Ecce Homo! Or, A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus of Nazareth. baron d' Paul Henri Thiry Holbach

on the point of having an affair with the priests, who accused him of having begot this child to the prejudice of Mary's vow of virginity. On this the priests made the two spouses drink of the waters of jealousy; that is, of a potion, which, by a miracle, did them no injury; the high priest, therefore, declared them innocent. It is related in the same gospel, that after Mary had been delivered, Salome, refusing to credit the midwife who assured her that the delivered was still a virgin, laid her hand on Mary in order to satisfy herself of the fact. Immediately this rash hand felt itself on fire; but she was cured on taking the little Jesus in her arms.

      Whether these histories, or Rabbinical narratives be true or false, it is certain that the narrative of Luke, if not divested of the marvellous, will always present difficulties to the minds of the incredulous. They will ask, how God, being a pure spirit, could overshadow a woman, and excite in her the movements necessary to the production of a child? They will ask, how the divine nature could unite with the nature of a woman? They will maintain, that the narrative is unworthy of the power and majesty of the Supreme Being, who did not stand in need of employing ridiculous and indecent instruments to operate the salvation of mankind. It will be thought, that the Almighty should have employed other means for conveying Jesus into the womb of his mother; he might have made him appear on the earth without being incarnate in the belly of a woman; but there must be wonders in romances, especially if they are religious. It was in all ages supposed that great men were born in an extraordinary manner. Among the Heathen, Minerva sprung out of the brain of Jupiter; Bacchus was preserved in the thigh of the same god. Among the Chinese, the god Fo was generated by a virgin rendered prolific by a ray of the sun. With Christians, Jesus is born of a virgin, impregnated by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and she remains a virgin after that operation! Incapable of elevating themselves to God, men have made him descend to their own nature. Such is the origin of all incarnations, the belief of which is spread throughout the world.

      Theologists have agitated the question, whether in the conception of Jesus, the Virgin Mary emiserit semen? According to Tillemont, the Gnostics, who lived in the time of the apostles, denied that the Word was incarnate in the womb of the woman, and averred that it had taken a body only in appearance—a circumstance which must destroy the miracle of the resurrection. Basilides also maintains that Jesus was not incarnate. Lactantius, in order to establish that the spirit of God could impregnate a virgin, cites the example of the Thracian Mares, and other females, rendered prolific by the wind. Nothing is more indecent and ridiculous than the theological questions to which the birth of Jesus has given rise. Some doctors, to preserve Mary's virginity, have maintained, that Jesus did not come into the world, like other men, aperta vulva, but rather per vulvam clausam. The celebrated John Scotus regarded that opinion as very dangerous, as it would follow, that "Jesus could not be born of the virgin, but merely had come out of her." A monk of Citeaux, called Ptolemy de Luques, affirmed that Jesus was engendered near the virgin's heart, from three drops of her blood. The great St. Thomas Aquinas has examined, whether Jesus could not have been an hermaphrodite? and whether he could not have been of the feminine gender? Others have agitated the question, "Whether Jesus could have been incarnate in a cow?" We may therefore see, how one absurdity may engender others, in the prolific minds of theologists.

      All the wonders which precede the birth of Jesus, are terminated by a very natural occurrence. At the end of nine months his mother is delivered like other women; and after so many incredible and supernatural events, the Son of God comes into the world like all others people's children. This conformity in birth, will ever occasion the surmise of a conformity in the physical causes which produced the son of Mary. Indeed, the supernatural only can produce the supernatural; from material agents result physical effects; and they maintain in the schools, that there must always be a parity of nature between cause and effect.

      Though, according to Christians, Jesus was at the same time man and god, some will say, it was necessary that the divine germ brought from heaven to be deposited in the womb of Mary, should contain at the same time divinity and humanity to become Son of God. To use the language of theologists, the hypostatic union of the two natures must have taken place before his birth, and immixed in the womb of his mother. In that case, we cannot conceive how it could happen, that the divine nature should continue torpid during the whole of Mary's pregnancy, in so much that she herself was ignorant of the time of her in-lying. The proof of this we find in Luke, chap. ii.—"In those days (says he) there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And as all went to be taxed, every one out of his own city, Joseph also went out of Nazareth and came to Bethlehem, to be taxed with Mary, who was great with child. And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered, and she brought forth her first born son, and wrapt him in swadling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."