138 GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST
GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST
i. Trkatmf.xt of the Question by Jesus AND THE Apostles. — If the progress of critical and exegetical science has shown, on the one side, tlie futility of all harnionistic theories for rescuing the authority of the pedigrees, it has more than compensated for the loss by establisliiug with eciual certainty the acceptance of the fact of the Davidic descent of Jesus bj Himself, His con- teIn^)oraries, and His immediate followers. That IXavidic descent was then considered a pre- requisite to the establishment of Messianic claims is apparent from a number of NT passages. The use of the title 'Son of David' in Mt 15-^ 20™" ( = 9-'') -21'^ and parallels is official, implying no knowledge of Jesus' birth or descent, but only the conviction that He is the Messiah. It indicates, however, that Davidic descent was popularly assumed as an attribute of the Christ. This is much more distinctly implied in Mt 12^, and by the question put by Jesus to His Pharisaic oppon- ' ents in the temple, Mt 22"-" ' What think ye of \ Christ ? whose son is he ? ' Such a question by < one whose claims to DaWdic descent were open to ] suspicion would have put a weapon in the hands of , His foes. Jesus, on the contrary, is not merely \ confident that they will answer 'David's son,' but is at least equally confident of their inability to : disprove His Davidic descent, though He refuses to base His claims upon it. The same tacit assumption of this as an undisputed fact char- acterizes the rare allusions of St. Paul, Ro 1", 2 Ti 2« (cf. He 7"), the ascriptions of Rev 3' 5' 22'^ and, finally, the distinct appeal to prophecy of Ac 2*" 13'-^. The last two passages, as emanatinj? from the same source as one of the pedigrees, and the passages Mt 2', Lk 2*, where Bethlehem as the birthplace of David is regarded as the neces.sary birthplace of the Messiah, should perhaps not be cited as independent witness to the existence of the popular assumption ; but the great number of OT passages pointing to this, especiallj' Ps 132", whicli cannot date more than a few centuries before NT times, and the Messianic petition of Ps.-Sol 17^, written not more than 50 years B.C., ' Raise up unto them, O Lord, their king the Son of David,' should suffice to show that Messianic pretensions absolutely devoid of evi- dence of Davidic descent could not have passed uneliallenged, as those of Jesus seem to have done.*
The continued existence in the family of Jesus of claims to Davidic descent, such as could hardly have originated in His own time, is evidenced by Hegesippus {ap. Eus. HE ui. 20 and 32), who tells of repeated attempts to involve His collateral descendants in trouble Avith the Roman authorities on this account. But the suspicions of even a Domitian were disarmed when two grandsons of Jude, the Lord's brother, were brought before him, confessed their Davidic descent (explaining, how- ever, tliat the kingdom of Christ was ' not temporal or earthly, but heavenly and angelic, to appear at the end of the world ), gave account of their property,— an undivided 39 acres of land, valued at 901 10 denarii, — and showed their hands calloused by labour.
It is a fair inference from these facts that the Da\'idic descent of Jesus was in His own day practically undisputed, at least among His personal followers. What the evidence was on which this assumption rested, whether mere oral family tradition, or public records, and to what extent the basis was trustworthy, is a wholly ditlerent
* Even the passage Jn 7*2 ia no exception to the rule that the objection that He is not of Davidic descent is never raised in XT times to Jesus' Messianic claims. The speakers (at Jerus. according to "3^ are strantrers to Jesus (S^h), and merely infer, from His speech or otherwise, that He is a Galilfiean. This is, Indeed, contrary to their notion of Davidic origin, but the autMar presupposes the birth in Bethlehem.
qnestion, which can be settled only by the careful
scrutiny of the sources.
ii. Treatment in the Ecclesiastical Period. — There can be no doubt that from near the begin- ning of the 2nd cent., when our first and thira Gospels bc''an to come into general circulation, the Church believed itself in i)03session of conclusive documentary evidence. Even the collateral de- scendants of the Lord, the so-called Sttrriawoi, to whom Julius Africanus, the contemporary of Origen, applied on this subject, had no other authority to appeal to than the genealogies of Mt and Lk, though they added an ancestress or two of doubt- ful historicity, and omitted the names Matthat and Levi, Lk 3^. Had the two Gospels been in a"ree- ment, the record would perhaps never have been disputed, but the discrepancy was too glaring to be ignored. Even before tlie time of Africanus and Origen the incompatibility of the pedigrees (17 dtacpujvicL Tuiv -yfveaXoyLu.'v) had been an occasion of derision to many an earlier opponent of Christian- ity, whom Celsus, according to Origen {Opera, ed. Delanie, i. p. 413), might have named had he been better informed. It is no wonder, then, that from the earliest period to which it can be traced, down to recent times, the Church has treated this subject only defensively, and from the harnionistic stand- point.