Отрывок из беседы IV

The following passage presents a more detailed answer to the question posed by Chrysostom at the very beginning of the IV conversation: “why did the evangelist omit three kings in the middle part of the genealogy, and in the last, placing twelve genera, said that there were fourteen of them?” and follows immediately after the words read further: “I leave the first to your own research,... let’s talk about the second.” Since this passage, found in only three manuscripts, was unknown to Anian, Chrysostom’s contemporary and translator, and differs significantly in style from his original works, and in addition, the solution to the question given in it does not agree with Chrysostom’s, then its attribution to Chrysostom is rightly considered doubtful. Better yet, let us solve the first question for you so that its investigation does not complicate you, because there are some difficulties in solving it. So, why does the evangelist say that from David to Jeconiah and the captivity of Babylon there were fourteen generations, while there were seventeen who reigned? If the evangelist meant to show the succession of kings, then he could rightly be reproached for the fact that he missed some in this succession. The books of Kings and Chronicles equally say that after Joram, the son of Joasaphat, three kings reigned successively: Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah, and after them further: Uzziah, Jotham and Ahaz. Meanwhile, the evangelist, having omitted the first three kings, after Joram the son of Joasaphat directly puts Uzziah, Jotham and Ahaz, and omits the mentioned predecessors. Obviously, he did this because he did not intend to indicate the successive order of the kings, otherwise the genealogy given by him should have been considered erroneous. He did not mean to indicate the number of successions, but only the number of births. This is precisely what he wants to express in the words: “All the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations,” and further: “from David to Jehoiachin and from the migration to Babylon to Christ, there are fourteen generations” (Matthew 1:17), and not fourteen successions, and thus is freed from any accusation of error. Some, however, think that he could name the succession, saying in this way: “all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from the Babylonian migration fourteen generations”; if, they say, he said so, then his words do not arouse any bewilderment. However, in this case he would be departing from history. Meanwhile, if, as I said, he meant to show genera, and not succession, and the books of Kings and Chronicles speak of succession, and not genera, then, when comparing them with each other, there is no contradiction. By gender we cannot mean the time of a person’s life, because the duration of the latter varies: some live very short and die in infancy, others reach adolescence, others - youth, others reach the mature age of their husband, and the life of some extends into old age. So, what should be considered a race if one lives, for example, up to ten years, or up to twenty, another up to fifty, a third up to seventy, and another survives a hundred years, as happened not only among the ancients, but also among us. So, how can we call human life a genus? It is also impossible to accept the time before the birth of children, because some people get married and have children before they are twenty, while others start only after thirty. And even at the same age, some see only the first generation of sons, others live to the fourth generation, so that they see their descendants for fifty years, and others remain without any offspring for seventy years. How should births be counted? Is it the ones that live long, or the ones that don’t live long? Is it based on those who have children earlier, or those who have children later? Is it by those who see only the first generation, or by those who see many of them? From this study it can be seen that the divine evangelist, who had in mind to indicate not successions, but clans, and who considered them to be known to himself, cared little about the exact transmission of the successions shown in historical books, and accepted into the genealogy only as many persons as he needed to make a full fourteen clans. The genealogy, therefore, remains correct and does not at all contradict the historical books. So, the first difficulty is solved. Now we need to talk about the second one. Why does the evangelist say that from Jeconiah to Joseph there are fourteen generations, whereas in the genealogy there are only twelve? For the same reason: he wanted, as I said, to indicate not successions, but genera, and it often happens that people have few long-term successions, but the number of genera is complete. Just as in the period from David to the captivity, with a larger number of successively following persons, the number of genera is indicated less, namely, out of seventeen successions, only fourteen genera are named, so here too, from twelve genera, fourteen complete genera are made up, since these twelve men, given their probable longevity, were enough to make fourteen genera. This is one way to resolve the issue. According to another decision, it will turn out that in this (last) series of successions fourteen genera are indicated completely in accordance with history, if precisely to the twelve you add Jesus Christ himself, who was considered the son of Joseph, and, in addition, Jeconiah, who was in Babylon, different from the one who reigned in Jerusalem before the resettlement. After Josiah there were two kings with the name Joachim: one was the son of Josiah himself, who after him reigned in Jerusalem, the other Joakim was the son of this latter. They were also called Jehoiachins - after the Greek pronunciation of the name. So, the first Joachim, who is also Jeconiah, the son of Josiah, should be numbered among the generations before the first captivity; the second Joachim, who is also Jeconiah, the son of the first Jehoiachin and the grandson of Josiah, must be attributed to the generations counted from the captivity to Christ, and then the total number of fourteen generations is obtained. And that there were two Jehoiakims, this is evidenced by the book of Kings, which says this: “And Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah king over Israel, instead of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim” (2 Kings 23:34). After this it is said how he died and rested with his fathers, and how then Joachim his son reigned in his stead. At the very beginning of the reign of this latter, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came and, besieging Jerusalem, took it, and took Joachim himself and all his people to Babylon. This second Joachim, whom the prophet Jeremiah called Jeconiah, was the grandson of Josiah, not the son. Therefore, he is rightly ranked among the third part of the genealogy, from Jehoiachin to Christ, consisting of fourteen genera, while his father, who was the son of Josiah, belongs to the previous generations. Thus, the number of the last fourteen births becomes complete for us. Further in the aforementioned three manuscripts follow the words: “It seems to me that He counts the time of captivity among the generations,” etc. You might be interested in: