To enumerate in detail all the superstitious theories and conjectures concerning Christ, which from time to time arose and were more or less sacredly believed, during some of the first centuries of the Church's history, would consume a great deal of time. On this account I must pass over many, the mention of some of which would excite in us an emotion of pity for the weakness and credulity of those who received them as verily true. I will, however, present you with some brief statements of a few of them, from the elaborate collection of Dr. Priestly. They will serve to give us a partially realizing idea of the droll and absurd fancies that were once cherished:

"Marcion [about A. D. 150] held that Christ was not born at all, but that the Son of God took the exterior form of man, without being born, or gradually growing up to a proper size, and showed himself at once in Galilee, a man full grown."*

"But the most ridiculous of all opinions that was, perhaps, ever seriously maintained, and which yet proceeded from an unfeigned respect to Christ, was one that was started in the ninth century, about the manner in which Christ was born of the virgin. For Paschasius Radbert, the same who was so much concerned in establishing the doctrine of transubstantiation, composed in this century an elaborate treatise, to prove that Christ was born without his mother's womb being opened, in * Hist. Corruptions, Part i. sec. 2.

the same manner as he supposed him to have come into the chamber where the disciples were assembled, after the doors were shut."*

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[FROM A. D. 370 To 400.] "This being an age in which great compliments were paid to the virgin Mary, among other appellations it became customary to call her the mother of God."

"Peter Gnapheus, bishop of Antioch, in the fifth century, was the first who introduced the worship of Mary, appointing her name to be called upon in the prayers of the church. Already in the fourth century there was a controversy in Arabia in respect to her, whether, after Jesus was born, she lived with her husband Joseph as his wife, or not. Some then worshipped her as a goddess, made libations, sacrifices, and oblations, to appease her anger and seek her favor. For the times were ripe for the most absurd superstitions. Elsewhere the above question was discussed, and it was deemed of such moment, that in 389 the council of Capua condemned Bonosus, a bishop of Macedonia, for maintaining that Mary was not always a virgin."4

It seems to me reasonable to suppose that the story of the miraculous conception of Jesus may have originated among some of those who, in an early age of the Church, cherished for him a superstitious veneration. Not only among the semi-barbarous, but in the midst of those who consider themselves highly civilized and en*Hist. Corrup., Part i. sec. 10. Ibid, sec. 8. Ibid, Part iv. sec. 4.

lightened, is often evinced a tendency to deify a man of genius, who, by his achievments in some department of effort, astonishes his less gifted or less proficient fellowmen. Under a hereditary monarchical government, where the mass of mind is so pervaded with the idea of the superiority of royal over plebeian blood, that it almost instinctively associates a thought of nobility in rank or descent with the exhibition of mental pre-eminence, it would not, I think, be impossible to cultivate and bring to maturity, within one or two centuries, an entirely fabulous story of some wonderful circumstances having attended the birth of a mental or moral phenomenon, who should be so much in advance of his age as to be looked upon with veneration and but partially understood. It seems to me, judging from the history of man, even in modern times, that this might be effected without the downright perpetration of intentional falsehood on the part of any one. We know that where superstitious conjecture, aided by a few circumstances that are in some respects truly wonder-exciting, sketches a marvellous outline, it is not the most difficult matter conceivable for the imagination to finish the picture, and by lights and shades (particularly the latter) to make certain figures appear in such distinct relievo and to present such an aspect as really to deceive those who stand at a little distance, and who never approach very nearly to the spot to examine more minutely.

If a man distinguish himself by any unusual exploit, or by the sure manifestation of intellectual and moral

greatness, we at once, as it were instinctively and in spite of our republican, equalizing education, feel a sentiment of respect for him; which perhaps gradually deepens almost to a sort of veneration.

Let a man be nominated for a prominent political of fice, (the lowest species of promotion, all things considered)—say, for the Presidency or the gubernatorial chair, and how soon will the political papers whose editors favor the candidate's claims, begin to teem with anecdotes of his wonderful precocity, and amiability of disposition, when a boy, at school or beneath his father's roof. And then, perhaps, will follow accounts of his patriotic, enterprising, highly intelligent, thifty, benevolent and pious ancestry; all which, being employed as capital, will most certainly lose nothing, but rather accumulate interest, not only simple but compound. And it is the same, in a great degree, with those who are promoted ecclesiastically. When a cardinal is advanced to the Papal throne, he is apotheosized at once-however obscure he may have been before.

It would, no doubt, be rather difficult to convince some people in our own mother-land, Great Britain, that the blood of the royal family and of the nobility, is not somehow superior to the blood of the common people,-although the very occupants of the throne have, in some cases, been little more than senseless ninnies. What wonder, then, that the appearance of two or three geniuses, in the course of eight or ten centuries, should leave a deep and superstitiously reverential impression

on the mind of the subject-kingdom? It is a matter of history that many intelligent Englishmen have believed, or pretended to believe, that George Washington was an illegitimate descendant of the British Crown. I have heard aged relatives say that, in their youthful days, a story to that effect was often reiterated. The servile minions of a kingly aristocracy, could hardly conceive of such prowess, foresight and commanding influence as Washington manifested, in any one short of a person royally descended.

The Jews were full of such anti-republican notions. They expected a religious and political leader who should be born of the royal family of their celebrated, fighting, adulterous king David. They were proud and selfrighteous, boastful of their national and ecclesiastical grandeur; and therefore they were greatly shocked to think that the title of "Messiah" or "Christ" should be applied, in any sense, to a man who condescended to eat and drink with publicans and sinners, and to whom "the common people" listened gladly. The inhabitants of the place where he had lived when a boy "were offended in him," and would not accept him as a divinely appointed teacher on account of his humble origin. Even though he confessedly astonished them by his teaching, when he spoke in their synagogue, they murmured. They said, "Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? and his sisters, are they