Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Julius Africanus/Extant Fragments of the Chronography/Part 10

by Julius Africanus

X.^[1]

Of the Patriarch Jacob.

1. The shepherd’s tent belonging to Jacob, which was preserved at Edessa to the time of Antonine Emperor of the Romans, was destroyed by a thunderbolt.^[2]

2. Jacob, being displeased at what had been done by Symeon and Levi at Shecem against the people of the country, on account of the violation of their sister, buried at Shecem the gods which he had with him near a rock under the wonderful terebinth,^[3] which up to this day is reverenced by the neighbouring people in honour of the patriarchs, and removed thence to Bethel. By the trunk of this terebinth there was an altar on which the inhabitants of the country offered ectenæ^[4] in their general assemblies; and though it seemed to be burned, it was not consumed. Near it is the tomb of Abraham and Isaac. And some say that the staff of one of the angels who were entertained by Abraham was planted there.

Footnotes

1. In Georgius Syncellus, Chron., p. 107, al. 86.
2. Heliogabalus is probably intended, in whose time Africanus flourished. At least so thinks Syncellus.
3. On this terebinth, see Scaliger (ad Græca Euseb., p. 414); Franciscus Quaresimus, in Elucid. terræ sanctæ; Eugenius Rogerius, etc.; and also Valesius, ad Euseb. De Vit. Constant., iii. 53, notes 3 and 5.
4. Scaliger acknowledges himself ignorant of this word ἐκτενας. In the Eastern Church it is used to denote protracted prayers (preces protensiores) offered by the deacon on behalf of all classes of men, and the various necessities of human life. See Suicer, sub voce. Allatius thinks the text corrupt, and would read, ἐφ᾽ ὃν τά ὁλοκαυτώματα καὶ τὰς ἑκατόμβας ἀνεφερον = on which they offered both holocausts and hecatombs. [Littledale, Eastern Offices, p. 253.]