6o

Umberto Roberto

canus, as in Malalas, the use of chronographic science has the precise aim of dispelling
any millenarian angst, any catastrophistic view of the imminent end of the world.27
4. Malalas and Africanus: further points of contacts
The third and final level of Malalas’ familiarity with the tradition of Africanus is to be
found in his reuse of ideas and opinions characteristically specific to the Chronogra-
phiae. Again, it is unnecessary to think that Malalas knew of these ideas from a direct
reading of Africanus. However, these ideas appear in the Chronographia and, from
there, were spread through the chronicles of late Antiquity and the Byzantine period.
In this part of the paper we shall provide at least some examples of such knowledge.
Firstly, what does Malalas exactly mean by “ancient history of mankind”, by the
word archaiologidt In this section Malalas follows the history of the Hebrews, as re-
counted by the Scriptures, and intertwines it with the history of other peoples, particu-
larly the Greeks and Orientals, and especially with events in Syria which, even in this
section, is already the focus of his interest. As we have seen above, in so doing Malalas
presents universal history in harmony with his model, Africanus. In particular, follow-
ing their Jewish predecessors, Africanus and Eusebius had provided a thick web of syn-
chronisms that were useful in connecting the history of the Jewish people with those
of archaic Greece (before Olympiad 1,1) and the empires of the Near East. This model
was developed by Malalas. Evidence for this is found both in the details (for example,
his decision to make universal history start from Adam, whereas the Eusebian tradition
starts from Abraham), as well as in his choice of the method on which books I-IV of
the Chronographia are based. It is also possible that Malalas’ knowledge of apocryphal
texts - e.g. passages from the Book of Jubilees - was partly derived from Africanus.28
Strictly linked to this view of the fundamental role of the Hebrews in history
is Malalas’ portrayal of the origins and spread of knowledge. Side by side with the
translatio imperii, we also find in Malalas another interpretative mechanism he shares
with Africanus: the translatio studii. This concept considers the passage of ideas and
wisdom from one people to another and the ways in which culture is transmitted. As a
Roman citizen from the Eastern provinces of the Severan Empire and as a Christian,
Africanus (who himself came from Aelia Capitolina, the Roman colonia built under the
Emperor Hadrianus on the ruins of ancient Jerusalem) deemed that wisdom passed
from the Hebrews and peoples of Mesopotamia to the rest of the world.29 As far as
27 Jeffreys (1990a); Jeffreys (1990c); Croke (1990), pp. 34-36; Thurn/Meier (2009), pp. 17-19 (with further
references). See also on Peleg (Phalek) Whitby (2007), pp. 290-291.
28 See above note 15 with reference to lulius Africanus, Chronographiae F34, i-n Wallraff/Roberto. In
addition to the Scriptures and Africanus, the sources Malalas used for the history and culture of Jewish
people were Flavius Josephus and Eusebius: see Beaucamp (2006a), pp. 23-26; Whitby (2007). For the
use of synchronisms in Jewish historiography see Wacholder (1968). On Antioch and Syria as the cen-
tre of Malalas’historiographical reconstruction see Liebeschuetz (2004); Saliou (2016). Malalas’know-
ledge of apocryphal texts: Jeffreys (1996), pp. 57-58; Berthelot (2004), p. 44.
29 See Roberto (2011), pp. 157-166, in general see Adler (2004). On Africanus’ culture, see Adler (2009).