When speaking on the science of Biblical Exegesis, St. Augustine says that one must always adopt the literal interpretation of Scripture, “unless reason dictates or necessity requires.” Echoing him, St. Robert Bellarmine wrote, “One should not have recourse to figures, and leave the proper sense of the words, except when some absurdity would somehow follow.”[1] This has always been the teaching of the Catholic Church. In modern times, however, certain Catholics have begun to wonder if some scriptural passages might need to be taken figuratively, since their literal interpretation would allegedly end in absurdity. A prominent example would be the genealogies given in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. I will set out to examine these, their differences, their potential reconciliation and harmonization, comment on their historicity, and, finally, see if they can assist us in what has been called the “synoptic problem.” To do this effectively, I will divide this paper into three sections: first, I will discuss the Church’s teaching on scriptural inerrancy, second, the interpretation of the genealogies by modern scholars—foremost amongst these Fr. Raymond Brown—and finally, see how the passages can be harmonized with the help of Catholic commentators.
1.1 Catholic Principles and Scriptural Inerrancy
A fundamental principle asserted by the Magisterium regarding scriptural exegesis is the absolute inerrancy of Holy Scripture.[2] As Leo XIII wrote, “[Divine Inspiration] not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and constant faith of the Church.”[3]
That it is the “ancient and constant faith of the Church” is hardly an exaggeration. St. Justin Martyr wrote: “But I shall not venture to say such a thing [that the Scriptures err] . . . since I am entirely convinced that no Scripture contradicts another[.]”[4] Likewise St. Irenaeus writes, “If, however, we cannot discover explanations of all those things in Scripture . . . yet let us not on that account seek after any other God besides Him who really exists, for this is very greatest impiety.”[5] In fact, the theologian Michauele Nicolau says “the constant and universal, perpetual and universal tradition holds absolutely that there is no error in Scripture nor is it even possible; this is proposed as a dogma of faith.”[6]
Later theologians were to teach the same thing. Foremost amongst these, St. Thomas argued that everything contained in Scripture was to be held as a matter of faith, even assertions of a historical or scientific nature. Even if it was not a matter of faith per se, it was per accidents, that is, anything in the revealed word of God is a matter of faith because of who revealed it.[7] Case in point: Certain authors claimed that St. John corrected the earlier evangelists on the date of the Passover. In reaction to this claim, St. Thomas said: “It is heretical to claim that something false is found, not only in the Gospels but in any part of the canonical Scriptures, and so it is necessary to say that all the Evangelists say the same and disagree in nothing.”[8] St. Robert Bellarmine, in a famed letter to Foscarini, would assert the same principle.
The Magisterium of the Catholic Church would later bind her members to this teaching. Pope St. Pius X, in his encyclical Lamentabile Sane, formally condemned the following proposition: “Divine Inspiration does not extend to all of Sacred Scripture so that it renders its parts, each and every one, free from all error.”[9] Finally, Pope Pius XII would explicitly affirm that this inspiration applies to more than matters of faith and morals. “[Certain authors] put forward the opinion, already often condemned, that asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters. They even wrongly speak of a human sense of Scriptures, beneath which a divine sense, which they say is the only infallible meaning, lies hidden.”[10]
In conclusion, Scriptural Inerrancy is the Catholic teaching which asserts that all the sentences of Scripture are infallibly true, not only those which treat of faith and morals, but in all their parts and in all their claims. Due to its universal teaching in the patristics, medievals, and in the magisterium, theologians state that the absolute inerrancy of Holy Scripture is a dogma of the faith.[11] Because of this, when examining the genealogies we can accept no claims that would contradict the Church’s teaching on the absolute inerrancy of Scripture.[12]
1.2 The Genealogies
Having established Catholic rules for biblical scholarship, I will turn to the genealogies themselves. St. Matthew records his genealogy in his Gospel 1:1-17, while St. Luke does the same in 3:23-33. At first glance the two accounts do seem to differ on three different accounts, namely, in structure, in number of generations, and in names.[13]
Their structure is certainly different. St. Luke begins with the living witnesses, and traces their genealogy back to the creation of Adam. St. Matthew, on the other hand, does things in the reverse order.[14] The generations also don’t seem to line up. St. Matthew breaks the generations neatly into three sets of fourteen: “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations. And from David to the transmigration of Babylon are fourteen generations: and from the transmigration of Babylon to Christ are fourteen generations.” St. Luke, on the other hand—at least, according to how some commentators look at things[15]—has eleven groups of seven in his genealogy. And while “Matthew traces Jesus’ ancestry only back to Abraham,”[16] even within this timeframe St. Luke gives fifty-seven names and St. Matthew forty-two. Perhaps most strikingly, the names do not match up. Indeed, The Anchor Bible gives a cogent summary of these differences:
For the monarchic period, Matthew lists Jesus’ Davidic ancestors as Solomon to Jachoniah, whereas Luke lists them from Nathan to Neri before these two lists coincide again with Shealtiel and Zerubbabel. Matthew mentions fourteen names (one mentioned twice, Jeconiah) in this interval, wheras Luke has twenty. [ . . . ] But save for Nathan, David’s third son born in Jerusalem, the rest of the names used by Luke are unknown.
[ . . .]In the postexilic part of the genealogy, if Jesus’ nine ancestors in the Matthean list are otherwise unknown, so are the eighteen in the corresponding part of the Lucan, where not one of them corresponds with any of the nine in the Matthean genealogy.[17]
In short, when the two Evangelists are covering the same time period, there are seemingly large discrepancies in numbers, and almost no similarity in names. Taking these passages literally, at first, would seem to contradict the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church on scriptural inerrancy.
Indeed, this is exactly the conclusion arrived at by modern biblical commentaries. The Anchor Bible concludes, “It is obvious that the New Testament has preserved for us two strikingly different genealogies of Jesus, which resist all harmonization.”[18] Raymond Brown explicitly states that these genealogies are error-ridden and historically baseless: “Its circulation in a popular rather than archival context is suggested by its errors and omissions, probably stemming from confusing similarities in the Greek forms of the royal names.”[19] For example, he claims that Matthew’s inclusion of Asaph is historically impaired,[20] that the genealogies were cobbled together from already existing (and very inaccurate) manuscripts,[21] and that “the desire to spare Matthew an error may stem from a theory of inerrancy or from an overestimation of Matthew’s knowledge of scripture[.]”[22] That a “theory of inerrancy” is actually a dogma of the faith according to Church teaching did not seem to faze Fr. Brown.
To summarize: modern scholars such as Fitzmyer and Brown claim that the genealogies are “not biological,”[23] but were largely borrowed from historically inaccurate manuscripts of the ancient world. They argue this on three basic grounds:
First, because the stylistic representation of the genealogies is different.
Second, because the genealogies themselves seem to differ on points of structure and number.
Finally, because the names do not seem to match up at all.
At first glance, all of this might seem to warrant a departure from the literal interpretation of Scripture. As a Catholic, however, a position like this cannot be maintained. Not only is it directly contrary to the doctrinal points laid out in the first few pages of this essay, but it runs contrary to the interpretation of the Church Fathers. A simple glance through the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas shows that none of the early Fathers even thought about giving these passages a figurative interpretation.[24] They did, however, seek to harmonize these two passages, seeing it as a necessity for defending the Word of God. And what may be surprising is that they succeeded remarkably well.
1.3 Harmonization
First of all, the fact that the two accounts are stylistically diverse does not detract from their merit in any way. Modern biblical scholars make this seem like a great problem.[25] However, choosing to list names either from Christ to Abraham or from Abraham to Christ presents no great difficulty, as there are obvious stylistic differences between the two authors. Nor does the fact that St. Matthew goes back to Abraham and St. Luke to Adam present any difficulty, as the Evangelists had different goals in the writing of their Epistles. St. Matthew was seeking to show Christ as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. As such, Abraham was an excellent starting point. St. Luke, on the other hand, wished to show God’s merciful love to the whole human race. This is evidenced in his choice of parables: the Good Shepherd, the Prodigal Son, and the Pharisee and the Tax collector. As such, beginning the story of Redemption at the very beginning of time fits with Luke’s overall goal.
It is, however, the final two points that make people shy away from the genealogies in the Gospel. Instead of addressing them separately, I will present what the Catholic commentaries through time have said about these passages and will show how they can, indeed, by harmonized.
Cornelius a Lapide, one of the great biblical scholars 16th century, began his harmonization with a discussion of Christ’s grandfather. It is here that the two scriptures seem to differ. St. Matthew makes the following list: Mathon, Jacob, Joseph, the husband of Mary, who is the Mother of Christ. St. Luke, on the other hand, lists, Mathat, Heli, Joseph, the husband of Mary, the Mother of Christ. The first discrepancy is with whether Jesus’ grandfather is Heli or Jacob. It is, ironically, this passage that will shed light on the two seemingly different accounts. A Lapide writes:
I say that it was quite likely that in the time of Christ it was very well known that Mathan was the common grandfather of Joseph and the Blessed Virgin; and that Jacob, the father of Joseph, and Heli, or Joachim (the father of the Blessed Virgin), were full brothers—or rather, that Jacob was the brother of St. Anne, the wife of Heli or Joachim, and mother of the Blessed Virgin; hence the genealogy of one is the genealogy of the other. For the Blessed Virgin was descended, through her mother, Anna, from Jacob, Mathan, and Solomon, and through her father, Joachim or Heli, from Mathat and Nathan. So Matthew traces the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin through her mother St. Anne, who was the sister of Jacob and the daughter of Mathan and who married Heli, or Joachim, and by him bore the blessed Virgin Mary; while Luke traces it through her father Heli, i.e., Joachim, so that Christ may be shown to be descended of the seed of David both through her father and through her mother.[26]
In other words, Matthew records the genealogy of Our Lady through her mother St. Anne. St. Anne’s brother was Jacob, who was also the father of St. Joseph. St. Matthew thus shows the Davidic and royal lineage of Jesus through St. Joseph and his father Jacob. St. Luke, on the other hand, records the Our Lady’s line through St. Joachim, referred to by his shorter name of “Heli.”[27] Thus, the reason that the names and numbers between King David and Joseph are different is because they are recording two different lines of descent. Lapide explains:
Matthew traces Christ’s descent through His father Joseph, Luke through His mother, the Blessed Virgin: both lines are united in David, but after him separate, through his two sons Solomon and Nathan, into two lines of descendants, continuing to Joseph and Mary, respectively. Matthew traces the lineage through Solomon; Luke—by Nathan.[28]
To summarize, the Davidic line was separated between David’s two sons Solomon and Nathan. St. Matthew records the line from Solomon to Jacob, the father of St. Joseph and the brother of St. Anne. St. Luke, on the other hand, records the Davidic line through Nathan to Joachim, the husband of St. Anne. As a Lapide concludes:
It is clear . . . that the Blessed Virgin was descended through her mother, St. Anne, from Solomon, as was Joseph; but but by her father, Heli, or Joachim, she was descended from Nathan, who was Solomon’s brother and a son of David.[29]
This reconciles the two passages back until David. And prior to David, the two genealogies provide the exact same sequence of names,[30] only that Matthew adds the names of a few mothers and specifies that David is a king.
By now it should be quite clear that the genealogies are not the fictitious inaccuracies imagined by Raymond Brown. Rather, they record the historical generations of Jesus Christ, albeit from slightly different perspectives. They effectively agree in everything until King David, and they then differ only because they record two separate lines of Christ’s Davidic heritage, which explains differences in both number and name.[31]
1.4 Conclusion
In conclusion, the genealogies of Matthew and Luke provide another example of why faith in the Church, Sacred Tradition, and Sacred Scripture is so important. Instead of cowering before the unscrupulous claims leveled against Christ and His Church, we should be supremely confident in the revelation given us by Almighty God. The claims of rationalists, which, at first glance, seem to be so strong, crumble like the Tower of Babel upon further inquiry. Trusting in the inerrancy of Scripture is of paramount importance to restoring the Church—and inerrancy in all matters.
Footnotes:
[1]De Controversiae, “On the Church Triumphant,” Bk. 1 Ch. 3.
[2]In modern times the term “limited inerrancy” has become more popular. This would seek to limit scriptural inerrancy to matters of faith and morals, while leaving open the possibility of error in other matters (e.g. in scientific or historical assertions, etc.) This position, however, was rejected by Pope Pius X in the form of the following condemned proposition: “Divine Inspiration does not extend to all of Sacred Scriptures so that it renders its parts, each and every one, free from every error,” Lamentabili Sane, 11. Pius XII also condemned this view in Humani Generis, as I will explain later. Some have claimed that the Second Vatican Council’s document Dei Verbum reversed this teaching. I would respond to this in two ways. First, since this teaching is infallible, it cannot be reversed. Second, if one examines the document closely (especially in the original Latin) one sees clearly that it is completely consistent with the previous teachings of the Church.
[3]Providentissimus Deus, 20.
[4]Dialogue Cum Tryphone, 65: R 138.
[5]Adversus haererses, 2,28,2, R 138. For more Patristic evidence of Scriptural Inerrancy, see Michaele Nicolau, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB, Article VII, Thesis 8.
[6]Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB, Article VII, Thesis 8, 173. Since this teaching is “constant and universal,” this is equivalent to saying that it is taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium, which teaches infallibly according to both the Second Vatican Council and John Paul II’s universal Profession of Faith for the Catholic Church promulgated in 1989. By analogy, while the Church has never explicitly taught that Mary did not perform actual sin during her life, since it is a belief taught by the entire tradition of the Church, it is taught infallibly. A good explanation of the ordinary and universal magisterium is contained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzzWp-X7ZYc
[7]Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 1, a. 7, ad. 2.
[8]Commentary on the Gospel of John, XIII, Lect. 1.
[9]Lamentabile Sane, 11.
[10]Humani Generis, as quoted in Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB, Article VII, Thesis 8, 172.
[11]Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB, Article VII, Thesis 8, 171.
[12] I should mention, in passing, that certain other passages of Scripture are used to claim that Scripture cannot be inerrant in all it teachings, such as passages supporting geocentrism, creation, or views about the particular sizes of mustard seeds, etc. Addressing all of these would be beyond the scope of this essay, but I will briefly comment on the latter one. As Hugh Owen of the Kolbe Center rightly points out, making a statement of common parlance (e.g. pointing to a seed that was commonly believed to be the largest in a particular region) is a far cry from claiming that whole historical passages of Scripture—ones believed universally by the teachers of Holy Church to be historical—are historically erroneous and fictitious. Mr. Owen’s interview can be found here: https://athanasiuscm.org/2015/05/04/interview-011-hugh-owen-of-the-kolbe-center/.
[13] I am not pretending that this is an exhaustive list. However, I think these three will generally answer the most common objections put forward by modern scholars against the accuracy of these genealogies.
[14] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke: The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries, p. 495.
[15] Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, p. 496. Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, p. 90. Brown does not favor this thesis but mentions its possibility.
[16]Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, p. 495.
[17]Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, p. 496.
[18]Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, p. 496.
[19]Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, p. 70.
[20]The Birth of the Messiah, p. 60.
[21]The Birth of the Messiah, p. 88.
[22]The Birth of the Messiah, p. 61.
[23]The Birth of the Messiah, p. 65.
[24] The Council of Trent, it should be noted, declared that “no one, relying on his own skill, shall, in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,–whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures, hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.” Council of Trent, Fourth Session, “Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures,” available at: https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/trent/fourth-session.htm.
[25] Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, p. 496.
[26]Cornelius A Lapide, The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, p. 322.
[27] Cornelius a Lapide writes later on, “Heli is, therefore, called the father of Joseph—father in the sense of father-in-law; for Heli is a short form of the name Eliakim, or Joachim, the husband of St. Anne and the father of the Blessed Virgin, whose husband was Joseph, who is, therefore, the son-in-law of Joachim and Anne. Thus Joakim the king of Juda is called “Eliacim” in 4 Kings 23:24 and 2 Parlipomenon 36:4, and Eliachim the high priest is called Joachim (Judith 4:11). Just as Jehova or Jo in the name Joakim is the name for God, so, too, El is the name for God is the name Eliakim; thus the rabbis and Hilary,” Gospel according to Luke, p. 324.
[28]Cornelius A Lapide, The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, p. 324.
[29]Cornelius A Lapide, The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, p. 324.
[30]Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Juda/Judas, Phares, Esrom, Aram, Aminabad, Naason, Salmon, Booz, Obed, Jesse, David.
[31] I should also mention that the Church Fathers do admit the possibility of Matthew (whose list is shorter) leaving out certain names intentionally if they did not serve his purpose.
