Another proof is the existence of our Lord's geneal- ology in two forms, as given by Matthew and Luke. (See below.) The mention of Zacharias as "of the course of Abia," of Elizabeth as " of the daughters of Aaron," and of Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, as "of the tribe of Aser," are further indications of the same thing (Luke i, 5; ii, 36). This conclusion is also ex- pressly confirmed by the testimonj^ of Josephus in the opening of his IJ/e, § 1. There, after deducing his own descent, " not only from that race which is con- sidered the noblest among the Jews, that of the priests, but from the first of the twenty-four courses" (the course of Jehoiarib), and on the mother's side from the Asmonsean sovereigns, he adds, "I have thus traced my genealogy as I have found it recorded in the public ta- bles" (t V ralij Si]fiO(jiaiQ dtXroig uvaytypai.tf.di'iiv') ; and
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ag:ain, contr. Apion, i, 7, he states that the priests were obliged to verity the descent of their intended wives by reference to the archives kept at Jerusalem ; add- ing that it was the duty of the priests, after every war (and he specides the wars of Antiochus Epiph., Ponipey, and Q. Varus), to make new genealogical tallies from the old ones, and to ascertain what women among the priesth' families had been made prisoners, as all such were deemed improper to be wives of priests. As a proof of the care of the Jews in such matters, he fur- ther mentions that in his day the list of successive high-jiriests preserved in the public records extended tlirough a period of 2000 j'ears. From all this it is abundantly manifest that the Jewish genealogical rec- ortls continued to be kept till near the destruction of Jerusalem. Hence we are constrained to disbelieve the story told by Africanus concerning the destruction of all the Jewish genealogies by Herod the Great, in order to conceal the ignobleness of his own origin. His statement is, that up to that time the Hebrew gen- ealogies had been preserved entire, and the different families were traced up either to che patriarchs, or the yntbpai or mixed people ; but that on Herod's causing these genealogies to be burnt, onlj' a few of the more illustrious Jews who had private pedigrees of their own, or who could supply the lost genealogies from memory, or from the books of chronicles, Vvere able to retain anj' account of their own lineage — among whom, he says, were the Despos3'ni, or brethren of our Lord, from whom was said to be derived the scheme (given by Africanus) for reconciling the two genealogies of Christ. But there can be little doubt that the registers of the Jewish tribes and families perished at the de- struction of Jerusalem, and not before. Some partial records maj', however, have survived that event, as it is probable, and indeed seems to be implied in Josephus's statement, that at least the priestly families of the dis- persion had records of their own genealog}-. We learn, too, from Benjamin of Tudela, that in his day the princes of the captivity professed to trace their de- scent to David, and he also names others, e. g. E. Ca- lonymos, "a descendant of the house of David, as proved by his pedigree" {Flin. ed. Asher, i, 32), and E. Eleazar ben-Tsemach, " who possesses a pedigree of his descent from the prophet Samuel, and knows the melodies which were sung in the Temple during its ex- istence" (ib.\). 100, etc.). He also mentions descend- ants of the tribes of Dan, Zabulon, and Napthali, among the mountains of Khasvin, whose prince was of the tribe of Levi. The patriarchs of Jerusalem, so called from the Hebrew mSX TirN"!, claimed descent from Hillel, the Babylonian, of whom it is said that a genealog}', found at Jerusalem, declared his descent from David and Abital. Others, however, traced his descent from Benjamin, and from David only through a daughter of Shephatiah (Wolf, B. II. iv, 380). But, however tradition maj' have preserved for a while true genealogies, or imagination and pride have coined fic- titious ones after the destruction of Jerusalem, it maj' he safely affirmed that the Jewish genealogical sj'stem then came to an end. Essentially connected as it was with the tenure of the land on the one hand, and with the ])eculiar i)rivileges of the houses of David and Levi on the other, it naturally failed when the land was taken away from the Jewish race, and when the prom- ise to David was fulfilled, and the jiriesthood of Aaron superseded by the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God. The remains of the genealogical spirit among the later Jews (which might, of course, be much more fully illustrated from Rabbinical literature) has only been glanced at to show how deeply it had pene- trated into the Jewish national mind. It remains to be said that just notions of the nature of the Jewish genealogical records are of^^reat importance with a view to tiie right interpretation of Scripture. Let it only be remembered that these records have respect to