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The Apostolic Age · c. 140; survives in fragments

The Olympiads

Phlegon of Tralles

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What it is

A chronicle by a freedman of Hadrian, lost apart from quotations. Origen and Africanus report that it recorded a great eclipse and an earthquake in Bithynia in the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, and Origen adds that Phlegon mentioned Christ's foreknowledge of events.

Why it lasted

The second pagan text pressed into service over the darkness at the crucifixion, and a case study in how thin the external evidence is and how hard Christian apologists worked it.

Scripture it works from

Where to read it

Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.

These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.

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