Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/641

 JULIUS

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JULIUS

Gesch. der Piipste seil dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, V (Freiburg. 1909), passim; de Lava. La guerra di Fajpa Giulio III contra OUavw Farnese in Rivista alorica Ilaliana (Turin. 1884). 632 sq.; Idem, L'dezione di Papa Giulio III, ibid., 32 sq.; Ciaconius, VxUb et res gesUe Pontificum Ronianorum et ^. R. E. Cardinalium, III (Rome, 1677). 741-98; Cardella. Memorie storiche de' cardinali delta s. romana chiesa, IV (Rome. 1792). 397-401; Ranke, Die Tumischen Piipste (Leipzig. 1889), 177 sq.. tr. Fos- ter. //isloi-!/ o/ /Ae Popfs. I (London. 1906), 206-11. See also bibliography under Trent, Council of.

Michael Ott.

Julius Africanus (c. 160-c. 240; tlie full name is Sextus lulius Africanus, 2^|tos 'loiSXios' A^piKoi'is) is the father of Christian clironograpliy. Little is known of his life and little remains of his works. He is im- portant chiefly because of his influence on Eusebius, on all the later writers of Church history among the Fathers, and on the whole Greek school of chroniclers. His name says that he was an African; Suidas calls him " a Libyan pliilosopher ". Gelzer (" S. Julius Afri- canus ", pp. 4, 5) thinks he was of Roman descent. He knew Greek (in which language he wrote), Latin, and Hebrew. He was at one time a soldier and had been a pagan; he WTote all his works as a Christian. Tille- mont deduced that he was a priest from the fact that he addresses the priest Origen (in his letter to him) as "dear brother" ("AKmoires pour servir a I'histoire eccl&iastique ", IH, Paris, 19.3, 254). Gelzer (op. cit., 9) points out that a friendly Christian layman could quite well use such a form. The statement that Julius Africanus was a bishop does not appear till the fourth century. It is probably an error. He went to Alexandria to study, attracted by the fame of its catechetical school, po.ssibly about the year 215 (Eu- sebius, " H. E. ", VL ''^l). All the dat«s of his life are un- certain. One truditicjM places him under the Emperor Gordianus (23S~244; (ielzer, p. 7), another mentions him under Alexander Severus (222-2,S5; id., ji. 6). He appears to have known Abgar VIH. tlieCliristian King of Edessa (176-213) ; in his Chronograjjhy lie c;\lls him a " holy man " (Gelzer, p. 3). Eusebius, in his chron- icle (ad a. Abr., 2239, ed. Schoene, II, Berlin, 1S75, 178), says that under Alexander Severus the city of Emmaus in Palestine was restored and called Niko- polis under the direction of " Julius Africanus the writer of the Chronicle". It appears that he lived there for a time (Bardenhewer, " Patrologie", Freiburg, 1894, p. 173). He shows in his Chronicle that he knows the topography of Palestine (Gelzer, p. 10). He seems to have been in Greece; he went to Rome about the year 221 (id., 11). Bardenhewer (op. cit., p. 173) puts his death at alniut 2:)7. Preuschen (in Harnack, " Gesch. der altchristlichen Litteratur", p. 507) says that he died "after 221" and adds "under Gordianus 238- 244?". Harnack (" Realenc. fiir prot. Theol. u. Kirche", Leipzig, 1901, IX, 627) says, "after 240".

The works of S. Julius Africanus are: (1) The "Chronicle" {XpovoypaipLai) in five books, covering the time from the Creation (b. c. 5499 in his calculation) to the third year of Eliogabalus (a. d.221). Gelzerthinks he wrote this work between 212 and 221 (op. cit., 12). It is an attempt to combine the account in the Bible and the secular (Roman and Greek) history known to the author, with special regard to chronology. From the third book the order is strictly chronological. Jul- ius u.ses as sources first the Bible, then Greek, Roman, and Jewish historians, especially Justus of Tiberias, who depends on Josephus. He is also influenced by the "Stromata" of Clement of Alexandria (Gelzer, 19-24). As the first Christian attempt at a universal history, and as the source of all later Christian chro- nography. this work is of great importance. Eu.sebius made it the foundation of his chronicle. It is the source of all later Byzantine writing of history, so that for centuries the Christian world accepted the dates and epochs calculated liy Julius. Only frag- ments of this work are now extant.

(2) The " Embroideries " {kccitoI; compare the title of Clem. Alex.: o-Tpii/iara), also called "Puzzles" (to-

pdSoJo), is a kind of encyclopedia of sciences — mathe- matics, botany, medicine, etc. — full of all manner of curious anecdotes and illustrations. It has been thought that the author of this work was a pagan, Sextus Africanus, dilTerent from the Christian Julius Africanus. This is directly contradicted by Eusebius in his "Chronicle" (H. E.. \T, 31): "Africanus (the author of the 'Chronographia '), writer of the composed Embroideries" (6 tCiv iTriyeypaixiiivoiv KeaTCiv avyypaipdi). Gelzer (2-3) has shown that the author of the K€(TToi was a Christian (he quotes Ps. xxxiii, 9) and that there is no reason to doubt Eusebius's state- ment. This work, too, constantly quoted and much esteemed by the Greek Fathers, survives only in a few fragments aliout agriculture and war (Gelzer, 13-16). It had origiiuilly twenty-four books. It is from the Kearol, in which the author discourses of magic, divi- nation and medicine, that the opinion arose that he was a physician.

(3) Two letters of Julius are known, one to Origen, in which he disputes the authenticity of the story of Susanna, pointing out that the play upon words in the Greek text (Trpii/os, an oak-tree, and 7rp(u, to saw asunder; o-xik", a mastic-tree and ffx'f", to cleave: Dan., xiii, 54-.55, 58-59) would not exist in Hebrew or Aramaic. From his address in this letter {Kipii fiov Kai vU) he seems to have been an old man when he wrote it. Origen answered it. Both letters are included in Origen's works (e. g.. ed. of De la Hue, I, Paris, 1733, 10). This letter is the only one of Jul- ius's works that is completely extant. His criticism has won for him high respect among modern writers. J. G. Rosenmuller (Historia Interpretationis, III, 101) considers that these few lines contain more true ex- egesis than is to be found in all Origen's works. Gel- zer (p. 17) points out that the "('hronography " and especially the Kearoi show that Julius does not deserve his reputation as a critic. The other letter is ad- dressed to a certain Aristides. In it he proposes what is still the favourite explanation of the two pedigrees of our Lord (Matt., i, 2-19; Luke, iii, 23-38), namely that St. Joseph's two fathers, Jacob (Matt., i, 16) and Heli (Luke, iii, 23), were half-brothers of the same mother, that Heli died without children, and Jacob took his wife to raise up seed to his brother according to the Levitical law (Deut., xxv, 5-6). Of this letter a fragment is preserved by Eusebius (H. E., I, vii), an- other fragment is contained in an epitome of Euse- bius's "Quaestiones de differ. Evang.", published by A. Mai ("Nova Patrinn l>iblio(heea", iV', Rome, 1852). Julius also translated Tertullian's " Apologeti- cum" into Greek (Harnack in "Texte und Untersuch- ungen", VIII, 4).

Later Syrian writers mention works that have disappeared. Dionysius Bar-Salibi speaks of a com- mentary on the Gospels (.Assemani, "Bibliotheca Ori- entalis", II, Rome, 1721, 158), Ebed-Jesu of commen- taries on the New "Testament (Hebediesu, "Catalogus librorum chalda-orum", Rome, 1633, p. 15). Spuri- ous works are the Acts of St. Symphorosa (Ruinart, "Acta primonim martyrum", Ratisbon, 1859, 70), a Latin version of Abdias's "History of the Apostles" (" Historiae apostolicie, auctore Abdia ".Cologne, 1576, which asserts throughout, even in the title, that it was translated from the Hebrew by Julius .Vfricanus) and an astoni-shing .semi-pagan "Interpretation of the things that happened in Persia through the Incarna- tion of our Lord and God and Saviour. Jesus Christ " (ed. by Ignaz von der Hardt in J. C. von Aretin's "Beitriige zur Gesch. u. Litter.", II, Munich, 104, 52- 69). St. Jerome in his "de Viris illustribus" (no. 63) includes: "Julius Africanus. of whom five books de temporibus [=the Chronography] are extant, accepted a mission for the restoration of the city of Emmaus, afterwards called Nicopolis, under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who succeeded Macrinus. There is a letter to Origen about the question of Su-