It has been the custom since Valesius, to consider this “Book of daily records” (βίβλος τῶν ἡμερῶν) the same as the “private records” (ἰδιωτικὰς ἀπογραφ€ς) mentioned just above. But this opinion has been combated by Spitta, and that with perfect right. The sentence is, in fact, an exact parallel to the sentence just above, where it is said that a few of the careful, either by means of their memory or by means of copies, were able to have “private records of their own.” In the present sentence it is said that “they drew the aforesaid genealogy (viz., ‘the private records of their own’) from memory, or from the Book of daily records” (which corresponds to the copies referred to above). This book of daily records is clearly, therefore, something other than the ἰδιωτικὰς ἀπογραφὰς, but exactly what we are to understand by it is not so easy to say. It cannot denote the regular public records (called the archives above), for these were completed, and would not need to be supplemented by memory; and apparently, according to Africanus’ opinion, these private records were made after the destruction of the regular public ones. The “Book of daily records” referred to must have been at any rate an incomplete genealogical source needing to be supplemented by the memory. Private family record books, if such existed previous to the supposed destruction of the public records, of which we have no evidence, would in all probability have been complete for each family. Spitta maintains (p. 101 sq.) that the Book of Chronicles is meant: the Hebrew דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים , words or records of the days. This is a very attractive suggestion, as the book exactly corresponds to the book described: the genealogies which it gives are incomplete and require supplementing, and it is a book which was accessible to all; public, therefore, and yet not involved in the supposed destruction. The difficulty lies in the name given. It is true that Jerome calls the Books of Chronicles Verba Dierum and Hilary Sermones Dierum, &c.; but we should expect Africanus to use here the technical LXX. designation, Παραλειπομένων. But whatever this “Book of daily records” was, it cannot have been the “private records” which were formed “from memory and from copies,” but was one of the sources from which those “private records” were drawn.