UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Dedisti Jesum Christum, Filium tuum
unicum, ut . . . pro nobis nasceretur
qui, operante Spiritu Sancto, verus
Homo factus est ex substantia Virginis
Marie matris sue.

Pref. in Die Nat. Dom.

PREFACE

This paper was read before the S. T. C. (Sanctae Trinitatis
Confraternitas) on March 10th of this years at one of the
ordinary meetings of the Brotherhood. It is published now in
the hope that it may thus reach a wider circle.

To suppose that any one can hold the Catholic doctrine of the
Incarnation without believing the miraculous Conception and Birth,
is, in the writer's opinion, a delusion. There is no trace in
Church History, so far as he is aware, of any believers in the
Incarnation who were not also believers in the Virgin-Birth. The
modern endeavour to divorce the one from the other appears to be
part of the attempt now being made to get rid of the miraculous
altogether from Christianity.

Professor Harnack appears to urge us to accept the "Easter message"
while we need not, he thinks, believe the "Easter faith."* He
means apparently by this that we can deny the literal fact of
our Lord's Resurrection, while we may believe in a future life.