To Autolycus 3.23

Let what has been said suffice for the testimony of the Phoenicians and Egyptians, as recorded about our times by the historians Manetho the Egyptian and Menander of Ephesus, and also by Josephus, who wrote the history of the Jewish war waged against them by the Romans. From these ancient records it is shown that the writings of the others are later than the writings given to us through Moses, and even later than the prophets who came after him. The last of the prophets, called Zechariah, flourished in the reign of Darius. And all the lawgivers are found to have made their laws in the intervening time. If one mentions Solon the Athenian, he lived in the times of the kings Cyrus and Darius, in the time of the prophet Zechariah just mentioned, who lived very many years after Moses. And as for the lawgivers Lycurgus, Draco, or Minos, the sacred books are older than they; for the writings of the divine law given to us through Moses are shown to be older even than Zeus, who reigned over the Cretans, and than the Trojan War. To make the demonstration of seasons and times more precise, God enabling us, we will now recount not only what happened after the flood but also what happened before it, so as to give, as far as possible, the total number of all the years; and we will go back to the very beginning of the creation of the world, which Moses, the servant of God, recorded through the Holy Spirit. Having told of the creation and genesis of the world, of the first-formed human being, and of what followed, he also indicated the years that passed before the flood. I ask grace from the only God to say everything truly and precisely according to his will, so that you and everyone who reads these things may be guided by his truth and grace. I will begin, then, from the recorded genealogies, taking my starting point from the first-formed human being.