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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![‘noachos’. And it is not only the ancient [writers] who do this, but people who are living in our own days are in the habit of changing the pronuncia¬ tion [of words], thus ya'kob, which [is derived] from ‘Ekbha, is called ‘aiakobhos’, and bar-sawma they call ‘somos’; and many others. And after yard [came] hanokh (enoch), who at the age of one hundred and sixty-five years begot mathushlah (methuselah). And having pleased God for three hundred years he was translated to the place where God wished him [to be], and it is said, to Paradise, the place where the first adam was when he transgressed the command in days of old. Now this Enoch made manifest before every man the knowledge of books and the art of writing. The ancient Greeks say that Enoch is harmis (hermes) tris- maghistos 1 (the ‘thrice great’), and it was he who taught men to build cities; and he established wonderful laws. And in his days one hundred and eighty cities were built; of which the smallest is urhai (edessa). And he invented the science of the constellations and the courses (orbits ?) of the stars. And he ordained that the children of men should worship God, and that they should fast, and pray, and give alms, and [make] votive offer¬ ings, and [pay] tithes. And he rejected the foods [which produced] im¬ purities, and drunkenness. And he ordered festivals for the entrance of the sun into each Sign of the Zodiac, and for the New Moon, and for every star (planet?) when it entereth its house or when it riseth. And he com¬ manded [men] to present offerings of perfumes (sweet incense ?), and beasts for slaughter sacrificially, and wine, and offerings of first-fruits of every kind. And they say that he received all this doctrine (or, learning) from ’aghathodahmon (agathodaimon), and they also say that ’aghatho- dahmon was seth, the son of ’adham, that is to say, the priest of the priest of enoch. And they also say that ’asklaipidis (aesculapius), the wise king, was a disciple of hermes, that is to say, of enoch. And when God translated [6] enoch to Himself, ’asklaipyadis (aescu¬ lapius) was greatly afflicted because the earth and the inhabitants thereof were deprived of his blessings and his wisdom. And he painted his picture in most marvellous fashion, as one who is being taken up into heaven, and he set up an image of hermes in the temple in which he used to pray and worship God. And when he went into that temple he used to sit down before it as he used to sit before him when he was alive, and he was blessed thereby. And it is said that this thing which had been made was the cause of the worship of images in the world. Now after many generations the Greeks imagined that that image was the image of ’asklaipyadis (aescu¬ lapius), and for this reason they magnified it greatly, and they swore oaths by it before Christianity [existed]. For Hippocrates said, ‘My disciples, I adjure you by the creator of death and life, and by the father of your father, ’asklaipyadis’. And he said, ‘His name is derived etymologically 1 That is, Thrice Great, Lawgiver, Priest and Philosopher (Bedjan’s note).](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31365334_0091.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
