Leo on “the genealogy of Jesus”

The genealogy of Jesus” ADVENT - 18 December First Reading From the book of the prophet Isaiah (40:12-18.21-31) Romans 11:34; Isaiah 40:14 Second Reading From a letter by Saint Leo the Great (Ep. 31, 2-3: PL 54, 791-793) In this passage Leo shows the importance of the genealogy of Jesus. It assures us that our Lord had a true human nature, without which his victory over Satan would have been of no profit to us. Because of the union in Christ of the divine and human natures, we too may now be born again through the same Spirit by whom he was conceived. To speak of our Lord, the son of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as true and perfect man is of no value to us if we do not believe that he is descended from the line of ancestors set out in the Gospel. Matthew's gospel begins by setting out the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham, and then traces his human descent by bringing his ancestral line down to his mother's husband, Joseph. On the other hand, Luke traces his parentage backward step by step to the actual father of the human race, to show that both the first and last Adam share the same nature. No doubt the Son of God in his omnipotence could have taught and sanctified men and women by appearing to them in a semblance of human form as he did to the patriarchs and prophets, when for instance he engaged in a wrestling contest or entered into conversation with them, or when he accepted their hospitality and even ate the food they set before him. But these appearances were only types, signs that mysteriously foretold the coming of the one who would take a true human nature from the stock of the patriarchs who had gone before him. No mere figure, then, fulfilled the mystery of our reconciliation with God, ordained from all eternity. The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon the Virgin nor had the power of the Most High overshadowed her, so that within her spotless womb Wisdom might build itself a house and the Word become flesh. The divine nature and the nature of a servant were to be united in one person so that the Creator of time might be born in time, and he through whom all things were made might be brought forth in their midst. For if the new man, by being made in the likeness of sinful humanity, had not taken on himself our fallen nature, if he who was one in substance with the Father had not stooped to share the substance of his mother, and being alone free from sin, united our nature to his, the whole human race would still have been held captive under the dominion of Satan. The conqueror's victory would have profited us nothing if the battle had been fought outside our human condition. But through this wonderful blending the mystery of new birth shone upon us, so that through the same Spirit by whom Christ was conceived and brought forth we too might be born again by a spiritual birth; and in consequence the evangelist declares believers to have been born not of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the will of human beings, but of God.