Lessico
Sesto Giulio Africano
Sextus Iulius Africanus
Sextus
Julius Africanus was a Christian traveller and historian of the 3rd century
AD. He was probably born in Libya and may have served under Septimius Severus
against the Osrhoenians in 195. Little is known of his personal history,
except that he lived at Emmaus, and that he went on an embassy to the emperor
Elagabalus
to ask
for the restoration of the town, which had fallen into ruins. His mission
succeeded, and Emmaus was henceforward known as Nicopolis. Dionysius bar
Salibi says he was a bishop, but the author of the 1911 Encyclopedia
Britannica article doubts that he was even a presbyter.
Writings
He wrote a history of the world (Chronografíai, in five books) from Creation to the year AD 221, covering, according to his computation, 5723 years. He calculated the period between Creation and Jesus as 5500 years, placing the Incarnation on the first day of AM 5501 (our modern March 25, 1 BC), according to Venance Grumel, La Chronologie (1958). This method of reckoning led to several Creation eras being used in the Greek Eastern Mediterranean, which all placed Creation within one decade of 5500 BC.
The
history, which had an apologetic aim, is no longer extant, but copious
extracts from it are to be found in the Chronicon of Eusebius, who used
it extensively in compiling the early episcopal lists. There are also
fragments in George Syncellus, Cedrenus and the Chronicon Paschale. Eusebius (Church
History i. 7; vi. 31) gives some extracts from his letter to one Aristides,
reconciling the apparent discrepancy between Matthew and Luke in the genealogy
of Christ by a reference to the Jewish law of Levirate marriage, which
compelled a man to marry the widow of his deceased brother, if the latter died
without issue. His terse and pertinent letter to Origen impugning
the authority of the part of the Book of Daniel that tells the story of
Susanna, and Origen's wordy and uncritical answer, are both extant.
The ascription to Africanus of an encyclopaedic work entitled Kestoí (embroidered girdles), treating of agriculture, natural history, military science, etc., has been needlessly disputed on account of its secular and often credulous character. August Neander suggested that it was written by Africanus before he had devoted himself to religious subjects. A fragment of the Kestoí was found in the Oxyrhynchus papyri.
References - This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Sextus Iulius Africanus (post annum 221 mortuus) fuit historicus et paradoxographus, nomine Romanus, Graece scribens, cuius opus nunc est pro maiore parte deperditum. Exstant in Geoponicis Constantino Porphyrogenito dicatis, et in Fragmentis Anatolii de bubus in corpore Hippiatricorum servatis nonnulla excerpta "e Paradoxis Africani" dempta.
Opera
Cesti
(partim servati)
Chronographiae a creatione mundi usque ad annum 221 productae
Paradoxa
Epistulae
Index fragmentorum
Fragmenta
Anatolii de bubus in corpore Hippiatricorum servata[ E. Oder, K.
Hoppe, Corpus hippiatricorum Graecorum vol. 2 (Lipsiae, 1927) vol. 2
pp. 330-336.]
Fragmentum a Zosimo servatum.
Geoponica 1.15-16 et fortasse 1.14: de grandine et fulmine.
Geoponica 2.7, 18, 28: de satione.
Geoponica 4.2: de vitibus arbustivis.
Geoponica 5.24, 30, 48.
Geoponica 7.9, 14.
Geoponica 9.8, 14 (citatur Florentinus).
Geoponica 10.9, 16, 30, 36, 49, 53, 55, 59, 66, 82.
Geoponica 12.11, 38.
Geoponica 13.3, 13, 18.
Geoponica 14.3, 10, 15.
Geoponica 17.6, 11.
Geoponica 18.4, 12.
Fragmenta a Psello servata [ Westermann (1839) pp. 143-146.].
Bibliographia
W. Reichardt, Die Briefe des Sextus Julius Africanus an Aristides und Origenes. Lipsiae: Hinrichs, 1909. ([Texte und Untersuchungen vol. 34.3.)
F. C. R. Thee, Julius Africanus and the Early Christian View of Magic. Tübingen, 1984.
J.-R. Vieillefond, Les "Cestes" de Julius Africanus. Florentiae: Sansoni, 1970.
Paradoxographoi ed. A. Westermann. Londinii, 1839.
