The circumstances preceding the Nativity; Mary, doubted by her betrothed husband; his design of putting her away privately; her vindication by means of a dream; Joseph's faith; the name in accordance with prophecy; the actual birth. As the sinless second Adam, and as the Saviour of men, Jesus could not come into the world by ordinary human generation, but by a new creative act of God, or the supernatural agency of the Holy Ghost. Sin is propagated by generation, the active agency of man; and what is born of the flesh is flesh. God formed the first Adam of the mother earth, the Holy Ghost formed the second Adam out of the flesh of a pure virgin. Even the heathen had a dim conception that the ideal of the race could not be realized without supernatural generations of sages and heroes from a pure virgin (Buddha, Zoroaster, Romulus, Pythagoras, Plato). The heathen myths are carnal anticipations of the mystery of the Incarnation.

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Old Testament