Questions on the Nativity
Questions on the Nativity
Sinful Women in the Genealogy
Question:
Why did the Evangelist omit in the genealogy the names of holy women such as Sarah and Rebekah and others, and mention adulterous women such as Tamar and Rahab, and a woman of foreign race, Ruth?
Answer:
He intended to nullify the pride of the Jews who boasted in their forefathers. So he showed them how their ancestors had sinned: Judah committed adultery with Tamar, the widow of his son, and begot from her Perez and Zerah. And David fell into adultery with the wife of Uriah the Hittite. And Boaz, the great-grandfather of David, was begotten by Salmon from Rahab the harlot…
And even if their ancestors were virtuous, the virtue of their forefathers would not benefit them. For a person’s deeds—not the deeds of his fathers—are what determine his destiny on the last day.
Saint John Chrysostom says concerning this:
The Lord Christ did not come to flee from our reproaches, but to remove them. He is not ashamed of any kind of our deficiencies. And just as those ancestors took harlot women, so also our Lord and God betrothed to Himself our nature which had committed adultery.
The Church, like Tamar, was delivered at once from her evil deeds and then followed Him.
And Ruth resembles our condition: her tribe was foreign to Israel, and she had descended into extreme poverty. Yet when Boaz saw her, he did not despise her poverty, nor reject the lowliness of her race. Likewise, the Lord Christ did not reject His Church though she had been foreign and in poverty of good works… And just as Ruth, had she not left her people and her father’s house, would not have tasted that glory, so also the Church to whom the prophet said, “Forget your people and your father’s house, and the King will desire your beauty”…
By these matters our Lord put them to shame—facts known to them—that they might not exalt themselves. And thus the Evangelist recorded the genealogy of Christ and included in it those adulterous women. For no one can be virtuous by the virtue of his ancestors, nor wicked by the wickedness of his ancestors. Rather, I say that the person who was not from virtuous forefathers and became righteous—great is the honor of his virtue.
Therefore let no one boast and be puffed up because of his ancestors, if he considers the ancestors of our Lord, and let him look to his own deeds. And even his virtues he should not boast in. For by such boasting the Pharisee became lower than the tax collector.
So do not corrupt your labors and speak in vain. Do not lose all your toil after you have journeyed many miles in it. For your Master knows the virtues you have perfected more than you do. For if you give a thirsty one a cup of cold water, God will not overlook this nor forget it.
If you praise yourself, God will not praise you. If you forget the woe due to you and from you, He will not cease proclaiming your virtue… And He seeks by every means to crown you through many labors. And He goes about seeking arguments by which He may save you from Gehenna. Even if you worked at the eleventh hour, He gives you the wage of the whole day… And if you shed even one tear, He hastens to seize it and make it an argument for your salvation…
Let us not then exalt ourselves, but we ought to call ourselves unworthy, and forget the mention of the good we have done, and remember our sins.
Your praises, which ought to be known to God alone, are with Him in safekeeping, guarded by Him; so do not repeat their mention lest one snatch them from you, and what happened to the Pharisee befall you, when he mentioned his praises and the deceitful devil stole them.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Seventh Year (Issue Two) 9-1-1976
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