Since they are all so loosely connected with the contexts into which they have been fitted, R. E. Brown (Birth, 251–253) may well be right in maintaining that Luke himself added these secondarily—at a stage in his writing when the infancy narrative had otherwise taken shape. Since there is no evidence that the Magnificat ever existed in a Semitic (Hebrew or Aramaic) form, there is no reason to think of Mary as the one who has composed it. It has not been preserved by a family tradition. The heavy
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