The Harmony of the Gospels 2.6–2.16

Even if Luke too had said that Joseph was begotten by Heli, this word ought not so to disturb us as to make us believe anything other than that one evangelist recorded the begetting father, the other the adopting father. For it is not absurd to say that someone has begotten, not by the flesh but by love, one whom he has adopted as his son. Or indeed, did God beget us too, to whom he has given power to become his sons, from his nature and substance, as he begot his only Son? No, he certainly adopted us by love. The apostle is understood to use this word often for no other reason than to distinguish the only-begotten before every creature, through whom all things were made, who alone was born of the substance of the Father, being according to the equality of divinity entirely what the Father is; whom he says was sent to take up flesh from that race to which we too belong according to our nature, so that by his sharing our mortality through love he might make us sharers of his divinity through adoption. For he says thus: “But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive the adoption of sons.” And yet we are also said to be born of God, that is, having received power to be made his sons, we who were already human beings; but we are made so by grace, not by nature. For if we were sons by nature, we would never have been anything else. For when John had said, “He gave them power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name,” he went on to say, “who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” So those whom he said were made sons of God by receiving power, which is what the adoption that Paul mentions signifies, he said were born of God. And to show more clearly by what grace this was done, he says, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” as if to say: What wonder if they were made sons of God though they were flesh, since for their sake the only Son was made flesh though he was the Word? With this great difference indeed, that we, made sons of God, are changed for the better, while he, the Son of God, when he was made the Son of Man, was not changed for the worse, but took up what was lower. James too says, “Of his own will he begot us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of beginning of his creation.” Lest we should think, because he says “begot,” that we are made what he himself is, he shows clearly enough that a certain primacy in creation is granted us by this adoption.

It would not, then, be foreign to the truth even if Luke had said that Joseph was begotten by him by whom he had been adopted. For even so he begot him, not to be a man, but to be a son, just as God begot us to be his sons, whom he had made to be human beings. But his only Son he begot not only to be a Son, which the Father is not, but also to be God, which the Father also is. But clearly, if Luke too had used this word, it would be altogether ambiguous which of them had recorded the adopting father and which the father begetting from his own flesh; just as, even if neither of them had said “begot,” but the one had called him the son of one man and the other of another, it would nonetheless be ambiguous which of them had recorded the father from whom he was born and which the father by whom he was adopted. But as it is, since the one says, “Jacob begot Joseph,” and the other, “Joseph, who was the son of Heli,” they have elegantly indicated by the very difference of their words what each had undertaken. But this, as I said, could easily occur to a religious person who would judge that anything else should be sought rather than believe that the evangelist had lied; it would easily occur to him, I say, to see for what reasons one man could have had two fathers. It would have occurred even to those slanderers, had they not preferred quarreling to considering.

But the point to be conveyed next really required a most attentive and careful reader for it to be noticed and seen. For it has been acutely observed that Matthew, who had set out to convey the royal character in Christ, named forty men in the series of generations, Christ himself excepted. This number signifies that time in which, in this world and on this earth, we must be ruled by Christ according to the laborious discipline by which God, as it is written, “scourges every son whom he receives,” of which the apostle says that “through tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God.” This is also signified by that rod of iron of which we read in the psalm, “You shall rule them with a rod of iron,” after it had said above, “But I have been set up as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain.” For the good too are ruled with a rod of iron, of whom it is said, “It is time for judgment to begin from the house of the Lord; and if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not believe the gospel of God? And if the righteous will scarcely be saved, where will the sinner and the ungodly appear?” To these belongs what follows: “You shall break them like a potter's vessel.” For the good are ruled by this discipline, while the evil are broken to pieces; and they are mentioned as though they were the same people because of the one and the same sacraments which the evil have in common with the good.

Because, then, this number is the sacrament of this laborious time in which we fight against the devil under the discipline of Christ the king, this too makes it plain: the law and the prophets consecrated a fast of forty days, that is, a humbling of the soul, through Moses and Elijah, who fasted forty days each; and the gospel did so through the fast of the Lord himself, during which forty days he was also tempted by the devil. What else did he prefigure but temptation through the whole time of this world in his flesh, which he deigned to take from our mortality? After the resurrection too he willed to be on this earth with the disciples no longer than forty days, mingling with this life of theirs still in human companionship, and taking with them the food of mortals, although he was no longer going to die, so that by these forty days he might signify that by a hidden presence he would fulfill what he had promised when he said, “Behold, I am with you until the consummation of the world.” As to why this number signifies this temporal and earthly life, for the moment this reason comes readily to mind, though there may be another more hidden: that the seasons of the years run in fourfold turns, and the world itself is bounded by four parts, which Scripture sometimes mentions by the names of the winds, from east and west, from north and south. And forty contains ten four times; moreover, ten itself is completed by the numbers proceeding from one to four.

Taking up, then, Christ the king coming to this world and to this earthly and mortal life of human beings, to rule us as we labor in temptation, Matthew began from Abraham and enumerated forty men. For Christ came in the flesh from that very Hebrew nation, for whose distinction from the other nations God separated Abraham from his land and his kindred, so that this too, the promise of the nation from which he would come, might serve above all to prophesy and foretell him more distinctly. For although he divided the four tens of generations into three sections, saying that there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, another fourteen from David to the deportation to Babylon, and as many more to the birth of Christ, he did not add them up to say, “They make forty-two in all.” For one among those ancestors is counted twice, namely Jechoniah, with whom there was a certain turning aside toward foreign nations when the deportation to Babylon took place. Now where a line is bent from its straight course and, to go in a different direction, makes as it were a corner, what is at the corner is counted twice, namely at the end of the first line and at the head of the turn itself. And this too prefigured that Christ would in a way pass from the circumcision to the uncircumcision, as from Jerusalem to Babylon, and would become the cornerstone for those of both sides who believe in him. God was then preparing these things in figure for the realities to come. For Jechoniah himself, at whom this corner was prefigured, means “preparation of God.” So, then, there are not forty-two generations, which three times fourteen make, but, because one is counted twice, forty-one generations, if we count Christ himself too, who presides like a king over the ruling of this temporal and earthly life of ours, signified by the number forty.

Because Matthew wished to signify that he was descending to share this mortality with us, he therefore recorded the generations themselves from Abraham to Joseph and to the birth of Christ himself in descending order, at the beginning of his Gospel. Luke, however, recounts the generations not at the beginning but from the baptism of Christ, and not descending but ascending, marking him rather as the priest in the expiation of sins, where the voice from heaven declared him, where John bore witness to him, saying, “Behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” And in ascending he passes beyond Abraham and reaches God, to whom, cleansed and expiated, we are reconciled. Rightly too he took up the line of adoption, because through adoption we are made sons of God by believing in the Son of God, whereas through carnal generation the Son of God was rather made Son of Man for our sake. And he showed clearly enough that he called Joseph the son of Heli not because he was begotten by him but because he had been adopted by him, when he called Adam himself the son of God, since he was made by God, but was established in paradise as a son through grace, which he later lost by sinning.

Therefore in Matthew's generations is signified the Lord Christ's taking up of our sins, while in Luke's is signified the Lord Christ's abolition of our sins. That is why the one recounts them descending and the other ascending. For when the apostle says, “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” this is the taking up of sins; and when he adds, “so that by sin he might condemn sin in the flesh,” this is the expiation of sins. So Matthew descends from David himself through Solomon, in whose mother David sinned; but Luke ascends to David himself through Nathan, the prophet through whom God expiated his sin. The very number that Luke follows out also points most certainly to the abolition of sins. For because no iniquity of Christ, who had none, is joined to the iniquities of human beings, which he took up in his flesh, the number in Matthew, Christ excepted, is forty. But because he joins us, expiated and cleansed from all sin, to his own and his Father's righteousness, so that what the apostle says comes about, “He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit,” in the number given in Luke both Christ himself, with whom the enumeration begins, and God, with whom it ends, are counted, and the number becomes seventy-seven, by which is signified the remission and abolition of absolutely all sins. This the Lord himself also plainly expressed through the mystery of this number, saying that one who sins is to be forgiven not only seven times but seventy-seven times.

Nor, if one inquires more carefully, is it without reason that this number belongs to the cleansing of all sins. For ten is shown as the number of righteousness in the ten commandments of the law. Moreover, sin is transgression of the law, and the transgression of the number ten is fittingly figured by eleven; hence too eleven curtains of goats' hair are commanded to be made in the tabernacle. And who would doubt that goats' hair belongs to the signification of sin? And so, because all time revolves in a number of seven days, all sins fittingly reach the number seventy-seven when eleven is multiplied seven times. In this number too there comes about the full remission of sins, since the flesh of our priest, with whom this number now begins, expiates us, and he reconciles us to God, with whom this number now ends, through the Holy Spirit, who appeared in the form of a dove at this baptism where this number is recorded.

After listing the generations, Matthew continues thus: “Now the generation of Christ was thus. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” How this came about, which he here passed over, Luke set out, after recording the conception of John, narrating thus: “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from the Lord to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in to her and said, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.’ When she saw him, she was troubled at his word and considered what kind of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not fear, Mary, for you have found grace with God. Behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ And Mary said to the angel, ‘How shall this be, since I do not know a man?’ And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God,’” and the rest, which does not belong to the present point. This, then, is what Matthew recorded about Mary: “She was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” Nor is it contradictory that Luke set out what Matthew passed over, since both testify that Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit; just as it is not contradictory that Matthew next adds what Luke passes over. For Matthew goes on to say: “But Joseph her husband, being righteous and not wanting to expose her, wished to put her away secretly. But while he was thinking this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what has been born in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, ‘Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,’ which is interpreted, God with us. And Joseph, rising from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took his wife; and he did not know her until she bore her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. When, then, Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod,” and so on.

On the city of Bethlehem Matthew and Luke agree; but how and for what reason Joseph and Mary came to it, Luke explains and Matthew passes over. On the other hand, about the magi coming from the east Luke is silent, while Matthew speaks of them, continuing thus: “Behold, magi came from the east to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.’ When King Herod heard this, he was troubled,” and so on, up to the place where it is written of the magi that, having received an answer in dreams not to return by way of Herod, they went back to their own country by another way. All this Luke passed over, just as Matthew did not narrate what Luke narrates: that the Lord was laid in a manger; that an angel announced his birth to shepherds; that a multitude of the heavenly army was with the angel, praising God; that the shepherds came and saw that what the angel had announced to them was true; that on the day of his circumcision he received his name; and what the same Luke narrates after the days of Mary's purification were completed, that they brought him to Jerusalem; and about Simeon and Anna, what they said of him in the temple after they recognized him, being filled with the Holy Spirit. All these things Matthew passes over in silence.

Hence it is rightly asked when the things took place that Matthew passes over and Luke tells, or that Luke passes over and Matthew tells. For after the magi who had come from the east returned to their own country, Matthew goes on to narrate that Joseph was warned by an angel to flee with the infant into Egypt so that he would not be killed by Herod; then that Herod, not finding him, killed the boys two years old and under; and that after Herod's death he returned from Egypt and, hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea in place of his father Herod, lived with the child in the region of Galilee in the city of Nazareth; all of which Luke passes over. Nor can it seem contradictory because one tells what the other passes over or the other records what this one does not say. But it is asked: when could the things Matthew relates have happened, the departure into Egypt and the return from there after Herod's death so that they were then living in the city of Nazareth, to which Luke records that they returned after they had completed everything concerning the child in the temple according to the law of the Lord? Here, then, we must learn something that will hold good from now on for other such cases, so that they may not likewise trouble and disturb the mind: each evangelist so composes his narrative that it seems to be an ordered sequence of one who passes over nothing. For, keeping silent about what he does not want to say, he so joins what he does want to say to what he was saying that these seem to follow immediately. But when one says what the other has passed over, careful consideration of the order shows the place where the one who passed them over could leap across them, so as to join what he intended to say to what went before as though it followed with nothing in between. And by this it is understood that Matthew, where he says that the magi were warned in a dream not to return by way of Herod and returned to their own country by another way, passed over there what Luke narrated as done concerning the Lord in the temple and said by Simeon and Anna; while Luke, in turn, passing over the departure into Egypt that Matthew narrates, joined the return to the city of Nazareth as though it were continuous.