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
Catalogue details

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.

    42/676
    week], on the 30th day of the month of tammuz (July), in the year 1597 (a.d. 1286) of the GREEKS. And because mar yahbh ’allaha, the praiseworthy Catholicus, was at that time in the city of maragha, he commanded that no man should go to business in the bazar, and that no man should open [his] shop. And he sent out a beater of a board (i.e. bell-ringer), and all the people gathered together at the cell of the Maphrian. And the Catholicus sent the bishops who were with him, and many large candles, and a whole crowd of Armenians and Greeks were there, but of our own community only four Elders were present. About two hundred souls were gathered together, and they stood in prayer from dawn until the ninth hour. O what a day of perdition and a morning without mercy! O what a day of wrath and night of death which burst upon the brother of this saint who was joined unto the angels and left the poor and miserable ones in suffering, and weeping, and sadness, and tears and sighs. And when the nestorians , and the Greeks, and the Armenians had finished their prayers, and prepared him for burial in a fitting manner, they deposited his holy body in a little altar whereat a man might pray and make an offering whensoever he was in maragha. Who is there that will not weep for the excellent people of the jacobites when he seeth that they were left as orphans by this man who stood alone, and was a marvellous philosopher. And there remained not among them any one who could inform a stranger by an answer to any question, whether it concerned the Church or some profane matter, whether it was difficult or easy, or who could write a discreet, or courteous, or an admoni¬ tory letter, as could this man whom God adorned with every kind of learning both of those who are in (i.e. natives) and those who are out (i.e. foreigners). And from the time when he was twenty years old until [he drew] the last breath he never ceased from reading and writing. And he composed and wrote many books, and he could translate from one language into another. [Here bar-sawmA gives a list of the one and thirty books which his brother wrote or translated, but in order not to break his narrative they are enumerated on p. xxxii f.] And though during the whole period of his life the Maphrian was occu¬ pied with books, he never ceased to build new churches and restore those that were overthrown from the beginning of his episcopate. He began in aleppo and he built a huge khan (i.e. inn or guest house) by the side of the church which was therein, [which entailed] sundry and divers expenses, for at that period Arabdom was in a sound and flourishing condition. And those (i.e. the churches) which are in maragha, and Tabriz, and bartalli are manifest to everybody. And whensoever he passed a day in any place he never ceased from restoring some [sacred] building, and he spared no expense nor considered the losses which he suffered. I do not say these