Matthew enriches the figure of Mary on the image of Mark explaining two features of the Mother of the Messiah: 1) Mary is the Virgin, 2) Mary is the wife of Joseph, son of David. Both the explicit features to satisfy curiosities Matthew does, but what they mean in the context of theological presentation of the mysterious origin of the Messiah.
1. Matthew Mark
Marcos, whose image of Mary and we have seen, he wrote his gospel to the Christian community in Rome and made him special attention to explain a fact that undoubtedly demanded explanation the Roman Diaspora Jews to the Christian missionaries: How is it possible that, as Jesus the Son of God and Christ, not recognized, but rejected and condemned to death by the chiefs of the Palestinian nation?
whole Gospel of Mark shows, first, the revelation of Jesus as Messiah, Christ or Messiah (these three terms mean the same thing) and on the other hand, shows the gradual disbelief of many, misunderstanding even by his faithful, for the suffering of his messianic character.
The short presentation of Mark shows we saw Mary, is a cog in this perspective Marcano. Shows one of the ways he took the rejection and opposition from the Palestinian leadership to Jesus and how involved in his campaign of defamation and harassment of the lowly and the Galilean origin of his kindred. Before this attack
Jesus replied, undeterred, to those who asked him a sign family, confronted with the necessity of believing without asking for signs, and they bear witness to unbelievers-veiled, but meaningful to those who believed in him for his mother and his disciples.
Matthew, whose image of Mary, we turn now, do not ignore the vision of Mark, but the returns in the body of Gospel (Mt 12, 46-50, 13, 53-57), as will Luke in his (Lk 8, 19-21, 4, 22). No need to return here on these passages, which are almost exact copy of Mark or a pre-existing source and in which Matthew introduces only a slight touch. We will deal more with which Matthew added to the figure of Mary as features of their harvest. They are an explicit what was implicit in Mark.
2. Virgin Mary and Joseph's wife
Matthew enriches the figure of Mary on the image of Mark explaining two features of the Mother of the Messiah: 1) Mary is a virgin, 2) Mary is the wife of Joseph, son of David.
Both the explicit features to satisfy curiosities Matthew does, but what they mean in the context of theological presentation of the mysterious origin of the Messiah.
That Mary is Virgin Mary is a feature that is intimately connected with the descent and divine origin of the Messiah. This is born of Mary without the intervention of man and of the Holy Spirit, says Matthew.
That Mary is the wife of Joseph, son of David, Marian is a feature that is in turn closely connected with the Davidic descent and the human character of the Messiah.
Son of God for the mystery of the virginity of His Mother, and Son of David by the no less mysterious marriage to Joseph, son of David.
3. The man - divine Messiah
Son of David, made a child of a woman.
is a long Christian painters gallery that presents the Mother and Child. This long passage, it seems Matthew the precursor and pioneer. And yet the oldest text we have of Jesus and his mother is most likely of St. Paul. The austere frugality
Mariological Paul deserves here, albeit laterally and by the way, the tribute of our attention. Towards year 51 AD, or about twenty years before the probable date of composition of the Gospel of Matthew, he writes Paul to the Galatians:
"But when the fullness of time God sent his Son, son of women, since under the law to redeem those who were under the law and that we might receive adoption as sons " (Gal 4, 4-5).
and between ten and twelve years later, between 61-63 AD, Paul writes the same since its first captive to the faithful of Rome:
"Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, an apostle, chosen for the Gospel of God (Gospel) which he promised through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son (of God) descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God with power ... (Rom 1, 1-3).
Pablo These two texts show the presence in the most primitive tradition, three essential elements we find in the passages of Matthew Marian.
First: what is said of Jesus Christ is presented as happened according to the Scriptures, as fulfillment of the Scriptures, as the realization of predicted by the prophets who spoke in the name of God and enlightened by the Spirit.
The second element is the double locking of Jesus, Son of God while son David. Paul sees in Jesus two affiliations. A spiritual affiliation, why is the Son of God through the Spirit that we cry Abba, or Father. And a pedigree in the flesh for which he is the son of David. And note, the third element to take into account, which does not specify how this Davidic lineage saying: "produced by Joseph" or "born of man", but saying: "made a son of woman." *
Here are the elements of one of the problems that will respond to Matthew in his gospel.
is the same problem of the origin of the Messiah who stirred in the text of Mark that we saw. But no longer posed in terms of objection in the mouths of enemies, but in terms of response to the objection. Response that is inspired, no doubt, in which Jesus himself had given at the time of his mortal flesh and that the three synoptic Gospels tells us in (Matthew 22, 41ss. And parallel).
"While the Pharisees met Jesus proposed this question: 'What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he? ".
They said, 'David'.
replied: 'Well, how David, moved by the Spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet? (Psalm 110, 1). If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? ".
Nobody can answer anything from that day no one dared to ask more. "
Jesus had already warned, therefore, his hearers against the danger of judging only according to the flesh. It is not to reject the origin of the Davidic Messiah, but noted that the Davidic origin contained a mystery and the mystery of the personality of the Messiah was not explained solely by Davidic ancestry, but by a root that was higher than its ancestor in the flesh and would have space in the mystery of its origin, divine intervention, then, "Lord" was a title reserved to God.
And in this complex double descent of the Messiah is at the convergence of these two titles (Son of God and son of David) where Matthew is located the mystery of Mary.
4. The revelation of Mary's virginity
the end of his genealogy of Jesus, Matthew tells us: "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, Jesus was born, called Christ. The formula is as intriguing. Throughout the whole family tree that begins his Gospel, Matthew has spoken with the verb father: Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob. And when, contrary to usual in the Hebrew genealogies, names a mother, says Tamar Juda begat Phares, David became the father of the widow of Uriah Solomon ... Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary.
Joseph is the last of the "begotten." Jesus no longer says it has been sired by Joseph of Mary, but Joseph is the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus.
opens thus for any seasoned player in the style Jewish family, a question that Matthew will respond verses below:
"The birth of Jesus Christ was thus: His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before to live with them, was found with child by the Holy Ghost. "
Here is the revelation of Mary's virginity. We are amazed almost cold sobriety of Matthew to refer to this marvel. No stress, no consideration commendable nor apologetic, any appreciation that exceeds the merely announced the fact. Matthew is more concerned its theological significance for their rarity, more concerned with the problem of interpretation posed by the righteous Joseph than he can raise all human generations after him.
What theologically speaking, the virginal motherhood of Mary?
A Matthew is not interested to give here arguments that make it believable or acceptable. And do not think that his contemporaries were more credulous than ours and more inclined to accept without question the mystery of the virgin mother. We have seen the difficulties raised against a reputed Jesus son of Joseph and Mary carnal. Imagine that someone could raise against the submission -O be presented, with the aim of being the Son of Virgin Mother, having been conceived without the participation of male and direct work of God in the womb of his mother.
5. Genealogy
understand better where does the interest of Matthew in the virginal conception of Jesus and its adoption by Joseph taking Mary as his wife, we better explain why Matthew enshrines this gem in the context - so little persuasive to us - a genealogy, if we pause a bit to consider what role it played in the family genre in the living context of the Jewish people in Jesus' time.
In Jesus' time, the genealogy of a person and a family was involved important legal and social implications and religious life. It was not like us today, a matter of historical curiosity or elegance, or the mere satisfaction of vanity.
A genealogy is guarded as a family title. Social position, racial and religious depended on it.
only true Israel were part of the family who kept the purity of origin of the chosen people as they had established after the exile, the religious reformation of Ezra.
all honors, all positions of confidence, important public positions were reserved for pure Israelites. The purity was to demonstrate and the Sanhedrin had a court hearing to validate pedigrees and investigate the origins of the candidates for office.
The main privileges of all reported a pure genalogía stood in the strictly religious domain. Thanks to the purity of the Jewish origin participated in the merits of their ancestors. First, every Israelite involved by virtue of being the son of Abraham, of the merits of the Patriarch and the promises God made to Abraham. All the Israelites, for example, were entitled to be heard in their sentence hazards protected, assisted in the war, his sins forgiven, saved from Gehenna and admitted to the Kingdom of God. Literally: the Kingdom of God is acquired by inheritance. Jesus strongly contests this belief.
"Dis may raise the stones children of Abraham" (Lk 3, 8).
"The publicans and prostitutes will precede in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 21, 31).
Because, according to Jesus, the title which entitles the Kingdom is not the genealogical purity of race and blood, but faith (Jn 3, 3SS., 8, 3SS.).
6. Son of David
Moreover, and secondly, the purity of a genealogical line was the offspring involvement in the particular merits of their own ancestors.
A descendant of David, for example, involved the merits of David and was especially entitled to the divine promise made to David.
So when Matthew starts his gospel seized the family home of the Messiah begins with a hot spot for all Jews of his time: the origin of the Davidic Messiah.
Under ordinary conviction of the contemporaries of Jesus, founded in reason in Scripture, the Messiah would be a descendant David. In the Palestine of Jesus' time there were, besides the sons of Levi, other family groups or clans which bore the names of the illustrious ancestors of those descending. There was a whole clan of the descendants of David-one of whom was Joseph, "which should be very large not only in Bethlehem, birthplace of David, but also in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine.
is no exaggeration to estimate the number of the sons of David, as a low figure in a thousand or two thousand. Being the son of David was, therefore, carry a common surname that does not necessarily give the wearer too bright or glory. And if we compare the title Son of David with one of our names equivalent to the frequency of our Pérez, Gonzalez and Rodriguez.
Close relatives of Jesus appear in the Gospel as a large group, and seem to have been an important group of the primitive community of Jerusalem, perhaps about a hundred.
Among the children of David was, no doubt, poor families and wealthy families. Would, no doubt, members of the aristocracy of Jerusalem. And the messianic claims of Jesus and luster, its success and the popular enthusiasm aroused by him, not have failed to raise welts and jealousy among the children of David more affluent and enlightened, as would to frustrate expectations of divine election more than any mother proud of her children Davidic having more titles, relationships and the relative galileo lyrics.
Matthew's claim of Davidic origin deserves faith. Not be a later invention of the New Testament to substantiate the origin making Jesus' messianic descendant of David, is shown by the unanimous testimony of all the New Testament and other historical sources. Eusebio recorded in his Ecclesiastical History of Hegesippus testimony, writing to the 180 of our era, picking up a Palestinian tradition, how the grandchildren of Jude, brother of the Lord, were reported Domitian as descendants of David and acknowledged during interrogation that Davidic origin. Also
Simon, a cousin of Lord James and successor's successor in the government of the community in Jerusalem, was denounced as a son of David and blood messianic and so crucified. Julius Africanus confirmed that relatives of Jesus gloried in Davidic origin at all which is the fact that even the most bitter opponents of Jesus questioning his Davidic origin, which would have been a powerful argument against it to have been able to argue before the people.
For Matthew, it would have been at first sight simpler if there able to present Jesus as begotten by Joseph, like all his ancestors. In fact, Jesus' virgin origin complicates things. Not only introduces an unlikely element in his story, a real stumbling block for many but complicating the evidence of Davidic origin of Jesus to transpose the physical plane to the legal ties of adoption.
What theological meaning contained the title Son of David "in his vulgar-applied to the Messiah? And how Matthew understands it as the title applied to Jesus?
Matthew's Gospel opens with the words: Book of History of Jesus Anointed, Son of David, Son of Abraham. Matthew
of the most common messianic titles and received to show to what extent are false and to what extent they are true, to show that it is they who show us about the identity of the Messiah, but they're the Messiah - Jesus and his life that teach us its true meaning.
As the Son of David, Jesus is the bearer of the promises made to David for Israel. Son of Abraham, brings the promise to all people. As the Son of David is king , but a king rejected by his people and persecuted to death from his crib, as Herod and his power feels threatened by its very existence and orders to kill him the slaughter of innocents. They are the sages of his people, but of the heathen, who came from the east, those that ask for the king of the Jews and bring you presents and gifts. As the Son of David, also corresponds born in Bethlehem, but their origin is ignored, then it is known as Galilean Nazarene.
's sense this initial recognition of the two titles (Son of David, Son of Abraham) the explicit and the end of the pedigree: Son of Mary (by the Holy Ghost), wife of Joseph.
Mary and Joseph to complete the genealogical list cast a light on it transforms it. This genealogy same enclosed in the carnal humility free perpetual testimony to the divine initiative, which must shine at the end of it dazzling. Because Abraham in its absolute beginning, as a free choice of God. Because this man is perpetuated in a barren woman. Because the birthright do not have Ishmael, but Isaac, and later is not Esau, but Jacob, who inherited it would have matched against the flesh, and the same goes for Judah to run in place of the firstborn, and David , who is the younger brother. The long list is just shelter, but also great sinners who are proud of the purity of Davidic origin, or think the origin of the Davidic Messiah in terms proud racial purity, could not leave to call attention to the genealogy in Matthew introduced against usual on behalf of four women, all foreign and alien not only to race but to the Jewish nation: Tamar, a Canaanite, which dressing a prostitute boots your father the offspring belonged to her dead husband, according to the law of the levirate, and her relatives refused. Rajab, another Canaanite, through which Jews can enter Jericho in Joshua's time, and, according to extra-biblical rabbinic traditions, was the mother of Boaz, which in turn, Ruth-foreign as well and nothing less than Moabite region-hated begat Obed, grandfather of David. Bat-Sheba, at last, presumably the adulteress and her husband Uriah the Hittite, General David, who does this sinfully die in battle to snatch his wife, which was then nothing less than the mother of Solomon, the son of promise.
Where there is room for racial pride, glory in the purity of the blood or the merits of their ancestors? They are not written in the lineage of the Messiah, as from David, or the pristine purity of blood, nor justice without blemish. Rather, by contrast, if the Messiah is because their ancestors, is also due to foreigners and sinners, and sinners foreigners and have titles Relationship to argue about the Messiah.
Mateo is pleased to note as well the true logic inscribed in the history genealogical lineage of the Messiah and dadvídico contradict her carnal pride and the worship of the lineage. Those
foreign women, which was due to the perpetuation of the lineage of David, are foreshadowing of Mary, also outside the lineage of David according to the flesh, despised by those who gloried in their pedigrees.
But while eternally foreign to the lineage of women who conceived by the work of man, is the mother of the new race of men born of God through faith.
7. Son of David and Son of God
Virgin Mary and Joseph's wife Mary are not features that overlap, but articulated and give rise to a theological explanation: illuminate how we should understand the messianic Son of David title. Membership of the Messiah of the lineage of David will not be tied by a bond of blood, as Joseph, son of David, has no physical part in its conception. Membership of the Messiah to the house of David is tied through an Alliance. A marriage alliance. But a marriage alliance that is not explained either by mere human decision or choice, but two consent of faith to the divine and, therefore, while marriage alliance between two creatures, it is faith alliance between two creatures and God.
The Messiah is the Son of David by will or by the work of man or by genealogy, but enters into the genealogy under an assent of faith that gives Joseph son of David, which is revealed as operated by God in Mary.
The Messiah is the Son of God for man will not work, but by virtue of an assent of faith that brings Mary to the Spirit's work in it.
For the Messiah, the Son of God and Son of David, 1) came into the world and 2) enter in the offspring of David, is needed, therefore, two communities of faith: that of Mary and Joseph. Both found the true Israel, the true descendants of Abraham, born, spread and perpetuated not by means of human procreation, but by faith.
Matthew stresses that the Davidic descent of Jesus the Messiah is not a sign pedigree that can be read, properly understood or interpreted outside the faith. It is a sign that God has given in the field of human generation, by accessing the carnality of the Jews who demanded signs for belief.
antisigno seems rather because, in reality, the Messiah existed before and independently of their incorporation in the lineage David through his mother's marriage to a man of that lineage.
Facts, which Matthew does not avoid, rather contradict the specific ways the Jewish messianic expectation. Matthew
shows signs of courage and intellectual honesty very large when undertakes the task of exposing these facts (though awesome) unsweetened or camouflage, in the confidence that they show a consistency that the Old Testament can not but move to recognize, if piercing the surface crust-like appearance of signs of credibility.
Hence his appeal to the Old Testament in continuous parallel with the facts, showing how are not condemning the prophecies of Jesus Christ, but it is real and concrete life of Jesus Christ which sheds light on the Old Testament prophetic content and extending the length of his prophetic sense unsuspected regions lanes vulgar Jewish theology of his time.
* Whether to justify the translation "made a child of a woman" instead of "born of woman," to understand the messianic sense of allusion to the mother, see the article by José M. Bover, SJ, A text of St. Paul (Gal 4, 45) interpreted by St. Irenaeus (Ecclesiastical Studies 17, 1943, pp. 145-181), the translation of this passage in Galatians we have adopted.
Source: "The figure of Mary through evangelicals" of Father Horacio Bojorge sj
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