The Chronography of Julius Africanus

In the early 3rd century Julius Africanus (ca. 160-240), the father of the genre of Christian chronography, composed a massive five-book world history extending from Adam down to his own day. Encompassing over 5700 years, Africanus’ pioneering work survives only in scattered notices, excerpts and summaries. In 2007 William Adler, together with Umberto Roberto and Karl Pinggéra, under the editorship of Martin Wallraff, published a critical edition and translation of the extant fragments  of Africanus’ Chronographiae (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, NF 15, Berlin-New York:  Walter de Gruyter). In 2008, Anna Totomanova published the text of a Slavonic chronography once thought to be a translation of the 9th century Byzantine Universal Chronicle of George Synkellos and provided evidence that the first part of the composition actually derived from the text of Julius Africanus (Славянската версия на Хрониката на Георги Синкел. Издание и превод. София). Since these represent an important example of Wissenstransfer and mulitilingualism over space and time, the workshop will examine the arguments for identifying Slavonic Africanus in comparison with the Greek text and will include the participation of the following scholars:

Prof. Dr. William Adler, Distinguished University Professor, North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC, USA (currently a TOPOI visiting fellow); Prof. Anna Totomanova, Professor of Cyrillo Methodian Studies at the University of Sofia (a former TOPOI visiting fellow); Prof. Dr. Christophe Guignard, EPHE, Paris;  Prof. Dr. Umberto Roberto, Dipartimento di Scienze umane Università Europea di Roma; Prof. Dr. Martin Wallraff, Ordinarius für Kirchen- und Theologiegeschichte, University of Basel; and Prof. Dr. Florentina Badalanova Geller, FU Berlin

Program