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A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 03

Voltaire · en
We read in a dangerous little book, composed with much art: "St. Matthew
and St. Luke give each a genealogy of Christ different from the other;
and lest it should be thought that the differences are only slight, such
as might be imputed to neglect or oversight, the contrary may easily be
shown by reading the first chapter of Matthew and the third of Luke. We
shall then see that fifteen generations more are enumerated in the one
than in the other; that, from David, they completely separate; that they
join again at Salathiel; but that, after his son, they again separate,
and do not reunite again but in Joseph.

"In the same genealogy, St. Matthew again falls into a manifest
contradiction, for he says that Uzziah was the father of Jotham; and in
the "_Paralipomena_," book I, chap. iii., v. II, 12, we find three
generations between them--Joas, Amazias, and Azarias--of whom Luke, as
well as Matthew, make no mention. Further, this genealogy has nothing to
do with that of Jesus, since, according to our creed, Joseph had had no
intercourse with Mary."

In order to reply to this objection, urged from the time of Origen, and
renewed from age to age, we must read Julius Africanus. See the two
genealogies reconciled in the following table, as we find it in the
repository of ecclesiastical writers:

                             DAVID.

     Solomon and his                            Nathan and his
     descendants, enumerated                    descendants, enumerated
     by Saint                                   by Saint
     Matthew.                                   Luke.


                             ESTHER.

     Mathan, her first                          Melchi, or rather
     husband.                                   Mathat, her second
                                                husband.
                       The wife of these two
                       persons successively,
     Jacob, son of     married first to Heli,          Heli.
     Mathan, the       by whom she had no
     first husband.    child, and afterwards
                       to Jacob, his brother.

     Joseph, natural                            Legitimate son of
     son of Jacob.                              Heli.

There is another method to reconcile the two genealogies, by St.
Epiphanius. According to him, Jacob Panther, descended from Solomon, is
the father of Joseph and of Cleophas. Joseph has six children by his
first wife--James, Joshua, Simeon, Jude, Mary, and Salome. He then
espouses the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the daughter of
Joachim and Anne.