Our Lord's Body

Our Lord came in human nature to cleanse that nature from sin. Now, the stain of sin came to human nature from Adam. Hence, the Savior assumed flesh that derived from Adam. Christ asman was a true member of Adam’s race.

Christ’s flesh was “of the seed of David.” In human terms, our Lord was called the son of Abraham, and the son of David. To Abraham and to David, more than to other partriarchs, promises of the Redeemer were made, and the promises called him the seed of Abraham, and also the seed of David.

The genealogy of our Lord is given in two of the Gospels. St. Matthew begins with Abraham, and traces the line to Joseph. St. Luke starts with our Lord, and works back. There are points in both lists that scholars discuss with some disagreement. Yet the genealogy as it stands is suitable for its purpose. The fact that St. Matthew follows the male line from Abraham to Joseph,who was not the father of our Lord, merely indicates the invariable Jewish custom of following the male line; yet the genealogy is sufficient, for Mary, like Joseph, was “of the house and family of David”; this is the important thing, and fully indicates the fulfillment of the prophecies that the Redeemer was to be of David’s seed.

It was suitable that the Son of God should take flesh from a woman. He came to redeem all, and, as he himself was a man,it was right that the female sex should have a place in the work of Incarnation. Hence, the Redeemer was rightly born of a human mother.

In the begetting of Christ, the active principle of generation was the power of God, a supernatural power. The matter from which the body of Christ was conceived was the blood of them other. Thus the conception of our Lord’s body was supernatural in the fact that God directly produced it in Mary; it was supernatural also in the fact that it took place in a virgin; butit was natural in the fact that the Child was present in Mary’swomb.

Through the medium of Mary’s body, the body of Christ is related to Adam and to the patriarchs of his line. Christ’s body was in the patriarchs in the way in which Mary’s body was in them, and in the way in which all their descendants were in them. Now, a descendant is not in his ancestor as a definite part of that ancestor’s substance. He is in his ancestor as in his true origin, but he is not a section of the ancestor’s flesh or bone or blood or tissue.

Christ did not assume human flesh as subject tosin. He assumed human flesh cleansed from all infection of sin. {-Here we discern a reason for the fact of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, namely, that the immediate source of Christ’s body should be virginal and immaculate.-}

St. Paul (Heb. 7:6-9) says that Levi, the yet unborngreat-grandson of Abraham, “paid tithes in Abraham” when Abraham paid tithes to Melchisedech. From this, some have falsely concluded that in Abraham our Lord paid tithes for the healing ofthe flesh from sin. But our Lord was not in his human ancestors in such a way as to make him inheritor of Adam’s sin. He was a true child of Adam, but he was not descended by way ofconcupiscence and carnal or seminal power; he was conceived by the immaculate virgin under the immediate action of God’s supernatural power.