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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![THE BOOK OF THE CHRONICLE OF THE GENERATIONS [OF KINGS] E, invoking the help of the Holy Trinity, Father, and Son, and Holy W Spirit, One veritable God, begin to write the ‘Book of the Chronicle of the Generations [of Kings]’ which was composed by mar Gregory, the Maphrian, the Light of the East and of the West, who is abu’l-faraj, the son of aaron, the physician, who [came] from the city of melitene, who is commonly called ‘bar 'ebhraya’ (i.e. ‘the son of the Hebrew’). FIRSTLY. THE PREFACE OD, help my feebleness! Blessed be Thou, Lord, and Lord of the Universe, the beginning and the end ; Thou art the First, and Thou art the Last. With Thee every course of action is prepared, and unto Thee all praise is rightfully due; And to the Son, the Word, the strength of Thy wisdom, And to the Holy Spirit, the Life of Thy Being, From everlasting, and now, and for ever. And as this our rational being was created so that it might know righteousness, so that it might glorify it, and goodness that it might find it; and as knowledge in the first place becometh rich through thoughts of a theo¬ retical nature, and it in the second place profiteth through practical (i.e. actual) hearings, the calling to remembrance of the things, both good and bad, which have happened in each and every generation conferreth no small benefit on all those who care greatly to acquire what is good, and who take pains to hate what is bad, and it urgeth a man to demonstrate pointedly the things which are excellent related thereby, and inciteth him to reject the disgraceful happenings which it narrateth. For a period of eighty years none of our people have given any thought to this object, and to the doings of this none of our people has devoted him¬ self thereto (that is to say, from the time of the blessed old man Michael, the deceased Patriarch, who compiled that great threefold historical chrono- graphy), and to the [information] afforded by the old and antiquated his¬ torical chronographies of eusebius, I mean him of caesarea, and socrates, the scholastic, and zachariah, the rhetorician, and John of ASIA, and Diony¬ sius of tall mahre, together with what he himself quickened. It hath](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31365334_0087.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
