26 MRS. A. S. LEWIS, ON THE GENEALOGIES OF OUR LORD. 



branch of that family would keep careful memory of its own 

 descent. 



Prebendary Fox said : I am ill qualified on literary grounds 

 to discuss the problem before us, but I desire to thank Mrs. Lewis 

 for the suggestion that " These genealogies, as part of inspired 

 scripture, have their spiritual as well as historic uses " ; such, for 

 example, as the lesson conveyed by the omission of the three names 

 in the second group, and the reason for that omission. Old Thomas 

 Fuller, quaintest of English divines, writes somewhere : " How 

 fruitful are the seeming barren places of scripture. Wheresoever 

 the surface of God's word doth not laugh and sing with corn, there 

 the heart thereof within is merry with mines, affording, where not 

 plain matter, hidden mysteries." And he illustrates this elsewhere 

 in his Scripture Observations^ by a reference to the very chapter 

 which we have been considering. ''Lord, I find the genealogy 

 of my Saviour (Matt, i, 7, 8) strangely chequered with four 

 remarkable changes in four immediate generations. 



L Eoboam begat Abia ; that is, a bad father begat a bad son. 



2. Abia begat Asa ; that is, a bad father, a good son. 



3. Asa begat Josaphat; that is, a good father, a good son. 



4. Josaphat begat Joram ; that is a good father, a bad son. 



I see, Lord, from hence, that my father's piety cannot be entailed ; 

 that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety 

 is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son." 



Communications. 

 The Rev. George Crewdson writes : — 



There can be no doubt that the anticipation that Christ would 

 be descended from David was very general in our Lord's time 

 (St. John vii, 42, etc.). It is also clear that it was believed, at least 

 by the disciples, that Jesus was actually descended from him 

 (St. Matt, i, 1 ; Acts ii, 30, xii, 23 ; Eom. i, 3 ; Rev. xxii, 16, etc.). 

 The genealogies in St. Matthew and St. Luke are apparently inserted 

 to prove that this is the fact. But at first sight it would appear 

 that the two genealogies were mutually destructive, and that one 

 or both are entirely untrustworthy. They both appear to be 

 genealogies of Joseph, but they start from two different sons 



