Paul and Pseudepigraphy (Pauline Studies, Book 8)

40 armin d. baum

23 and he was taken from among the children of men, and we led him to

the garden of eden for greatness and honor. and behold, he is there writing

condemnation and judgment of the world, and all of the evils of the children

of men. 24 and because of him none of the water of the flood came upon

the whole land of eden, for he was put there for a sign and so that he might

bear witness against all of the children of men so that he might relate all of

the deeds of the generations until the day of judgment...

Julius Africanus, epistula ad aristidem 1

around 230 ce, Julius africanus, in a letter that was addressed to a cer-

tain aristides, discussed the differences between the genealogies in the

gospels of Matthew and luke. he argued against the position of commen-

tators who regarded it as an acceptable lie that the evangelists had pre-

sented Jesus both as a priest and as a king. according to Julius africanus,

such a lie could under no circumstances promote the glory of god. this

conviction did not only apply to deceptive historical reports but also to

deceptive authorial attributions.56

some indeed incorrectly allege that this discrepant enumeration and mix-

ing of the names both of priestly men, as they think, and royal, was made

properly, in order that Christ might be shown rightfully to be both Priest

and King; as if any one disbelieved this, or had any other hope than this,

that Christ is the high Priest of his father, who presents our prayers to him,

and a supramundane King, who rules by the spirit those whom he has deliv-

ered, a cooperator in the government of all things. and this is announced

to us not by the catalogue of the tribes, nor by the mixing of the registered

generations, but by the patriarchs and prophets.

let us not therefore descend to such religious trifling as to establish the

kingship and priesthood of Christ by the interchanges of the names. for the

priestly tribe of levi, too, was allied with the kingly tribe of Juda, through

the circumstance that aaron married elizabeth the sister of naasson, and

that eleazar again married the daughter of Phatiel, and begat children. the

evangelists, therefore, would thus have spoken falsely, affirming what was

not truth, but a fictitious commendation. and for this reason the one traced

the pedigree of Jacob the father of Joseph from david through solomon; the

other traced that of heli also, though in a different way, the father of Joseph,

from nathan the son of david. and they ought not indeed to have been

ignorant that both orders of the ancestors enumerated are the generation

of david, the royal tribe of Juda. for if nathan was a prophet, so also was

solomon, and so too the father of both of them; and there were prophets

56 trans. in ANF 6:125.