Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (696 page)

On inquiring which of these two genealogies is to be held that of Mary? we are stopped by an apparently insurmountable obstacle, since each is distinctly announced as the genealogy of Joseph; the one in the words >GREEK FOR PETER< the other by the phrase >GREEK FOR PETER<. Here also, however, the >GREEK FOR PETER< of Matthew is more definite than the >GREEK FOR PETER< of Luke, which according to those interpreters may mean just as well a son-in-law or grandson; so that the genitive of Luke in iii. 23 was either intended to express that Jesus was in common estimation a son of Joseph, who was the son- in-law of Heli, the father of Mary**:-or else, that Jesus was, as was believed, a son of Joseph, and through Mary a grandson of Heli.*** As it may here be objected, that the Jews in their genealogies were accustomed to take no account of the female line,**** a farther hypothesis is had recourse to, namely, that Mary was an heiress,
i.e.
the daughter of a father without sons; and that in this case, according to Numbers xxxvi. 6, and Nehemiah vii. 63, Jewish custom required that the person who married her should not only be of the same race with herself, but that he should henceforth sink his own family in hers, and take her ancestors as his own. But the first point only is proved by the reference to Numbers; and the passage in Nehemiah, compared with several similar ones, (Ezra ii. 61; Numbers xxxii. 41; comp. with 1 Chron. ii. 21 f.) shows only that sometimes, by way of exception, a man took the name of his maternal ancestors. Tins difficulty with regard to Jewish customs, however, is cast into shade by one much more important. Although undeniably the genitive case used by Luke, expressing simply derivation in a general

* Testament XII Patriarch., Test. Simeon c. 71. In Fabric. Codex pseudepigr., V.T. p. 542: >GREEK FOR PETER< (the races of Levi and Juda) >GREEK FOR PETER<

†Comp. Thilo, cod. apocr. N. T. 1, S. 374 ff.

‡Thus
e.g.
the Manichan Faustus in Augustin. contra Faust. L. xxiii. 4. § Protevangel. Jacobi c. 1 f. u. 10. and evangel. de nativitate Mari c. 1. Joachim and Anna, of the race of David, are here mentioned as the parents of Mary. Faustus on the contrary, in the above cited passage, gives Joachim the title of
Sacerdos
.

|| Dial. c. Tryph. 43. 100. (Paris, l742.)

** Paulus.
The Jews also in their representation of a Mary, the daughter of Heli, tormented in the lower world, (see Lightfoot), appear to have taken the genealogy of Luke, which sets out from Heli, for that of Mary,

***
e.g.
Lightfoot hor, p. 750; Osiander, S. 86.

**** Juchasin f. 55, 2. in Lightfoot S. 183. and Bava bathra, f. 110, 2. in Wetstein S. 230 f. Comp. Joseph. Vita, 1. sense, may signify any degree of relationship, and consequently that of son-in-law or grandson; yet this interpretation destroys the consistency of the whole passage. In the thirty-four preceding members, which are well known to us from the Old Testament, this genitive demonstrably indicates throughout the precise relationship of a son; likewise when it occurs between Salathiel and Zorobabel: how could it be intended in the one instance of Joseph to indicate that of son- in-law? or, according to the other interpretation, supposing the nominative >GREEK FOR PETER< to govern the whole series, how can we suppose it to change its signification from son to grandson, great-grandson, and so on to the end? If it be said the phrase >GREEK FOR PETER< is a proof that the genitive does not necessarily indicate a son in the proper sense of the word, we may reply that it bears a signification with regard to the immediate Author of existence equally inapplicable to either father-in-law or grandfather.

A further difficulty is encountered by this explanation of the two genealogies in common with the former one, in the concurrence of the two names of Salathiel and Zorobabel. The supposition of a Levirate marriage is as applicable to this explanation as the other, but the interpreters we are now examining prefer for the most part to suppose, that these similar names in the different genealogies belong to different persons. When Luke however, in the twenty-first and twenty-second generations from David, gives the very same names that Matthew (including the four omitted generations), gives in the nineteenth and twentieth, one of these names being of great notoriety, it is certainly impossible to doubt that they refer to the same persons.

Moreover, in no other part of the New Testament is there any trace to be found of the Davidical descent of Mary: on the contrary, some passages are directly opposed to it. In Luke i. 27, the expression >GREEK FOR PETER< refers only to the immediately preceding >GREEK FOR PETER<, not to the more remote >GREEK FOR PETER<. And more pointed still is the turn of the sentence Luke ii. 4>GREEK FOR PETER<, where >GREEK FOR PETER< might so easily have been written instead of >GREEK FOR PETER<, if the author had any thought of including Mary in the descent from David. These expressions fill to overflowing the measure of proof already adduced, that it is impossible to apply the genealogy of the third Evangelist to Mary.

§ 22. THE GENEALOGIES UNHISTORICAL.

A consideration of the insurmountable difficulties, which unavoidably embarrass every attempt to bring these two genealogies into harmony with one another, will lead us to despair of reconciling them, and will incline us to acknowledge, with the more free-thinking class of critics, that they are mutually contradictory.* Consequently they cannot both be true: if, therefore, one is to be preferred before the other, several circumstances would seem to decide in favour of the genealogy of Luke, rather than that of Matthew. It does not exhibit an arbitrary adherence to a fixed form and to equal periods: and whilst the ascribing of twenty generations to the space of time from David to Jechonias or Neri, in Luke, is at least not more offensive to probability, than the omission of four generations in Matthew to historical truth; Luke’s allotment of twenty-two generations for the period from Jechonias (born 617 B.C.) to Jesus,
i.e.
about 600 years, forming an average of twenty-seven years and a half to each generation, is more consonant with natural events, particularly amongst eastern nations, than the thirteen generations of Matthew, which make an average of forty-two years for each. Besides the genealogy of Luke is less liable than that of Matthew to the suspicion of having been written with a design to glorify Jesus, since it contents itself with ascribing to Jesus a descent from David, without tracing that descent through the royal line. On the other hand, however, it is more improbable that the genealogy of the comparatively insignificant family of Nathan should have been preserved, than that of the royal branch. Added to which, the frequent recurrence of the same names is, as justly remarked by Hoffmann, an indication that the genealogy of Luke is fictitious.

In fact then neither table has any advantage over the other. If the one is unhistorieal, so also is the other, since it is very improbable that the genealogy of an obscure family like that of Joseph, extending through so long a series of generations, should have been preserved during all the confusion of the exile, and the disturbed period that followed. Yet, it may be said, although we recognize in both, so far as they are not copied from the Old Testament, an unrestrained play of the imagination, or arbitrary applications of Other genealogies to Jesus,-we may still retain as an historical basis that Jesus was descended from David, and that only the intermediate members of the line of descent were variously filled up by different writers. But the one event on which this historical basis is mainly supported, namely, the journey of the parents of Jesus to Bethlehem in order to be taxed, so far from sufficing to prove them to be of the house and lineage of David, is itself, as we shall presently show, by no means established as matter of history. Of more weight is the other ground, namely, that Jesus is universally represented in the New Testament, without any contradiction from his adversaries, as the descendant of David. Yet even the phrase >GREEK FOR PETER< is a predicate that may naturally have been applied to Jesus, not on historical, but on dogmatical grounds. According to the

* Thus Eichorn, Einl. in das N. T. 1 Bd. S, 425. Kaiser, bibl. Theol. 1, S. 232. Wegscheider, Institut. § 123, not. d. de Wette, bibl. Dogm. § 279, and exeget. Handbuch 1. 2, S. 32. Winer,, bibl. Realwörterb. 1, S. 660 f. Hase, Leben Jesu, § 33. Fritzsche, Comm. in Matt. p. 35. Ammon, Fortbildung des Christenthums zur Weltreligion, 1, S. 196 ff. prophecies, the Messiah could only spring from David. When therefore a Galilean, whose lineage was utterly unknown, and of whom consequently no one could prove that he was not descended from David, had acquired the reputation of being the Messiah; what more natural than that tradition should under different forms have early ascribed to him a Davidical descent, and that genealogical tables, corresponding with this tradition, should have been formed? which, however, as they were constructed upon no certain data, would necessarily exhibit such differences and contradictions as we find actually existing between the genealogies in Matthew and in Luke.*

If, in conclusion, it be asked, what historical result is to be deduced from these genealogies ? we reply: a conviction, (arrived at also from other sources,) that Jesus, either in his own person or through his disciples, acting upon minds strongly imbued with Jewish notions and expectations, left among his followers so firm a conviction of his Messiahship, that they did not hesitate to attribute to him the prophetical characteristic of Davidical descent, and more than one pen was put in action, in order, by means of a genealogy which should authenticate that descent, to justify his recognition as the Messiah.†

*See De Wette, bibl. Dogm. and exeg. Handb. 1, 1, S. 14 ; Hase, L. J. Eusebius gives a not improbable explanation of this disagreement (ad. Steph. qust. iii., pointed out by Credner, 1, p. 68 f.) that besides the notion amongst the Jews, that the Messiah must spring from the royal line of David, another had arisen, that this line having become polluted and declared unworthy of continuing on the throne of David (Jerem. xxii. 30), by the wickedness of its later reigning members, a line more pure though less famed was to be preferred to it.

† The farther consideration on the origin and import of these genealogies, which arise from their connexion with the acount of the miraculous birth of Jesus, must be reserved till after the examination of the latter point.

CHAPTER III
.