Narrative of Events Happening in Persia on the Birth of Christ.
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Julius Africanus
Julius Africanus
160 CE–240 CE · Aelia Capitolina
Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160–240) was a Christian scholar, traveler, and historian who pioneered Christian chronography with his five-volume Chronographiai, synchronizing biblical events with Greco-Roman history. A self-identified native of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), he settled at Emmaus/Nicopolis in Palestine and served as its civic representative. He traveled widely — accompanying Severus's Osrhoene campaign, studying in Alexandria under Heraclas, and leading an embassy to Rome on behalf of Emmaus, after which the city was elevated to the status of Nicopolis. He was later charged by Emperor Severus Alexander with organizing the public library at the Pantheon, and he dedicated his encyclopedic Kestoi to that emperor.
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →
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Stop 1 of 5160–190Birthplace, Early Life
Aelia CapitolinaIsrael
What they did here
Africanus identifies himself as a native of Aelia Capitolina (the post-135 CE name for Jerusalem), a claim corroborated by a papyrus fragment naming it as his former homeland.
About Aelia Capitolina
Aelia Capitolina was the Roman colony that the emperor Hadrian founded around 130 CE on the ruins of Jerusalem, largely destroyed in 70 CE; this entry stands for the same site, today's Jerusalem, across its later history. Under Roman rule Jews were barred from the city except to mourn on Tisha B'Av, a ban that lasted until the Muslim conquest of 636/637. Under Constantine, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built there, and the Christian chronographer Julius Africanus lived nearby at Emmaus. The Roman name lingered for centuries, surviving in the early Arabic name Iliya. Jewish life later revived, and from the 18th and 19th centuries Jerusalem grew into a major centre of Torah study and rabbinic life.
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Julius Africanus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
Hippolytus, Origen, Sabellius, Novatian, St., Pontian, Bishop of Rome, Urban I, Bishop of Rome, Callixtus I, Bishop of Rome, Minucius Felix
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Julius Africanus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works(4)
The Extant Fragments of the Five Books of the Chronography of Julius Africanus.
240
The Passion of St. Symphorosa and Her Seven Sons.
240
The Epistle to Aristides.
240