Church Fathers Commentary Matthew 1:1

"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." — Matthew 1:1 (ASV)

St. Jerome: "The face of a man" (in Ezekiel's vision) signifies Matthew, who accordingly opens his Gospel with the human genealogy of Christ.¹

Rabanus Maurus: By this introduction, he shows that he has undertaken to narrate the birth of Christ according to the flesh.

Pseudo-Chrysostom: Matthew wrote for the Jews, and in Hebrewⁱ; for them, it was unnecessary to explain the divinity which they already recognized, but it was necessary to unfold the mystery of the Incarnation. John wrote in Greek for the Gentiles, who knew nothing of a Son of God. Therefore, they first needed to be told that the Son of God was God, and then that this Deity was incarnate.²

Rabanus Maurus: Although the genealogy occupies only a small part of the volume, he still begins with the words, The book of the generation. For it is the custom of the Hebrews to name their books from their opening words, such as Genesis.

Glossa Ordinaria: The full expression would be, "This is the book of the generation," but this is a common ellipsis; for example, "The vision of Isaiah" is used for, "This is the vision."

He uses "generation" in the singular, even though many successive generations are given, because the others are introduced for the sake of the one generation of Christ.

St. John Chrysostom: Or, he entitles it The book of the generation because this is the sum of the whole dispensation, the root of all its blessings—namely, that God became man. For once this was accomplished, all other things followed as a matter of course.³

Rabanus Maurus: He says, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, because he knew it was written, The book of the generation of Adam. He begins this way, then, to oppose book to book, the new Adam to the old. For by the one, all things that had been corrupted by the other were restored.

St. Jerome: We read in Isaiah, Who shall declare his generation? (Isaiah 53:8). But it does not follow that the Evangelist contradicts the Prophet or undertakes what he declares to be impossible. For Isaiah is speaking of the generation of the divine nature, while Matthew is speaking of the human incarnation.⁴

St. John Chrysostom: And do not consider this genealogy a small thing to hear, for it is truly a marvelous thing that God should descend to be born of a woman and to have David and Abraham as His ancestors.

Remigius of Auxerre: Even if someone affirms that the prophet Isaiah does speak of His human generation, we need not answer his inquiry, "Who shall declare it?" with "No man," but rather with, "Very few," because Matthew and Luke have done so.

Rabanus Maurus: By saying, "of Jesus Christ," he expresses that both the kingly and priestly offices are in Him. For Joshua, who first bore the name Jesus, was the leader of the children of Israel after Moses; and Aaron, anointed with the mystical ointment, was the first priest under the Law.

St. Hilary of Poitiers: The same status that God conferred on those consecrated as kings or priests by the anointing of oil, the Holy Spirit conferred on the man Christ, adding a purification as well. The Holy Spirit cleansed that which was taken from the Virgin Mary and exalted into the body of the Savior. This is the anointing of the Savior's flesh from which He was called Christ.ⁱ⁵

Because the impious craft of the Jews denied that Jesus was born of the seed of David, Matthew adds, The son of David, the son of Abraham.

St. John Chrysostom: But why would it not have been enough to name only one of them, either David or Abraham? Because the promise that Christ would be born of their seed had been made to both. To Abraham: And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed (Genesis 22:18). To David: Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne (Psalm 132:11).

He therefore calls Christ the Son of both to show that the promise to both was fulfilled in Him. It is also because Christ was to have three dignities: King, Prophet, and Priest. Abraham was a prophet and a priest—a priest, as God says to him in Genesis, Take an heifer (Genesis 15:9); and a prophet, as the Lord said to Abimelech concerning him, He is a prophet, and shall pray for thee (Genesis 20:7). David was a king and a prophet, but not a priest.

Thus, He is expressly called the son of both so that the threefold dignity of His forefathers might be recognized by hereditary right in Christ.

St. Ambrose of Milan: He therefore specifically names two authors of His birth: one who received the promise concerning the nations of the world, and the other who obtained the oracle concerning the generation of Christ. And though David is later in the order of succession, he is named first, inasmuch as it is greater to have received the promise concerning Christ than the promise concerning the Church, which exists through Christ. For He who saves is greater than that which is saved.⁶

St. Jerome: The order of the names is inverted, but out of necessity. For if he had written Abraham first and David afterward, he would have had to repeat Abraham's name again to preserve the genealogical series.

Pseudo-Chrysostom: Another reason is that royal dignity is above natural dignity; though Abraham was first in time, David is first in honor.

Glossa Ordinaria: But since it appears from this title that the whole book is about Jesus Christ, it is first necessary to know what we must believe concerning Him. For in this way, what the book relates about Him will be better explained.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Cerinthus and Ebion, for instance, made Jesus Christ merely a man. Paul of Samosata, following them, asserted that Christ did not exist from eternity but began to exist at His birth from the Virgin Mary; he also thought Him to be nothing more than a man. This heresy was later confirmed by Photinus.⁷

Pseudo-Athanasius: The Apostle John, seeing this man's madness long before by the Holy Spirit, rouses him from his deep sleep of error with the proclamation of his voice, saying, In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1).⁸

Therefore, He who was with God in the beginning could not, in these last times, take the beginning of His being from man. He says further (let Photinus hear his words), Father, glorify Me with that glory which I had with Thee before the world was (John 17:5).

St. Augustine of Hippo: The error of Nestorius was that he taught that only a man was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom the Word of God did not receive into a unity of person and inseparable fellowship—a doctrine which Catholic ears could not endure.⁹

St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Apostle says of the Only-Begotten, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God (Philippians 2:6).¹⁰ Who then is this, who is in the form of God? And how did He empty Himself and humble Himself to the likeness of man?

If the heretics mentioned above, who divide Christ into two parts—that is, the Man and the Word—affirm that it was the Man who was emptied of glory, they must first show what form and equality with the Father are understood to be, and what existed that could suffer any kind of emptying.

But no creature is, in its own proper nature, equal with the Father. How then can any creature be said to be emptied? From what eminence could it descend to become man? Or how can he be understood to have taken upon himself the form of a servant, as though he did not have it at first?

But, they say, the Word, being equal with the Father, dwelt in a man born of a woman, and this is the emptying. I hear the Son Himself truly saying to the holy Apostles, If any man love Me, he will keep My saying, and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him (John 14:23).

Listen to how He says that He and the Father will dwell in those who love Him. Do you then suppose we shall grant that He is emptied of His glory and has taken on the form of a servant when He makes His home in the hearts of those who love Him? Or does the Holy Spirit accomplish an assumption of human flesh when He dwells in our hearts?

Isidore of Pelusium: But not to mention all arguments, let us bring forward the one to which all arguments point: for one who was God to assume a lowly guise has an obvious purpose, is an adaptation, and in no way contradicts the course of nature. But for one who is merely a man to speak of divine and supernatural things is the highest presumption. For though a king may humble himself, a common soldier may not take on the state of an emperor. So, if He were God made man, all lowly things are fitting; but if He were a mere man, high things have no place.¹¹

St. Augustine of Hippo: Sabellius, they say, was a disciple of Noetus, who taught that Christ is one and the same as the Father and the Holy Spirit.¹²

Pseudo-Athanasius: I will curb the audacity of this most insane error by the authority of the heavenly testimonies and demonstrate the distinct personality of the Son's own substance. I will not produce things that are liable to be explained away as pertaining to the assumption of human nature, but will offer passages that all will allow to be decisive proof of His divine nature.¹³

In Genesis we find God saying, Let Us make man in Our own Image. This plural number shows that there was another person to whom He spoke. Had He been one, it would have been said that He made man in His own image. But there is another, and it is said that He made man in the image of that other.

Glossa Ordinaria: Others denied the reality of Christ's human nature. Valentinus said that Christ, sent from the Father, had a spiritual or celestial body and took nothing from the Virgin, but passed through her as through a channel, taking none of her flesh.

But we do not believe He was born of the Virgin simply because by no other means could He have truly lived in the flesh and appeared among men. Rather, we believe it because it is so written in the Scripture, which if we do not believe, we can neither be Christians nor be saved.

Even if He had a body made of a spiritual, ethereal, or clay-like substance, who would deny His power to change it into the true and very quality of human flesh, had He willed to do so? The Manichaeans said that the Lord Jesus Christ was a phantasm and could not be born from a woman's womb. But if the body of Christ was a phantasm, He was a deceiver; and if a deceiver, then He was not the Truth. But Christ is the Truth; therefore, His body was not a phantasm.

And since the opening of both this Gospel and the one according to Luke manifestly proves Christ's birth from a woman, and therefore His real humanity, these heretics reject the beginning of both Gospels.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Faustus affirms that "the Gospel both begins, and begins to be so called," from the preaching of Christ, in which He nowhere affirms that He was born of men.ⁱ¹⁴

He continues: "Indeed, this genealogy is so far from being part of the Gospel that the writer does not venture to title it so, beginning with The book of the generation, not 'The book of the Gospel.' Mark, on the other hand, who did not care to write of the generation but only of the preaching of the Son of God—which is properly the Gospel—begins accordingly, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Thus, all that we read in Matthew before the words, 'Jesus began to preach the Gospel of the kingdom' (Matthew 4:17), is part of the genealogy, not of the Gospel. I therefore turned to Mark and John, with whose prefaces I had good reason to be satisfied, as they introduce neither David, nor Mary, nor Joseph."

To this, Augustine replies: What then will he say to the Apostle's words, Remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ of the seed of David according to my Gospel (2 Timothy 2:8)? But the Gospel of the Apostle Paul was also that of the other Apostles and of all the faithful, as he says, "Whether I, or they, thus have we preached the Gospel."

The Arians do not hold that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance, nature, and existence. Instead, they believe that the Son is a creature of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is a creature of a creature—that is, created by the Son. Furthermore, they think that Christ took on flesh without a soul.¹⁵

But John declares the Son to be not only God, but also of the same substance as the Father.ⁱ For when he had said, The Word was God, he added, all things were made by Him. From this it is clear that He by whom all things were made was not Himself made. And if not made, then not created, and therefore of one substance with the Father—for everything that is not of one substance with the Father is a creature.

I do not know what benefit the person of the Mediator has conferred upon us if He did not redeem our better part, but only took upon Himself our flesh, which without the soul cannot be conscious of the benefit. But if Christ came to save that which had perished, then the whole man had perished and therefore needs a Savior. Christ, then, in His coming, saves the whole man, taking on both soul and body.

How, too, do they answer the innumerable objections from the Gospel Scriptures, in which the Lord says so many things that are manifestly contrary to their view? For instance, My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matthew 26:38), and, I have power to lay down My life (John 10:18), and many more things of this kind.

Should they say that He spoke this way in parables, we have proofs at hand from the Evangelists themselves. In relating His actions, they bear witness not only to the reality of His body but also of His soul, by mentioning passions that cannot exist without a soul, such as when they say, "Jesus marveled," or "was angry," and other similar things.

The Apollinarians, like the Arians, also affirmed that Christ had taken human flesh without a soul.ⁱ But when they were overthrown on this point by the weight of scriptural proof, they then said that the part which is the rational soul of man was missing from the soul of Christ, and that its place was filled by the Word Himself.

But if this is so, then we must believe that the Word of God took on the nature of some animal with a human shape and appearance. Yet even concerning the nature of Christ's body, there are some who have swerved so far from the right faith as to say that the flesh and the Word were of one and the same substance. They perversely insist on the expression, The Word was made flesh, which they interpret to mean that some portion of the Word was changed into flesh, not that He took to Himself flesh from the flesh of the Virgin.ⁱ

St. Cyril of Alexandria: We consider those persons mad who have suspected that so much as a shadow of change could take place in the nature of the divine Word; it abides what it always was and neither is nor can be changed.¹⁶

St. Leo the Great: We do not speak of Christ as man in such a way as to allow that anything was lacking in Him which certainly pertains to human nature—whether soul, rational mind, or flesh; and flesh that was taken from the Woman, not gained by a change or conversion of the Word into flesh.¹⁷

These three separate errors, the triply false heresy of the Apollinarians, has brought forward. Eutyches also chose this third dogma of Apollinaris. Denying the reality of the human body and soul, he maintained that our Lord Jesus Christ was wholly and entirely of one nature, as though the divine Word had changed itself into flesh and soul. This would mean that the conception, birth, growth, and similar experiences had been undergone by the divine Essence, which was incapable of any such changes along with the real and true flesh. For the nature of the Only-Begotten is the same as the nature of the Father and the nature of the Holy Spirit—both impassible and eternal.

But if, to avoid being driven to the conclusion that the Godhead could feel suffering and death, he departs from the corruption of Apollinaris, yet still dares to affirm that the nature of the incarnate Word—that is, of the Word and the flesh—is the same, he clearly falls into the insane notions of Manichaeus and Marcion. He would then believe that the Lord Jesus Christ performed all His actions with a false appearance, that His body was not a human body but a phantasm which deceived the eyes of beholders.

As for what Eutyches venturedⁱ to pronounce as an episcopal decision—that in Christ there were two natures before His incarnation but only one after His incarnation—he should have been urgently pressed to give the reason for this belief.

I suppose that in using such language, he imagined that the soul which the Savior took had its home in heaven before it was born of the Virgin Mary.ⁱ

Catholic hearts and ears cannot endure this, for the Lord, when He came down from heaven, showed nothing of the prior condition of human nature. He did not take on a soul that had existed before, nor any flesh that was not taken from the flesh of His mother. Thus, what was justly condemned in Origenⁱ must also be rebuked in Eutyches—namely, that our souls had not only wonderful but various actions before they were placed in our bodies.

Remigius of Auxerre: Therefore, the Apostles overthrow these heresies in the opening of their Gospels. Matthew, in relating how He derived His descent from the kings of the Jews, proves Him to have been truly man and to have had true flesh.

Likewise, Luke does so when he describes the priestly stock and person. Mark, when he says, The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God, and John, when he says, In the beginning was the Word, both show Him to have been God with God the Father before all ages.

1. Ez, i. 5. Hier. Prolog. in Com. in Matt.
2. Hom. in Matt., Hom. i
3. Hom. in Matt., Hom. ii
4. Hier. Comm. in Matt., ch. 1
5. Quaest. Nov. et Vet. Test. q. 40
6. Luc. iii
7. de Haer, et 10
8. Vigil. Tapsens. (Athan. Ed. Ben., vol ii, p. 646)
9. de Haeres. 19
10. Ep. i. ad Monachos Egypti.
11. Epist. lib. iv. 166
12. de Haeres. 41
13. Vigil. Tapsens. (ibid. p. 644)
14. cont. Faust, ii, 1
15. de Haer., 49
16. Ep. ad Joan. Antioch. tom. 6, Ep. 107
17. Epist. 59, ad Const.