The legends about him were thus the fruit of a great and entirely spontaneous conspiracy, and were developed around him during his lifetime.  No great event in history has happened without having given rise to a cycle of fables; and Jesus could not have put a stop to these popular creations, even if he had wished to do so.  Perhaps a sagacious observer would have recognized from this point the germ of the narratives which were to attribute to him a supernatural birth, and which arose, it may be, from the idea, very prevalent in antiquity, that the incomparable man could not be born of the ordinary relations of the two sexes; or, it may be, in order to respond to an imperfectly understood chapter of Isaiah,[1] which was thought to foretell that the Messiah should be born of a virgin; or, lastly, it may be in consequence of the idea that the “breath of God,” already regarded as a divine hypostasis, was a principle of fecundity.[2] Already, perhaps, there was current more than one anecdote about his infancy, conceived with the intention of showing in his biography the accomplishment of the Messianic ideal;[3] or, rather, of the prophecies which the allegorical exegesis of the time referred to the Messiah.  At other times they connected him from his birth with celebrated men, such as John the Baptist, Herod the Great, Chaldean astrologers, who, it was said, visited Jerusalem about this time,[4] and two aged persons, Simeon and Anna, who had left memories of great sanctity.[5] A rather loose chronology characterized these combinations, which for the most part were founded upon real facts travestied.[6] But a singular spirit of gentleness and goodness, a profoundly popular sentiment, permeated all these fables, and made them a supplement to his preaching.[7] It was especially after the death of Jesus that such narratives became greatly developed; we may, however, believe that they circulated even during his life, exciting only a pious credulity and simple admiration.

[Footnote 1:  Matt. i. 22, 23.]

[Footnote 2:  Gen. i. 2.  For the analogous idea among the Egyptians, see Herodotus, iii. 28; Pomp.  Mela, i. 9:  Plutarch, Quaest. symp., VIII. i. 3; De Isid. et Osir., 43.]

[Footnote 3:  Matt. i. 15, 23; Isa. vii. 14, and following.]

[Footnote 4:  Matt. ii. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 5:  Luke ii. 25, and following.]

[Footnote 6:  Thus the legend of the massacre of the Innocents probably refers to some cruelty exercised by Herod near Bethlehem.  Comp.  Jos., Ant., XIV. ix. 4.]

[Footnote 7:  Matt. i., ii.; Luke i., ii.; S. Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., 78, 106; Protoevang. of James (Apoca.), 18 and following.]