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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![PREFACE THIS volume contains a complete translation of Part I of the makh- tebhanuth zabhne or the Chronological and Political History of the World from the Creation to the year A.D. 1286, which was compiled by Gregorius Abu’l-Farag[h], who is commonly known as ‘Bar Hebraeus’ (Bar 'Ebhraya), or the ‘Son of the Jew’ (i.e. of ’Ahron the physician). The transliteration is as literal as I could make it, and I have followed the renderings of many of the passages and whole sections of the book which I made when I read them at Cambridge with Professor William Wright in 1879 and the following years. With the help of the splendid Thesaurus Syriacus of Payne Smith, and the Supplement to it compiled by Mrs. J. P. Margoliouth (Oxford, 1927), a very large number of the lexicographical difficulties which then existed have been cleared up. Words added to make the meaning of the text clearer are enclosed within brackets [ ], and every doubtful rendering is followed by a question mark (?). The transliteration of the Syriac forms of proper names—French, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Armenian, Tatar (Mongolian), Indian, and Chinese—have, in spite of Bedjan’s useful variants, caused me much difficulty, and I am guilty of a certain amount of inconsistency in the English transliterations. The numbers printed in heavier type and enclosed within brackets [ ] refer to the pages of Bedjan’s text. It is very probable that those who use this book will complain that it lacks philological and historical notes, and that it has no commentary and contains no indications when the statements made by Bar Hebraeus are incomplete, or misleading, or are absolutely incorrect. And while ad¬ mitting that such readers will be justified in complaining, I would point out that this Chronography could be annotated almost indefinitely, and that the addition of a series of notes, however brief, to be of any use, would have doubled the size of a book which is already sufficiently long. The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus (as it must be called if we are to translate the Syrian title) does contain lists of Hebrew Patriarchs, and Kings of the Hebrews, Assyrians, Babylonians^Persians, and Greeks (Ionians and Byzantines), Khalifs, Khans, &c., but these and the years of their reigns taken together occupy only a very small portion of the book. The Chrono¬ graphy of Bar Hebraeus is in reality a chronological and historical encyclo¬ paedia, into which an enormous amount of information of various kinds, which has little to do with Chronography, has been crammed. It is what Bar Hebraeus himself says about kings and their peoples which fills the book, and, it must be admitted, that it forms the chief interest of the work. He deals with histories, religions, languages, the manners and customs of peoples; and adds biographies of great warriors and physicians; he](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31365334_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
