Timeless Christians

Africanus, Julius

When was Christ born? Julius Africanus, a Christian writer at the beginning of the 3rd century was one of the first Christian scholars to attempt to compute that date. His interest in Christ and his attempt to nail down the facts has kept his name alive for centuries because those facts are of interest to Christians and scholars.

Africanus had advantages in his research that modern scholars do not have: he lived close in time and space to Jesus. His life, which ran from about A.D. 170 to 240, was passed in Palestine. Distant relatives of Jesus' still survived there.

To make his study, Africanus had to prepare a chronology of Jewish history and the early church. His work demanded extensive reading; and the fragments that remain refer to numerous historical writers and show his great learning.

Africanus' work was useful. Christian apologists had been forced to engage in chronological discussions to answer pagan critics who said Christianity couldn't be true because it was so new. Africanus and the others answered by demonstrating the antiquity of the Jewish system, out of which Christianity sprang.

In his chronology, Africanus deals with many other problems related to dating the life of Christ. One interesting passage shows that the darkness at the crucifixion was miraculous, because an eclipse of the sun cannot take place at full moon, which is when passover (and the crucifixion) took place.

His only complete work to survive is a letter to Origen. In this, he argued against the authenticity of the story of Susanna which some Christians include with the Book of Daniel in the Bible.

Another Africanus letter attempts to explain the discrepancy between the genealogies of Christ given by Matthew and Luke. He argues for the literal truth of the Gospel narrative, giving an explanation, based on the laws of Moses concerning marriage of widows by brothers-in-law when a husband died without leaving children. According to his view Matthew gives the natural descent and Luke the legal descent of our Lord. Heli the son of Melchi having died childless, his uterine brother Jacob, Matthan's son, took his wife and raised up seed to him; so that Joseph was legally Heli's son as stated by Luke, but naturally Jacob's son as stated by Matthew. To make this scheme work, Africanus had to delete a couple names.

Africanus did not solve the problems associated with Christ's birth date or genealogy, but because he cared enough to try, and because he poured all of his wisdom and knowledge and years of study into the task, his name will not be forgotten. He concerned himself with the things of Christ and earned a lasting name.

by Dan Graves