This had been my inference from Paul’s epistles, as I have said above. But what followed was quite new to me: “You are aware from Paul’s epistles that Christ is regarded by him as preeminently the Seed of Promise, Isaac being merely the type. Well, listen to what Philo, a Jew, somewhat earlier than Paul, declares about the birth of Isaac. Philo says, ‘The Lord begot Isaac.’ Philo describes Sarah as ‘becoming pregnant when alone and visited by God.’ It was God also, he says, who ‘opened the womb of Leah.’ Moses, too, ‘having received Zipporah, finds her pregnant by no mortal.’ All this is, of course, quite distinct from our popular stories of the love affairs of Jupiter. You may see this from Philo’s context: ‘It is fitting that God should converse, in an opposite manner to that of men, with a nature undefiled, unpolluted, and pure, the genuine Virgin. For whereas the cohabitation of men makes virgins wives (lit. women), on the other hand when God begins to associate with a soul, what was wife before He now makes Virgin again.’ I could quote other instances, but these will suffice. Now I ask you to reflect how such language as this would be interpreted in the west, not only by slaves, but even by people of education, unaccustomed to the language of the east, but familiar with our western stories of the births of Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Bacchus and others.” I saw at once that the language would be liable to be taken literally. But on the other hand it seemed to me that no disciple of Paul could accept anything like our western stories. Scaurus had anticipated an objection of this kind in his next words: “You must not suppose, however, that Hebrew literature contains, or that Jewish or Christian thought would tolerate, such stories as those in Ovid. Nor will you find anything of this kind in Matthew and Luke, to whose narratives we will now pass. Matthew says, rather abruptly, that Joseph, finding Mary, his betrothed but not yet his wife, to be with child, and intending to put her away secretly, received a vision of an angel and a voice bidding him not to fear to take to himself Mary his wife, for she was with child from the Holy Spirit, and ‘she will bring forth a child and thou shalt call his name Jesus.’ Luke, after a much longer introduction (about which I shall speak presently), says that a vision and a voice came to Mary—he does not mention one to Joseph—bidding her not to fear, and saying ‘Thou shalt conceive and bring forth a child, and shalt call his name Jesus.’ In theory, it is of course possible that two similar visions might come, one to Mary and another to Joseph, bidding both ‘not to fear.’ But Matthew adds something that points to an entirely different explanation: ‘Now all this hath come to pass that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, _Behold the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel_’.”