Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Religion
Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
The school of Baur, more particularly Schwegler
(see § 20), attached greater importance to him as a supposed
representative of the anti-Pauline Judaism of his time.
The value of his testimony in this direction, however, is
reduced by his acknowledgment of the Epistle of Clement that
accords so high a place to the Apostle Paul. His relations
to Rome and Corinth, with his judgment on the general unity
of faith in the church of his age, prove that he would be by
no means disposed to repudiate the Apostle Paul in favour of
any Ebionitic tendency.
b. =Caius of Rome=, a contemporary of bishop Zephyrinus
about A.D. 210, was one of the most conspicuous opponents
of Montanism. Eusebius who characterizes him as ἀνὴρ
ἐκκλησιαστικός and λογιώτατος, quotes four times from
his now lost controversial tract in dialogue form against
Proclus the Roman Montanist leader.
§ 31.8.
c. =Sextus Julius Africanus=, according to Suidas a native of
Libya, took part, as he says himself in his Κεστοῖς, in the
campaign of Septimius Severus against Osrhoëne in A.D. 195,
became intimate with the Christian king Maanu VIII. of
Edessa, whom in his Chronographies he calls ἱερὸς ἀνὴρ,
and was often companion in hunting to his son and successor
Maanu IX. About A.D. 220 we find him, according to Eusebius
and others, in Rome at the head of an embassy from Nicopolis
or Emmaus in Palestine petitioning for the restoration of
that city. In consequence of Origen addressing him about
A.D. 227 as ἀγαπητὸς ἀδελφός it has been rashly concluded
that he was then a presbyter or at least of clerical rank.
The five books, Χρονογραφίαι, were his first and most
important work. This work which was known partly in the
original, partly in the citations from it in the Eusebian
Chronicle (§ 47, 2), together with its Latin continuation
by Jerome proved a main source of information in general
history during the Byzantine period and the Latin Middle
Age. Beginning with the creation of the world and fixing
the whole course of the world’s development at 6,000 years,
he set the middle point of this period to the age of Peleg
(Gen. x. 25), and in accordance with the chronology of the
LXX. and reckoning by Olympiads, proceeded to synchronize
biblical and profane history. He assigned the birth of
Christ to the middle of the sixth of the thousand year
periods, at the close of which he probably expected the
beginning of the millennium. From the fragments preserved
by later Byzantine chroniclers, Gelzer has attempted to
reproduce as far as possible the original work, carefully
indicating its sources and authorities. Of the other works
of Africanus we have in a complete form only an Epistle
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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