There is no reference to the Virgin Birth, either direct of indirect, in the Acts. The presumption is that the doctrine had no place in Apostolic preaching.16 This view is suggested, [pg 013] not only by the silence of Acts, but also by the character of its Christology.

Christ is spoken of as Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God by mighty works and wonders and signs (ii. 22), and as one who was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, and with power, who went about doing good (x. 38). He is the Holy and Righteous One (iii. 14), the Prince of Life (iii. 15), whom God made both Lord and Christ (ii. 36). He is exalted to the right hand of God, to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins (v. 31).

In all this, the main ground of appeal is to the Resurrection (ii. 24, 32, iii. 15, iv. 10).17 The reference to the miracles of Jesus (ii. 22, x. 38) is “the only direct and concrete allusion to the events of His earthly life”.18 Even where the Davidic descent is mentioned (ii. 25 f., xiii. 23, 33), there is no suggestion other than that of direct physical lineage (“Of this man's seed hath God according to promise brought unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus”, xiii. 23).

Does the silence of Acts permit us to draw any inferences concerning St. Luke's knowledge of the Virgin Birth tradition? The question ought to be considered apart altogether from Lk. i, ii. Having regard to the character of the work we do not think that any one conclusion can safely be drawn. The Acts obviously differs from the Gospels, and we cannot, as in the case of the Pauline Epistles, look to it for any sufficient account of the writer's Christology. It would therefore be unsafe to say that the silence of Acts implies that its author had no knowledge of the Virgin Birth.19 If the doctrine was not a subject of Apostolic preaching, St. Luke must have known this: his silence may therefore be due to a sound historical sense. If, at the time when he wrote the Acts, his knowledge of the tradition had not long been gained, he would be still less likely to perpetrate what would have been an historical anachronism. On the other hand, we cannot, on the evidence of the Acts [pg 014] alone, show that he did know of the doctrine, and that the possibilities just stated represent the facts. The case is one in which the argumentum ex silentio would be untrustworthy in either direction. It should be emphasized that this view springs entirely out of the character of the book, and in no way affects the use of the argument we have made in the case of Mk. and the Epistles of St. Paul.