Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (695 page)

*Fritsche in Matth., p. 11.

† Paulus, S. 292. ‡ Bibl. Comm., p. 46, note.

§ See Schneckenburger, Beiträge zur Einleitung in das N. T., S. 41 f., and the passage cited from Josephus, B. j. vi. 8. Also may be compared the passage cited by Schöttgen, hor hebr. et talm. zu Matth. i. from Synopsis Sohar, p. 132, n. 18.
Ab Abrahamo usque ad Salomonem XV. sunt generationes, atque tune luna fuit in. plenilunio. A Salomone usque ad Zedekiam iterum sunt XV. generationes, et tune Luna defecit, et Zedekia: effossi sunt oculi
.

|| De Wette has already called attention to the analogy between these Old Testament genealogies and those of the Gospels, with regard to the intentional equality of numbers. Kritik der mos. Geschichte, s 69. Comp. s. 48. of Oriental genealogists to indulge themselves in similar license; for when an author presents us with a pedigree expressly declaring that
all the generations
during a space of time were fourteen, whereas, through accident or intention, many members are wanting,-he betrays an arbitrariness and want of critical accuracy, which must shake our confidence in the certainty of his whole genealogy.

The genealogy of Luke, considered separately, does not present so many defects as that of Matthew. It has no concluding statement of the number of generations comprised in the genealogy, to act as a check upon itself, neither can it be tested, to much extent, by a comparison with the Old Testament. For, from David to Nathan, the line traced by Luke has no correspondence with any Old Testament genealogy, excepting in two of its members, Salathiel and Zorobabel; and even with respect to these two, there is a contradiction between the statement of Luke and that of 1 Chron. iii. 17. 19. f.: for the former calls Salathiel a son of Neri, whilst, according to the latter, he was the son of Jechoniah. Luke also mentions one Resa as the son of Zorobabel, a name which does not appear amongst the children of Zerubbabel in 1 Chron. iii. 17. 19. Also, in the series before Abraham, Luke inserts a Cainan, who is not to be found in the Hebrew text, Gen. x. 24; xi. 12 ff., but who was however already inserted by the LXX. In fact the original text has this name in its first series as the third from Adam, and thence the translation appears to have transplanted him to the corresponding place in the second series as the third from Noah.

§ 21. COMPARISON OF THE TWO GENEALOGIES — ATTEMPT TO RECONCILE THEIR CONTRADICTIONS.

If we compare the genealogies of Matthew and Luke together, we become aware of still more striking discrepancies. Some of these differences indeed are unimportant, as the opposite direction of the two tables, the line of Matthew descending from Abraham to Jesus, that of Luke ascending from Jesus to his ancestors. Also the greater extent of the line of Luke; Matthew deriving it no farther than from Abraham, while Luke (perhaps lengthening some existing document in order to make it more consonant with the universalism of the doctrines of Paul*:) carries it back to Adam and to God himself. More important is the considerable difference in the number of generations for equal periods, Luke having 41 between David and Jesus, whilst Matthew has only 26. The main difficulty, however, lies in this: that in some parts of the genealogy, in Luke totally different individuals are made the ancestors of Jesus from those in Matthew. It is true, both writers agree in de- riving the lineage of Jesus through Joseph from David and Abraham, and that the names of’the individual members of the series

*See Chrysostom and Luther, in Credner, Einleitung in d. N. T., 1, S. 143 f. Winer, bibl. Realwörterbuch, 1. s. 659. correspond from Abraham to David, as well as two of the names in the subsequent portion: those of Salathiel and Zorobabel. But the difficulty becomes desperate when we find that, with these two exceptions about midway, the whole of the names from David to the foster-father of Jesus arc totally different in Matthew and in Luke. In Matthew, the father of Joseph is called Jacob; in Luke, Heli. In Matthew, the son of David through whom Joseph descended from that king is Solomon; in Luke, Nathan: and so on, the line descends, in Matthew, through the race of known kings; in Luke, through an unknown collateral branch, coinciding only with respect to Salathiel and Zorobabel, whilst they still differ in the names of the father of Salathiel and the son of Zorobabel. Since this difference appears to offer a complete contradiction, the most industrious efforts have been made at all times to reconcile the two. Passing in silence explanations evidently unsatisfactory, such as a mystical signification*, or an arbitrary change of names†, we shall consider two pairs of hypotheses which have been most conspicuous, and are mutually supported, or at least bear affinity to one another.

The first pair is formed upon the presupposition of Augustine, that Joseph was an adopted son, and that one evangelist gave the name of his real, the other that of his adopted father‡; and the opinion of the old chronologist Julius Africanus, that a Levirate marriage had taken place between the parents of Joseph, and that the one genealogy belonged to the natural, the other to the legal, father of Joseph, by the one of whom he was descended from David through Solomon, by the other through Nathan.§ The farther question : to which father do the respective genealogies belong ? is open to two species of criticism, the one founded upon literal expressions, the other upon the spirit and character of each gospel: and which lead to opposite conclusions. Augustine as well as Africanus, has observed, that Matthew makes use of an expression in describing the relationship between Joseph and his so-called father, which more definitely points out the natural filial relationship than that of Luke: for the former says >GREEK FOR PETER<: whilst the expression of the latter,>GREEK FOR PETER<, appears equally applicable to a son by adoption, or by virtue of a Levirate marriage. But since the very object of a Levirate marriage was to maintain the name and race of a deceased childless brother, it was the Jewish custom to inscribe the firstborn son of such a marriage, not on the family register of his natural father, as Matthew has done here, but on that of his legal father, as Luke has done on the above supposition. Now that a person so entirely imbued with Jewish opinions as the author of the first gospel, should have made a mistake of this kind,

* Orig, homil. in Lucam 28.

† Luther, Werke, Bd. 14. Walch. Ausg. S. 8 ff.

‡ De consensu Evangelistarum, ii. 3, u. c. Faust., iii. 3 ; amongst the moderns, for example, E. F. in Henke’s Magazin 5, 1, 180 f, After Augustina hail subsequently become acquainted with the writing of Africanus, he gave up his own opinion for that of the latter. Retract. ii. 7.

§ Eusebius, H. E. i. 7, and lately
e.g.
Schleiermacher on Luke, p. 53. cannot be held probable. Accordingly, Schleiermacher and others conceive themselves bound by the spirit of the two gospels to admit that Matthew, in spite of his >GREEK FOR PETER<, must have given the lineage of the legal father, according to Jewish custom: whilst Luke, who perhaps was not born a Jew, and was less familiar with Jewish habits, might have fallen upon the genealogy of the younger brothers of Joseph, who were not, like the firstborn, inscribed amongst the family of the deceased legal father, but with that of their natural father, and might have taken this for the genealogical table of the first-born Joseph, whilst it really belonged to him only by natural descent, to which Jewish genealogists paid no regard.* But, besides the fact which we shall show hereafter, that the genealogy of Luke can with difficulty be proved to be the work of the author of that Gospel;-in which case the little acquaintance of Luke with Jewish customs ceases to afford any clue to the meaning of this genealogy;-it is also to be objected, that the genealogist of the first gospel could not have written his >GREEK FOR PETER< thus without any addition, if he was thinking of a mere legal paternity. Wherefore these two views of the genealogical relationship are equally difficult.

However, this hypothesis, which we have hitherto considered only in general, requires a more detailed examination in order to judge of its admissibility. In considering the proposition of a Levirate marriage, the argument is essentially the same if, with Augustine and Africanus, we ascribe the naming of the natural father to Matthew, or with Schleiermacher, to Luke. As an example we shall adopt the former statement; the rather because Eusebius, according to Africanus, has left us a minute account of it. According to this representation, then, the mother of Joseph was first married to that person whom Luke calls the father of Joseph, namely Heli. But since Heli died without children, by virtue of the Levirate law, his brother, called by Matthew Jacob the father of Joseph, married the widow, and by her begot Joseph, who was legally regarded as the son of the deceased Heli, and so described by Luke, whilst naturally he was the son of his brother Jacob, and thus described by Matthew.

But, merely thus far, the hypothesis is by no means adequate. For if the two fathers of Joseph were real brothers, sons of the same father, they had one and the same lineage, and the two genealogies would have differed only in the father of Joseph, all the preceding portion being in agreement. In order to explain how the discordancy extends so far back as to David, we must have recourse to the second proposition of Africanus, that the fathers of Joseph were only half-brothers, having the same mother, but not the same father. We must also suppose that this mother of the two fathers of Joseph, had twice married; once with the Matthan of Matthew, who was descended from David through Solomon and the line of kings, and to whom she bore Jacob; and also, either before or after, with the

* S. 53. Comp. Winer, bibl. Realwörterbuch, 1 Bd. s. 660 Matthat of Luke, the offspring of which marriage was Heli: which Heli, having married and died childless, his half-brother Jacob married his widow, and begot for the deceased his legal child Joseph.

This hypothesis of so complicated a marriage in two successive generations, to which we are forced by the discrepancy of the two genealogies, must be acknowledged to be in no way impossible, but still highly improbable: and the difficulty is doubled by the untoward agreement already noticed, which occurs midway in the discordant series, in the two members Salathiel and Zorobabel. For to explain how Neri in Luke, and Jechonias in Matthew, are both called the father of Salathiel, who was the father of Zorobabel;-not only must the supposition of the Levirate marriage be repeated, but also that the two brothers who successively married the same wife, were brothers only on the mother’s side. The difficulty is not diminished by the remark, that any nearest blood-relation, not only a brother, might succeed in a Levirate marriage,-that is to say, though not obligatory, it was at least open to his choice. (Ruth iii. 12. f. iv. 4 f.*) .For since even in the case of two cousins, the concurrence of the two branches must take place much earlier than here for Jacob and Heli, and for Jechonias and Neri, we are still obliged to have recourse to the hypothesis of half-brothers; the only amelioration in this hypothesis over the other being, that these two very peculiar marriages do not take place in immediately consecutive generations. Now that this extraordinary double incident should not only have been twice repeated, but that the genealogists should twice have made the same selection in their statements respecting the natural and the legal father, and without any explanation,-is so improbable, that even the hypothesis of an adoption which is burdened with only one-half of these difficulties, has still more than it can bear. For in the case of adoption, since no fraternal or other relationship is required, between the natural and adopting fathers, the recurrence to a twice-repeated half-brotherhood is dispensed with; leaving only the necessity for twice supposing a relationship by adoption, and twice the peculiar circumstance, that the one genealogist from want of acquaintance with Jewish customs was ignorant of the fact, and the other, although he took account of it, was silent respecting it.

It has been thought by later critics that the knot may be loosed in a much easier way, by supposing that in one gospel we have the genealogy of Joseph, in the other that of Mary, in which case there would be no contradiction in the disagreement:† to which they are pleased to add the assumption that Mary was an heiress.‡ The opinion that Mary was of the race of David as well as Joseph has been long held. Following indeed the idea, that the Messiah, as a second Melchizedec, ought to unite in his person the priestly with

* Comp. Michaelis, Mos. Recht. ii. S. 200. Winer, bibi, Realwörterb. ii. S. 22 f.

† Thus
e.g.
Spanheim, dubia evang. p. 1. S. 13 ff. Lightfoot, Michaelis, Paulus, Kuinöl, Olshausen, lately Hoffman and others.

‡ Epiphanius, Grotius. Olshausen, S. 43. the kingly dignity*, and guided by the relationship of Mary with Elizabeth, who was a daughter of Aaron (Luke i. 36); already in early times it was not only held by many that the races of Judah and Levi were blended in the family of Joseph†; but also the opinion was not rare that Jesus, deriving his royal lineage from Joseph, descended also from the priestly race through Mary.‡ The opinion of Mary’s descent from David, soon however became the more prevailing. Many apocryphal writers clearly state this opinion§, as well as Justin Martyr, whose expression, that the virgin was of the race of David, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, may be considered an indication that he applied to Mary one of our genealogies, which are both traced back to Abraham through David.||