By Water & Blood

Why Matthew begins the Gospel

This Matthew, then, is counted worthy to proclaim the gospel first, as I said—and most justly. For it was fitting that the one who had turned from many sins and risen from the tax office and followed him who came for the salvation of the human race and who says, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” should first provide us who are to be saved with the preaching of salvation, as a pattern like the one taken up from the tax office and turned back from injustice, so that from him people might learn the loving-kindness of the coming.

For after the forgiveness of sins he also granted him raising of the dead and cleansing of leprosy and powers of healings and driving out of demons, so that he might persuade his hearers not only by the word but also, from the work itself, proclaim good news: to those who are perishing that they will be saved through repentance, to those who have fallen that they will rise, and to the dead that they will be made alive.

And Matthew himself, then, writes and preaches the gospel in Hebrew letters, and he begins not from the absolute beginning, but narrates the genealogy from Abraham: “Abraham,” he says, “begot Isaac, and Isaac Jacob,” and so on as far as Joseph and Mary.

And from the start he sets it out, saying, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David,” then says “son of Abraham,” then, coming to the very point in question, says: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, being righteous, sought to put her away secretly.

And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Do not put away your wife; for that which is begotten in her is from the Holy Spirit.

For behold, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will save his people from their sins.’ And this,” he says, “has happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child,’” and what follows.

And rising from sleep,” he says, “Joseph did so and took his wife, and he did not know her until she had borne her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.

Now when Jesus was born,” he says, “in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.’”

Where, then, is the narrative about Zacharias? Where are the things Luke has treated? Where the vision of the angel? Where the prophecy of John the Baptist? Where the rebuke of Zacharias, that he could not speak until the things spoken by the angel should come to pass?

Where the things said by Gabriel to the virgin? Where the display of security, when Mary answered the angel himself with understanding, asking, “How will this be, since I do not know a man?” and the pure guidance given with precision, as he said to her, “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”?