Julius Africanus

At this time Africanus, the author of the books called Cesti, also became known. A letter of his written to Origen is in circulation, raising doubts about the story of Susanna in Daniel, as though it were spurious and invented. Origen answered it at great length. [a] Other works of the same Africanus have also come down to us: five books of Chronography, labored over with great precision. In them he says that he made a journey to Alexandria because of the great fame of Heraclas, who, as we have already shown, excelled greatly in philosophical studies and the rest of Greek learning and was entrusted with the office of bishop of the church there.

Another letter of the same Africanus is also in circulation, to Aristides, on the supposed disagreement between the genealogies of Christ in Matthew and in Luke. In it he shows very clearly that the evangelists agree, from an account that had come down to him. I have already set that account out, at its proper place, in the first book of the present work. [d]