So far Scaurus. He did not anticipate what I have lived to experience. Quite recently I heard some Christians use this very mention of Jeconiah in an opposite direction, namely, as a proof that Matthew believed Jesus to have descended from God, but _not_ from Joseph after the flesh. In particular, I have heard a young but rising teacher, Irenæus by name, argue as follows, “If indeed He had been the son of Joseph, He could not, according to Jeremiah, be either king or heir, for Joseph is shewn to be the son of Joachim and Jeconiah as also Matthew sets forth in his pedigree.” Then he went on to quote Jeremiah’s prophecy that Jeconiah should be childless and have no successor on the throne of David. And his argument was to this effect, “Christ is the royal son of David. Therefore He could not have descended from Jeconiah, Joseph’s ancestor. Matthew knew this. Therefore Matthew, though giving Joseph’s pedigree, did not mean to imply that Jesus was the son of Joseph.” And this seemed to convince those who heard him! I also heard this same Irenæus, in the same lecture, say, “If He were the son of Joseph, how could He be greater than Solomon, … or greater than David, when He was generated from the same seed, and was a descendant of these men?” After we had gone out from Irenæus’s lecture, I asked the friend sitting next to me to explain this argument to me; for it seemed to me to prove that a man could not be greater than his ancestors. “Ah, but you forget,” he replied, “_what_ ancestors. They were _royal_ ancestors. How could the son of a mere carpenter be greater than David or Solomon?” It seemed to me that the sinless son of “a mere carpenter” might be greater in the eyes of God than a whole world of such royal sinners. But I found it hard to convince him that I was even speaking seriously! To return to Scaurus. He dealt next with the pedigree in Luke. “You might have supposed in these circumstances,” said he, “that Luke would drop the pedigree of Joseph altogether, and give only that of Mary. Well, he has not done this. Another course would have been to state clearly that Jesus was not really, but only putatively, the son of Joseph (being really the son of God) and to add that he gave the pedigree of Joseph, as Matthew gives it, because Joseph was the putative father. Well, he has not quite done this either; but he has done half of it. He has written ‘being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph.’ But he has also given a pedigree of Joseph differing from that of Matthew in that portion which extends from Joseph to David. What do you think of this?”