George Syncellus, Chronographic Selection 632.10-632.20
created: This entry is taken from Chronographic Selection 632.10-632.20 written by George
edition published: 2023-06-30-05:00
language: grc; grc
availability: Except for materials quoted from other sources, this entry is copyright 2023 by the contributors (Joseph L. Rife, et al.) and the Caesarea City and Port Exploration Project. It is licensed under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Some texts quoted in this entry may be in the public domain in the United States. No copyright is asserted for these quotations. Some texts quoted in this entry may have copyright restrictions and are reused under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)

https://caesarea-maritima.org/testimonia/354

Καισαρείᾳ Στράτωνος

, and

Straton’s Caesarea

are directly attested at George Syncellus, Chronographic Selection 632.10-632.20. This passage was written ca. 808 - 815 C.E. possibly in Constantinople. George Syncellus (“cellmate”), whose career spanned the late 8th to very early 9th centuries, was a Palestinian monk before his appointment as the assistant to Tarasius, Patriarch of Contantinople. Apparently facing hostility from the emperor Nicephorus I, he retired to monastic solitude in ca. 808, where he devoted himself to writing his Chronographic Selection (Ἐκλογὴ Χρονογραφίας). This work was a universal history in the form of a synchronic tabulation by year, following the chronographic models of the Late Antique Near East and Egypt that were rooted in the works of Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius of Caesarea. In his entry for the Year of the World 5550 (50 C.E.), George summarized various events during the reign of Claudius, including his appointment of Felix as procurator of Judaea and the Jewish unrest at Caesarea.

Ἐπὶ αὐτοῦ Φίλιξ Ἰουδαίας ἡγεμονεύειν σταλεὶς πολλῶν καὶ ἄλλων Ἰουδαίων ἀπατώντων, ἐν οἷς καὶ ὁ Αἰγύπτιος ψευδοπροφήτης, ἅμα τρισμυρίοις μείζοσιν ἐπιχειρῶν πράγμασι, τῇ Φίλικος κατελύθη στρατηγίᾳ. συμφωνεῖ Ἰώσηππος ἐν τούτῳ ταῖς πράξεσι τῶν ἀποστόλων, ἔνθα τῷ θείῳ Παύλῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ χιλιάρχου λέλεκται· οὐκ ἄρα σὺ εἶ ὁ Αἰγύπτιος ὁ πρὸ τούτων τῶν ἡμερῶν ἀναστατώσας καὶ ἐξαγαγὼν εἰς τὴν ἔρημον τοὺς τετρακισχιλίους ἄνδρας; ἐπὶ αὐτοῦ Παῦλος ὑπὸ Ἰουδαίων κατηγορηθεὶς τὴν ἀπολογίαν πεποίηται. Ἐπὶ αὐτοῦ Ἰουδαίων στάσις γέγονεν ἐν Καισαρείᾳ Στράτωνος καὶ πολλοὶ διεφθάρησαν.

[Ed. Dindorf 1829 [cited by page-line]] [Minor corr. J. L. Rife with ref. to Mosshammer 1984]

During (Claudius’) reign Felix was sent as governor of Judaea. At that time many Jews were practicing deception. Among them in particular was an Egyptian false prophet, who together with 30,000 men set to work on greater things. He was destroyed by the army of Felix. Josephus concurs in this with the Acts of the Apostles, where the tribune said to the divine Paul, “Are you not the Egyptian who before these days stirred up sedition and led out into the desert the 4,000 men?” It was before Felix that Paul, under accusation by the Jews, made his defense. During (Claudius’) his reign, the Jews were in revolt in Straton’s Caesarea and many perished.

[Adapted from Adler and Tuffin 2002 with ref. to Dindorf 1829]

Works Cited

[...] 632.10-632.20
[...] 484-485

Additional Bibliography

[...] 407.7-407.16

[Acts 21:38

Eusebius, Canons 2.181d

Eusebius, Canons 2.182a

Eusebius, Church History 2.20-21

John Zonaras, Epitome of History 6.16

Josephus, Jewish War 2.261-263

Josephus, Jewish War 2.266-270

Tacitus, Annals 12.54]

[Egypt

Judaea]

[Claudius, emperor

Felix, governor

Josephus

Paul, apostle]

[Christian Bible

Christianity

Government and Law

History of Israel

Judaism

Military

Roman History]