18. Firstly, if you consider the truth, this woman was not as famous as she was just. For she did not seek the temporary use of lust, but rather desired the honor of succession. It was shameful not to have children, which was also punished by the authority of civil laws. Judas had promised her to his son, and the engagement of marriage had been delayed for a long time. The betrothed died before fulfilling his promise. Before the coming of Christ, she had not yet experienced the grace of virginity or widowhood. Feeling sorry for himself for remaining without children, he devised a plan out of a desire for offspring, and he surpassed Judas in cunning; he offered himself to him, adorned, after he learned of his wife's death. You can see that the life of a woman is approved, because she did not steal another's bed, she was not adorned with the dress of a prostitute as if she were a prostitute; for she did not capture wandering lust, but after being deceived for a long time by her father-in-law's promises, she wanted to obtain the fruit of inheritance from the family she had chosen by turning the deception. Who, therefore, is purer? She who awaited the promised one for so long, or he who could not bear the love offered? She who did not reject the family of her betrothed, or he who thought of her as a prostitute? She who did not allow the hour of union to those who wished, or he who, having begun with the desire for error, completed the grace of succession by the chastity of a woman? She who did not have children, and feared that the time of conception would be excluded by the delay of marriage, or he who preferred the seriousness of a mature woman to the age of a younger one? Finally, he himself confessed, saying: Tamar is more justified than I; for this reason I did not give her to my son Shelah (Gen, XXXVIII, 26). And so she wanted to experience the exactor of her own chastity. Finally, she never experienced another man, she took the garment of widowhood from intercourse: this impatient man of only one hour, who had spent years in the chastity of a girl, expelled mourning, changed clothes, shaved her head, left the funeral pyre, and ascended the bed of the lover.
19. But we do not defend her in such a way as to accuse him: rather, we excuse both; not ourselves, but the mystery that the union of the two expressed; for the woman gave birth to Phares and Zaram, she gave birth to twins. Therefore, Matthew marked both not in vain, when he only sought to mention Phares: for Phares begot Esrom, Esrom begot Aram (Matt. 1:3): and then each in order. But why, when Isaac begot two, Jacob begot more, does Scripture only mention the ones that were demanded by the succession of the Lord, and yet mention both of these, unless it is because there is a mystery in both?
20. We have discussed the moral aspect, because he did not engage in the work of the prostitute, but chose the gifts of fertility: let us discuss the historical aspect and investigate the mystical. For what he received, the ring and necklace, and the staff, cannot be without mystery. It is not a trivial person who deserves to receive an ornament, a seal, power: the seal of deeds, the ornament of the heart, the emblem of royal freedom. Therefore, to begin the story, when Tamar conceived, you read that one of the twins put out his hand, which the midwife caught and tied a scarlet thread around, saying, "This one shall come out first" (Gen. XXXVIII, 28). But when the boy drew back his hand into his mother's womb, his brother immediately came out. Then the midwife said, 'What a breach you have made for yourself!' So she named him Phares. Afterward his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zara.' (Genesis 38:29-30). Do you see how many enigmatic mysteries are revealed? The hand extended, the scarlet thread tied, the hand withdrawn, the midwife's dual voice, the fact that one came out before the other, one breached while the other cut through the barrier.
21. But why did one send forth the hand from the womb, while the other preceded with the genitals? Is it not because through the mystery of twins the twofold life of peoples is portrayed: one according to the Law, the other according to faith; one according to the letter, the other according to grace? Grace is prior to the Law; faith is prior to the letter. And therefore, the type of grace sent forth the hand first; because the acts of grace preceded, which were in Job, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who lived by faith without the Law: For Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). Melchizedek also showed the grace of the holy sacrifice as a prefiguration (Gen. XIV, 18); for the holy patriarchs, preceding the Law, freed from the constraints of commandments, shone forth with a free and similar grace of the Gospel.
22. He is the younger brother of these; second in the order of piety; for the first is among the patriarchs, the second among the kings and priests. Both lives are according to God; for even those who served in the religious and pious army according to the law of Moses, are not devoid of grace and honor: but the first fruit of piety is in the founders, rather than in the heirs. For Zara is the first, which in interpretation means the east; for the light of true piety is the splendor of the rising sun, certainly of Him who said: My name is East; of whom the first ray of light shone in the patriarchs (Zacch. VI, 12). For at the beginning of their own lives, they advanced in this age, in whose hands also our own actions, as if the figure of a fuller body, which we were still held in the womb of nature generating, came before. But the observance of the Law is like a middle hedge, and in a certain way the life of our ancestors seems to be cut off, from which the midwife, perhaps justice, who received us released from the womb of our natural mother, is said to have spoken: This one will go forth first. And truly that order of piety was wonderful, not from Moses, nor from any man, nor through man, but implemented by a certain gift of wisdom pouring itself out freely.
23. Therefore, the first discipline of piety according to the Gospel: because we believe in the cross and blood of Christ, which Abraham saw the day of and rejoiced (John 8:56); whose grace Noah foresaw prefigured in the type of the Church, with spiritual understanding; whose place Isaac did not refuse in sacrifice (Genesis 22:10); whom Jacob worshipped when he wrestled with him (Genesis 32:25); whose prophet Isaiah saw the redness of garments (for according to the Gospel, the life of prophets is also) (Isaiah 63:2); in whose blood, amidst the destruction of the world, the prostitute Rahab indicated, by a mystery, the future emblem of salvation for the public Church (Joshua 2:1); a Church that does not refuse the union of many strangers and, the more closely joined to many, is the more chaste: an immaculate virgin, without wrinkle, whole in modesty, lowly in love, chaste in prostitution, widowed yet barren, fruitful in virginity. The prostitute, because she is frequently visited by many lovers with the allure of affection, and without the pollution of offense: For he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body (I Cor. VI, 16). The barren widow, who does not know how to bear children in the absence of a husband: the man comes and begets this people and this tribe. The fruitful virgin, who has brought forth this multitude with the fruit of love, without the use of lust.
24. But let us return to history: what do the words of the midwife saying, 'He will come out first,' mean? Was it not because he bore the image of the one who, though born later in body, being first in virtue and truth, claimed the chief place for himself? Hence also John said, 'There comes after me a man who has been made before me' (John 1:17). What does it mean that he bound a red cloth in his hand, except that he was a figure of the one who, by the sign of his cross and shedding of his blood, illuminated the act of human redemption? Therefore, after he withdrew his hand, as if a fence had been made by cutting, his brother came out, whom the Apostle referred to as the middle wall or barrier (Ephesians 2:14), and he himself received his name from the cutting; for Phares means division: hence they were called Pharisees, because they separated themselves from the associations of many. However, it would have been happier and much better if the fence had not been cut, but had remained one and undivided. What could have happened if he, who sent his earlier life to ruin, that is, showed his actions, had followed the military life that came after. For it would have been much better if the circumcised people had wanted to imitate the life of their ancestors; for thus there would have been one fence, one barrier, one structure of the past and the future. But because the weakness of the latter life could not fulfill the actions of the former, without a doubt, the fence or barrier, which had been built according to God, was like a middle wall placed in between; so that that fence, that is, the continual and continuous construction of good morals, would be broken. For a boundary surrounds a fruitful field and keeps out the incursions of thieves. It sets apart what is cultivated from what is abandoned. Likewise, a wall encloses a house. If this wall remains, the house is safe. Finally, 'I will remove its wall,' says the Lord, 'and it will be a source of plunder.' (Isaiah 5:5).
25. I wish that this may be the intact wall of our house, the spiritual house that is within us, for it cannot be built by man, but by the living God, who says: 'I have surrounded the wall' (Isaiah 5:2). Therefore, those who have lost the wall have also lost salvation. Therefore, let the wall remain, let this hedge remain. Do you want to know how useful the hedge is? Hedge your ears with thorns and thistles, and do not listen to wicked language (Sirach 28:28). Indeed, this protects you from guilt.
Therefore, the Lord Jesus, who later came into the world in the flesh, restoring the ancient fortification and renewing us to the actions and ancient simplicity of faith. Hence, concerning him, the prophet said: You will be called the builder of the wall. For he removed the obstacle that divided the unity of mind and body, and the sequence of simple life; and he himself became our peace, who made both one and broke down the middle wall of the enclosure. The Apostle exposes that the enmities are in the flesh (Ephesians 2:14). Therefore, the Lord has borne these enmities and has restored peace, and he has abolished the law of commandments in decrees; in order to create two in one new man: in whom he signifies not only the external and the internal, but also the Jew and the Greek, so that Christ would be all in all. For the Lord of the Sabbath has removed the superstition of the corporal Sabbath, and as if through a medium he has broken down the wall of the Law: which prohibited us from the piety that is according to God due to the difficulty of the decrees, since it was not easy or possible for the Gentiles to serve God according to the Law of Moses, since the empty superstition of the Jews called back the pure affection of the nations from undertaking the observance. What then? Useless law? God forbid: but useful for the unbelievers, necessary for the weak, which restrains the slippery and wandering by the severity of salutary precepts, and concludes them with the attentiveness of observances. But the Law is good, because it is spiritual. Therefore, it is not good for those who do not consider it spiritual: those who, having become small in mind and humble, could not see the majesty of Christ, who is above the Law. Indeed, just as the sublime Isaiah, looking beyond that wall, saw the glory of God (Isaiah 6:1), which appears on the mountains, not on the hills.
27. Therefore the Church teaches us in the Song of Songs, that this wall could not stand against our Lord Jesus Christ, nor against the one who followed Christ, saying: The voice of my brother: behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills. My brother is like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bethel. Behold, he stands behind our wall, looking through the windows, peering through the lattice. My brother answered and said to me: Rise up, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove; for behold, winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard (Song of Songs 2:8-12). Flowers, apostles: the time of harvest is the fruit of Christ: the voice of the turtledove, the voice of the Church. Therefore, the Son of God, after seeing that earthly men were not walking towards heavenly things and were confined by physical constraints (for there was no one who did good, not even one), deigned to come down to earth himself; in order to remove that wall of the Law, that is, a certain burden and the superstition of the physical mind, which was weighing down and overshadowing the hearts of the people. Therefore, a wall is better than a fence. Finally, the wall is not a good one, it is not painted. This was not said without purpose to the high priests, because it was protecting the obstacles of the middle wall (Acts 23:3), which the Lord Jesus abolished like a hard military service, in order to give a clearer observance of religion; so that now not only one Jewish race, enclosed as it were by a certain physical prescription of the Law, but all nations would be called to the worship of God through the Gospel.
28. Therefore, there are two sets of twin lives, two sets of twin struggles; so that the first is better than the one that follows. And therefore what is better has been reformed. But who would deny that the Gospel surpasses the Law? However, the Law is good if you raise the mind above the literal sense: for the letter kills. (2 Corinthians 3:6) But what would this history of grace have if we did not see the light of such a great mystery? For the holy Apostle has taught us to seek the secret of truth in the simplicity of history, and to interpret certain discussions that are not intelligible according to the letter, writing: Tell me, you who read the Law, have you not heard the Law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman, and one by a free woman: but he who was born of the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but he who was born of the free woman was born according to the promise. Now these things are said by way of allegory. For these are the two covenants (Galatians 4:21-24). And further: But the Jerusalem above is free (ibid., 4:26).
Therefore, let us strive with the sublimity of our minds towards that which the middle wall could not cut or divide. For according to the corporeal understanding, that wall of the old Testament has been removed: the slave woman has been expelled, the free woman is held. We are free from the free woman; for the Church is free, the Synagogue has been expelled. For the people of the Jews were serving, the yoke of servitude has been removed, which was repressing the necks of our souls; so that we could no longer look beyond the wall of the previous life. We have a good and light yoke, which lifts up more than it weighs down those who have it, with the bonds of peace and grace. This is the Lord, whose type went before in Zara; for the Lord Jesus, according to the flesh, was not only born of a woman, but also under the Law, so that he might redeem those who were under the Law with the price of his blood. Therefore, his figure went before in the hand of that Zara, in order to promise us that he was coming, who would restore to us the use of the old life, and reform the liberty which he had given at first to that Adam, in the last Adam; so that now the human race might be without the yoke of the law.
30. Therefore, if we acknowledge that Thamar is described in the genealogies on account of a mystery in the Lord's generations, we must also certainly not consider Ruth to be overlooked for the same reason: about whom the holy Apostle seems to have had an understanding, when he foresaw through the Spirit that the calling of the Gentiles was to be celebrated by the Gospel, saying that the Law is not made for the just, but for the unjust (1 Timothy 1:9). For how did Ruth, being a foreigner, marry a Jew? And by what reasoning did the evangelist think that the mention of a union should be made in the birth of Christ, which was forbidden by the series of laws? Therefore, did the Savior not originate from a legitimate generation (Deut. XXIII, 3)? It seems to be contrary unless we adhere to the apostolic belief, for the law was not established for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. And since she is a foreigner and a Moabite (especially since the law of Moses prohibited these marriages, and the Moabites were excluded from the Church; for it is written: Moabites shall not enter the Church of the Lord even to the third and fourth generation, and forever), how then did she enter into the Church if not because she was holy and blameless in her conduct, above the law? For if the Law was given to the impious and sinners, certainly Ruth, who surpassed the definition of the Law, and entered into the Church, and became an Israelite, and deserved to be counted among the greater ones of the Lord's family, because of the choice of her mind and not her body, is a great example for us, because in her the figure of our entrance into the Church of the Lord, who are gathered from the nations, preceded. Let us therefore imitate her; so that because she deserved this prerogative of being admitted into her society by her manners, as history teaches: we also, because of the choice of our manners, may be counted among the Church of the Lord, with the support of our merits.
For when the Israelites were afflicted by famine in the earlier days of the Judges, a man named Elimelech from the city of Bethlehem in Judah, where Christ was born, went to live in the land of Moab with his wife and two sons. His sons took Moabite wives, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth, and they lived there for about ten years before they died. But after her husband and sons died, the woman, left alone and without her own family, heard that God had visited Israel and she decided to return home. She urged her daughters-in-law to go back to their families as well. One concession: but Ruth stayed with her mother-in-law. When her mother-in-law said to her, 'Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; go back with her,' Ruth replied, 'Do not press me to leave you and to turn back from following you. Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried.' (Ruth 1:15, 17). And so the two arrived at Bethlehem. Therefore, when Boaz, the great-grandfather of David, learned of these customs, as well as the respect towards the mother-in-law, the devotion towards the deceased, and the religiousness towards God, according to the law of Moses, in order to raise up the offspring of the deceased, he chose her as his wife.
32. But it is worth noting that in a field full of harvest, she found sheaves, as it is written (Ruth 2:17), gathering them and reserving them for her mother-in-law. And she did not go after a young man, but followed a mature man, for which she deserved to hear: 'You are a woman of virtue', or 'Because you have done your mercy last, greater than the first' (Ruth 3:10). For the last mercy gathered by the Church surpasses the previous one. What we say briefly here, because we have set out more fully in the books that I have written about Faith (Book III on Faith to Gratian, ch. 5). But he who was far off has approached; because he who was nearest has distanced himself, and the neighbor's sandal he acquired by receiving the woman. For it was customary that he who was nearest, if he did not want to take his kinswoman as a wife, would loosen his sandal and give her to others (Ruth 4:7): in which there is not a small mystery, because the one who took an alien woman as a representative received the ability to proclaim the gospel.
33. Finally, the blessing of the elders testifies to these marriage in the type, saying: May the Lord give you a woman who enters your house, like Rachel and Leah, who built the house of Israel, and may you have power in Ephrathah. And may your name be in Bethlehem, and may your house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bore to Judah. May the Lord give you descendants through this young woman. And Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife (cf. Ruth 4:11-13), and she bore Obed, the father of Jesse, the grandfather of David. Therefore, Saint Matthew rightly mentioned in the Gospel that the Lord Himself, the author of the gathering of the gentiles, took on the generation of foreigners according to the flesh, so that even then there would be an indication that this generation would produce a caller of the gentiles, whom we all, gathered from foreigners, would follow, leaving behind our ancestral ways and saying to the one who would call us to the worship of God, for example, to Paul or to any bishop: Your people shall be my people, and your God my God (Ruth 1:16). Therefore, Ruth, like Leah and Rachel, forgetting her own people and her father's house, breaking the bond of the Law, entered into the Church.
But he who does not accept the Church takes off his sandal. And it is said to Moses: Take off the sandals from your feet (Exod. III, 5); so that he himself may not be believed to be the spouse of the Church. Only he who is the true spouse does not take off. And therefore John says: Whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie. Therefore, this is a symbol, and he built the house of Israel.
35. But the higher expression of the mystery declares how the mention of His Lordly descent is to be inserted, when it is prophesied that Christ would be born of His lineage in Ephrathah, where it is said: The Lord will give you strength in Ephrathah, and let His name be in Bethlehem (Ruth 4:11). For what is strength, if not that which gathered together the peoples of the Gentiles through Christ? And what is His name, if not the name of Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Lord according to the flesh? Therefore, through the prophet it was said: 'And you, Bethlehem of Judea, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel' (Micah 5:2). Thus, we see the story, customs, and mystery of women fitting together.
Nevertheless, I do not reject defending Tamar and Ruth, who were also counted among the sinners in the lineage of the Lord: of whom, desiring to avoid their mention, the holy Luke held a different order of successions: nor did he think it necessary to mention Ahaz, Jehoiakim, or finally the wife of Uriah; in order to declare the unstained line of the priestly lineage. But just as their plan stands firm, so too does the plan of Saint Matthew not deviate from the justice of reason. For when he proclaimed the Lord to be born according to the flesh, who would take upon himself the sins of all, subject to insults, subjected to suffering; he did not even think it necessary to assert that he himself was exempt from the stain of original sin, so that he would not refuse the injury inflicted by a tainted origin: at the same time, so that the Church would not be ashamed to gather sinners, since the Lord was born of sinners. Finally, so that he would also initiate the benefit of redemption from his own ancestors; lest anyone think that the stain of his origin could be an impediment to virtue: and so that he would not boast insolently of the nobility of his own race, nor be more ashamed of the crimes of his parents, to whom the ability to cover up their origin was given by the flower of virtue.
37. But is it true that the holy David, even though many things were prefigured in him mysteriously, is not superior because he recognized himself as a human and believed that the sin committed with the taking of Uriah's wife should be washed away by tears of repentance, showing us that no one should trust in their own virtue? For we have a great adversary who cannot be overcome by us without the favor of God. And often you will find that serious sins were committed by illustrious and blessed men, as if to show that they have been subject to temptation as humans, lest they be regarded as more than human in their outstanding virtues. For if David, when lifted up in presumption of his own virtue, had said, 'If I have repaid those who did me evil' (Psalm 7:5), and elsewhere, 'But I said in my abundance, I shall never be moved' (Psalm 29:7), immediately he remembered that he had suffered the punishment of his arrogance, saying, 'You turned your face away from me, and I became troubled' (ibid., 8). If the author of this arrogance, being of the lineage of the Lord, experienced offense, how much more should we other sinners, who have no claim to the prerogative of merit, fear the rock of arrogance, in which the shipwreck of goods occurs, especially since such a great man is both our teacher and the example, who thought it necessary to sing a kind of apology to appease the Lord in his later years, saying, 'O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, neither are my eyes exalted' (Psalm 130:1), and 'The Lord is at my right hand, so that I may not be shaken' (Psalm 16:8); for he knew when he trusted himself that he had fallen. Finally, he pointed out that there is nothing else in man except that he knows God. For you have: What is man, that you are mindful of him: or the son of man, that you visit him? (Psalm 143:3) Therefore, if David condemns pride, he embraces humility, and rightly in the story of Uriah's wife, he adopts this lesson of aspiring to humility.
And yet, if Solomon, the peaceable one, was born from her, let us see whether perhaps it is a mystery that, with him removed from the midst, who before his marriage claimed the people of the nations for himself, the Church has married another man, namely David. For David has been called Christ, adopted into the name of his ancestor, as it is written: I have found David my servant (Psalm 88:21); to whom the Church has been married, which, filled with the seed of the Word and the Spirit of God, has brought forth the body of Christ, namely the Christian people. Therefore, the woman who is bound by law while her husband is alive is also considered dead to her husband, so that she would not be an adulteress if she were to be with another man. Thus, there is a mystery in the symbol and sin in the story: guilt through man, sacraments through the word. Since we have discussed this story more fully elsewhere, it seems necessary to pass over it here. And rightly so, Saint David wrote a mystical psalm about this story, the fiftieth, in reference to the marriage of Bathsheba, saying: Cleanse me exceedingly from my injustice, and cleanse me from my sin (Psalm 50:4). If a friend of God acknowledges his own iniquity and his sinfulness obstructs his merits, and if he finally confesses to God that he has sinned, why should you be ashamed of confessing a crime when the commentary on the crime, not the confession, leads to shame?
Therefore, since David did not omit the story of Bathsheba in his Psalms, in order to teach us either a mystery or an act of perfect repentance, we rightly see it not omitted even in the generations of the Lord, because David himself, who took her as his wife, is claimed to be a predecessor of the Lord's generation according to the flesh. The special merit of which, as we have said, the Church saw arise in this mystery, and received the oracle that Christ would be born from his lineage. For one thing pertains to the Church, which is said: Behold, we have heard of it in Ephrata: we have found it in the fields of the forest (Psalm 131:6). For another thing specifically pertains to the espousal of the Lord's body, which is revealed by a most clear oracle, when it is said: I will set upon your throne from the fruit of your womb (Ibid., 11). However, do not be negligent of such a great promise; for it has not been given without definition. But if you keep the testament, and observe the testimonies of the Lord, which he promises to have spoken in the Gospel, the abundance of the eternal seat will also be open to you. These are about the wife of Uriah.
But it is well known about Ahab, whose wife was Jezebel (3 Kings 16:31); and about Jechoniah, of whom Jeremiah is a reliable witness, that he was guilty of a great crime: even his name was taken away from him. And for this reason, the one who is called Joachim in the Books of the Kings (4 Kings 24:1) is named Jechoniah by Jeremiah, who says, 'Jechoniah is a despised vessel, he is of no use.' Because of this, he himself was cast aside, along with his offspring. Earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord, write down this man as disinherited; for no one from his offspring will sit on the throne of David, ruling as prince in Judah (Jeremiah 22:28-30). During his reign, the Babylonians devastated Judah, and no one from his descendants could ever again hold the kingdom in Judah. After the people were released from captivity, they were under priests and tetrarchs. Even until the generation of Christ, tetrarchs remained, not even preserving the royal dignity of their lineage, as history teaches.
For it is reported by those who either argued, or simply taught, or truly asserted, to us, that Idumean robbers entered the city of Ascalon in Palestine, and seized Antipater, a certain son of Herod the Hierodulus, from the temple of Apollo which was near the walls, and took him captive among others, whom his father could not redeem due to poverty. Therefore, having been imbued with the teachings and mysteries of the Jews, he formed a friendship with Hyrcanus, the king of Judea, whom he directed as his representative to Pompey: and because he obtained the favor of the mission, he sought a part of the kingdom through that gratitude. But when Antipater was killed due to envy of his good fortune, his son Herod was later instructed to reign over the Jews under the senatus consultum of Antonius. This Herod and others were tetrarchs. We think that this should be transferred from the Greek histories in order to make it clear that Herod, with no affinity to the Jewish race, sought his kingdom through deceitful means. Finally, aware of his own ignoble birth, so that no investigation about his ancient lineage would be raised by his descendants, he burned their records, thinking that if he removed the evidence from the public, he would not be able to prove without any other testimonies that he did not come from the lineage of the patriarchs or the ancient converts. But as most human cares are, this could not prejudice the pursuit and investigation of truth.
42. However, lest we think that He can prejudice us, who we say is true and of royal descent, Christ, and through true and noble kings the race of the Lord was acted. But where an adulterous offspring affected the kingdom, it preserved the succession of its nobility, not of power, but of the order of generation. Yet we have not received Christ as king according to the honor of the world. Therefore, how then shall I set the fruit of your womb upon your throne? (Psalm CXXXI, 11)? And how does the angel say of Him that the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign in the house of Jacob (Luke 1:32)? How is He promised to reign but not shown? Or how is it said through the prophet that no one will reign from the seed of Jehoiachin? For if Christ reigns, but Christ is from the seed of Jehoiachin, then the prophet lied, and the oracles lied. But there it is not denied that there will be future descendants from the seed of Jehoiachin, and therefore Christ is from his seed. And that Christ reigned is not against the prophecy; for He did not reign with worldly honor, nor did He sit on the throne of Jehoiachin, but He reigned on the throne of David. 43. But when Jechoniah himself sat on the seat of David, how is it possible that what was said is fulfilled, that the descendants of David would not sit on Jechoniah's seat, since it seems that the same seat belonged to both of them? Therefore, we cannot deny that we also had the seat of David, although it was not the same seat that Christ, whom Jechoniah sat on; in fact, no one else from the lineage of David could sit on his seat, except Christ; because his seed is not eternal in anyone else, but in Christ, as God himself swore, saying: Once I have sworn in my holiness, I will not lie to David; his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me (Psalm 89:36-38). So who does he say here? Certainly not Solomon, not Rehoboam, not Nathan, but the one of whom alone it can be said: I will stretch out my hand upon the sea, and my right hand upon the rivers. He himself will call me, 'You are my Father' (cf. Psalm 89:26-27); and I will establish his seed forever, and his throne as the days of heaven (cf. Psalm 89:30). Certainly Solomon did not sit on this throne, nor Rehoboam, nor Jehoiachin. Do you want to know who did sit on it? Here is what the angel said to Mary: Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:31-32). If you do not believe the angel, at least believe the Lord himself when he says: You say that I am a king (John 18:37). Therefore, was he also lying when he said he would reign, who did not reign on earth? How is the Scripture resolved, which says he will reign, yet does not establish his reign?