Sextus Julius Africanus
Sextus Julius Africanus | |
---|---|
Born | c. 160 possibly Jerusalem |
Died | c. 240 (aged c. 80) |
Nationality | Greek |
Occupation(s) | Historian, Christian traveler |
Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160 – c. 240;
Biography
The
Little of Africanus's life is known and all dates are uncertain. One tradition places him under the Emperor
Africanus may have served under
Africanus traveled to Greece and Rome and went to Alexandria to study, attracted by the fame of its catechetical school, possibly about the year 215.[4] He knew Greek (in which language he wrote), Latin, and Hebrew. He was at one time a soldier and had been a pagan; he wrote all his works as a Christian.
Whether Africanus was a layman or a cleric remains controversial. Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont argued from Africanus's addressing the priest Origen as "dear brother" that Julius must have been a priest himself[5] but Gelzer points out that such an argument is inconclusive.[6]
Writings
Africanus wrote Chronographiai, a history of the world in five volumes. The work covers the period from Creation to the year AD 221. He calculated the period between
The history, which had an apologetic aim, is no longer extant. But copious extracts from it are to be found in the Chronicon of
The ascription to Africanus of an encyclopaedic work entitled
Verification of Moses
This work does not survive except in fragments, chiefly those preserved by Eusebius and Georgius Syncellus. In turn Africanus preserves fragments of the work of Polemon of Athens' Greek History.
- FRAGMENT 13: From Georgius Syncellus, Chron., Third Book. In Euseb., Præpar., X. 40:
- 6. And from Moses, then, to the first Olympiad there are 1020 years, as to the first year of the 55th Olympiad from the same are 1237, in which enumeration the reckoning of the Greeks coincides with us.
- [...] Polemo, for instance, in the first book of his Greek History, says: In the time of
Notes
- ^ Gelzer 1898, pp. 4f.
- ^ "Martin Wallraff (ed.), Iulius Africanus: Chronographiae. The Extant Fragments, reviewed by Hagith Sivan (Bryn Mawr Classical Review)". Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
- ^ Gelzer 1898, p. 10.
- ^ Gelzer 1898, p. 11.
- ^ Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique, III, Paris, 1693, 254
- ^ Gelzer 1898, p. 9.
- ^ Vernance Grumel; Paul Lemerle (1958). La chronologie. Traité d'études byzantines. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.
"...the number of 5500 years as the period up to the advent of the Word of salvation, that was announced to the world in the time of the sway of the Cæsars" (Africanus, Chronology 1).
- ^ Hijmans, S.E., Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome, 2009, p. 584. "[Several authors] claim that as early as 221 Julius Africanus calculated the date as December 25 in his fragmentarily preserved Chronicle, but provide no reference. Wallraff, who directed the project that recently produced the first critical edition of all preserved fragments of the corpus of Julius Africanus (Wallraff 2007), has kindly informed me that he does not know of any such calculation by Africanus".
- ^ Kelly, Joseph F., The Origins of Christmas, Liturgical Press, 2004. p.60
- OCLC 1050360793.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: others (link - ^ Chisholm 1911 cites: Hist. Ecc. i. 7; vi. 31
- ^ Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Chisholm 1911 cites: Grenfell and Hunt, iii. 36 ff.
- ^ Colavito, Jason. "The Chronography: Sextus Julius Africanus after 221 CE trans. in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library 1869". JasonColavito.com. Jason Colavito. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
- in his Chronology preserved that of Africanus.
References
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1910). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- Gelzer, H. (1898). Sextus Julius Africanus und die Byzantinische Chronographie (in German). Leipzig.
- Wallraff, M.; Mecella, L. (hg) (2009). Die Kestoi des Julius Africanus und ihre Überlieferung (in German). Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 395 S. (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 165).
- Habas (Rubin), E. (1994). "The Jewish Origin of Julius Africanus". Journal of Jewish Studies. 45: 86–91. .
- Attribution
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Africanus, Sextus Julius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Martin Wallraff (ed.), Iulius Africanus: Chronographiae. The Extant Fragments. In collaboration with Umberto Roberto and Karl Pinggéra, William Adler. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, NF 15. Translated by W. Adler. Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007. ISBN 978-3-11-019493-7
- Thee, Francis C. R. (1984). Julius Africanus and the early Christian view of magic. Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie. Vol. 19. Tübingen: ISBN 978-3-161-44552-1.
- Wallraff, Martin; Scardino, Carlo; Guignard, Christophe; Mecella, Laura (eds.), Iulius Africanus. Cesti: The Extant Fragments (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, N.F. 18). Translated by William Adler. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012. ISBN 978-3-11-028680-9
External links
- Works by Sextus Julius Africanus at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)