AFRICANUS, SEXTUS JULIUS

This article appears in Volume V01, Page 361 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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AFRICANUS, SEXTUS JULIUS , a Christian traveller and historian of the 3rd century, was probably born in Libya, and may have served under Septimius Severus against the Osrhoenians in A.D. 195. Little is known of his personal history, except that he lived at Emmaus, and that he went on an embassy to the emperor

Heliogabalus

HELIOGABALUS (ELAGABALUS)

1 to ask for the restoration of the town, which had fallen into ruins. His mission succeeded, and Emmaus was henceforward known as Nicopolis.

Dionysius

DIONYSIUS
DIONYSIUS (c. 432–367 B.C.)

bar-Salibi makes him a

bishop

, but probably he was not even a presbyter. He wrote a history of theworld(Xpovoypacgat, in five books)from the creation to the year A.D. 221, a period, according to his computation, of 5723 years. He calculated the period between the creation and the

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

of Christ as 5499 years, and ante-dated the latter event by three years. This method of reckoning became known as the Alexandrian era, and was adopted by almost all the eastern churches. 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

Syncellus

SYNCELLUS

, Cedrenus and the Paschale Chronicon. Eusebius (Hist. Ecc. i. 7, cf. vi. 31) gives some extracts from his

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to one Aristides, reconciling the apparent discrepancy between

Matthew

and Luke in the genealogy of Christ by a reference to the Jewish law, which compelled a man to marry the widow of his deceased brother, if the latter died without issue. His terse and pertinent

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to Origen, impugning the authority of the apocryphal book of Susanna, and Origen's wordy and uncritical answer, are both extant. The ascription to Africanus of an encyclopaedic

work

WORK

entitled Kearot (embroidered girdles), treating of agriculture, natural history, military science, &c., has been needlessly disputed on account of its secular and often credulous character. Neander suggests that it was written by Africanus before he had devoted himself to religious subjects. For a new fragment of this

work

WORK

see Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Grenfeli and Hunt), iii. 36 if.

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