The Patristic approach to the Birth of Jesus
This drawing is a manuscript depiction of King David playing his harp in praise of God.
The Fathers saw the genealogy primarily as establishing the humanity of Jesus and his place within the tribe of Judah and the royal line of David. The difficulties between Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogy is sometimes explained by saying that Matthew concentrates on the royal line through Judah where Luke is more concerned with tracing Jesus priestly credentials through the tribe of Levi. Hilary of Poitiers says that
“What Matthew publishes in order of kingly succession, Luke sets forth in order of priestly origin. While accounting for each order, both indicate the relationship of the Lord to each ancestral lineage.”19
The presence of the four women of questionable morality in the genealogy is seen as reinforcing the human Incarnation if the Christ. Severus says: “These were women by whom they became united by fornication and adultery. By this means the genealogy reveals that it is our very sinful nature that Christ comes to heal. It is that very nature that had fallen, revolted and plunged into inordinate desires. When our nature fled, he took hold of it. When it dashed out and ran away in revolt, he stopped it, held onto it, enabled it to return and stopped its downward spiral. … Christ, therefore, took on a blood relationship with that nature which fornicated, in order to purify it.”20
St Jerome says that these four women were sinners, and that their presence here in the genealogy was an affirmation of the role of Jesus as savior of sinners.21
This lovely mosaic is from the apse wall of the American Episcopal Church in Rome, St Paul’s inside the Walls.
St John Chrysostom said that God gave to Joseph the right of fatherhood over Jesus by giving him the right to give him a name.
“It was as if the angel was saying to Joseph,’ Do not imagine that because this child is conceived by the Holy Spirit, that you have no part in the ministry of the new dispensation. In the conception, you had no part. You never touched the Virgin. Nevertheless, I am giving you what pertains to a Father. I give you the honor of giving a name to the One who is to be born. For you, Joseph, shall name him. For though the offspring is not ypurs, you are called to exhibit a Father’s care to him. ’ ” 22
The Fathers preaching about Christmas was most often focused on the Incarnation rather than on the exact event of birth. They constantly linked the Incarnation and the Resurrection. Take for example, this sermon by Augustine. “
Augustine speaks about the Virgin birth as a matter that should not amaze anybody who knows God. After all, God could have come among us without any human agency or participation. Yet, he chose deliberately to become incarnate in the womb of Mary.
“If the Lord wanted to, he could have become a man without renting a room in the womb, and all the majesty and the Godhead would not have paid the least heed. After all, he had already made a woman from a woman without the assistance of a man. So why could he not make a man without the cooperation of either a man or a woman.” 23
In Sermon 185 which is the reading in the office of readings for Christmas Eve, Augustine attributes all the wonderful gifts that flow with the birth of the Savior to the gracious generosity of Christ. “Ask if this was merited, ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace.”
There is a lovely line in this sermon and I must find the original Latin text. “Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time”
John Damascene on the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
John is considered the last and one of the greatest of the fathers of the Church. He died about 750 a.d. He is quoted by Pope Pius XII in his decree, Munificentissimus Deus, by which he declared that his teaching about the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was taught with the gift of infallibility and was therefore a dogmatic teaching of the Church.
John preached three homilies on the Assumption. He was adamant that she had died before her assumption. He reasoned that she had to put aside the mortal so as to be clothed in the immortal. “seeing that the Lord of nature did not excuse Himself from facing death. He truly died in the flesh to destroy death by means of death. In place of corruption, He gave incorruptibility. He made death the font of resurrection.”
“It was necessary that the body of the one who preserved her virginity intact in giving birth, should be kept incorrupt after death. It was necessary that the Mother of God who carried the Creator in her womb, should dwell among the tabernacles of Heaven”.
John writes poetically about the burial of the Virgin.
“The assembly of the Apostles carried you, the Lord’s true Ark, as once the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant, on their shoulders. They laid you in the tomb, through which as though the Jordan, they will conduct you to the Promised Land, that is to say, the New Jerusalem above. Your soul did not descend to Hades, neither did your flesh see corruption. Your virginal and incorrupt flesh was not abandoned in the earth, but you were transferred into the Royal dwelling of heaven of which you are Queen, Sovereign, Lady, God’s Mother, the true God-Bearer”.
One of John Damascene’s themes on Mary is his insistence that her conception was also special. He constantly praises the parents of Mary, Joacim and Anna.
“O blessed loins of Joacim.”
“O glorious womb of Anna in which the holy foetus grew and formed.
O womb in which was conceived the living Heaven.”
The very seed of which she was conceived was stainless, he calls it panamous meaning perfect.
It is possible to read into this statement the beginnings of belief about the Immaculate Conception.
Class assessment quiz
1. The Infancy Narratives refer to:
2. Which of the Gospels contain Infancy Narratives?
3. On which Old Testament figure does St. Luke base his characterization of Jesus?
4. On which Old Testament figure does St Matthew base his characterization of Jesus?
5. Name the three canticles in the infancy narrative of Luke. -
6. Why does the figure of John the Baptist seem so like the Old Testament figure of Samuel?
7. Write some remarks on the Matthew’s characterization of Joseph as a “just man”
8. What is the significance of Bethlehem in the Lucan account? What connection is he trying to make with the Old Testament?
9. Why does Matthew mention the women ancestors of Christ in his genealogy?
10. What is the significance of the Wise Men in Matthew’s Gospel?
1 Dei Verbum 21.
2 Hippolytus, David and Goliath 1
3 Catechism of the Catholic Church #50.
4 Dei Verbum 2
5 “Recognize, I pray thee whether this be thy son’s coat or not.”
6 Leon R. Kass. The Beginning of Wisdom; Reading Genesis. New York: Free Press, 2003. 534-535.
7 Raymond E. Brown. Birth of the Messiah 72
8 Raymond E. Brown. Was a priest of the Society of St. Sulpice. He was a teacher of the Sacred Scriptures at Menlo Park Seminary in California, where he died about six years ago. He was appointed to the Pontifical Commission by popes Paul VI and John Paul II. He is recognized by reputable scholars as the greatest American Catholic exegete of the twentieth century. Among his many works are The Gospel according to John 1-XIII, New York: Doubleday, 1966, The Death of the Messiah, The Birth of the Messiah. An Introduction to the New Testament.
9 Raymond E. Brown. The Birth of the Messiah p 64
10 See Birth of the Messiah, p. 65.
11 Wilfred Harrington, Matthew Sage Theologian, The Jesus of Matthew. Dublin: Columba Press, 1998. 31.
12 Daniel J. Harrington S.J. The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina Series, Collegeville Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1991, 31.
13 Daniel J. Harrington S.J. The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina Series, Collegeville Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1991, 31-32
14 Raymond E. Brown. The Birth of the Messiah, 67
15 Alyce McKenzie. Matthew. Louisville, Kentucky: Geneva Press. Interpretation Bible Stdies. 1998. 17.
16 John J. Kilgallen. A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Luke. New York: Paulist Press, 1988. 44
17 John J. Kilgallen. A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Luke. New York: Paulist Press, 1988. 43
18 Raymond E. Brown. The Birth of the Messiah., New York: Doubleday Press, 1993, 321
19 Hilary of Poitiers, On Matthew 1, 1. P.P 25, 53-54.
20 Severus, Cathedral Sermon 94
21 Jerome. In Matt. 9; PL 26, 22.
22 St John Chrysostom. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 4, 6.
23 Augustine Sermon 51, 5