I.. · PART THE FIRST. OF THE BIRTH AND INFANCY OF JESUS CHRIST. I. SECTION THE FIRST. ACCOUNT OF MATTHEW. (Chap. i. and ii.) § 1. GENEALOGY OF CHRIST. (Matth. i. 1-17; Luke iii. 23-38.) WHILST St Mark, even in the inscription of his Gospel (i. 1), represents Christ as the Son of God, St Matthew describes him as the Son of Man, first, by directing our attention to him as the descendant of the two great heads in the system of the Old Testament-Abraham and David; and again by adding his complete genealogy. The character of the Gospel of St Matthew, as of the owarów, in the noble sense of the word, and its especial destination for Jewish Christians, appears undoubtedly evident from this form of the beginning. Jesus being introduced as vids 'Aßgaáu, he of necessity appears as the descendant of him, whose race is pre-eminent as the blessed one among the races of mankind; but being described as the son of David, he is thus assigned, in a more distinct manner, to a branch of the children of Abraham, namely, to the race of him who is mentioned even in the Old Testament as the representative of the future king of the kingdom of God. Both expressions, therefore, point at Christ as the Messiah promised. Yet this is more exactly expressed in ̓Ιησοῦς Χριστός. Ἰησοῦς," in the first place, signifes or points only at the human individuality, the historical personality of the Redeemer; Xgorós, on the contrary, is the official name of the longed-for Saviour of Israel. It corresponds with the Hebrew, a term which is applied in the Old Testament partly to kings (1 Sam. xxiv. 7, 11; xxvi. 10, more frequently), partly to high-priests (Levit. iv. 3, 5, 16, more frequently), partly to prophets (Ps. cv. 15), because all these persons (on the anointment of the prophets, comp. 1 Kings xix. 16) were consecrated for their office through the symbolical use of anointment, as an intimation that they must be furnished with spiritual powers for the proper direction of their office. In a few instançes only the expression is met with in the Old Testament in reference to the royal prophets and high-priest of the kingdom of God (Psalm ii. 2; Dan. ix. xxv). From these passages sprang up the official name of the great individual longed-for, Xgorós, a name which had become prevalent even at the time of Christ; besides this, others were used which implied the spiritual character of the anointment (comp. Jer. xvi. 1 with Luke iv. 18). In this acceptation, the name of Christ expresses the union of the divine and human in the person of the Redeemer, because the humanity here is equivalent to the anointed, the endowed; and the divine power to the anointing, the endowing. Originally the Redeemer was called either 'Indous, with reference to his historical individuality, or Xgiros, with reference to his dignity; likewise 'Indous ¿ Keyóuevos Xgiorós (see the commentary on Matth. i. 16). But at a later period both expressions were united in the collective name of 'Indous Xgorós, which, however, must always be resolved by means of the above formula. The first verse in St Matthew does not form merely an inscription for the genealogy which follows. Bißλos yevéσews (=¬b nii Gen. v. 1) signifies, in the first place: Book of generations, genealogy. This expression cannot possibly have a reference to the whole life of Jesus, because yéves nowhere signifies life. 1 'Indous is used in the Septuagint for in, or y, which last form is only met with in the writings of a period subsequent to the exile. The name points at the spiritual character of the Lord, and was be stowed on him by Divine command as an intimation of his exalted destination (Matth. i. 21.) In like manner do the names, Abraham, Israel, &c., of the Old Testament, point at the spiritual character which these persons were called to impress on humanity. But the signification family-records, which işin no doubt has (comp. Genes. xxxvii. 2, abras ai yevéσers 'Iaxiß, where no genealogical tables whatever are mentioned), may here be applied indeed, and permits the reference of this expression to the history of the infancy of Jesus contained in the first two chapters. This supposition would agree very well with the opinion that isolated compositions are found in the first chapters of St Matthew, and indeed of St Luke also, which having proceeded from the family of Mary, had fallen at a subsequent period into the hands of the Evangelists. The genealogy of St Matthew, however, compared with that of St Luke, clearly shows the different character of the two Gospels. Whilst St Matthew begins with Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, St Luke ascends to Adam, the first parent of the whole human race, the Gentiles included, and hereby connects the Redeemer with mankind at large, without reference to any national individuality. In their details, however, we find that the genealogies differ after the name of David, since St Matthew deduces the genealogical succession through Solomon, whereas St Luke does so through Nathan, another son of David. We find in St Luke, it is true, among otherwise dissimilar names (iii. 27, comp. with Matth. i. 12), likewise two similar ones, Salathiel and Zorobabel, yet these must be considered as having lived at different periods, since St Matthew enumerates nine, and St Luke seventeen, intervening persons. With respect to the difficulty which presents itself in the very different genealogies of Jesus given by St Matthew and St Luke, we may observe that, even during the earliest periods of the church, this formed the subject of learned inquiries; Julius Africanus especially (Euseb. H. E. I. 7) had his attention engaged in it. Three hypotheses' were formed, with unusual acuteness, for the solution of this difficulty: (1.) The supposition of a marriage between a woman and her deceased husband's brother (Deut. xxv. 6), besides which, for the explanation of the whole, we must suppose that both the brothers who had successively the same wife were not full brothers, but only step-brothers, of the same mother, but by different fathers, as, indeed, otherwise, through one father the genealogy would have been the same. This hypothesis was formed first by 1 Other quite untenable attempts to explain this difficulty are to be found in Wolf's Curae, and Koecher's Analecta. Comp. likewise Surenhusius βιβλ. καταλλαγῆς, p. 322 sqq. |