Summa III q.31 a.2–3: Christ as Son of David and the two genealogies (Matthew vs. Luke, Joseph's two fathers)

Orientation #

He opens saying they are “up in Question Thirty-One, Article Two,” and predicts Article Three “will completely go mad” — i.e. will make you pull your hair out. Verified sources place the class in Summa Theologiae III, q. 31, a. 2, and probably running into a. 3. The previous class closed by opening the question of Christ’s conception as regards the matter of his body.

The class, in order #

1. Opening prayer (“Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds”) #

Invocation of God, the guardian angels and Thomas Aquinas — that they order and illumine our images and rouse us to consider more correctly.

2. The three objections of a. 2 (“Christ did not take flesh from the seed of David”) #

• Obj. 1: Matthew’s genealogy comes down to Joseph, but Joseph was not Christ’s father (as shown above); so Christ is not of David’s genus.
• Obj. 2: Aaron was of the tribe of Levi (Exodus 6); Mary was the relative of Elizabeth, daughter of Aaron (Luke 1); David was of Judah (Matthew 1:3). He calls this “a strong argument,” because Mary seems to be of the same — priestly — tribe as Elizabeth.
• Obj. 3: Jeremiah 22 of Jechonias: “write this man down as sterile, for there will not be from his seed a man who will sit upon the seat of David”; but Christ will sit upon David’s seat, and Matthew brings the line down through Jechonias.
• Sed contra: Romans 1:3, “who was made from the seed of David according to the flesh.”

3. The body: three reasons Christ is called son of Abraham and David (“a manifold or multiple reason”) #

1. The promise was made specially to these two. To Abraham, Genesis 22: “In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed” — which Paul expounds of Christ, Galatians 3, stressing the singular: not “to seeds” as of many, but “to your seed, which is Christ.” To David: “of the fruit of your venter I will place upon your seat” (he checks ventris, hesitating over “womb”). Hence the crowd’s “Hosanna to the son of David,” Matthew 21.
2. Christ was king, prophet and priest. Abraham was a priest (the Lord says to him, “Take the heifer” — he and the class locate this as the night sacrifice where the terror came over him) and a prophet (Genesis 20, “he is a prophet and will pray for you”). David was king and prophet (the Psalms). His remark: “he ties it up with those three” — but Abraham is not a king and David is not spoken of as a priest, so you need both men to get prophet twice, priest once and king once.
3. Circumcision began in Abraham; David was most of all made known in God’s choice (1 Kings 13: “the Lord seeks for himself a man according to his own heart”) — so Christ, son of both, is shown to be salvation to circumcision (the Jews) and to the choice of the Gentiles.

4. Reply to obj. 1: Mary was of David’s kin (“the objection of the Manichean Faustus”) #

Thomas attributes the objection to Faustus the Manichee; Augustine answers in Book 23 Contra Faustum — “this is the more mature Augustine now.” The argument: the same evangelist says Mary’s husband was Joseph, that the mother of Christ was a virgin, and that Christ is of David’s seed; therefore Mary was not outside David’s kinship. Joseph is called her spouse on account of the confederation of their souls, though there is no mixture in the flesh, and because for the Jews the order of generations was brought down through the male. Jerome on Matthew: Joseph and Mary were of one tribe, since the law in a way forced one to take a spouse generated from the same root.

• Aside on Augustine’s conversion: when Augustine put questions to the Manichees they said “wait till Faustus comes and he’ll clear it up” — like the old teacher saying “wait till Deconic comes.” Augustine saw Faustus did not know the liberal arts, and asked how he could know the higher things without the lower.
• Aside: Lebanese families in America whose sons go back to the village to find a wife — the same-root marriage custom still observed.

5. Reply to obj. 2: the kingly and priestly stocks joined (“that Christ, who is both a king and a priest”) #

Gregory Nazianzen: by a heavenly indication the genus of kings is joined to the stock of the priests, that Christ, rex et sacerdos, might be born from both according to the flesh. Aaron, first priest of the law, took a wife from the tribe of Judah, Elizabeth daughter of Amminadab (a different Elizabeth). So Elizabeth’s father may have taken a wife of David’s stock, or the reverse — Mary’s father of David’s offspring took a wife of Aaron’s. Or, Augustine, Contra Faustum 23: if Joachim, Mary’s father, was of Aaron’s offspring (as Faustus asserts from certain apocryphal scriptures), then his mother or his wife must be believed of David’s offspring.

• His observation: there is a kingly tribe and a priestly tribe but no tribe restricted to the prophetic role; Mary may have “a foot in both.” And Judah and Levi were brothers anyway — same father.
• Aside on the Fathers: Augustine’s titles are full of contra — Vatican II’s point that the Fathers are read for what they did for this or that article of the faith against a heretic denying it; later the summae see it more as a whole. He is unsure whether Augustine wrote anything as long as a summa.

6. Reply to obj. 3 (“he did not reign by a worldly or secular honor”) #

Ambrose on Luke: the prophetic authority does not deny that those born afterwards came from Jechonias’ seed, and Christ was his seed. That Christ reigned is not against the prophecy, because he did not reign by worldly honour — “my kingdom is not of this world.” He says this one he “kind of doesn’t understand” himself, and lets it go.

7. Digression: apparent historical errors in Scripture (“but he died, you know, three chapters back”) #

His brother Richard (philosopher) and wife Dolores (history) reading the Bible together: she notices a man still walking around three chapters after he died. “It’s not good to read the Bible with an historian.” A student raises the parallel used against Christ’s knowledge: Christ names Abiathar high priest at the episode of David’s soldiers eating the bread, though in the Old Testament it was his son. Proposed resolution: in the Passion both Annas and Caiaphas are called high priest, Annas being only the father-in-law — an honorary continuation. Modern parallels offered: Palin still called “governor,” Gingrich still “Mr. Speaker,” ex-presidents still “Mr. President.” Genealogies may likewise name a man already dead when the son is meant.

8. The objections of a. 3 (“the genealogy of Christ is unsuitably woven”) #

1. Isaiah 53: “who can narrate his generation?”
2. Impossible for one man to have two fathers; Matthew says Jacob generated Joseph, Luke that Joseph was son of Heli — contraries.
3. Numbers differ: Matthew from Abraham down to Joseph, forty-two generations; Luke, after the baptism, beginning from Christ up to God, seventy-seven, both extremes counted.
4. 4 Kings 8 gives Joram → Ochozias → Joas → Amasias → Azarias (Ozias) → Joathan; Matthew says Joram generated Ozias — three kings in the middle put out. His question to the class: “Can I be said to generate my grandchildren and great-grandchildren?” — answered, “In some way, probably.”
5. All in the line had fathers, mothers and brothers, yet Matthew names only three mothers (Thamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Urias — he notes the text as given), and names the brothers of Judas and of Jechonias, and Phares and Zara, none of whom Luke lays down.

• Aside: modern scholars say we do not even know the names of the apostles, since the Gospel lists differ.
• Aside: “So you shouldn’t compare the gospels; you should stick with one gospel.”

9. Sed contra and body of a. 3 (“all sacred scripture is divinely inspired”) #

Sed contra: the authority of Scripture — Thomas often says to deny any part of Scripture is to undermine faith, since it is the word of God. Body, very brief: 2 Timothy 3, all Scripture is divinely inspired; but things done divinely are most ordered, Romans 13, “the things which are from God are ordered”; therefore in a suitable order the evangelists described the genealogy.

10. Reply to obj. 1: two generations, one narratable (“that’s more narratable, right?”) #

Jerome on Matthew: Isaiah spoke of the generation of Christ’s divinity; Matthew narrates the generation according to his humanity — nor is the mode of the incarnation unfolded, because that too is ineffable. But the human generation, the fathers from whom he went forth according to the flesh, can be narrated.

• Aside: reading Thomas on John 17, Christ’s prayer for himself, which gives a definition of eternal life — “to know you the Father and him whom you have sent”; one way of taking the second part is that beatitude will consist in knowing not only the divinity but the humanity of Christ, understanding the incarnation as we do not in this life.

11. Reply to obj. 2: the opinions on Joseph’s two fathers (“this cannot stand”) #

Thomas reports the objection as Julian the Apostate’s, and gives the answers diversely:

1. Binomials — the same men under diverse names (Gregory Nazianzen reports this; not necessarily his own). Hoc stare non potest: Matthew puts Solomon as David’s son, Luke Nathan, and by the books of Kings these are brothers.
2. Matthew the true genealogy, Luke the reputed one — “as was thought, the son of Joseph” — because some Jews, on account of the sins of the kings of Judah, believed Christ would come from David but not through the kings, from another stock of private men. He calls this “kind of a strange solution… an odd explanation.”
3. Matthew the fleshly fathers, Luke the spiritual — just men called fathers by likeness of virtue.
4. Augustine, Questions of the New and Old Testament: Joseph is not said by Luke to be son of Heli; rather Heli and Joseph both descended from David in diverse ways, so that as Christ was thought son of Joseph he could be said son of Heli and of all descended from David — Romans 9:5, “from whom Christ is according to the flesh.” He finds this “a little strange,” and illustrates with the Berquist grandchildren, some from Richard only, some from Marcus, some from Duane — “that’s kind of hard to see.”
5. Augustine, Questions on the Gospels: three causes concur, of which each evangelist followed one — one names the father from whom Joseph was generated, the other his grandfather or some more famous relative; or one the natural father and the other the adoptive. His gloss: if I were adopted I could call the adopter my father, or the man who generated me — so in a sense two fathers.
6. The levirate custom: where one died sonless, the near kinsman took his wife, and the son she generated was reckoned to the dead man — “a kind of legal adoption” (On the Consent of the Gospels II). Students recall the seven brothers put to Christ to trap him — “human nature hasn’t changed much.”

• Aside: modern scholars tend to admit Scripture is contradictory; he answers, “I wouldn’t say it’s contradictory, I just say it’s hard to understand.”

12. The Africanus solution (“from a diverse genus of fathers”) #

Thomas says this last is the truer, placed by Jerome in his commentary on Matthew and asserted by Eusebius in the Ecclesiastical History as handed down from Julius Africanus the historian. Mathan (descended through Solomon) and Melchi (of Nathan’s genus, same tribe but not same family) in diverse times had sons of one and the same wife, Estha: Mathan married first and left Jacob; after his death Melchi took the widow and had Heli. So Jacob and Heli are uterine brothers — same mother, different fathers. Heli dying without offspring, Jacob by the mandate of the law took his wife and generated Joseph: by nature his own son, by the precept of the law son of Heli. Hence Matthew says Jacob generated Joseph, Luke describes the legal generation. And though Damascene says the Blessed Virgin attained Joseph by the origin through which his father was called Heli, it is still to be believed that he took his origin from Solomon in some way, through Matthew’s fathers who narrate the fleshly generation — especially since Ambrose says Christ descended from Jechonias’ seed.

13. Closing digression: genealogies, history and memory (“history is one damn thing after another”) #

• On historia: Thomas explains why Aristotle calls the De Anima a historia — he does not take up all the questions one could ask about the soul, so his consideration is incomplete; it is the nature of historia to be incomplete. Hence the Summa’s treatise on the soul and the disputed questions treat what the De Anima did not. He says this fits what we call history today: historians say history is always more complicated than we think, as one finds reading biographies of famous men.
• Definitions of history tossed around by the class: “a bag of tricks,” “agreed-upon lies,” and (attributed to Henry Ford, the assembly-line man) “one damn thing after another” — “that’s a very good definition of it.”
• On genealogies as reading: a popular Bible help saying “it is not impious to skip over this”; the land divisions in Joshua and Chronicles, described by rock, river and tree, needing a photographic memory.
• Photographic memory: Kant as a boy repeating a two-hour sermon; Mozart hearing the piece and writing it out, though they would not let anyone copy it; a high-school classmate who could recite a three-page poem after one reading but “didn’t know what to do with his memory.” Of Thomas: a student says he never forgot what he read; Berquist corrects — “he always understood what he read… more than I can say.”
• Asides on current events: the Pope’s document facilitating Anglicans entering the Church, and the press interviewing Dawkins, who counted the Catholic Church among the worst sources of evil; the writer who said it was too bad Julian did not succeed (“too bad the devil didn’t succeed”) — Julian having had himself baptized in bull’s blood over his Christian baptism; and the Coakley campaign remark about Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, with the story changing in a few days.

His words #

• “goes forward” / “one goes forward thus” — his rendering of videtur quod / proceditur.
• “genus of David” — the stock or line of David.
• “manifold or multiple reason” — multiplex ratio, the several reasons of the body of the article.
• “confederation of their souls” — the bond by which Joseph is called Mary’s spouse though there is no mixture in the flesh.
• rex et sacerdos — king and priest, of Christ born of both tribes.
• “binomials” — men with two names, the first proposed solution of the two fathers; hoc stare non potest.
• “the reputed one” / “as was thought” — Luke’s genealogy on the second solution.
• “uterine brothers” — same mother, different fathers (Jacob and Heli).
• “legal adoption” — the levirate reckoning of the son to the dead brother.
• historia — a big investigation, and by its nature incomplete.
• “narratable” — of the human generation, against the ineffable divine generation.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 31, a. 2 (whole article).
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 31, a. 3 — objections, sed contra, body, replies 1 and 2 (article number inferred).
• Scripture quoted within these: Exodus 6; Luke 1; Matthew 1:1, 1:3, 21; Jeremiah 22; Romans 1:3, 9:5, 13; Genesis 20, 22; Galatians 3; 1 Kings 13; Isaiah 53; 4 Kings 8; 2 Timothy 3.

Mentioned

• Augustine, Contra Faustum XXIII; Questions of the New and Old Testament; Questions on the Gospels; On the Consent of the Gospels II.
• Jerome, commentary on Matthew; Ambrose on Luke; Gregory Nazianzen; John Damascene.
• Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, citing Julius Africanus.
• Aristotle, De Anima (as historia), with Thomas’s commentary; Summa treatise on the soul and Disputed Questions on the Soul.
• Thomas on John 17.

His questions #

• Why is Christ said especially to be son of Abraham and of David? Because the promise was made specially to them; because between them they are prophet, priest and king; and because circumcision began in Abraham and God’s choice was shown in David.
• If Joseph was not Christ’s father, how is Christ of David’s seed? Because Mary herself was of David’s kin — Scripture says both that Christ is of David’s seed and that Mary is his mother — and by law she married within her root.
• If Mary is kin to Elizabeth, daughter of Aaron, how is she of Judah? The kingly and priestly stocks were joined by intermarriage, so that Christ, king and priest, might be born of both.
• Is there a tribe for the prophets, as there is for kings and priests? No; only kingly and priestly tribes, and Judah and Levi were brothers in any case.
• Can I be said to generate my grandchildren and great-grandchildren? “In some way, probably” — which is how Matthew can say Joram generated Ozias with three kings passed over.
• How can Joseph have two fathers, Jacob in Matthew and Heli in Luke? Jacob generated him by nature but raised him up to the dead Heli, his uterine brother, by the law’s precept — Luke describing the legal generation.
• Is Scripture contradictory in these places? No: “I wouldn’t say it’s contradictory, I just say it’s hard to understand.”
• Why does Aristotle call the De Anima a historia? Because he does not take up all the questions about the soul; it belongs to historia to be incomplete.