There appears, then, to be no reason for doubting that in St.
Luke's Gospel we have a genuine account derived from Mary herself,
and that in St. Matthew's Gospel we have an account left by
St. Joseph, "worked over by the Evangelist in view of his
predominant interest--that of calling attention to the fulfilments
of prophecies."* Wherever, therefore, these two Gospels had reached
in the second half of the first century, there the story of the
Virgin-Birth was known. If the story thus attested by the first and
third Evangelists were really a fiction, it is hard indeed to
believe that it would not have been contradicted by some who were
still living, and who knew that the story was different from that
which the Mother herself had delivered them. "If," says Dean Alford,
speaking of the Third Gospel, "not the mother of our Lord herself,
yet His brethren were certainly living; and the universal reception
of the Gospel in the very earliest ages sufficiently demonstrates
that no objection to this part of the sacred narrative had been
heard of as raised by them."+

--
* Gore, Dissertations, p. 29.
+ Greek Test., vol. i. Prolog. sect. viii. p. 48.
--

There is no other alternative but to regard both stories as legends
independently circulated in the ancient Church. "So artificial an
explanation would probably have found little favour with scholars
if there had been no miracle to suggest it. It is too commonly
assumed that evidence which would be good under ordinary
circumstances is bad where the supernatural is involved."*