APPENDIX,

OR

TWO DISSERTATIONS,

I. On the Genealogy of Christ.
II. On the Prophecy of Isaiah vii. 14.

NOTE I.

NO part of the sacred writings presents a larger or more difficult subject of inquiry than the evangelical accounts of the GENEALOGY OF CHRIST. The works consulted by the writer upon it, are Petri de Marca, Archiepiscopi Parisiensis, Dissertatio de Stemmate Christi, in his Opuscula, published by Baluzius, at Paris, 1681, octavo. Father Papebrooch's Exercitatio Theogenealogica de Christi Parentumque ejus et consanguineorum atque affinium stemmate, Ex Tomo. 3, de Actis Sanctorum Martii, pag. 9. & seq. Dissertation sur la Genealogie de Jesus Christ, in the Bible de Vence, 10 vol. 452; Dr. Barrett's Dissertation in the second part of his Edition of the Evangelium Secundum Matthæum ex codice rescripto in Bibliotheca Collegii Trinitatis, juxta Dublin, 1801; and the profound Critique of the last work, in the Ecclectic Reviews for March, July, and August, 1807.

To establish the system adopted in the text, three propositions only need be assumed.

1st. That, in the Hebraic, and, (which for the purpose under consideration is the same), in the Greek-Hebraic idiom, the word "begat" applies to the remote, as well as the immediate, descendant of the ancestor: so that, if Marcus were the son, Titus the grandson, and Caius the greatgrandson of Sempronius, it might, in the language of Scripture, be said, that Sempronius begat Caius:

2d. That, in the same idiom, the word "begat, applies not only to the natural offspring, but to the offspring assigned to the ancestor by law:

3d. And that, if a man married the daughter and only child of another, he became, in the view of the Hebrew law, the son of that person; and thus was a son assigned to him by law.

The first of these positions accounts for the omission of several descents in the genealogical table given by St. Matthew. The two last show in what sense Zorobabel was the son both of Neri and Salathiel, and Joseph the son both of Jacob and of Eli, or Joachim. This will appear more clearly by the following figure of the genealogy: