Up to this point I had been reading with little interest, doubting whether it would not be better to pass on to the accounts of the resurrection. As I have explained above, my study of Paul’s epistles had not led me to believe that there would be anything miraculous about the birth of Christ. The phrase “supernatural birth,” therefore, came on me quite unexpectedly. What followed, riveted my attention: “Mark, as you know, says nothing about Christ’s parentage. First he gives, as title, ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ’—where, by the way, old Hermas has written, in my margin, ‘some add, _Son of God_.’ Then there is a Voice from heaven, at the moment of Christ’s baptism, heard (apparently) only by John the Baptist and Jesus, ‘Thou art my beloved Son.’ A similar Voice occurs later on. Mark represents a blind man as calling Jesus ‘son of David,’ and his fellow-townsmen say, ‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?’ This might indicate merely that Joseph the carpenter was dead. But ‘Son of Mary’ might be used in two other ways. The enemies of Jesus might use it to suggest that he was a bastard. The worshippers of Jesus might use it (later on) to shew that he was a Son of God, not born of any human father. Matthew has, ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son?’ This, however, Matthew might write not as his own belief, but as that of Christ’s fellow-townsmen. Luke, who has ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’, gives the whole of the narrative quite differently. I should add that the first Voice from heaven is differently given in some copies of Luke.” I examined this at once. My copy had a marginal note, “Some have, _Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee_.” “You see,” said Scaurus, “in these early divergences, traces of early differences as to the time and manner in which Jesus became the Son of God. Paul appears to me to have believed that the sonship pre-existed in heaven. ‘God,’ he says, ‘in the fulness of time, sent forth His son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem those that were under the law.’ In Job, ‘born of a woman’ implies imperfection, or mortality. In Paul, ‘born of a woman’ and ‘born under the law’ imply two self-humiliations undergone by the Son of God. Paul’s view is that the Redeemer must needs make himself one with those whom he redeems. Since the Jews were not only ‘born of a woman’ but also ‘born under the law,’ the Son of God came down from heaven and placed himself under both these humiliations. Paul, therefore, seems to have regarded the divine birth as taking place in heaven from the beginning, but the human birth as a self-humbling on earth, wherein the Son of God becomes incarnate in the form of the son of Joseph, of the seed of David, after the flesh.”