Translator's Introductory Notice.
The principal facts known to us in the life of Africanus are derived from himself and the Chronicon of Eusebius. He says of himself that he went to Alexandria on account of the fame of Heraclas. In the Chronicon, under the year 226, it is stated that "Nicopolis in Palestine, which formerly bore the name of Emmaus, was built, Africanus, the author of the Chronology, acting as ambassador on behalf of it, and having the charge of it." Dionysius Bar-Salibi speaks of Africanus as bishop of Emmaus.
Eusebius describes Africanus as being the author of a work called kestoi. 1 Suidas says that this book detailed various kinds of cures, consisting of charms and written forms, and such like. Some have supposed that such a work is not likely to have been written by a Christian writer: they appeal also to the fact that no notice is taken of the kestoi by Jerome in his notice of Africanus, nor by Rufinus in his translation of Eusebius. They therefore deem the clause in Eusebius an interpolation, and they suppose that two bore the name of Africanus,--one the author of the kestoi, the other the Christian writer. Suidas identifies them, says that he was surnamed Sextus, and that he was a Libyan philosopher.
The works ascribed to Africanus, beside the Cesti, are the following:--
Five Books of Chronology. Photius 2 says of this work, that it was concise, but omitted nothing of importance. It began with the cosmogony of Moses, and went down to the advent of Christ. It summarized also the events from the time of Christ to the reign of the Emperor Macrinus.
A very famous letter to Aristides, in which he endeavoured to reconcile the apparent discrepancies in the genealogies of Christ given by Matthew and Luke.
A letter to Origen, in which he endeavoured to prove that the story of Susanna in Daniel was a forgery. A translation of this letter has been given with the Works of Origen.
The Acts of Symphorosa and her Seven Sonsare attributed in the mss. to Africanus; but no ancient writer speaks of him as the author of this work.
