We have now to co-ordinate our results. However strong a linguistic argument may be, there is perhaps always room for the view that it is confirmatory rather than demonstrative. In the present case also, the shortness of the passage can be pleaded. In noticing this objection we urged that the character of the passage is the relevant consideration, and we think Lk. i. 34 f. meets this demand. But we have no need to press the linguistic argument to the extent we ourselves believe to be legitimate, when we find that both this argument and the textual argument point steadily in the same direction. It is this fact, that both arguments converge on the same point, which is the ultimate ground for our conclusion. Short of supplying a rigid demonstration, which should not be sought, it is sufficient to establish for us the Lukan authorship of Lk. i. 34 f.

This view carries with it at once the further conclusion that at some time or other St. Luke taught and believed in the Virgin Birth. But before we can rest satisfied with this result, we need to look more closely at an alternative form of the interpolation-hypothesis, to which reference has already been made (p. 36). This is the view of Kattenbusch, Merx, Weinel, and J. M. Thompson (Miracles in the New Testament, p. 149).

According to this theory the interpolation consists in the phrase ?pe? ??d?a ?? ????s??, an insertion which, it is contended, has transformed the promise of a natural conception into the prophecy of a virgin birth. Mr. Thompson notices the two forms which the theory may assume. The insertion may be either “a modification of St. Luke's source, introduced by the Evangelist himself, as editor”, or it may be “a later addition to the text of Lk. by some person or congregation who wished to make the [pg 070] miracle quite clear” (p. 149). It is obvious that, in its former shape, this hypothesis would not seriously affect our results reached thus far, provided we could agree that “verse 35 is not inconsistent with human parentage” (Thompson, p. 148), and is best interpreted in this way. As regards the second form of the theory, the case is different. If ?pe? ??d?a ?? ????s?? is the addition of a later reader or congregation, it is much more difficult to think that St. Luke taught the Virgin Birth. It would not be impossible; but it would leave the whole problem to rest upon the interpretation of verse 35.

We are unable to accept the theory that ?pe? ??d?a ?? ????s?? is an insertion of unknown origin, for the following reasons:

1. On the whole, the more natural interpretation of verse 35 is that in itself it implies the Virgin Birth. It is easier, on this view, to explain ?pe?e?seta? and ?p?s???se? followed by d?? ?a?. (Cf. Schmiedel, col. 2957 n.; Plummer, St. Lk., p. 24f.; Lobstein, op. cit., p. 67.)

2. No textual evidence can be cited in support of the theory. This is frankly admitted by Mr. Thompson, and the insertion is explained as an editorial modification. We could regard this explanation as sufficient, if the “insertion” could be looked upon as an “explanatory phrase”, intended to sharpen a reference to the Virgin Birth, which had already been found in the context. On this reading of the problem, absence of textual variation might not be an insuperable difficulty. But if we must regard ?pe? ??d?a ?? ????s?? as a doctrinal modification—an attempt on the part of an unknown editor to impose upon the narrative a sense quite different from that which previously it had been understood to bear—then the argument sketched in the first part of the present chapter is wholly against the theory. We cannot understand why no echoes of the earlier view have lingered.

3. It is difficult to suppose that a later reader who sought to work up the original narrative in the interests of the Virgin Birth would have exercised such restraint. To expand a narrative in the direction of the sense which it already bears is a conceivable suggestion. To transform it totally by merely adding four words is a theory which does not carry conviction. Was ever an interpolator so ingenious as this?