---
title: "Catena Aurea: The Four Gospels"
author: "Thomas Aquinas"
translator: "John Henry Newman (ed.)"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 2 of 394
url: https://scriptura.si/works/thomas-aquinas-catena-aurea-the-four-gospels/2/
cite: "Thomas Aquinas, tr. John Henry Newman (ed.), Catena Aurea: The Four Gospels, section 2. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/thomas-aquinas-catena-aurea-the-four-gospels/2/"
---

# Catena Aurea: The Four Gospels

*Thomas Aquinas, tr. John Henry Newman (ed.)*

The four Gospels read through chains of quotations from the Church Fathers.

## 2. Matthew 1 · 2 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/thomas-aquinas-catena-aurea-the-four-gospels/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/thomas-aquinas-catena-aurea-the-four-gospels/2/#p-N

[¶0] Should they say that He spoke thus in parables, we have at hand proofs from the Evangelists themselves, who in relating His actions, bear witness as to the reality of His body, so of His soul, by mention of passions which cannot be without a soul; as when they say, "Jesus wondered, was angry," and others of like kind.

[¶1] The Apollinarians also as the Arians affirmed that Christ had taken the human flesh without the soul [Source note: margin note: Id. de Haeres. 55]] . But overthrown on this point by the weight of Scripture proof, they then said that part which is the rational soul of man was wanting to the soul of Christ, and that its place was filled by the Word itself.

[¶2] But if it be so, then we must believe that the Word of God took on Him the nature of some brute with a human shape and appearance. But even concerning the nature of Christ’s body, there are some who have so far swerved from the right faith, as to say, that the flesh and the Word were of one and the same substance, most perversely insisting on that expression, The Word was made flesh; which they interpret that some portion of the Word was changed into flesh, not that He took to Him flesh of the flesh of the Virgin. [Source note: ed. note: Some of the Apollinarians thus hold. vid. Nyssen. vol. ii, p. 694. A.Theodor. Eranist. p. 174. ed. Schulz. The same doctrine was afterwards ascribed to the Eutychians, vid. Vigil. Taps. in Eutych. iv. Theod. Haer. iv. 13]

[¶3] Cyril, Ep. ad Joan. Antioch. tom. 6, Ep. 107: We account those persons mad who have suspected that so much as the shadow of change could take place in the nature of the Divine Word; it abides what it ever was, neither is nor can be changed.

[¶4] Leo, Epist. 59, ad Const.: We do not speak of Christ as man in such a sort as to allow that any thing was wanting to Him, which it is certain pertains to human nature, whether soul, or rational mind, or flesh, and flesh such as was taken of the Woman, not gained by a change or conversion of the Word into flesh.

[¶5] These three several errors, that thrice false heresy of the Apollinarists has brought forward. Eutyches also chose out this third dogma of Apollinaris, which denying the verity of the human body and soul, maintained that our Lord Jesus Christ was wholly and entirely of one nature, as though the Divine Word had changed itself into flesh and soul, and as though the conception, birth, growth, and such like, had been undergone by that Divine Essence, which was incapable of any such changes with the very and true flesh; for such as is the nature of the Only-begotten, such is the nature of the Father, and such is the nature of the Holy Ghost, both impassible and eternal.

[¶6] But if to avoid being driven to the conclusion that the Godhead could feel suffering and death, he departs from the corruption of Apollinaris, and should still dare to affirm the nature of the incarnate Word, that is of the Word and the flesh, to be the same, he clearly falls into the insane notions of Manichaeus and Marcion, and believes that the Lord Jesus Christ did all His actions with a false appearance, that His body was not a human body, but a phantasm, which imposed on the eyes of the beholders.

[¶7] But what Eutyches ventured [Source note: margin note: Id. Ep. 35 ad Julian] to pronounce as an episcopal decision, that in Christ before His incarnation were two natures, but after His incarnation only one, it behoved that he should have been urgently pressed to give the reason of this his belief.

[¶8] suppose that in using such language he supposed the soul which the Saviour took, to have had its abode in heaven before it was born of the Virgin Mary [Source note: ed. note, e: This opinion, which involves Nestorianism, the opposite error to Eutychianism or Monophysitism, is imputed to Eutyches by Flavian, ap. Leon. Ep. xxii. 3. Ephraem, Antioch, ap Phot. p. 805. Leont. de Sectis 7 init] .

[¶9] This Catholic hearts and ears endure not, for that the Lord when He came down from heaven shewed nothing of the condition of human nature, nor did He take on Him any soul that had existed before, nor any flesh that was not taken of the flesh of His mother. Thus what was justly condemned in Origen [Source note: ed. note, f: Vid. Origen in Joan. t. i. n. 37. t. xx. n. 17. Patriarch. ii. 6. n. 4. ix. Cels. i. 32, 33] , must needs be rebuked in Eutyches, to wit, that our souls before they were placed in our bodies had actions not only wonderful but various.

[¶10] Remigius: These heresies therefore the Apostles overthrow in the opening of their Gospels, as Matthew in relating how He derived His descent from the kings of the Jews proves Him to have been truly man and to have had true flesh.

[¶11] Likewise Luke, when he describes the priestly stock and person; Mark when he says, "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God;" and John when he says, "In the beginning was the Word;" both shew Him to have been before all ages God, with God the Father.

[¶12] Ver. 2. Abraham began Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren.

[¶13] Aug., de Con. Evan., ii, 1: Matthew, by beginning with Christ’s genealogy, shews that he has undertaken to relate Christ’s birth according to the flesh. But Luke, as rather describing Him as a Priest for the atonement of sin, gives Christ’s genealogy not in the beginning of his Gospel, but at His baptism, when John bare that testimony, "Lo, He that taketh away the sins of the world." [[Joh 1:29]]

[¶14] In the genealogy of Matthew is figured to us the taking on Him of our sins by the Lord Christ: in the genealogy of Luke, the taking away of our sins by the same; hence Matthew gives them in a descending, Luke in an ascending, series. But Matthew, describing Christ’s human generation in descending order, begins his enumeration with Abraham.

[¶15] Ambrose, in Luc. cap. 3. lib. iii. n. 7,8: For Abraham was the first who deserved the witness of faith; "He believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." It behoved therefore that he should be set forth as the first in the line of descent, who was the first to deserve the promise of the restoration of the Church, "In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." And it is again brought to a period in David, for that Jesus should be called his Son; hence to him is preserved the privilege, that from him should come the beginning of the Lord’s genealogy.

[¶16] Chrys., Hom. iii, and Aug. City of God, 15, 15: Matthew then, desiring to preserve in memory the lineage of the Lord’s humanity through the succession of His parents, begins with Abraham, saying, "Abraham begat Isaac." Why does he not mention Ismael, his first-born? And again, "Isaac began Jacob;" why does he not speak of Esau his first-born? Because through them he could not have come down to David.

[¶17] Gloss: Yet he names all the brethren of Judah with him in the lineage. Ismael and Esau had not remained in the worship of the true God; but the brethren of Judah were reckoned in God’s people.

[¶18] Chrys., Hom. iii: Or, he names all the twelve Patriarchs that he may lower that pride which is drawn from a line of noble ancestry. For many of these were born of maidservants, and yet were Patriarchs and heads of tribes.

[¶19] Gloss: But Judah is the only one mentioned by name, and that because the Lord was descended from him only. But in each of the Patriarchs we must note not their history only, but the allegorical and moral meaning to be drawn from them; allegory, in seeing whom each of the Fathers foreshewed; moral instruction in that through each one of the Fathers some virtue may be edified in us either through the signification of his name, or through his example. [Source note: ed. note: Origen considered that there were three senses of Scripture, the literal or historical, the moral, and the mystical or spiritual, corresponding to the three parts of man, body, and soul, and spirit. Hom. in Lev. ii, 5, de Princio iv, p. 168. By the moral sense is meant, as the name implies, a practical application of the text; by mystical one which interprets it of the invisible and the spiritual world.]

[¶20] Abraham is in many respects a figure of Christ, and chiefly in his name, which is interpreted the Father of many nations, and Christ is Father of many believers. Abraham moreover went out from his own kindred, and abode in a strange land; in like manner Christ, leaving the Jewish nation, went by His preachers throughout the Gentiles.

[¶21] Pseudo-Chyrs.: Isaac is interpreted, ’laughter,’ but the laughter of the saints is not the foolish convulsion of the lips, but the rational joy of the heart, which was the mystery of Christ. For as he was granted to his parents in their extreme age to their great joy, that it might be known that he was not the child of nature, but of grace, thus Christ also in this last time came of a Jewish mother to be the joy of the whole earth; the one of a virgin, the other of a woman past the age, both contrary to the expectation of nature.

[¶22] Remigius: Jacob is interpreted, ’supplanter,’ and it is said of Christ, "Thou hast cast down beneath Me them that rose up against Me." [[Psa 18:43]]

[¶23] Pseudo-Chrysostom: Our Jacob in like manner begot the twelve Apostles in the Spirit, not in the flesh; in word, not in blood. Judah is interpreted, ’confessor,’ for he was a type of Christ who was to be the confessor of His Father, as He spake, "I confess to Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth."

[¶24] Gloss: Morally; Abraham signifies to us the virtue of faith in Christ, as an example himself, as it is said of him, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto Him for righteousness." Isaac may represent hope; for Isaac is interpreted, ’laughter,’ as he was the joy of his parents; and hope is our joy, making us to hope for eternal blessings and to joy in them. "Abraham begat Isaac," and faith begets hope. Jacob signifies, ’love,’ for love embraces two lives; active in the love of our neighbour, contemplative in the love of God; the active is signified by Leah, the contemplative by Rachel. For Leah is interpreted ’labouring,’ [Source note: ed. note, h: Leah full of labour, Jerom. de nomin. Hebr. from to weary one’s self.] for she is active in labour; Rachel ’having seen the beginning,’ [Source note: ed. note, i: Rachel, in ewe, (as [Gen 31:38], etc.) Jerom. ibid. who also gives the interpretation in the text, from and because by the contemplative, the beginning, that is God, is seen. Jacob is born of two parents, as love is born of faith and hope; for what we believe, we both hope for and love.]

[¶25] Ver. 3-6. And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; and Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; and Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; and Jesse begat David the king.

[¶26] Gloss: Passing over the other sons of Jacob, the Evangelist follows the family of Judah, saying But Judah begat Phares and Zara of Thamar.

[¶27] Augustine: Neither was Judah himself a first-born, nor of these two sons was either his first-born; he had already had three before them. So that he keeps in that line of descent, by which he shall arrive at David, and from him whither he purposed.

[¶28] Jerome: It should be noted, that none of the holy women are taken into the Savior’s genealogy, but rather such as Scripture has condemned, that He who came for sinners being born of sinners might so put away the sins of all; thus Ruth the Moabitess follows among the rest,

[¶29] Ambrose: But Luke has avoided the mention of these, that he might set forth the series of the priestly race immaculate, But the plan of St. Matthew did not exclude the righteousness of natural reason; for when he wrote in his Gospel, that He who should take on Him the sins of all, was born in the flesh, was subject to wrongs and pain, he did not think it any detraction from His holiness that He did not refuse the further humiliation of a sinful parentage. Nor, again, would it shame the Church to be gathered from among sinners, when the Lord Himself was born of sinners; and, lastly, that the benefits of redemption might have their beginning with his own forefathers: and that none might imagine that a stain in the blood was any hindrance to virtue, nor again any pride themselves insolently on nobility of birth.

[¶30] Chrysostom: Beside this, it shows that all are equally liable to sin; for here is Thamar accusing Judah of incest, and David begat Solomon with a woman with whom he had committed adultery. But if the Law was not fulfilled by these great ones, neither could it be by their less great posterity, and so all have sinned, and the presence of Christ is become necessary.

[¶31] Ambrose: Observe that Matthew does not name both without a meaning for though the object of his writing only required the mention of Phares, yet in the twins a mystery is signified; namely the double life of the nations, one by the Law, the other by Faith.

[¶32] Pseudo-Chrysostom: By Zarah is denoted the people of the Jews, which first appeared in the light of faith, coming out of the dark womb of the world, and was therefore marked with the scarlet thread of the circumciser, for all supposed they were to be God’s people; but the Law was set before their face as it had been a wall or hedge. Thus the Jews were hindered by the Law, but in the times of Christ’s coming the hedge of the Law was broken down that was between Jew and Gentiles, as the Apostle speaks, Breaking down the middle wall of partition; and thus it fell out that time Gentiles, who were signified by Phares, as soon as the Law was broken through the Christ’s commandments, first entered into the faith, and after followed the Jews.

[¶33] Gloss: Judah begat Phares and Zarah before he went into Egypt, whither they both accompanied their father. In Egypt, Phares begat Esrom; amad Esrom begat Aram; Arami begat Aminadab; Aminadab begat Naasson; and then Moses led them out of Egypt. Naasson was head of a tribe of Judah under Moses in the desert, where he began Salmon; and this Salmon it was who, as prince of the tribe of Judah, entered the hand of promise with Joshua.

[¶34] Pseudo-Chrysostom: But as we believe that the names of these Fathers were given for some special reason under the providence of God, it follows, but Naasson begat Salmon. This Salmon after his father’s death entered the promised land with Joshua as prince of the tribe of Judah. He took a wife of the name of Rahab. This Rahab is said to have been that Rahab the harlot of Jericho who entertained the spies of the children of Israel, and hid them safely. For Salmon being noble among the children of Israel, inasmuch as he was of the tribe of Judah, and son of the prince thereof, beheld Rahab so ennobled through her great faith, that she was worthy whom he should take to wife. Salmon is interpreted ’receive a vessel ,’ perhaps as if invited in God’s providence by his very name to receive Rahab a vessel of election.

[¶35] Gloss: This Salmon in the promised land begat Booz of this Rahab. Booz begat Obeth of Ruth.

[¶36] Pseudo-Chrysostom: How Booz took to wife a Moabitess whose name was Ruth, I thought it needless to tell, Seeing the Scripture concerning them is open to all. We need but say thus much, that Ruth married Booz for the reward of her faith, for that she had cast off the gods of her forefathers, and had chosen the living God. And Booz received her to wife for reward of his faith, that from such sanctified wed-lock might be descended a kingly race.

[¶37] Ambrose: But how did Ruth who was an alien marry a man that was a Jew? and wherefore in Christ’s genealogy did His Evangelist so much as mention a union, which in the eye of the law was bastard? Thus the Savior’s birth of a parentage not admitted by the law appears to us monstrous, until we attend to that declaration of the Apostle, The Law was not given for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. For this woman who was an alien, a Moabitess, a nation with whom the Mosaic Law forbade all intermarriage, and shut them totally out of the Church, how did she enter into the Church, unless that she were holy and unstained in her life above the Law? Therefore she was exempt from this restriction of the Law, and deserved to be numbered in the Lord’s lineage, chosen from the kindred of her mind, not of her body. To us she is a great example, for that in her was prefigured the entrance into the Lord’s Church of all of us who are gathered out of the Gentiles.

[¶38] Jerome: Ruth the Moabitess fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah, Send forth, O Lord, the Lamb that shall rule over the earth, out of the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion.

[¶39] Gloss: Jesse, the father of David, two names, being more frequently called Isaiah, but the Prophet says, There shall come a rod from the stem of Jesse; therefore to show that this prophecy was fulfilled in Mary and Christ, the Evangelist puts Jesse.

[¶40] Remigius: It is asked, why this epithet King is thus given by the holy Evangelist to David alone? Because he was the first king in the tribe of Judah. Christ Himself is Phares ’time divider,’ as it is written, You shall divide the sheep from the goats; He is Zaram, ’the east,’ Lo the man, the east is His name; He is Esrom, ’an arrow,’ He has set me as a polished shaft.’

[¶41] Rabanus: Or following another interpretation, according to the abundance of grace, and the width of love. He is ’Aram the chosen’, according to that, Behold my Servant whom I have chosen. He is Amninadab, that is ’willing’ in that he says, . I will freely sacrifice to You. Also He is Naasson, i.e. ’augury’ as he knows the past, the present , and the future; or, ’like a serpent,’ according to that, Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. He is Salmon, i.e. ’that feels’, as He said, I feel that power is gone forth out of me.

[¶42] Gloss: Christ himself espouses Rahab, i.e. the Gentile Church; for Rehab is interpreted either ’hunger,’ or ’breadth,’ or ’might;’ for the Church of the Gentiles hungers and thirsts after righteousness, and converts philosophers and kings by the might of her doctrine. Ruth is interpreted either ’seeing’ or ’hastening,’ and denotes the Church which in purity of heart sees God, and hastens to the prize of the heavenly call;

[¶43] Remigius: Christ is also Booz, because He is strength, for when I am lifted up, I will draw all men to Me. He is Obeth, ’a servant,’ for, the Son of man came not to be ministered to but to minister. He is Jesse, or ’burnt,’ for, I am come to send fire on earth. He is David, ’mighty in arm,’ for, the Lord is great and powerful; ’desirable,’ for, He shall come, the Desire of all nations; ’beautiful to behold’; according to that, Beautiful in form before the sons of men.

[¶44] Gloss: Let us now see what virtues they be which these fathers edify in us; for faith, hope, and charity are the foundation of all virtues; those that follow are like additions over and above them. Judah is interpreted ’confession,’ of which there are two kinds, confession of faith, and of sin. If then, after we be endowed with the three forementioned virtues, we sin, confession not of faith only but of sin is needful for us. Phares is interpreted ’division,’ Zamar ’the east,’ and Thamar ’bitterness.’ Thus Confession begets separation from vice, the rise of virtue, and the bitterness of repentance. After Phares follows Esron, ’an arrow,’ for when one is separated from vice and secular pursuits, he should become a dart wherewith to slay by preaching the vices of others. Aram is interpreted ’elect’ or ’lofty,’ for as soon as one is detached from this world, and profits for another, he must needs be held to be elect of God, famous among men, high in virtue. Naasson is ’augury,’ but this augury is of heaven, not of earth. It is that of which Joseph boasted when he said, You have taken away the cup of my Lord, where with He is wont to divine. The cup is the divine Scripture wherein is the draught of wisdom; by this the wise man divines, since in it he sees things future, that is, heavenly things. Next is Salomon, ’that perceives,’ for he who studies divine Scripture becomes perceiving, that is, he discerns by the taste of reason, good from bad, sweet from bitter. Next is Booz, that is ’brave,’ for who is well taught in Scripture becomes brave to endure all adversity.