From Adam to Abraham

41

could well be correct. A Palestinian Christian and a self-described Roman with close
ties to Severan emperors, he was also an active participant in the Roman colonization
of his homeland.74 Africanus thus had every reason to affirm Rome’s ancestral ties
with the peoples of the East. The same is true of Malalas, an author whose self-iden-
tification was also with Rome. Described by Liebeschuetz as “a Roman of the Greek
Roman Empire of the East”, Malalas would have been highly receptive to the idea
that Roman expansion in the East was not a foreign invasion, but rather a kind of
homecoming of a people with ancient ties to eastern royalty. Beyond that, the story
of the colonization of Rome by the Assyrian king Cronus sat well with Malalas’ own
vision of political history. As has been often noted elsewhere, Malalas’ Romanitas was
monarchical and static, allowing little room for other systems of government, or even
for political change. Republican Rome and democratic Athens are, for example, con-
spicuous by their absence.75 76 77 It was thus in his own interests to push the origins of mon-
archy as far back as possible. Apart from a passing reference to the anarchy existing
in the uncivilized West before the arrival of Cronus there, Malalas is silent about the
system of rule before his reign.
Above all, the assimilation of the tradition about Cronus’ rise to power with Gen-
esis’ account of the diffusion of the descendants of the sons of Noah throughout the
inhabited world enabled Malalas to realize an important goal of the whole undertaking:
a unified vision of the past. Opposition historians like the Jewish Sibyl or Lactantius
had little incentive to incorporate the succession of earthly political institutions into the
course of sacred history. Even Eusebius was either unable or unwilling to fully integrate
the two realms. In his Canons, the succession of world kingdoms and the course of
sacred history beginning with Abraham’s birth and the Assyrian king Ninus are inde-
pendent tracks, bound together only temporally. Not until the destruction of the Jeru-
salem temple do they merge into a single filum^ By contrast, Malalas’ chronicle draws
no distinction between sacred history and secular history. All the kingdoms of the earth
have a common and very ancient pedigree, traceable to the oldest son of Noah.
5. Malalas and the Tradition of Hellenistic Universal History
In preparing this essay, I revisited the section on Malalas in volume two of Heinrich
Gelzer’s Sextus Julius Africanus und die byzantinische Chronographie A Although a chal-
lenge to read and undeniably dated, its learning and control of the sources still repay
74 On Africanus’ presiding over an embassy to Rome seeking the refounding of the Palestinian village of
Emmaus as apolls, see lulius Africanus, Chronographiae T 2a-d Wallraff/Roberto. Africanus’ Cesti was
also dedicated to the Roman emperor Severus Alexander; see lulius Africanus, Cesti T 3,1-3 Wallraff.
On Africanus’identification with Rome, see further Wallraff et al. (2oi2),pp.XIII-XIV; Roberto (2011),
pp. 29-45; Adler (2004), pp. 520-550.
75 See Jeffreys (1979), pp. 215-218; Scott (1990), pp. 67-68; Liebeschuetz (2004), pp. 149-150.
76 Eusebius, Hieronymi Chronicon 187b Helm.
77 Gelzer (1885), pp. 129-138.