HKB
from the human race; because the design of God, in that promise to Eve, was to comfort her with a good hope, that she might not be overcome with sorrow.
III. Those passages, where Christ is called “the seed of Abraham,” and “the fruit of the body of David,” they with equal folly and wickedness involve in allegories. For if the word seed had been used in an allegorical sense, Paul certainly would not have been silent respecting it, where, without any figure, he explicitly affirms, that there are not many sons of Abraham who are Redeemers, but Christ alone.(1157) Equally unfounded is their notion, that Christ is called the Son of David in no other sense, but because he had been promised, and was at length manifested in due time. For after Paul has declared him to have been “made of the seed of David,” the immediate addition of this phrase, “according to the flesh,”(1158) is certainly a designation of nature. Thus also in another place he calls him “God blessed for ever,” and distinctly states that he descended from the Jews “as concerning the flesh.”(1159) Now, if he was not really begotten of the seed of David, what is the meaning of this expression, “the fruit of his loins?”(1160) What becomes of this promise, “Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne?”(1161) They likewise trifle in a sophistical manner with the genealogy of Christ, as it is given by Matthew. For though he mentions the parents of Joseph, and not of Mary, yet as he was treating of a thing then generally known, he thought it sufficient to show that Joseph descended from the seed of David, while there could be no doubt that Mary was of the same family. But Luke goes further, with a view to signify, that the salvation procured by Christ is common to all mankind; since Christ, the author of salvation, is descended from Adam, the common parent of all. I grant, indeed, that from the genealogy it cannot be inferred that Christ is the Son of David, any otherwise than as he was born of the Virgin. But the modern Marcionites, to give a plausibility to their error, that Christ derived his body from nothing, contend that women have no generative semen; and thus they subvert the elements of nature. But as this is not a theological question, and the arguments which they adduce are so futile that there will be no difficulty in repelling them, I shall not meddle with points belonging to philosophy and the medical art. It will be sufficient for me to obviate the objection which they allege from the Scripture, namely, that Aaron and Jehoiada married wives of the tribe of Judah; and thus, if women contain generative semen, the distinction of tribes was confounded. But it is sufficiently known, that, for the purposes of political regulation, the posterity is always reckoned from the father; yet that the superiority of the male sex forms no objection to the coöperation of the female semen in the process of generation. This solution extends to all the genealogies. Frequently, when the Scripture exhibits a catalogue of names, it mentions none but men; is it therefore to be concluded that women are nothing? Even children themselves know that women are comprehended under their husbands. For this reason women are said to bear children to their husbands, because the name of the family always remains with the males. Now, as it is a privilege conceded to the superiority of the male sex, that children should be accounted noble or ignoble, according to the condition of their fathers, so, on the other hand, it is held by the lawyers, that in a state of slavery the offspring follows the condition of the mother. Whence we may infer, that the offspring is produced partly from the seed of the mother; and the common language of all nations implies that mothers have some share in the generation of children. This is in harmony with the Divine law, which otherwise would have no ground for the prohibition of the marriage of an uncle with his sister’s daughter; because in that case there would be no consanguinity. It would also be lawful for a man to marry his uterine sister, provided she were begotten by another father. But while I grant that a passive power is ascribed to women, I also maintain that the same that is affirmed of men is indiscriminately predicated of them. Nor is Christ himself said to be “made” by a woman, but “of a woman.”(1162) Some of these persons, casting off all modesty, impudently inquire, whether we choose to say that Christ was procreated from the menstrual seed of the Virgin. I will inquire, on the other hand, whether he was not united with the blood of his mother; and this they must be constrained to confess. It is properly inferred, therefore, from the language of Matthew, that inasmuch as Christ was begotten of Mary,(1163) he was procreated from her seed; as when Booz is said to have been begotten of Rahab,(1164) it denotes a similar generation. Nor is it the design of Matthew here to describe the Virgin as a tube through which Christ passed, but to discriminate this miraculous conception from ordinary generation, in that Jesus Christ was generated of the seed of David by means of a Virgin. In the same sense, and for the same reason that Isaac is said to have been begotten of Abraham, Solomon of David, and Joseph of Jacob, so Christ is said to have been begotten of his mother. For the evangelist has written the whole of his account upon this principle; and to prove that Christ descended from David, he has contented himself with this one fact, that he was begotten of Mary. Whence it follows, that he took for granted the consanguinity of Mary and Joseph.