Iulius Africanus has rightly been called the "Father of Christian Chronography". His world chronicle is one of the few works of Christian literature pioneering a new genre. Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages mainly articulated their reflection on history in the form of the world chronicle. The work has not been preserved in its entirety; the extant fragments have to be laboriously pieced together from the works of later authors. To date, there has not been a critical edition of this material, and the edition in use today dates back nearly 200 years (J.M. Routh 1814). This new edition in the GCS series closes an old gap in the programme of this series - and at the same time marks a new beginning, because this is the first edition ever in this series to be published with an English translation. The edition establishes a completely new foundation for our knowledge of Early Christian historical thinking, and in addition provides an important component in our understanding of an important epoch, the "Imperial Crisis" of the 3rd century, in which the new world of Late Antiquity began to develop out of the Hellenic-Roman heritage.

The world chronicle of Jo(h)annes Antiochenus is a decisive source in the development of Christian universal historiography and world chronicles in the Christian Orient. It stretches from Adam to the beginning of the reign of Heraclius (610). The author was an educated official in the imperial administration in Constantinople. The chronicle was written in the context of the cultural and political debate about the renewal of the Emperorship after the deposition of the tyrant Phokas (October 610); the model is provided by the political structure of the Roman republic. In this volume, the chronicle has been made available for the first time in a modern edition (with an Italian translation) and with a detailed introduction. The edition of the fragments includes new texts on Greek prehistory, Roman history, the chronology of biblical and Greek history, and the history, topography, and archaeology of Constantinople.