctrine first attacked; but the Virgin Birth was accepted by believers and early heretics alike. It would have been silly to try to convince anyone of the Virgin Birth if he did not already believe in the Divinity of Christ; that is why, probably, it would have been unwise for Mary to speak of it until after the Resurrection, although Joseph, Elizabeth and probably John the Baptist already knew of it - and need we say, the Son of God Himself, Who brought it all to pass...

"One-texters" say that the Bible speaks of Our Lord as having brethren; therefore, they conclude, He was not born of a Virgin. But this claim can be answered. When a preacher in a pulpit addresses his congregation, "My dear brethren", it does not mean that everyone in the Church has the same mother. Secondly, the word "brother" is used in Sacred Scripture in the wide sense, to cover not only one's relatives but friends; for example, Abraham calls Lot his brother: "Pray let us have no strife between us two, between my shepherds and thine; are we not brethren?" - Gen. 13:8 -

But Lot was not a brother. Thirdly, several who are mentioned as brothers of Christ, such as James and Joseph, are indicated elsewhere as the sons of another Mary, the sister of the mother of Jesus and wife of Cleophas! "And meanwhile his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene, had taken their stand beside the Cross of Jesus" - John 19:25 - Fourthly, James who is particularly mentioned as the brother of Jesus: "But I did not see any of the other apostles, except James, the Lord's brother" - Gal. 1:19 - is regularly named in the enumeration of the Apostles, as the son of another father, Alphaeus - Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15 -

The so-called "brethren" of Our Lord are nowhere mentioned in the Scripture as the sons and daughters of Joseph and Mary. Our Blessed Lord Himself used the term "brethren" in a large sense. "For one is your Master; and all you are brethren" - Matt. 23:8 - "And stretching forth His hand towards His Disciples He said 'Behold... my brethren" - Matt. 12:49 - Nowhere in Scripture is it said that Joseph had begotten brothers and sisters of Jesus, as nowhere does it say that Mary had other children besides Her Divine Son.

The Gospel of Saint John assumes the Virgin Birth. We humans can be born twice: once of our parents and once of the Holy Spirit, given to us by Our Lord in Baptism. This is what Our Lord meant when He told the old man Nicodemus that he must be born again, the first birth being of the flesh, the second of the spirit. What makes us Christian is this second birth through Baptism. But notice how it relates to the Virgin Birth of Our Lord. Saint John, in the beginning of his Gospel, says that Our Lord gave us the "power to become the sons of God" Then he tells us that this happens by a birth. But he immediately distinguishes, saying that it is not like a human birth because there is in it neither blood nor sex, nor human will, but solely the power of God.

This statement of St. John assumes a common knowledge of the Virgin Birth. But how could any Christian understand such a birth if it had not already happened? No one, who at the end of the first century read the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, was amazed that he should speak of a new generation without sex. For by this time, the whole Christian world knew that is how Christianity had come into being. The Virgin Birth is God's idea, not man's. No one would have thought of it if it had never happened. No pagan religion has any idea of it; their myths are of the union of gods with women who bore children following a sexual union. All the love stories of Zeus and the other gods were of this anthropomorphic character. Nothing could be farther from the truth than to represent these births as "virgin birth".

Saint Paul implies the Virgin Birth of Christ by the use of a different word for "birth". Speaking of the earthly origin of the Son of God, he writes: "That Gospel, promised long ago by means of His prophets in the holy scriptures tells us of his Son, descended, in respect of his human birth, from the line of David, but in respect of the sanctified spirit that was His, marked out miraculously as the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead; Our Lord Jesus Christ" - Rom. 1:1-4 - "Then God sent out his Son on a mission to us. He took birth from a woman, took birth as a subject of the law, so as to ransom those who were subject to the law and make us sons by adoption" - Gal. 4:4-5 - "He dispossessed Himself and took the nature of a slave, fashioned in the likeness of men and presenting himself to us in human form" - Phil. 2:7 - Whenever St. Paul describes the incarnation of Our Lord, hr never uses the ordinary word to describe birth which word is used in every other New Testament passage: namely, the verb gennao. But in the four instances where he touches on the temporal beginnings of the Son of God, he uses an entirely different word, genemenos which comes from an entirely different verb ginomai.

Never once does he employ the word gennao of Our Lord and His Mother, the word meaning to be born which is used throughout the New Testament: but when he speaks of the coming of Our Lord, he uses a form of the verb ginomai which means "to come into existence", "to become". In one passage - Gal. 4:23-24, 29 - he uses the verb "to be born" three times, to describe the birth of Ismael and Jacob but refuses to use it in the same chapter and context for the birth of Christ.

The New Testament speaks thirty-three times of the birth of a child and in each instance uses the word gennao but it is never once used by St. Paul to describe the birth of Christ. Saint Paul absolutely avoids saying Our Lord was born in the usual way. Our Lord was born into the human family; He was not born of it. God formed Adam, the first man, without the seed of a man; so why should we shrink from the thought that the new Adam would also be formed without the seed of a man? As Adam was made of the earth, into which God breathed a living soul, so the body of Christ was formed in the flesh of Mary by the Holy Spirit. So firmly rooted was the Virgin Birth. It was believed in even by heretics, as surely as the Crucifixion because it stood on the same footing as a historical fact.

There are two birth stories in the Gospel: those of Jesus and of John the Baptist. But notice the different stress on each story. The Gospel story of John the Baptist centre on the father, Zachary. The Gospel story of the birth of Jesus centre on the mother, Mary. In each instance, there were difficulties from the scientific point of view. Zachary was an old man and his wife had long since passed the age of bearing children. "And Zachary said to the angel: 'By what sign am I to be assured of this? I am an old man now and my wife is far advanced in age'" - Luke 1:18 - "But Mary said to the angel, 'How can that be, since I have no knowledge of man?'" - Luke 1:34 - Mary was a Virgin with the vow of virginity. The power of God had to operate in both cases, with Zachary doubting and Mary accepting. For his doubt, Zachary was made dumb for a time.

No one ever makes a fuss against Zachary and Elizabeth bearing "the greatest man ever born of a woman" but some do fuss about the Virgin Birth. This is not because of the human difficulties, for to God these are surmountable. The real reason for incredulity is: the attack on the Virgin Birth is a subtle attack on the Divinity of Christ. He who believes that Our Lord is true God and true man is never troubled with the Virgin Birth.

BY ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN ( 1895 to 1979 )

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -