The chronography of Gregory Abû'l Faraj, the son of Aaron, the Hebrew physician, commonly known as Bar Hebraeus : being the first part of his political history of the world / translated from the Syriac by Ernest A. Wallis Budge.
- Bar Hebraeus
- Date:
- 1932
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The chronography of Gregory Abû'l Faraj, the son of Aaron, the Hebrew physician, commonly known as Bar Hebraeus : being the first part of his political history of the world / translated from the Syriac by Ernest A. Wallis Budge. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Ill THE KINGS OF THE HEBREWS Here beginneth the Third Series. The Kings of the Hebrews AFTER samuel the prophet [came] saul, the first king. He reigned over the children of Israel, according to eusebius, forty years, and according to anianus twenty years. And in his third year saul conquered amalek, and in his thirty-first year a festival took place in yonath, which is in rama, and saul also prophesied with the prophets. In the thirty-fifth year of saul, samuel the prophet died. And after five years saul and Jonathan his son were killed in the war. After saul, david, the son of jesse, reigned forty years, seven in hebhron and thirty-three in Jerusalem; all [the days of] his life were seventy years. He built sehyon (sion or zion). And in his tenth year he took up the Ark into the tabernacle which he had constructed for it. david was born in the tenth year of the kingdom of saul, and he was anointed [king] in the twenty-third year of saul, being thirteen years old. And he slew [18] gulyadh (goliath) in the thirtieth year of saul. And in the thirty-ninth year of the kingdom of david he divided the tribes of the levites, and he appointed from among them one (two?) hundred and eighty and eight ‘praisers’ (i.e. singers). And he separated them into twenty-four divisions, and he appointed twelve in each division to sing. And david warred with the peoples round about him and conquered them. And in the twenty-eighth year of david the king ephesus was built, and also SAMOS. [In other manuscripts [it is written]: It was he who acted deceitfully in respect of Uriah, the captain of his host in the war. And through the fraud which he perpetrated upon him he took from him bathsheba his wife, whilst Uriah was engaged in the war of the peoples, and from her was born Solomon, his unlawful son, and he sinned.1] And in his time lived Empedocles, the great philosopher, who was one of the five pillars of wisdom, viz. he and Pythagoras, socrates, plato, and Aristotle. And there is attributed to him a certain book which abolished the new life after death which [men] were wont to assign to the rational soul, and it agreed with the opinion of Solomon in the Book of kohlath2 (ecclesiastes). And he was the first to think that in the Divine Nature there is not a plurality of names, even though it is said that He is wise, and good, and all mighty. He doth not 1 The passage within square brackets is a note by Bedjan. 2 On this Bedjan says: ‘This was not the opinion of Solomon, who confesseth the new life in ecclesiastes and said, The soul shall return to the earth as it was; the spirit shall return to the Lord who gave it (chap. xii. 7). Therefore Bar Hebraeus, who thought thus about Solomon, erreth.’](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31365334_0105.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
