+ See Note at the end.
# So Dr. Chase.
^ Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 378.
| See Eck, The Incarnation, p. 87.
--

It is hard to bring one's self to speak of the theory put forward
by Professor Usener, in which he says that the story of the
Virgin-Birth is traceable "to a pagan substratum, and that it must
have arisen in Gentile circles."* Surely this is wholly contrary
to all probability. How can any serious student think that any but
Jewish hands could have penned the first two chapters of St.
Matthew's Gospel? "The story," says Professor Chase, "moves, like
that of St. Luke, within the circle of Eastern conceptions; it is
pre-eminently and essentially Jewish. Moreover, if time is to be
found for the complicated interaction between paganism and
Christianity which this theory involves, the First and Third
Gospels must be placed at a date which I believe is
quite untenable."+

--
* Encyc. Bibl., iii. 3352.
+ Chase, Supernatural Elements in our Lord's Earthly Life, p. 21.
--

That there are differences and even discrepancies between the two
accounts, which are manifestly independent of one another, serves
surely to strengthen their witness to the great central fact in
which they are at one--that Christ was born of a Virgin-Mother
at Bethlehem, in the days of Herod the king.