We find it impossible to rest satisfied in the suggestion of W. C. Allen, that there may have been some unrecorded indication of something unique in the conception (_Interpreter_, 1905, p. 121 f.). A suggestion of this kind can neither be justified nor gainsaid, and is valuable only as a confirmation of the view that there is nothing “recorded” in Lk. i. 30‐3 of a unique conception. To launch upon the waters of what is unrecorded would seem to be a policy of despair. There is much more to be said for an extremely interesting suggestion of Canon Box in his article on the Virgin Birth in Hastings’s _Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels_ (see vol. ii, p. 806 a). Box argues that in the angelic announcement of Lk. i. 30‐3 “an immediate conception is meant”. Accepting the view that a Hebrew original underlies the nativity‐narratives of Lk. i, ii, he thinks that this original has been incorrectly translated in Lk. i. 31, where, in the Greek, we have the future tense συλλήψῃ, “thou shalt conceive”. “The Hebrew original of συλλήψῃ would be a participle”, he says, “and the exact rendering would be, ‘Behold, thou art conceiving now’ ”. There can be no doubt that, if this view can be allowed, the angelic announcement really does speak of a miraculous birth, and thus an adequate explanation is given of Mary’s surprise in Lk. i. 34. There are, however, certain objections which, in the judgement of the present writer, appear to be fatal to this theory. We need not press the objection that it rests upon an initial assumption, the existence of the supposed Hebrew original, since this theory of a Hebrew (or Aramaic) documentary source is accepted by most British scholars. Nor is it more than a formal objection if we question if the word συλλήψῃ would necessarily be represented in the supposed Hebrew original by a participle. In the Hebrew NT. published by the British and Foreign Bible Society, the adjective הָרָה is used, and this is the case in similar passages in the Hebrew OT., viz. Gen. xvi. 11, xxxviii. 24; Judg. xiii. 7 (verse 3, perf.); 1 Sam. iv. 19; 2 Sam. xi. 5; Isa. vii. 14. A more serious objection arises from Lk. ii. 21, where it is said that the name Jesus was so called by the angel “before he was conceived in the womb” (πρὸ τοῦ συλληφθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ). On the theory we are considering, this must be held to be either a second mistranslation of the Hebrew original, or a departure from it. In either case we must conclude that a promised conception, and not an immediate one, was the considered view of the translator of the Hebrew document. A second and conclusive objection to the theory of Canon Box rests upon questions of grammatical syntax. Is it correct to say that “the exact rendering” of the participle (or adj.) would be, “Behold, thou art conceiving now”? It is true that the active participle is “mainly descriptive of something present” (Davidson, _Hebrew Syntax_, p. 134), but