Matthew might certainly have said, “Now the birth of Jesus was on this wise;” but the Holy Ghost, foreseeing the corrupters [of the truth], and guarding by anticipation against their deceit, says by Matthew, “But the birth of Christ was on this wise;” and that He is Emmanuel, lest perchance we might consider Him as a mere man: for “not by the will of the flesh nor by the will of man, but by the will of God was the Word made flesh;” and that we should not imagine that Jesus was one, and Christ another, but should know them to be one and the same. [Irenaeus Adversus Haereses 3.14.2]
The translators note: From this (reading of John 1.13,14) and also a quotation of the same passage in chap. xix. of this book, it appears that Irenæus must have read ὃς … ἐγεννήθη here, and not οἳ … ἐγεννήθησαν. Tertullian quotes the verse to the same effect (Lib. de Carne Christi, cap. 19 and 24).
dating back to conversations with his grandfather, Gaston Frank. "He said we represent one of the last descendants of the Frankist Jewish faith in the world," he muses. "I grew up thinking that our family was something like the Last of the Mohicans."