WE, invoking the help of the Holy Trinity, Father, and Son, and Holy 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').
GOD, 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 theoretical 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 himself thereto (that is to say, from the time of the blessed old man MICHAEL, the deceased Patriarch, who compiled that great threefold historical chronography), and to the [information] afforded by the old and antiquated historical chronographies of EUSEBIUS, I mean him of CAESAREA, and SOCRATES, the scholastic, and ZACHARIAH, the rhetorician, and JOHN of ASIA, and DIONYSIUS of TALL MAHRE, together with what he himself quickened. It hath [2] seemed to me that a similar breach and a gap which inviteth [filling] existeth in respect of us and our people, and that the famous events in the affairs of the world, and also in those of the Church which have happened in the period which precedeth us which will fall into oblivion and be no longer found in our own times after the lapse of much time will be sought for. Therefore, according to what time hath brought I, having entered the Library of the city of MARAGHAH of 'ADHORBIJAN, have loaded up this my little book with narratives which are worthy of remembrance from many volumes of the SYRIANS, SARACENS (ARABS), and PERSIANS which are [preserved] here. And those which concern the government of the world I have set in order from the Patriarchs, the first of whom was ADAM, and from them I proceed to the JUDGES of the HEBREWS, then to their kings, then to the CHALDEANS, then to the MEDES, then to the PERSIANS, then to the pagan GREEKS, then to the RHOMAYE (i.e. BYZANTINES), then to the Christian GREEKS, then to the ARABS, and then conclude with the HUNS who [live] in our own days, order after order. And these I have committed to the First Part of the CHRONOGRAPHY. In the matter of ecclesiastical affairs I have begun with AARON, the first high priest, and as I end, to those who stand at the head today in the Second Part of the Ecclesiastical History. This last I have sealed in two discourses; the first treateth of the Western high-priesthood which is of ANTIOCH, and the second treateth of our own Eastern high-priesthood.
Return to Chronography's Table of Contents
Return to Historical Sources Menu
Return to History Workshop Menu