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Heinichen and Burton read ἀρχιπροσηλύτων, “ancient proselytes.” The two readings are about equally supported by ms. authority, but the same persons are meant here as at the end of the paragraph, where προσηλύτους, not ἀρχιπροσηλύτους, occurs (cf. Spitta, pp. 97 sq., and Routh’s
Reliquiæ Sacræ II. p. 347 sq., 2d ed.).
26 Achior was a general of the Ammonites in the army of Holofernes, who, according to the Book of Judith, was a general of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Assyrians, and was slain by the Jewish heroine, Judith. Achior is reported to have become afterward a Jewish proselyte.
27 The Greek reads ἐνέπρησεν αὐτῶν τὰς ἀναγραφὰς των γενων, but, with Spitta, I venture, against all the Greek mss. to insert π€σας before τὰς ἀναγραφὰς upon the authority of Rufinus and the author of the Syriac version, both of whom reproduce the word (cf. Spitta, p. 99 sq.). Africanus certainly supposed that Herod destroyed
all the genealogical records, and not simply those of the true Jews. This account of the burning of the records given by Africanus is contradicted by history, for we learn from Josephus,
De Vita, §1, that he drew his own lineage from the public records, which were therefore still in existence more than half a century after the time at which Herod is said to have utterly destroyed them. It is significant that Rufinus translates
omnes Hebræorum generationes descriptæ in Archivis templi secretioribus habebantur. How old this tradition was we do not know; Africanus is the sole extant witness of it.
28 τοὺς τε καλουμένους γειώρας. The word γειώρας occurs in the LXX. of Ex. xii. 19, where it translates the Hebrew גֵּר The A.V. reads
stranger, the R.V.,
sojourner, and Liddell and Scott give the latter meaning for the Greek word. See Valesius’ note
in loco, and Routh (II. p. 349 sq.), who makes some strictures upon Valesius’ note. Africanus refers here to all those that came out from Egypt with the Israelites, whether native Egyptians, or foreigners resident in Egypt. Ex. xii. 38 tells us that a “mixed multitude” went out with the children of Israel (ἐπίμικτος πόλυς), and Africanus just above speaks of them in the same way (ἐπιμίκτων).
29 δεσπόσυνοι: the persons called above (§11) the relatives of the Saviour according to the flesh (οἱ κατὰ σ€ρκα συγγενεις). The Greek word signifies “belonging to a master.”
30 Cochaba, according to Epiphanius (
Hær. XXX. 2 and 16), was a village in Basanitide near Decapolis. It is noticeable that this region was the seat of Ebionism. There may therefore be significance in the care with which these
Desposyni preserved the genealogy of Joseph, for the Ebionites believed that Christ was the real son of Joseph, and therefore Joseph’s lineage was his.
31 “Judea” is here used in the wider sense of Palestine as a whole, including the country both east and west of the Jordan. The word is occasionally used in this sense in Josephus; and so in Matt. xix. 1, and Mark x. 1, we read of “the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan.” Ptolemy, Dion Cassius, and Strabo habitually employ the word in the wide sense.
32 ἐκ μνήμης. These words are not found in any extant mss., but I have followed Stroth and others in supplying them for the following reasons. The Greek, as we have it, runs: καὶ τὴν προκειμένην γενεαλογίαν žκ τε τῆς βίβλου τῶν ἡμερῶν κ.τ.λ. The particle τε indicates plainly that some phrase has fallen out. Rufinus translates
ordinem supra dictæ generationis partim memoriter partim etiam ex dierum libris in quantum erat perdocebant.
The words partim memoriter
find no equivalent in the Greek as we have it, but the particle τε, which still remains, shows that words which Rufinus translated thus must have stood originally in the Greek. The Syriac version also confirms the conclusion that something stood in the original which has since disappeared, though the rendering which it gives rests evidently upon a corrupt text (cf. Spitta, p. 101). Valesius suggests the insertion of ἀπὸ μνήμης, though he does not place the phrase in his text. Heinichen supplies μνημονεύσαντες, and is followed by Closs in his translation. Stroth, Migne, Routh, and Spitta read ἐκ μνήμης. The sense is essentially the same in each case.
33 It has been the custom since Valesius, to consider this “Book of daily records” (βίβλος τῶν ἡμερῶν) the same as the “private records” (ἰδιωτικὰς ἀπογραφ€ς) mentioned just above. But this opinion has been combated by Spitta, and that with perfect right. The sentence is, in fact, an exact parallel to the sentence just above, where it is said that a few of the careful, either by means of their memory or by means of copies, were able to have “private records of their own.” In the present sentence it is said that “they drew the
aforesaid genealogy
(viz., ‘the private records of their own’) from memory, or from the
Book of daily records” (which corresponds to the
copies referred to above). This book of daily records is clearly, therefore, something other than the ἰδιωτικὰς ἀπογραφὰς, but exactly what we are to understand by it is not so easy to say. It cannot denote the regular public records (called the archives above), for these were completed, and would not need to be supplemented by memory; and apparently, according to Africanus’ opinion, these private records were made after the destruction of the regular public ones. The “Book of daily records” referred to must have been at any rate an incomplete genealogical source needing to be supplemented by the memory. Private family record books, if such existed previous to the supposed destruction of the public records, of which we have no evidence, would in all probability have been complete for each family. Spitta maintains (p. 101 sq.) that the Book of Chronicles is meant: the Hebrew דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים ,
words or records of the days. This is a very attractive suggestion, as the book exactly corresponds to the book described: the genealogies which it gives are incomplete and require supplementing, and it is a book which was accessible to all; public, therefore, and yet not involved in the supposed destruction. The difficulty lies in the name given. It is true that Jerome calls the Books of Chronicles
Verba Dierum and Hilary
Sermones Dierum, &c.; but we should expect Africanus to use here the technical LXX. designation, Παραλειπομένων. But whatever this “Book of daily records” was, it cannot have been the “private records” which were formed “from memory and from copies,” but was one of the sources from which those “private records” were drawn.
34 Compare note 3, above. Africanus’ direct statement shows clearly enough that he does not rest his interpretation of the genealogies (an interpretation which is purely a result of Biblical study) upon the testimony of the relatives of the Saviour. Their testimony is invoked with quite a different purpose, namely, in confirmation of the genealogies themselves, and the long story (upon the supposition that their testimony is invoked in support of Africanus’
interpretation, introduced absolutely without sense and reason) thus has its proper place, in showing how the “relatives of the Saviour” were in a position to be competent witnesses upon this question of fact (not
interpretation), in spite of the burning of the public records by Herod.
35 The law to which Eusebius refers is recorded in Num. xxxvi. 6, 7. But the prohibition given there was not an absolute and universal one, but a prohibition which concerned only heiresses, who were not to marry out of their own tribe upon penalty of forfeiting their inheritance (cf. Josephus,
Ant. IV. 7. 5). It is an instance of the limited nature of the law that Mary and Elizabeth were relatives, although Joseph and Mary belonged to the tribe of Judah, and Zacharias, at least, was a Levite. This example lay so near at hand that Eusebius should not have overlooked it in making his assertion. His argument, therefore in proof
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