[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—May a coeval make
a comment on one of the many points raised by Septuagenarian in his letter ? In his words on the Virgin Birth is he not being misled by that trap for the unwary—the " argument from silence " ?
Because St. Paul does not clearly mention it it does not follow that he did not know of it. He was an intimate friend and close companion of St. Luke, our chief authority for the fact, who probably wrote his Gospel while he was with him at Caesarea and at Rome. If his first epistle to the Corinthians had been lost we might have similarly argued that St. Paul " knew nothing " of the Eucharist, for he mentions it in no other of his letters. But it was obviously part of the normal Christian life of the churches he founded. So possibly he never mentioned the Virgin Birth in his correspondence because
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