This beautiful manuscript genealogy of Christ dates from around the turn of the seventeenth century, and bears some clear relationship to the work of Hugh Broughton and John Speed. Marginal commentary throughout performs the exegetical necessity of relating the events of the so-called ‘Old’ Testament to the New, doing the work of typological reading that renders sacred history as a teleological tendency, anticipating the coming of Christ and the eventual destruction of Antichrist and perfection of the world at the end of days. The chronicler has a strong interest in prophecy, and like Broughton is especially interested in Daniel, as we can see on the final page pictured here, where the text of Daniel’s vision of the four monarchies (Dan. 7) is transcribed, in the Geneva translation. The manuscript concludes with ‘A table conteyning ye reignes of ye Kings of Iuda & Israel togeather,’ two prose paragraphs that each collate dozens of scriptural references to establish Christ’s fulfilment of types and prophecies, and a seven-page table in two columns, with Old Testament texts on the left and their New Testament fulfilments on the right. The manuscript as a whole beautifully demonstrates the many spatial and interpretive tools required to understand and express the recursive and anticipatory temporalities of sacred history and scriptural exegesis. BW

Genealogy of Jesus Christ

LPL: MS 766