Matthew

D.H. Williams

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781467449700
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Select ancient Christian writings on the Gospel of Matthew

The Church's Bible series brings the rich classical tradition of biblical interpretation to life, illuminating Scripture as it was understood during the first millennium of Christian history. Compiled, translated, and edited by leading scholars, these volumes lead contemporary clergy, Bible teachers, and students of Scripture into the inexhaustible spiritual and theological world of the early church.

This volume on Matthew contains select freshly translated excerpts from patristic commentators including John Chrysostom, Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine. Ranging chronologically from the second century to the seventh century, these selections splendidly display a neglected part of the church's interpretive tradition on Matthew.

Matthew 1

Since Matthew’s Gospel is devoted to demonstrating that Jesus is the messianic fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets, the account begins with a genealogy that ties Jesus to David and as far back to Abraham. Jesus is shown as a continuator of God’s covenant promises to his people, as found especially in Gen 12–18; 2 Sam 7 and Ps 110. This act of continuation is therefore the ultimate revelation of God’s plan revealing itself “at the right time” (Rom 5:6). Jesus is the Emmanuel, the one who will save his people from their sins. What had been prepared since the time of Abraham was now coming to fruition with the birth of the one whom Joseph was told to name Jesus, the hellenized version of the Hebrew, Joshua, or the Aramaic contracted form, Yeshua. The entire Gospel will be predicated along these lines through signs and testimonies presented in every chapter.

Chapter one is divided into two parts: the genealogical line by which the Christ descended from Abraham through David to Joseph (vv. 1–17) and the narration of his birth (vv. 18–25). Both parts supply the details showing how All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet (v. 22).

The discrepancies between Matthew’s and Luke’s (3:23–38) genealogies were recognized by the early fathers from the first. They took these inconsistencies seriously, because they took the history and the wording of the biblical text seriously. However, they did not perceive these differences as the kind of problems that vitiated the historical value of Matthew’s (or Luke’s) account. The distinctions unique to each Gospel represented the providential working of God, whose meaning could be discerned by the conscientious believer. The Holy Spirit, who is the ground of unity, allows the reader to discover a unified working of the various scriptural accounts. For this reason, there may be more than one explanation of a given text. Eusebius of Caesarea cites a lengthy passage from an earlier writer, Julius Africanus, who deals with the most glaring difference between the genealogies, most notably, the identification of the father of Joseph. According to Matthew it was Jacob, and Luke says Heli (or Eli). But these were, as Eusebius explains it, brothers. Matthan is the first who traced his family from Solomon and begat Jacob. Then, on the death of Matthan, Melchi traced his descent back to Nathan, married Matthan’s widow, and had from her a son named Heli. The difference is that Melchi, according to the Jewish law of levirate marriage, preserved the family name of Matthan for his son, Jacob. Augustine likewise acknowledges this explanation, though he adds that the reader should not be overly vexed about these problems, since the Holy Spirit was the true father of Christ.

Both Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies frame the line of descent according to Joseph’s family line, not Mary’s. Since it was standard in Jewish law that a man should marry only within his tribe, it was understood that Mary must also be from the tribe of Judah.

Hilary’s approach to the same issue is different. He believed that Matthew and Luke were using different “models”: Matthew construes Jesus’s family line according to his kingly lineage, that is, he focuses on the line of Judah; whereas Luke traces the priestly side of the line by stating that some in Jesus’s line were from the tribe of Levi. The differences in detail do not trouble Hilary, because he is seeking not to solve the problem of the inconsistencies as much as he is seeking to discern the motive behind each writer’s account. Rather than try to harmonize the genealogies, Hilary is satisfied that Joseph and Mary come from the same line, namely, the line of Abraham.

Hilary also notes that while Matthew declares there are from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, the Old Testament records there are seventeen (1 Chr 3:10–15). The difference according to Hilary is that three negligible generations, those that derived from a pagan ancestry, should not be counted.

Augustine also focuses on the differences within the Matthean account, but as he saw it, the problem was that the actual number of the generations listed by Matthew is forty-one, whereas the last verse of the genealogy states: So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations, which equals forty-two. The issue is a simple one, says Augustine. The genealogy counts Jechoniah twice (vv. 11–12) since he ends one line and starts the next. This same principle doesn’t apply to the two other generational lines, because the exile in Babylon took place under Josiah, whose father was Jechoniah. Because Josiah lived under Jechoniah’s reign, he is mentioned twice.

The narrative of Christ’s birth, beginning with v. 18, is centered on the prophecy fulfilled through the angel’s announcement to Joseph about the birth and name of Jesus. Ancient writers understood this passage to be filled with christological meaning, interpreted both allegorically (Chrysologus, viz., “the historical narrative of Scripture should always be raised to a higher meaning,” Sermon 36), as a demonstration of the prophetic nature of Christ’s birth, and historically (Leo), which showed that Christ’s human birth in no way undermined his full divinity.

In Matthew, the description of Christ’s birth and Mary’s pregnancy is seen from Joseph’s perspective (unlike Luke’s Gospel). Once her pregnancy became apparent, we are told of Joseph’s moral and emotional turmoil. An angelic message comes to him via a dream. Chrysologus asks how Joseph remained both just and good upon learning of Mary’s condition. The heaviness of his shame is well expressed, “He thought about sending her away, and he told the whole matter to God, for he could not confide in humans.” In response to another angelic message in a dream, Joseph is the one who takes action by moving the family to Egypt and back to Israel. Yet a third angelic admonition provides him with directions to a safe location far from the king’s persecution.

Overall, the ancient commentators wished to make three points about Christ’s birth. Jesus’s birth from Mary was in fact a second birth. The first birth, which reveals his true nature, is his eternal generation from the Father. The second was the physical birth of the Son’s divine nature as Jesus, which was a joining of the divine to the humanity, a true incarnation. Both Leo and Augustine emphasize that in assuming our humanity Christ did not acquire our sin.

Third, Mary is the second Eve, in that both were givers of life.¹ In Augustine’s view, it was only fitting that a woman be the bearer of our salvation since it was a woman who convinced her husband to eat of the forbidden fruit. Whereas a woman was first seduced by sin, she becomes the chosen sex to bring the means and the message of salvation from sin. Hilary (and Jerome) reinforces Mary’s true virginity by refuting any view that claims she was already married to Joseph and that Jesus was the offspring of their union.

Matthew 1:1–17

¹The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

²Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, ³and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, ⁴and Ram the father of Ammin′adab, and Ammin′adab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, ⁵and Salmon the father of Bo′az by Rahab, and Bo′az the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, ⁶and Jesse the father of David the king.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uri′ah, ⁷and Solomon the father of Rehobo′am, and Rehobo′am the father of Abi′jah, and Abi′jah the father of Asa, ⁸ and Asa the father of Jehosh′aphat, and Jehosh′aphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzzi′ah, ⁹and Uzzi′ah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezeki′ah, ¹⁰and Hezeki′ah the father of Manas′seh, and Manas′seh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josi′ah, ¹¹and Josi′ah the father of Jechoni′ah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

¹²And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoni′ah was the father of She-al′ti-el, and She-al′ti-el the father of Zerub′babel, ¹³and Zerub′babel the father of Abi′ud, and Abi′ud the father of Eli′akim, and Eli′akim the father of Azor, ¹⁴and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eli′ud, ¹⁵and Eli′ud the father of Elea′zar, and Elea′zar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, ¹⁶and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

¹⁷So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

(1) Eusebius of Caesarea

Since Matthew and Luke in writing their Gospels have presented us with a genealogy of Christ in different forms, most people imagine that the two are in conflict.² And since every believer through ignorance of the truth has been eager to talk at length about these passages, we must quote the account that has come down to us, which Africanus³ mentions in a letter he wrote to Aristides on the harmony of the genealogy in the Gospels:

The names of the families in Israel used to be numbered either by natural means or by law—by natural means, when there was actual offspring to succeed, but by law, when another begat a son in the name of his brother who had died childless.⁴ Because no clear hope of a resurrection had as yet been given, they represented the future promise under the figure of a mortal resurrection, so that the name of the one departed might live on. In this genealogy we see that some succeeded by natural descent, the son to the father, while others, though born to one father, were assigned by [a different] name to another. Both are mentioned; those who had actually begotten sons, as well as those who were regarded as having begotten them. Neither account of the Gospels is untrue, since there is a rationale provided both by natural means and by law. As families descended from Solomon and from Nathan became so intermingled, by the resurrection of childless men⁵ and through second marriages and resurrection (i.e., the birth of offspring who rightly belonged to one family as well as to another; in one sense they belonged to their reputed fathers and in another sense to their actual fathers). So both accounts of Matthew and Luke are in accordance with the exact truth and descend to Joseph in a complex, yet accurate, manner.

To make clear what has been said, I shall give an account of the interchange of the families. If we proceed with the generations from David through Solomon, the third from the end is found to be Matthan, who begat Jacob, the father of Joseph. But if it was from Nathan the son of David according to Luke,⁶ the third from the end was Melchi. For Joseph was the son of Heli, the son of Melchi.⁷ Since Joseph is the subject of our discussion, we must show how each of the two is recorded to be his father. In other words, Jacob traces his descent from Solomon, and Heli from Nathan; and, before that, how these same persons, namely, Jacob and Heli, were two brothers; and, before that again, how their fathers, Matthan and Melchi, though of different families, are declared both to be Joseph’s grandfathers. Both Matthan and Melchi married in turn the same wife, begat children who were brothers by the same mother. For the law does not prevent a widow marrying another, whether she be divorced or her husband be dead. So then from Estha (for tradition asserts that this was the woman’s name⁸) Matthan is the first who traced his family from Solomon, and he begat Jacob. Then, on the death of Matthan, Melchi, who traced his descent back to Nathan, married the widow, being of the same tribe but another family, as I said before, begat with her a son named Heli. We shall find Jacob and Heli were brothers with the same mother, though of two different families. Jacob, on the death of his brother Heli, who had no natural heir, took his wife and from her in the third place begat Joseph, who according to natural means was his own son (and also according to Scripture: for it is written, and Jacob begat Joseph). But according to law, he was also the son of Heli. For Jacob, being his brother, raised up the seed⁹ to Heli. Therefore the genealogy traced through him will not be rendered void, even though Matthew the evangelist describes the family line that Jacob begat Joseph; whereas Luke says, as was supposed (for indeed he adds this), the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Melchi.¹⁰ For Luke could not express more clearly the descent according to law, and he abstains from using the word “begat” with reference to this kind of procreation right up to the end as he traces backward the genealogy up to Adam, the son of God.¹¹

Matthan, who traced his decent from Solomon, begat Jacob. On the death of Matthan, Melchi, who traced his descent from Nathan, of the same wife, begat Heli. Therefore Heli and Jacob were brothers with the same mother. Heli having died childless, Jacob raised up his seed to him in begetting Joseph, who was by nature his own son, but by law Heli’s. Thus Joseph was the son of both.

Now that the genealogy of Joseph has been traced, Mary also has been shown no less to belong to the same tribe as Joseph, since according to the law of Moses intermarrying between different tribes was...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Interpreting the New Testament
• An Introduction to Matthew
• Preface to Matthew
• Matthew 1
• Matthew 2
• Matthew 3
• Matthew 4
• Matthew 5
• Matthew 6
• Matthew 7
• Matthew 8
• Matthew 9
• Matthew 10
• Matthew 11
• Matthew 12
• Matthew 13
• Matthew 14
• Matthew 15
• Matthew 16
• Matthew 17
• Matthew 18
• Matthew 19
• Matthew 20
• Matthew 21
• Matthew 22
• Matthew 23
• Matthew 24
• Matthew 25
• Matthew 26
• Matthew 27
• Matthew 28
• APPENDIX 1: Authors of Works Excerpted
• APPENDIX 2: Sources of Texts Translated
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Scripture References