Antonomasia* for " The Messiah." And that family consisted so exclusively of Jesus and His relatives, that any one who knew Him to belong to it could not fail, even without the light of faith, to acknowledge Him as the Messiah, since the period foretold by the prophets for His manifestation had already arrived, and none of our Lord's relations could be compared with Himself. Our Lord's descent, therefore, from the race of David, as well as His birth at Bethlehem, were less publicly known ; nay, rather He was in some degree veiled, as it were, by the name of Nazareney that faith might not lose its price.2 — See John vii. 27, 41, 42. And thus men, having been first induced on other grounds to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, concluded, on the same grounds, that He must be the Son of David. — See Matt. xii. 23. The necessary public documents, however, were in existence, whence it came to pass, that the chief priests, though employing every means against our Lord, never questioned His descent from David. Nay, even the Romans received much information concerning the Davidical descent of Jesus. — See Luke ii. 4. Of old the facility with which His descent could be traced, showed Jesus to be the Son of David : now the very difficulty of so doing (caused as it is by the destruction of Jerusalem, and all the public records which it contained), affords a proof, against the Jews at least, that the Messiah must long since have come. Should they acknowledge any other as the Messiah, they must ascertain his descent from David in precisely the same manner that we do that of Jesus of Nazareth. As light, however, ad vanced, the aspect of the question has not a little changed. Jesus was called, on various occasions, " The Son of David" by the multitude (ch. xii. 23, xxi. 9), by children (xxi. 15), by the blind men (ix. 27, xx. 30), by the woman of Canaan (xv. 22): but He never declared to His disciples that He was the Son of David, and they, in their professions of faith, called Him, not « The Son of David," but « The Son of God." He invited, also, those who called Him the Son of David, to advance further. —
1 The substitution of an appellative designation for a proper name. — ED. See explanation of technical terms in Appendix. — (I. B.)
2 " Ut pretium fidei maneret." Faith was allowed to remain attended •with seeming difficulties, at the cost of surmounting which, men were appointed to attain to it. — ED.