Person

Thallus (via Julius Africanus)

Thallus: 1st-2nd c. (debated); Africanus c. 160-c. 240

historian (lost), chronographer

Disputed. Known only third-hand; DISPUTED.

Thallus (via Julius Africanus) — HONEST STAND-IN. No authentic image of Thallus (or of Julius Africanus) exists. This is a 1493 woodcut from the Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum) labeled 'Sextus Julius Africanus / Julius aphricanus.' It is a late-medieval imaginary portrait of Africanus, who is the main surviving witness to a fragment of Thallus (on the darkness at the crucifixion, quoted via Africanus in later chroniclers such as Syncellus). It is not a likeness, and it is not an image of Thallus himself. Rijksmuseum object RP-P-2016-49-79-4, released CC0.Sextus Julius Africanus, woodcut in the Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum), 1493. Rijksmuseum RP-P-2016-49-79-4, CC0. Wikimedia Commons. CC0 1.0Source page

Africanus reports that Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explained the darkness at the crucifixion as an eclipse, which Africanus rejects because Passover fell at full moon.

Bases

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Emmaus · Africanus's base (embassy for Emmaus-Nicopolis) · c. 220 · attested
Rome · Thallus perhaps wrote there (debated) · disputed

Did Thallus mention Jesus?

Yes: an early pagan reaction to the passion story
- older apologists; considered possible by some
Unclear: Africanus may be reading Jesus into a general eclipse notice; Thallus's date is uncertain
- John P. Meier (sceptical)

Places

Councils

No council in this list names them as a participant.

Sources

Julius Africanus, Extant Works (Chronography fragment XVIII on Thallus)
A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1
Thallus (historian) (Wikipedia)

Catalog editions

No edition in the preview catalog is linked.

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