The Chronicle Of Jacob Of Edessa

Abstract

Jacob of Edessa (d. 708) was the most outstanding Syriac intellectual of the early Muslim era, and, it seems, one of the most important scholars of the Christian-Aramean tradition. Jacob?s Chronicle became known to the scholarly world through W. Wright?s catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Library, in which he provided a short description of the manuscript of Jacob?s Chronicle and published the text of the introduction. The name which is provided in the title of the Chronicle in the London manuscript is actually ?Jacob the Laborious? or better ?Philoponus?, whom however W. Wright, without actually giving any reasons, identified with Jacob of Edessa. Jacob?s work was written as a continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea, and consequently according to its pattern. Gregory Barhebraeus also names Jacob in the preface to the ecclesiastical part of his Chronicle, but not in that to the secular part.Keywords: Christian-Aramean tradition; early Muslim era; Jacob of Edessa's Chronicle; London manuscript; Syriac manuscripts