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8 Augustine (Retract. lib. ii. c. vii.), see Mill, On the Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels, p. 201.

The great work of Africanus was his "accurately laboured" (Eus. H. E. vi. 31) treatise on chronology, in five books. As a whole it is lost, but we can form a good idea of its general character from the still remaining Chronicon of Eusebius, which was based upon it, and which undoubtedly incorporates much of it. Eusebius himself, p. 132, mentions Africanus among his authorities for Jewish history, subsequent to O.T. times. Several fragments of the work of Africanus can be identified by express quotations, either by Eusebius in his Praeparatio and Demonstratio Evangelii, or by other writers, in particular by Georgius Syncellus in his Chronographia. These have been collected by Gallandi (Bibl. Vet. Pat. vol. ii.), and more fully by Routh (Rel. Sac. vol. ii.).

Christian Apologists had been forced to engage in chronological discussions, to remove the heathen contempt of Christianity as a novelty, by demonstrating the great antiquity of the Jewish system, out of which the Christian sprang. Thus Tatian (Or. ad Graec. c. 39), Theophilus of Antioch (ad. Autol. iii. 21), Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, i. 21), discuss the question of the antiquity of Moses, and, following Josephus (cont. Apion. i. 16), arrive at the conclusion that Moses was a contemporary of Inachus, and that the Exodus took place 393 years before the coming of Danaus to Argos. Africanus set himself to make a complete synopsis of sacred and profane history from the Creation, and to establish a synchronism between the two. He concludes that Moses and Ogyges were contemporaries. He thinks a connexion between the Ogygian deluge and the plagues of Egypt likely; and confirms his conclusions by deducing from Polemo, Apion, and Ptolemaeus Mendesius, that Moses was a contemporary of Inachus, whose son, Phoroneus, reigned at Argos in the time of Ogyges. Africanus follows the LXX: he counts 2262 years to the Deluge; he does not recognize the second Cainan; he places the Exodus 3707. In computing the years of the Judges he is blamed by Eusebius for lengthening the chronology by adding, without authority, 30 years for the elders after Joshua, 40 for anarchy after Samson, and 25 years of peace. He thus makes 740 years between the Exodus and Solomon. Our Lord's birth he places 5500, and two years before our common computation of Anno Domini. But he allows only one year for our Lord's public ministry, and thus dates the Crucifixion 5531. He calculates the commencement of the 70 weeks from the 20th year of Artaxerxes: from this to the death of our Lord he counts only 475 years, contending that the 70 weeks of Daniel are to be understood as 490 lunar years of 354 days each, equivalent to 475 Julian years.

Another interesting passage in the χρονικά is one in which he treats of the darkness at the Crucifixion, and shews, in opposition to the Syrian historian Thallus, that it was miraculous, and that an eclipse of the sun could not have taken place at the full moon. Lastly, we may notice his statement that there were still in his time remains of Jacob's terebinth at Shechem, Gen. xxxv. 4., held in honour; and that Jacob's tent had been preserved in Edessa until struck by lightning in the reign of the emperor Antoninus (Elagabalus ?). Africanus probably had personally visited Edessa, whose king, Abgarus, he elsewhere mentions.

The work in all probability concluded with the Doxology, which St. Basil has cited (de Spir. Sanct. § 73, iii. 61) in justification of the form of doxology σὺν Ἀγίῳ Πνεύματι.

It remains to speak of another work, the κεστοί, expressly ascribed to Africanus by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 31), Photius (l.c.), Suidas (l.c.), and Syncellus (p. 359). Perhaps (as Scaliger suggests) quoting the Chronica of Eusebius. According to this authority, the work consisted of nine books; and it is probably owing to errors of transcribers that we now find Photius enumerating 14 and Suidas 24. The work seems to have received the fanciful name of Cesti, or variegated girdles, from the miscellaneous character of its contents, which embraced the subjects of geography, natural history, medicine, agriculture, the art of war, etc. The portions that remain have suffered mutilation and addition by different copyists. The external evidence for ascribing the Cesti and Chronology to the same author is too strong to be easily set aside, and is not without some internal confirmation. Thus the author of the Cesti was better acquainted with Syria than with Libya; for he mentions the abundance of a certain kind of serpent in Syria, and gives its Syrian name (Vet. Math. p. 290), but when he gives a Libyan word (Geopon. p. 226) he does so on second-hand testimony. And he was a Christian, for he asserts (Geopon. p. 178) that wine may be kept from spoiling by writing on the vessels "the divine words, Taste and see that the Lord is gracious." The unlikelihood of Africanus having written such a work becomes less if we look upon him not as an ecclesiastic, but as a Christian philosopher, pursuing his former studies after his conversion, and entering in his note-books many things more in accordance with the spirit of his own age than with that of ours. Cf. Harnack on Julius Africanus Sextus in Herzog, 3rd ed. The last edition of the Chronography is in Gelzer, ''Sex. Jul. Afr. (2 vols. Leipzig, 1880‒1898); see also Spitta (Halle, 1877) on the letter to Aristides, Harnack, Lit.'' i. 507‒513 and ii. 1, pp. 124 sqq. [G.S.]  Agapetus, bp. of Rome, was, we are told, a Roman by birth, the son of Gordianus a priest (Anast. quoted by Clinton, Fasti Romani, p. 763; Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum, p. 73). He was already an old man when, six days after the death of Johannes II., he was elected pope in June 535. He began by formally reversing an act of Bonifacius II., one of his own immediate predecessors, fulminating anathemas against the deceased antipope Dioscorus, A.D. 530 (Anast. vol. i. p. 100).

We next find him entering Constantinople on Feb. 19, 536 (Clint. F. R. p. 765), sent thither by Theodahad to avert, if possible, the war with which he was threatened by the emperor Justinian in revenge for the murder of his queen Amalasontha: and we are told that he succeeded in the objects of his mission (Anast. vol. i. p. 102), which must refer to other objects, for he certainly failed to avert 