Genealogy of Christ
It is granted on all sides that the Biblical genealogy of Christ implies a number of
exegetical difficulties; but rationalists have no solid reason for refusing to admit
any of the attempted solutions, nor can we agree with those recent writers who
have given up all hope of harmonizing the genealogies of Christ found in the First
and Third Gospels. The true state of the question will become plain by studying
the Biblical genealogies of Christ first separately, then in juxtaposition, and finally
in their relation to certain exceptions to their harmony.
ST. MATTHEW'S GENEALOGY OF CHRIST
The genealogy of Christ according to the First Evangelist descends from
Abraham through three series of fourteen members each; the first fourteen belong
to the patriarchal order, the second to the royal and the third to that of private
citizens. Matthew 1:17, shows that this arrangement was intended; for the writer
expressly states: "So all the generations, from Abraham to David, are fourteen
generations. And from David to the transmigration of Babylon, are fourteen
generations: and from the transmigration of Babylon to Christ are fourteen
generations."
First Series
1. Abraham
2. Isaac
3. Jacob
4. Judas
5. Phares
6. Esron
7. Aram
8. Aminadab
9. Naasson
10. Salmon
11. Booz
12. Obed
13. Jesse
14. David
Second Series
1. Solomon
2. Roboam
3. Abia
4. Asa
5. Josaphat
6. Joram
7. Ozias
8. Joatham
9. Achaz
10. Ezechias
11. Manasses
12. Amon
13. Josias
14. Jechonias
Third Series
1. Jechonias
2. Salathiel
3. Zorobabel
4. Abiud
5. Eliacim
6. Azor
7. Sadoe
8. Achim
9. Eliud
10. Eleazar
11. Mathan
12. Jacob
13. Joseph
14. Jesus
The list of the First Evangelist omits certain members in Christ's genealogy:
The writer gives only three names for the time of the Egyptian exile
(Esron, Aram, and Aminadab), though the period lasted 215 or 430 years;
this agrees with Genesis 15:16, where God promises to lead Israel back
in the fourth generation. But according to Genesis 15:13, the stranger
shall afflict Israel for four hundred years.
The three names Booz, Obed, and Jesse cover a period of 366 years.
Omitting a number of other less probable explanations, the difficulty is
solved most easily by the admission of a lacuna between Obed and
Jesse.
According to I Paralipomenon 3:11-12, Ochozias, Joas, and Amasias
intervene between Joram and Azarias (the Ozias of St. Matthew); these
three names cannot have been unknown to the Evangelist, nor can it be
supposed that they were omitted by transcribers, for this conjecture would
destroy the Evangelist's computation of fourteen kings.
According to I Paralipomenon 3:15, Joakim intervenes between Josias and
Jechonias. We may waive the question whether St. Matthew speaks of
only one Jechonias or of two persons bearing that name; nor need we
state here all the doubts and difficulties connected with either answer.
St. Matthew places only nine links between Zorobabel and St. Joseph for
a period covering some 530 years, so that each generation must have
lasted more than 50 years. The genealogy as given in St. Luke
enumerates eighteen generations for the same period, a number which
harmonizes better with the ordinary course of events.
As to the omission of members in genealogical lists see GENEALOGY.
ST. LUKE'S GENEALOGY OF CHRIST
The genealogy in Luke 3:23-28 ascends from Joseph to Adam or rather to God;
this is the first striking difference between the genealogies as presented in the
First and Third Gospel. Another difference is found in their collocation: St.
Matthew places his list at the beginning of his Gospel; St. Luke, at the beginning
of the public life of Christ. The artificial character of St. Luke's genealogy may be
seen in the following table:
First Series
1. Jesus
2. Joseph
3. Heli
4. Mathat
5. Levi
6. Melchi
7. Janne
8. Joseph
9. Mathathias
10. Amos
11. Nahum
12. Hesli
13. Nagge
14. Mahath
15. Mathathias
16. Semei
17. Joseph
18. Juda
19. Joanna
20. Reza
21. Zorobabel
Second Series
22. Salathiel
23. Neri
24. Melchi
25. Addi
26. Cosan
27. Helmadan
28. Her
29. Jesus
30. Eliezer
31. Jorim
32. Mathat
33. Levi
34. Simeon
35. Judas
36. Joseph
37. Jona
38. Eliakim
39. Melea
40. Menna
41. Mathatha
42. Nathan
Third Series
43. David
44. Jesse
45. Obed
46. Booz
47. Salmon
48. Naasson
49. Aminadab
50. Aram
51. Esron
52. Phares
53. Judas
54. Jacob
55. Isaac
56. Abraham
Fourth Series
57. Thare
58. Nachor
59. Sarug
60. Ragau
61. Phaleg
62. Heber
63. Sale
64. Cainan
65. Arphaxad
66. Sem
67. Noe
68. Lamech
69. Mathusale
70. Henoch
71. Jared
72. Malaleel
73. Cainan
74. Henos
75. Seth
76. Adam
77. God
The artificial structure of this list may be inferred from the following peculiarities:
it contains eleven septenaries of names; three septenaries bring us from Jesus to
the Captivity; three, from the captivity to the time of David; two, from David to
Abraham; three again from the time of Abraham to the creation of man. St. Luke
does not explicitly draw attention to the artificial construction of his list, but this
silence does not prove that its recurring number of names was not intended, at
least in the Evangelist's source. In St. Luke's genealogy, too, the names Jesse,
Obed, Booz, cover a period of 366 years; Aminadab, Aram, Esron fill a gap of
430 (or 215) years, so that here several names must have been omitted. In the
fourth series, which gives the names of the antediluvian and postdiluvian
patriarchs, Cainan has been inserted according to the Septuagint reading; the
Hebrew text does not contain this name.
HARMONY BETWEEN ST. MATTHEW'S AND ST. LUKE'S GENEALOGY OF
CHRIST
The fourth series of St. Luke's list covers the period between Abraham and the
creation of man; St. Matthew does not touch upon this time, so that there can be
no question of any harmony. The third series of St. Luke agrees name for name
with the first of St. Matthew; only the order of names is inverted. In this section
the genealogies are rather identical than merely harmonious. In the first and
second series, St. Luke gives David's descendants through his son Nathan, while
St. Matthew enumerates in his second and third series David's descendants
through Solomon. It is true that the First Gospel gives only twenty-eight names
for this period, against the forty-two names of the Third Gospel; but it cannot be
expected that two different lines of descendants should exhibit the same number
of links for the period of a thousand years. Abstracting from the inspired
character of the sources, one is disposed to regard the number given by the Third
Evangelist as more in harmony with the length of time than the number of the
First Gospel; but we have pointed out that St. Matthew consciously omitted a
number of names in his genealogical list, in order to reduce them to the required
multiple of seven.
EXCEPTIONS TO THE PRECEDING EXPLANATION
Three main difficulties are advanced against the foregoing harmony of the
genealogies: First, how can they converge in St. Joseph, if they give different
lineages from David downward? Secondly, how can we account for their
convergence in Salathiel and Zorobabel? Thirdly, what do we know about the
genealogy of the Blessed Virgin?
First Difficulty
The convergence of the two distinct genealogical lines in the person of St.
Joseph, has been explained in two ways:
(a) St. Matthew's genealogy is that of St. Joseph; St. Luke's, that of the Blessed
Virgin. This contention implies that St. Luke's genealogy only seemingly includes
the name of Joseph. It is based on the received Greek text, on (os enomizeto
ouios Ioseph) tou Heli, "being the son (as it was supposed, of Joseph, but really)
of Heli". This parenthesis really eliminates the name of Joseph from St. Luke's
genealogy, and makes Christ, by means of the Blessed Virgin, directly a son of
Heli. This view is supported by a tradition which names the father of the Blessed
Virgin "Joachim", a variant form of Eliacim or its abbreviation Eli, a variant of Heli,
which latter is the form found in the Third Evangelist's genealogy. But these two
consideration, viz. the received text and the traditional name of the father of
Mary, which favour the view that St. Luke gives the genealogy of the Blessed
Virgin, are offset by two similar considerations, which make St. Luke's list
terminate with the name of Joseph. First, the Greek text preferred by the textual
critics reads, on ouios, hos enomizeto, Ioseph tou Heli, "being the son, as it was
supposed, of Joseph, son of Heli", so that the above parenthesis is rendered less
probable. Secondly, according to Patrizi, the view that St. Luke gives the
genealogy of Mary began to be advocated only towards the end of the fifteenth
century by Annius of Viterbo, and acquired adherents in the sixteenth. St. Hilary
mentions the opinion as adopted by many, but he himself rejects it (Mai, "Nov.
Bibl, Patr.", t. I, 477). It may be safely said that patristic tradition does not regard
St. Luke's list as representing the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin.
(b) Both St. Matthew and St. Luke give the genealogy of St. Joseph, the one
through the lineage of Solomon, the other through that of Nathan. But how can
the lines converge in St. Joseph? St. Augustine suggested that Joseph, the son
of Jacob and the descendant of David through Solomon, might have been
adopted by Heli, thus becoming the adoptive descendant of David through
Nathan. But Augustine was the first to abandon this theory after learning the
explanation offered by Julius Africanus. According to the latter, Estha married
Mathan, a descendant of David through Solomon, and became the mother of
Jacob; after Mathan's death she took for her second husband Mathat, a
descendent of David through Nathan, and by him became the mother of Heli.
Jacob and Heli were, therefore, uterine brothers. Heli married, but died without
offspring; his widow, therefore, became the levirate wife of Jacob, and gave birth
to Joseph, who was the carnal son of Jacob, but the legal son of Heli, thus
combining in his person two lineages of David's descendents. The explanation
will appear clearer in the following diagram:
MATHAT (2nd husband of ESTHA) --- widow of ----------------- MATHAN
| |
| |
HELI (left a childless widow) --- later levirate wife of --- JACOB
| |
| |
JOSEPH (levirate son) JOSEPH
Second Difficulty
The second difficulty urged against the harmony between the two genealogies is
based on the occurrence of the two names Zorobabel and Salathiel in both lists;
here again the two distinct lineages of David's descendants appear to converge.
And again, two answers are possible:
(a) It is more commonly admitted that the two names in St. Matthew's list are
identical with the two in St. Luke's series; for they must have lived about the
same time, and the names are so rare, that it would be strange to find them
occurring at the same time, in the same order, in two different genealogical
series. But two levirate marriages will explain the difficulty. Melchi, David's
descendant through Nathan, may have begotten Neri by a widow of the father of
Jechonias; this made Neri and Jechonias uterine brothers. Jechonias may then
have contracted a levirate marriage with the widow of the childless Neri, and
begotten Salathiel, who was therefore the leviratical son of Neri. Salathiel's son
Zorobabel begat Abiud; but he also may have been obliged to contract a levirate
marriage with the widow of a childless legal relative belonging to David's
descendants through Nathan, thus begetting Reza, who legally continued
Nathan's lineage.
(b) A more simple solution of the difficulty is obtained, if we do not admit that the
Salathiel and Zorobabel occurring in St. Matthew's genealogy are identical with
those in St. Luke's. The above proofs for their identity are not cogent. If Salathiel
and Zorobabel distinguished themselves at all among the descendants of
Solomon, it is not astonishing that about the same time two members of
Nathan's descendants should be called after them. The reader will observe that
we suggest only possible answers to the difficulty; as long as such possibilities
can be pointed out, our opponents have no right to deny that the genealogies
which are found in the First and Third Gospel can be harmonized.
Third Difficulty
How can Jesus Christ be called "son of David", if the Blessed Virgin is not a
daughter of David?
(a) If by virtue of Joseph's marriage with Mary, Jesus could be called the son of
Joseph, he can for the same reason be called "son of David" (St. Augustine, On
the Harmony of the Gospels, II, i, 2).
(b) Tradition tells us that Mary too was a descendant of David. According to
Numbers 36:6-12, an only daughter had to marry within her own family so as to
secure the right of inheritance. After St. Justin (Adv. Tryph. 100) and St. Ignatius
(Letter to the Ephesians 18), the Fathers generally agree in maintaining Mary's
Davidic descent, whether they knew this from an oral tradition or inferred it from
Scripture, e.g. Romans 1:3; II Timothy 2:8. St. John Damascene (De fid. Orth.,
IV, 14) states that Mary's great-grandfather, Panther, was a brother of Mathat;
her grandfather, Barpanther, was Heli's cousin; and her father, Joachim, was a
cousin of Joseph, Heli's levirate son. Here Mathat has been substituted for
Melchi, since the text used by St. John Damascene, Julius Africanus, St.
Irenaeus, St. Ambrose, and St. Gregory of Nazianus omitted the two generations
separating Heli from Melchi. At any rate, tradition presents the Blessed Virgin as
descending from David through Nathan.
KNABENBAUER in HAGEN, Lexicon Biblicum (Paris, 1907), II, 389 sq.; PRAT in Dictionnaire de la
Bible (Paris, 1903), III, 166 sqq. The question is also treated in the recent Lives of Christ by
FOUARD, DIDON, GRIMM, etc. The reader will find the subject treated also in the commentaries on
the Gospel of St. Matthew or St. Luke, e.g. KNABENBAUER, SCHANZ, FILION, MACEVILLY, etc.
DANKO, Historia revelationis divinae Novi Testamenti (Vienna, 1867), 180-192, gives all the
principal publications on the question up to 1865.
A.J. MAAS
Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett
Dedicated to Ann Kracke
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI
Copyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org