On the Symbolism of the Genealogies of Christ

 

 

As we have seen in the previous essays, the divine Name YHWH is (under one of its aspects) often employed to refer to God’s revelation in history. Now the Name YHWH (from hayah, ‘to be’) is of course deeply connected to the “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh” (I AM that I AM) spoken to Moses from the burning bush and thus to the number 42 (Ehyeh-Ehyeh = 21+21), as well as to the unutterable ‘42-letter Name of God’ commonly referenced in Jewish tradition (the word “God”, Eloah, likewise amounts to the value of 42).

As such it is said that the 42 likewise especially designates God’s immanence in the world, His merciful descensus into history. Given what we’ve said before, it should thus not come as at a surprise that this ‘Name 42’ is explicitly linked to the Shekinah (cf. Zohar, II.5A), as well as to the sefira Tiferet[1], also called the ‘Great Name’ or the ‘Unique Name’.

According to mystical tradition (for example in Nachmanides), Tiferet can be equated to the “God of Israel” (Ex. 24:9) that Moses saw on Sinai and it is said that while Moses beheld God as Tiferet, the Israelites only saw Him beneath the ‘cloud’ of Malkut (i.e. Shekinah). We find this duality also mirrored in the Urim and Thummim of the priestly attire (cf. Ex. 28:30), for it was said that on Urim (meaning ‘light’, i.e. the solar pillar) was engraved the 42-letter Name (= Tiferet) whereas on Thummim (the ‘non-luminous’, i.e. lunar, side) was written a 22-letter Name (the ‘Honorable Name’, corresponding to Malkut).

But there’s also another item on which the 42-letter name was said to be inscribed and that is the ‘rod of Moses’ which, according to the Kabbalists, is equivalent to Metatron (“that rod had engraved on it the ineffable Name on every side, in forty-two various combinations, which were illumined in different colours … and this rod is Metatron, from one side of whom comes life and from the other death”, Zohar, I.8B, 27A), representing the ‘middle pillar’ between life and death, mercy and judgement, or male and female (“As the ‘lily among thorns’ is tinged with red and white [= the solar and lunar pillar], so the Community of Israel is visited now with justice and now with mercy … And as the ideal covenant was formed through forty-two couplings, so the engraven ineffable name is formed of the forty-two letters of the work of creation”, Zohar, I.1A).

In sum: the 42 designates the hierogamy (or “coupling”) of left and right, Sol and Luna, YHWH-Elohim, as well as of above and below ^[2], male and female: the bride (Shekinah) and her bridegroom (Tiferet). Likewise, it is the marriage of the 6 and the 7[3] (6x7 = 42), periphery and centre (also even and odd), marking perfection and the completion of the cycle (cf. Essay #X), and it is thus no coincidence that the number 42 also appears multiple times in the Apocalypse (Rev. 11:2, 13:5), which too is a ‘hierogamy’ (the “1260 days” of Rev. 11:3 likewise correspond to 42 months, as do the “three and a half days”[4] of Rev. 11:9, 42 months being three and a half years).

And this is the deepest significance of the 42 generations which, according to Matthew (1:17) [5], separate Abraham and from the arrival of Christ, which is prefigured in the 42 stops that the Israelites travel through on their desert journey, before reaching the Holy Land [6] (cf. Num. 33): “Because I stayed in the wilderness journeying forty-two stages, I was not able to enter the land of Israel”, laments the Shekinah in the Midrash^[7] (Song of Songs I.41) and so too it is after 42 stations that the bride Israel-Ecclesia is united to her divine Bridegroom.

 

While Matthew’s genealogy is thus clearly defined by the ‘Name 42’, for Luke it is not so clear-cut, for there are several different manuscripts and traditions.

According to the version that is most widely accepted by scholars today (and which we will find in most modern Bibles) there are 77 generations from Adam to Christ. Now the 77 features obviously frequently as the ‘maximum of the 7’ in Holy Scripture (cf. Gen. 4:24, Matt. 18:22) [8] and thus Christ would appears as the ultimate 7, the ‘Lord of the Sabbath’, the ‘Sabbath of Sabbaths’ etc., which is further emphasized by the fact that Luke mentions another “Jesus” (son of Elizer) on the 49^th position of his genealogy (7x7).

7 is of course the number of completion, of the ‘full cycle’; according to Biblical time, Jesus was born in the year 3760 which corresponds to the word “eshaw” (ayin-shin-waw = 376), from asha, to ‘do’, to ‘make’, meaning ‘ready-made’, ‘finished’, ‘completed’ etc. – “It is done” (Joh. 19:30).[9] And we might note in passing that this also corresponds to the astrological symbolism; for Christ’s birth coincides with the beginning of the ‘age of Pisces’ (1^st century AD), Pisces being of course the twelfth and final house of the Zodiac and so 12 means “the fulfillment of time” (the New Jerusalem is 12x12 cubits and the Tree of Life in its centre bears 12 fruits), meaning that the birth of Christ ushers in the ‘final age’, the ‘end times’.

Here we are also pointed to the ‘three ages’ of salvation history (as some have interpreted them): The first from Adam to Christ is the ‘age of the Father’ (the Old Covenant), days 1-6 of creation week, the days of ‘preparation’. The second age is that of Son, corresponding to Christ’s earthly ministry, the ‘Sabbath’ of the 7^th day which finishes the (re-)creative opus; and the third age commences with the outpouring of the Spirit, i.e. with the birth of the Church on Pentecost, the 50^th day after Easter, thus transcending the 7 (7x7 = 49)[10], for the Church is “not off this world” anymore (Joh. 18:36, 17:14-16) and lives already in anticipation of the 8^th day, the final Epiklesis of the Holy Ghost and the marriage of bride and Bridegroom.  

However we could also interpret Luke as saying that the 8^th day has already started with Christ, for being the 77^th generation He is also the 78^th name mentioned by the hagiographer (from "God" to "Jesus"), which Christ him who surpasses the 77 human generation, who goes beyond the 7, i.e. the Messiah who ushers in the ‘eighth day’ (there are some manuscript that explicitly place Christ in the 78 generation). 78 is further 3x26, which refers back to the 26 generations of the Torah, the “ele toldoth”, as well as the lordly Name YHWH.

[The words “ele toldoth” (“These are the generations…”) appear four times in the Torah and since the 4 always already contains ‘totality’ (1+2+3+4 = 10) it is said that these four “ele toldoth” (cf. Gen. 2:4, 6:9, 11:10, 37:2) contain all the generations from Adam to Moses, making them 26 in toto, which exactly spell out the divine Name YHWH (10-6-5-6): the first from Adam to Noah (10 generations), the second from Shem to Peleg (5 generations), the third from Regu to Isaac (6 generations), and the fourth from Jacob to Moses (5 generations).]

Mutatis mutandis we could say that Christ is not only the 12 but also the 13, the central point around which the circle of the twelve disciples is gathered. Christ ‘completes’ the 12, for “oneness”, “unity” (echad: 1-8-4) is 13. He brings the new cycle, the ‘thirteenth’ (viz. the first) Zodiac: Aries, the ‘Lamb’ (which is also the pictograph of alef, the 1).  Whereas the Fish accompanies the ‘flood’ at the transition from cycle to the next (the matsya-avatâra, Dagon, Oannès, etc.), the Lamb (“that was slain from the beginning”) lays the foundation of a new world, it is the ‘Pascha-meal’, signaling the pass-over to the “other side of the beyond”, the “crossing of the Jordan”.

Thus it is said that Shimon bar-Jochai (the mythical author of the Zohar) hid himself in a cave from the persecution of Hadrian, emperor of Rome (the kingdom of this world), where he spent his time praying and studying the Torah. After 12 years the prophet Elijah appeared to him and told him that the emperor had died and that he was free to go now. However, when bar-Jochai left his cave he saw some farmers working their field and cried out: “Woe to these worldly people who give up their sacred studies for the things of this world!”. As soon as he uttered these words, there resounded a voice from the skies saying: “Have you come out to destroy My world? Go back to your cave!”. And so he returned for another year; and only when he came out in the thirteenth year (i.e. after he had overcome the 12, meaning that he was fully delivered from the cycle of birth of death, from time and ‘this world’) he could live as a great saint among the people, being in the world but not off it.

 

Now another tradition (attest to in Irenaeus, Ambrose, and other early Fathers) counts 72 generations from Adam to Christ; a number that is of course likewise famously tied to the Name of the Lord (Jewish esoterism knows not only of a ‘72-letter Name’ but also counts 72 divine Names in total): If we spell out the letters Yod-Heh-Waw-Heh, we get (10-6-4) – (10-5) – (6-10-6) – (10-5), i.e. the ‘Name 72’ (shemajinbeth); similarly if we insert the Tetragrammaton into the Tetraktys we likewise attain 72:

 

Yod (10)

Yod-Heh (15)

Yod-Heh-Waw (21)

Yod-Heh-Waw-Heh (26)

 

These 72 generation can also be linked to the 72 nations mentioned in Genesis 10, which is also why Christ choses 72 disciples to preach the gospel “to all nations” (cf. Lk. 10:1-24).

 

Thus Luke points out that the pedigree which traces the generation of our Lord back to Adam contains seventy-two generations, connecting the end with the beginning, and implying that it is He who has summed up in Himself all nations dispersed from Adam downwards, and all languages and generations of man, together with Adam himself (St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III.22.3).

 

There have of course many attempts been to reconcile these two accounts on the purely historical level as well, which we shall not treat in depth here, but nevertheless briefly touch upon. Thus, one interpretation proposes that Matthew gives the ‘legal’ genealogy whereas Luke gives the ‘natural’ one (which is also that recorded in the Talmud). According to the Jewish custom of ‘levirate marriage’ (cf. Deut. 25:5-6), if a husband died without fathering children, the widow had to marry the deceased’s brother (“so that his name might not be blotted out in Israel”) and the children that were fathered in this marriage belonged ‘legally’ to the first husband, although they were ‘naturally’ begotten by the second. Thus Matthew (1:12) gives Jechonia – who died without children (cf. Jer. 22:28-30) – as the father of Shealtiel, while Luke gives Neri (3:27); the first being the legal and the second the natural father.

Following this theory we might say that Matthew’s ‘legal’ genealogy (starting with Abraham, the father of Israel, of the chosen people, the Church) pertains to the order of grace, whereas Luke’s (starting with Adam, the father of the human race) pertains to nature, and they thus represent the two natures of Christ who is both “Son of God” and “Son of Man” (the new Adam).

But there’s of course also a ‘third genealogy’, that which we catch glimpses of in John’s Prologue; for whereas Matthew and Luke tell us about the historical lineage of Christ, John tells us about the eternal Birth in divinis, the generation of the Logos from the more-than-luminous womb of the celestial Mary: “nigra sum sed formosa”. This is quite fitting indeed, for if we equate the four gospels to the ‘four worlds’ (of Kabbalah and Vedanta), the three synoptic corresponds to the realm of formal manifestation (triloka) whereas John’s Gospel (pertaining to the unmanifested) transcends the realm of history, of time and space etc.

We might also mention an alternative – albeit closely related – theory, according to which Matthew recounts the genealogy of Joseph (Christ’s legal father) whereas Luke gives that of Mary (His natural mother). Now Matthew names Jacob as the father of Joseph, whereas Luke names ‘Heli’, Heliakim, i.e. Joachim, whom some traditions identify with the natural father of the Blessed Virgin (and thus Christ’s natural grandfather).[11] However since the Jews had no concept of  “son-in-law” (or “father-in-law”) Joseph is simply called “son of Heli” (which is also why where Christ is called the “son of Joseph” in both genealogies even though he was obviously not his son according to the ‘flesh’). Further, since Joachim died without a male heir – the Blessed Virgin being, according to Tradition, his only child, which was miraculously conceived by the barren Anne – Joseph would’ve been his legal heir as well, i.e. his “son” (cf. Num. 36:1-12).

Some of the Fathers (and later scholastics like St. Thomas) maintained that Jacob (“son of Matthan”) and Heli (“son of Matthat”) were indeed brothers so that we might say that, after Heli had died without a male heir, Jacob married Heli’s widow (presumably a second wife other than Anne) and she bore Joseph.

A similar opinion is also given by Africanus[12] (2^nd century) that is recorded by Eusebius and which “he had received from tradition”:

 

Jacob and Heli, although of different families, were yet bretheren by the same mother. Of those the one, Jacob, when his brother Heli had died childless [i.e. without male offspring], took the latter’s wife and begot by her a son Joseph, his own son by nature and in accordance with reason. Wherefore also it is written: ‘Jacob begot Joseph’. But according to law he was the son of Heli, for Jacob, being brother of the latter, raised up seed to him (Historia Ecclesiastica, I.7).

 

Here “Heli” is not identified with St. Joachim directly. Rather it is said that Matthan had married Esther (or Hesta) who bore Jacob, and after Matthan’s death Esther married his brother Matthat whom she bore Heli. St. Joachim (father of the Blessed Virgin), then, was the son of Jacob-ben-Matthan, whereas St. Joseph is the son of Jacob and Heli’s widow.

[It is further said that Jacob and his first wife also begot St. Clophas, the father of James the minor, Simon, Jude, and Joseph, who are identified in traditions as cousins of Jesus (and whose mother is called in Scripture “Mary of Clophas” or “Mary mother of James and Joseph”; cf. Joh. 19:25, Matt. 27:56, Mk. 15:40).]

 

However that may be, despite their different methodologies both Matthew and Luke arrive at David as a central figure, thus showing that Christ (“the root of Jesse”) is not only king of Israel by legal right (through Joseph via Solomon) but also by natural birth (through Mary via Nathan): “descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3). The second ‘central branch’ where both accounts meet is of course Joseph and this is also of a deep significance.

As is well known, after the reign of Solomon the kingdom of Israel split into two, the southern kingdom of Judah, the House of David, and the norther kingdom which pertains to the 10 lost Tribes but which, in Scripture, is often called “Ephraim” (Is. 7:17, 9:21, 11:13, Hos. 5:5-14, 6:4, 10:11, 11:12, Zech. 9:13), or – since Ephraim was the son of Joseph – the “House of Joseph” (Zech. 10:6). Thus we read in the prophet Ezekiel (37:16-19).

 

And thou, son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: and join them for thee one to another into one stick, that they may become one in thy hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not show us what thou meanest by these? say unto them, Thus saith the Lord YHWH: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions; and I will put them with it, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in my hand

 

Due to these prophecies there developed in Jewish eschatology the idea of two Messiahs, the Meschiach-ben-Joseph and the Meschiach-ben-David, which are known in tradition as the suffering Messiah[14] (cf. Is. 53, Ps. 89, 22) and the victorious Messiah (“the lion of Judah”, Gen. 49:9, Rev. 5:5) respectively.[15]

But when we contemplate the genealogies of Christ we realize that the Rabbis were mistaken, they fell into the sin of duality (“water-water”); there are no two Messiahs, for “there is but one Lord Jesus Christ” (1. Cor. 8:6), Christus-Victor, who overcame the world by His suffering on the Cross: The Cross is planet on the mountain, the lowest (south) and the highest (north) are one, the last (taw) shall be the first (alef), this is the absolute truth (EMeTh).

Ephraim (the strong, violent warrior-people, ruled by multiple lineages) and Judah (the tribe loyal to God, the kingdom of Jerusalem and the Temple, ruled by a single dynasty) are also said to represent the duality of body and soul, earth and heaven, left and right, etc. It is thus no coincidence that the joining of both by the ‘stick’ of the Cross is prophesized by Ezekiel, for it is in the same vision that the prophet also sees the resurrection of the dead: The corpses in the “valley of dry bones” are (according to the Midrash) those of the sons of Ephraim which were slaughtered by the Philistines on their flight out of Egypt. In Ezekiel’s vision God raises the bodies and sends down His Spirit, ruach, and body and soul are united (cf. Ez. 37:1-14). The unification of Ephraim and Judah, of Joseph and David of which the genealogies tell us means thus: Resurrection, Eternal Life, Pax aeterna. Amen.