hew traces the
generations downwards, Luke upwards." For the same reason too
"Matthew descends from David through Solomon, in whose mother David
sinned; whereas Luke ascends to David through Nathan, through whose
namesake, the prophet, God expiated his sin." And hence it is also
that, because "Matthew wished to signify that Christ had condescended
to our mortal nature, he set down the genealogy of Christ at the very
outset of his Gospel, beginning with Abraham and descending to Joseph
and the birth of Christ Himself. Luke, on the contrary, sets forth
Christ's genealogy not at the outset, but after Christ's Baptism, and
not in the descending but in the ascending order: as though giving
prominence to the office of the priest in expiating our sins, to
which John bore witness, saying: 'Behold Him who taketh away the sin
of the world.' And in the ascending order, he passes Abraham and
continues up to God, to whom we are reconciled by cleansing and
expiating. With reason too he follows the origin of adoption; because
by adoption we become children of God: whereas by carnal generation
the Son of God became the Son of Man. Moreover he shows sufficiently
that he does not say that Joseph was the son of Heli as though
begotten by him, but because he was adopted by him, since he says
that Adam was the son of God, inasmuch as he was created by God."

Again, the number forty pertains to the time of our present life:
because of the four parts of the world in which we pass this mortal
life under the rule of Christ. And forty is the product of four
multiplied by ten: while ten is the sum of the numbers from one to
four. The number ten may also refer to the decalogue; and the number
four to the present life; or again to the four Gospels, according to
which Christ reigns in us. And thus "Matthew, putting forward the
royal personality of Christ, enumerates forty persons not counting
Him" (cf. Augustine, De Consensu Evang. ii). But this is to be taken
on the supposition that it be the same Jechonias at the end of the
second, and at the commencement of the third series of fourteen, as
Augustine understands it. According to him this was done in order to
signify "that under Jechonias there was a certain defection to
strange nations during the Babylonian captivity; which also
foreshadowed the fact that Christ would pass from the Jews to the
Gentiles."

On the other hand, Jerome (on Matt. 1:12-15) says that there were two
Joachims--that is, J