DID EARLY CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN A VIRGIN BIRTH?

8 Copyright 2017, John H. Davidson M.A. (Cantab)

John H. Davidson M.A. (Cantab)

Adapted from The Gospel of Jesus In Search of His Original Teachings,

John Davidson, 2004.

Available from:
http://www.scienceofthesoul.org/product_p/en1760.htm

Early stories concerning the virgin birth and early life of Jesus are to be found
in only two places in the gospels according Matthew and Luke. And these two
accounts, written seventy-five to a hundred years after the birth of Jesus, are
historically incompatible. Nowhere else in the New Testament is the story ever
even mentioned. Nor does Jesus himself ever speak of it. So where did the story
come from?

It must be of significance that neither Marks nor Johns gospel make any mention of a virgin
birth. It is likely, therefore, that the writers of these two gospels did not credit the belief, for
surely they would otherwise have mentioned it? By the time that Johns gospel was compiled,
the belief was certainly in existence, for it was recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Moreover, if the writer of the major part of Johns gospel was indeed John the apostle, then he
would have been a close companion of Jesus, the one to whom Jesus had entrusted his mother
after his death. Having been so close to Jesus family, it is hardly likely that he would have
failed to mention such a momentous and significant fact, had it been true.

In the case of Mark, not only does he make no mention of it, despite an obvious love of the
miraculous, but he also relates that Jesus ignores his mother and brothers when told that they
were standing outside, wanting to talk to him. In fact, according to Mark, Jesus responds that
his real mother and brothers are those sitting around him and those who live in the will of God
(Mark 3:3135). So although the story is probably only an anecdotal setting for Jesus saying,
Mark would hardly have invented or related such an incident if he had held Jesus mother in
esteem as having given birth to Jesus by divine intervention. It also seems unlikely that Jesus
would really have spoken of his mother in such a fashion, whether or not she had given birth to
him by miraculous means.

Matthew and Luke both copy over Marks story of Jesus response to his mother and brothers
(Matthew 12:46, Luke 8:19), but while the more literal Matthew copies Mark almost verbatim,
despite its incongruity alongside his story of the virgin birth, Luke truncates and softens Jesus
response to make it more acceptable and probable. All the same, the use of Marks anecdote by
Matthew and Luke is surprising and is only understandable when it is appreciated that the

1 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?

actual cult and worship of the Virgin Mary were not prevalent when they were writing. This
was a later introduction stemming from second century embellishments to her life story, though
even less is known of her than of Jesus.

Apart from the two short narratives at the beginning of Matthew and Luke, there are no further
references to the subject anywhere else in the gospels. Not one of the sayings or parables of
Jesus ever refer to it. Jesus never speaks about his early life and he clearly gave as little
importance to the history of his birth. In fact, in the entire New Testament, the virgin birth is
only mentioned in Matthew and Luke. Neither Acts, nor the Book of Revelation, nor the writers
of any of the other epistles, not even Paul whose letters date from the 50s and 60s ever hint
at it. Given his loquacious character, one would have expected Paul to speak of it had he
considered it a part of Christian belief, just as he constantly reiterates his belief in Jesus
physical resurrection. Indeed, one wonders whether the idea was even extant during Pauls
lifetime, for surely he would have encountered it and given his opinion on the matter, even if he
had not believed in it? Indeed, Paul actually speaks of the physical birth of Jesus using
explicitly physical terms (Romans 1:34):

Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord,

which was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh;
And declared to be the Son of God with power,
according to the Spirit of Holiness.

Now it has often been observed that the nativity and infancy stories provided by Matthew and
Luke are historically incompatible. But not only that the two virgin birth stories have their
differences, as well. Matthew relates:

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. When as his mother Mary was espoused to
Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph
her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put
her away privily.

But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a
dream, saying, 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. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt
call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his
name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto
him his wife. And knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son: and he called his
name Jesus (Matthew 1:1825).

Luke, on the other hand, records that:

The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin
espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgins name was

2 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?

 Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is
with thee: blessed art thou among women.

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of
salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found
favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt
call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord
God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of
Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born
of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also
conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For
with God nothing shall be impossible.

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And
the angel departed from her (Luke 1:2638).

In Matthew, it is Joseph who meets the angel. In Luke, it is Mary. And the meeting constitutes
the bulk of the story. The two stories are not essentially incompatible, of course, but the
variants seem more like the ramifications of legend, rather than of history. Matthew,
characteristically, also has a quote from scripture prefaced with his familiar introduction, all
this was done, that it might be fulfilled. It has been pointed out many times, however, that
Matthews quote from Isaiah (7:14) refers to a maiden or young woman, not necessarily a
virgin. In any case, when seen in its context, whatever the whole passage from Isaiah may
mean, it requires more than a fair stretch of the imagination to conclude that it is a prophecy
concerning Jesus. This has been an entirely Christian claim, something which Judaism has
never accepted.

Jesus Brothers and Sisters

There is also the knotty problem of Jesus brothers and sisters. Four brothers and two sisters is
the total usually given. It is Mark who introduces them, to whom they cause no embarrassment,
since he is not it would seem a subscriber to the belief in a virgin birth. They appear in the
narrative when Jesus returns to Galilee, where the people knew him from his childhood.
Surprised at his wisdom and his teachings, they say:

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and
Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him (Mark 6:3).

The more literal and conservative Matthew copies Mark almost verbatim (Matthew 15:5556)
and one presumes that he intended his readers to assume that Jesus was the eldest of Marys
large family, for his last word on the subject reads:

And he (Joseph) knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son (Matthew 1:25).

3 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?

The observation, it may be noted, is contrary to the belief in Mary as a perpetual virgin, a
doctrine that prevailed after the middle of the second century and which has always been a
matter of debate within the Church, though in modern times it finds general acceptance only in
Catholicism. Luke also adds to his story of Jesus birth that Mary brought forth her first-born
son (Luke 2:7) leading the reader to presume that, later, she had more children. But he is
evidently uncomfortable about naming Jesus brothers and sisters, for he modifies the tale of
Jesus visit to Galilee, omitting all mention of them (Luke 4:2224).

John also speaks of Jesus brothers, stating unequivocally, neither did his brethren believe in
him (John 7:5) and since there is no good reason why such a comment should have been
invented, it is likely to be founded upon some truth.

Historically, there is no doubt that Jesus did have at least one brother, James, because Paul and
other writers speak of him and there is even a letter attributed to him in the New Testament.
Paul had actually met James and would probably have known the exact relationship which he
bore to Jesus, and the part he played in the early Christian community at Jerusalem where
James is said to have been the first leader of the Christian community after the death of Jesus.
Even the first-century historian, Josephus, mentions him. But the matter of Jesus brothers and
sisters is clearly an embarrassment to those Christians who believed in the virgin birth,
particularly since according to tradition they all seem to have been older than Jesus. Is this
the source of Lukes discomfort?

The existence of older brothers and sisters was clearly at variance with any stories of a virgin
birth and a number of myths grew up which attempted to explain away the difficulty. Perhaps
the most ingenious of these was the tale that Joseph had been a widower. His previous wife, ran
the story, had born him six children, but had died while James was still very young. Joseph was
then betrothed to Mary and subsequently married her, Jesus being the one and only child of
their union. Subsequently, Mary helped to raise James and the other children.

The storys first appearance in an extant document is in the second or third-century infancy
gospel, the Protoevangelium of James, but it had probably been around in the oral tradition for
some time previously. This writing was of considerable popularity well into medieval times and
a large number of manuscripts of it are to be found, many containing significant variations. The
story is also encountered in some of the Coptic apocryphal writings, most probably relying on
the Protoevangelium as their source, where it is also stated that the names of Jesus half-sisters
were Lydia and Lysia (Death of Joseph II), though elsewhere, other names are given.

But there remain a number of difficulties even with this version of events. Why, for example,
are these brothers and sisters not mentioned by Luke and Matthew in their infancy stories?
James would certainly have been too young to have been left at home while his parents
travelled to Bethlehem or Egypt (depending on whose version of the story you read). Moreover,
if Lukes story of the census was correct, then the entire family would have been required to
travel to Bethlehem. Yet the gospel stories never portray Joseph, Mary and Jesus as travelling
with six variously-aged children in tow.

It is unlikely that we will ever know the true history of Jesus and his family, nor does it make
any difference to his teachings. These discrepancies are mentioned simply to highlight the
incompatibilities between the various virgin birth and associated stories. Like chickens in a

4 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?

farmyard invaded by a hungry dog or like naughty children trying to explain themselves when
caught red-handed, the variants of the story scatter once reality is left behind. The most likely
explanation is that Jesus was simply a child from a large family. But that, of course, does not
satisfy the advocates of a virgin birth.

The House of His Servant David

Luke and Matthew also make the curious attempt to trace Jesus family tree. But they present
two entirely different genealogies in which practically all the names differ. Even the name of
Josephs father differs, appearing as Jacob in Matthew and as Heli in Luke. Luke is also more
ambitious. Starting with Joseph, he traces Jesus ancestry back through David, all the way to
Adam, while Matthew starts with Abraham and works forward. These genealogies have almost
certainly been inserted by Luke and Matthew from independent written sources, their purpose
being to prove that Jesus was born in the house of David, also having Abraham for an
ancestor. This was considered a prerequisite for the Messiah. In fact, there were probably many
such genealogies in existence at that time, for there were always hopeful claimants to the
Messiahship and final names could very easily be changed as necessary.

Now since these family lineages both lead to Joseph as the father of Jesus, they probably came
from the pens of those who did not give credence to a virgin birth. For the whole point of the
virgin birth story was that Joseph was not the father of Jesus. In fact, Joseph was not even
married to Mary at the time of her conception they were only betrothed. This was a feature
required by the virgin birth stories, for no-one would have accepted that Mary would still have
been a virgin, had they already been married.

So although the genealogies sit awkwardly alongside stories of the virgin birth, the tracing of
Jesus ancestry to David was too important for Luke and Matthew to omit. Caught between
necessity and contradiction, Luke found it necessary to add the parenthetical as was
supposed, qualifying Joseph as the father of Jesus:

And Jesus... being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli... etc. (Luke
3:23).

The more literal Matthew, on the other hand, as in the instance of Jesus brothers and sisters,
lets them remain in contradiction, standing unqualified alongside each other.

The importance of Jesus ancestry stems from the Jewish belief that the Messiah would come in
the house of David. All four of the gospel writers mention the fact John once and the
synoptics on many occasions, Jesus often being referred to as the Son of David. Additionally,
Lukes angel tells Mary that the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David
(Luke 1:32), while Matthews angel pointedly calls Joseph, thou son of David (Matthew
1:20).

It was of great importance to the early Christians to prove that Jesus was the promised Messiah,
from the house of David. It would seem, however, that the true meaning of this belief is not
physical, but spiritual. Davids son Solomon, the first in the house of David, is described in 1
Kings 4:2932, as the greatest amongst wise men. His understanding is compared to the

5 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?

wisdom of Egypt and the East, traditionally the ancient repositories of mystic lore. That is, his
wisdom was that of a mystic and being born in the house of David or Solomon probably
refers to the spiritual successorship or lineage of the Masters, the Messiah or Christ being the
anointed one, the one who was sealed or appointed by God to act as Saviour. In this sense, all
Masters, all Messiahs or Christs, come from the same family but spiritually, not physically.
Matthew and Luke were thus mistaken in thinking that they had to trace Jesus real parentage to
David.

After all, if you do the mathematics, within only fifteen or twenty generations everyone can
trace their ancestry to practically anyone they choose. If each father had three children, then
after 15 generations the original ancestor would have a little more than 43 million descendants.
The subsequent generation would produce 130 million descendants, the one after that 390
million and so on. So much for royal ancestry! No wonder the author of 1 Timothy counselled
Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies (1 Timothy 1:4). Amongst these fables
may well have been stories of a virgin birth.

Who Believed in the Virgin Birth?

Not only is the doctrine of the virgin birth absent from the New Testament, except for the two
stories in Luke and Matthew, but many early Christians also rejected the idea. The Ebionites,
the earliest Judaic Christians living in Palestine and closest to the scene of the original events,
certainly repudiated it. Epiphanius reports of them:

They say that Jesus was begotten of the seed of a man, and was chosen; and so by the choice of
God he was called the Son of God from the Christ that came into him from above in the likeness
of a dove. And they deny that he was begotten of God the Father (Panarion).

To a Jew, the idea of God fathering a child on a human mother would have been abhorrent and
it is not surprising that it failed to catch on amongst the Judaic Christians. The belief in such
divine intervention was primarily one that would have appealed to non-Jews, especially those
influenced by Greek culture, where Zeus and the other gods were famed for their sexual
exploits with human women, frequently fathering children. In fact, some of the bucolic scenes
in the Protoevangelium of James are clearly Christian propaganda aimed at giving Jesus a
prominent place amongst the heroes and gods of Greek tradition.

A great many of the more gnostically-inclined also gave no credence to the story. The author of
the gnostic Gospel of Philip is unequivocal:

Some said, Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit.

They are in error. They do not know what they are saying.

The late second-century father, Irenaeus, speaks of the gnostic teacher, Cerinthus, as having
taught an ordinary birth for Jesus. He writes (Against All Heresies):

Cerinthus, again, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians... 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, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent,
and wise than other men.

6 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?

Hippolytus likewise says that the gnostic Elchasai, from whom a number of sects came into
being, lasting until the fifth century and mostly associated with the Judaic side of Christianity,
taught the same. According to Hippolytus, Elchasai also said that Jesus was a soul who had
come to this world in the past (presumably as a Saviour) and would go on incarnating here in
the future one of the many specific indications of a belief in reincarnation in early
Christianity:

He (Elchasai) asserts that Christ was born a man in the same manner common to all and that he
was not for the first time (on earth)... but that both previously and frequently again, he had been
born and would be born: would thus appear and exist undergoing alterations of birth and having
his soul transferred from body to body (Refutation of All Heresies).

Hippolytus also writes of the gnostics Carpocrates and Apelles as being dissidents on the matter
of the virgin birth. In fact, it is to be expected that many of the gnostically-oriented would have
repudiated the belief since they represented the esoteric stream of Christianity and as such were
more interested in the inward aspects of Jesus teachings than in externals. Certainly, the
evidence is that there were more than a few who rejected the idea, for Irenaeus, Hippolytus and
the other early Christian fathers devote a considerable effort to refuting the heretics and their
followers, arguing the validity of their own point of view.

The third-century Iranian mystic, Mani, also rejected the virgin birth, though ironically, in the
manner of the legends that gather around a mystic after their death, the later Manichaeans of
China said of Mani that his mother had given birth to him out of her chest. In fact, Jesus was
not alone in being credited with a virgin birth. The gnostic Simon Magus was so acclaimed, as
was Zoroaster, while Apollonius of Tyana, a Greek mystic and contemporary of Jesus who
became well known in the Roman world, is said to have been the son of the Greek sea god,
Proteus, who was credited with the ability to change his shape at will. Proteus, says the legend,
appeared to the mother of Apollonius in the form of an Egyptian demon, just before the sage
was born. And unlike Mary, so the story goes, she was not in the least afraid of the apparition.

Throughout history, legends of a miraculous birth have consistently been woven around the
lives of the great and it was commonly claimed in the ancient Middle-Eastern world that many
of their warriors and heroes mythical or historical had been the offspring of a deity.
According to legend, the mythical Dionysus, Perseus, Ra and Atys had all been born of the
union of a god and a virgin. It was said of the deity Mithras that at the beginning of time, before
the earth was populated, some shepherds observed the young and naked Mithras emerging from
a rock as the sun arose, carrying a flaming torch in one hand and a knife in the other, and
wearing a Phrygian cap. Understandably, the shepherds worshipped him, testifying that on
account of the cold, he climbed into a tree and made himself a garment of fig leaves.

Emperors such as the powerful Julius Caesar (10044 BC) and Augustus (63 BC14 AD) were
also reported to have been the sons of a deity who became their champions during life, thus
accounting for their power and conquests. This was simply good politics in Roman times.
Augustus was claimed to have been the son of Apollo, for his mother, while sleeping in the
Temple of Apollo, had yielded to the embrace of a serpent which had left permanent marks
upon her body. Ten months later, Augustus had been born.

7 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?

The Chinese myth of Manis birth gives us an insight into why such legends come into
existence. They stem from the fact that human beings are often utterly confused, embarrassed
and obsessed by sex. Otherwise, what is so wrong about a mystic taking birth in the normal
human way? Their bodily existence is natural in every other respect and there is nothing wrong
with sex other than what we may make of it in our own thoughts and actions. Jesus himself
frequently speaks of being the Son of man as well as the Son of God. So if he claimed to
be the Son of man, then surely it means that a man had been involved? Indeed, if he could
avoid the father why need he have selected a mother? If he was going to do things in a
miraculous way, then why should he not have simply descended from the skies as an adult,
ready to begin his ministry, complete with any knowledge of this world he might have needed?
Why choose the one means of miraculous entry that would have been the most difficult to
substantiate?

Again, one of the reasons why mystics such as Jesus take human birth and live like us is to be a
living example of all they teach. But if, at the very outset, they arrive by way of a miracle, how
could they then be living examples of perfect humanity? They would have already
demonstrated that they were not genuinely human at all and hence not valid exemplars for
mankind.

The Mystic Mother

From a mystic point of view, this is really the heart of the matter and it is probable that most of
those of a gnostic or mystic disposition discounted all stories of the virgin birth. Those who are
truly of a spiritual bent of mind possess a different set of values from those whose minds are
locked onto physical phenomena as the only reality. They are realists and pragmatists in a way
that the materially-minded may find hard to understand. Moreover, there is a mystical element
enfolded in the myth of the virgin birth which may prove to be the origin of what was later
misinterpreted and externalized. For the real, spiritual and mystic mother of Jesus or any
perfect mystic is the pure and unsullied Holy Spirit.

There is little space to discuss the matter here, but it is significant that in some early Christian
texts, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Mother. God is known as the Father while His
creative Power, the Creative Word or Logos, that which gives birth to the entire creation, is
called the Mother of all things. She is also, metaphorically speaking, pure and virginal, for she
gives birth without any intermediary. She is imbued with the innate purity of God.

A perfect mystic is the personified form of this great Power. A Son of God as the Word
made flesh is hence born of the pure and virginal Mother or Holy Spirit, through the will of
the Father. So Jesus, truly, was born of a virgin but not a virgin of this world. Is this where
the story of Jesus birth originated?

Many of the gnostics and others of Jesus time used such expressions in their descriptions of
creation. According to both Jerome and Origen, for instance, in the Gospel of the Hebrews
Jesus refers to my Mother the Holy Spirit. And in the Untitled Text of the gnostic Bruce
Codex, it is said that from this Mother arises her First-born Son the Saviour:

Afterwards the Mother established her First-born Son.

8 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?

 She gave to him the authority of the sonship.

A common appellation of the Mother was also the Virgin, a term used in gnostic writings for
both the Creator and the creative Power. Zostrianos, for example, speaks of the Virgin Light.
On the Origin of the World speaks of the Virgin of the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel of the
Egyptians, the Creator is described by such expressions as the great, invisible,
incomprehensible Virginal Spirit and the great, invisible, uncallable, unnameable, Virginal
Spirit. And the Apocryphon of John describes the supreme Lord as the invisible, Virginal
Spirit who is perfect.

Such terms are also very common in the Manichaean texts, where scholars have tended to use
the term Maiden rather than Virgin in their translations, though it comes to the same thing.
Like the gnostics, these writings characteristically speak of the Holy Spirit as the glorious
Maiden of Light, the Mother, the Maiden of all that lives, the Mother of the beings of
Light and by other similar expressions. We read, for instance, that the Maiden of Light is the
Holy Spirit.

There is no doubt, therefore, that terms such as Virgin and Mother were used in
specifically mystical contexts, though the meaning of the terms could vary to some extent
depending upon the writer and the context. It is also certain that Jesus and his disciples would
have been quite familiar with this kind of terminology and that some of them, if not Jesus
himself, must have used it in their explanation of the mystic teachings. So, following the
well-trodden pathway of descent, one can readily imagine how somewhere along the line
the description of a mystic truth became literalized as a physical virgin birth story.

9 Did Early Christians Believe in a Virgin Birth?