[255] The other proceeding is no less arbitrary. Mary’s inquiry of the angel is explained as an unnatural interruption of his communication, which being abstracted, the passage is found to contain no decided intimation of the supernatural conception. [256] If consequently, the difficulty of the natural explanation of the two accounts be equally great, still, with respect to both it must be alike attempted or rejected; and for the consistent Rationalist, a Paulus for example, the latter is the only course. This commentator considers the participation of Joseph, indeed excluded by Matt. i. 18, but by no means that of every other man; neither can he find a supernatural divine intervention in the expression of Luke i. 35. The Holy Ghost—πνεῦμα ἅγιον—is not with him objective, an external influence operating upon Mary, but her own pious imagination. The power of the Highest—δύναμις ὑψίστου—is not the immediate divine omnipotence, but every natural power employed in a manner pleasing to God may be so called. Consequently, according to Paulus, the meaning of the angelic announcement is simply this: prior to her union with Joseph, Mary, under the influence of a pure enthusiasm in sacred things on the one hand, and by an human co-operation pleasing to God on the other, became the mother of a child who on account of this holy origin was to be called a son of God. Let us examine rather more accurately the view which this representative of rationalistic interpretation takes of the particulars of the conception of Jesus. He begins with Elizabeth, the patriotic and wise daughter of Aaron, as he styles her. She, having conceived the hope that she might give birth to one of God’s prophets, naturally desired moreover that he might be the first of prophets, the forerunner of the Messiah; and that the latter also might speedily be born. Now there was among her own kinsfolk a person suited in every respect for the mother of the Messiah, Mary, a young virgin, a descendant of David; nothing more was needful than to inspire her likewise with such a special hope. Whilst these intimations prepare us to anticipate a cleverly concerted plan on the part of Elizabeth in reference to her young relative, in the which we hope to become initiated; Paulus here suddenly lets fall the curtain, and remarks, that the exact manner in which Mary was convinced that she should become the mother of the Messiah must be left historically undetermined; thus much only is certain, that Mary remained pure, for she could not with a clear conscience have stationed herself, as she afterwards did, under the Cross of her Son, had she felt that a reproach rested on her concerning the origin of the hopes she had entertained of him. The following is the only hint subsequently given of the particular view held by Paulus. It is probable, he thinks, that the angelic messenger visited Mary in the evening or even at night; indeed according to the correct reading of Luke i.