Page:Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, 1842.djvu/64

down to us. We refer to the history which has been handed down on these passages by Africanus, in an epistle to Aristides, respecting the harmony of the genealogy of the gospels. After having refuted the opinions of others as forced and fictitious, he sets forth the account that he had ascertained himself, in the following words. " It was customary in Israel to calculate the names of the generations, either according to nature, or according to the law; according to nature, by the succession of legitimate offspring; according to the law, when another raised children to the name of a brother who had died childless. For as the hope of a resurrection was not yet clearly given, they imitated the promise which was to take place by a kind of mortal resurrection, with a view to perpetuate the name of the person who had died. Since then, there are some of those who are inserted in this genealogical table, that succeed each other in the natural order of father and son, some again that were born of others, and were ascribed to others by name, both the real and reputed fathers have been recorded. Thus, neither of the gospels has made a false statement, whether calculating in the order of nature, or according to law. For the families descended from Solomon, and those from Nathan, were so intermingled, by substitutions in the place of those who had died childless, by second marriages and the raising up of seed, that the same persons are justly considered, as in one respect, belonging to the one of these, and in another respect belonging to others. Hence it is, that both of these accounts being true, viz. of those who were reputed fathers, and those who really were fathers, they come down to Joseph with considerable intricacy, it is true, but with great accuracy. That this, however, may be made evident, I will state the series of generations. If (in the genealogy of Matthew,) you reckon the generations from David through Solomon, Matthan, who begat Jacob the father of Joseph, is found to be the third from the end. But if, with Luke, you reckon from Nathan the son of David, in like manner, Melchi, whose son was Eli, the father of Joseph, will be found to be the third. As Joseph, then, is our proposed object, we are to show how it happened that each is recorded as his father; both Jacob, as deduced from Solomon, and Eli from Nathan; also, how it hap-