A new issue of the digest of pseudo-Chrysostom research: “Settime spigolature pseudocrisostomiche” now available

Posted on February 23, 2026 by Roger Pearse

Anybody interested in the mass of Greek literature falsely attributed to John Chrysostom will be aware of the work of Dr Sever Voicu. This includes works by Severian of Gabala, and many other lesser figures of late antiquity.

For some years now Dr Voicu has very kindly published a digest of work in the field of pseudo-Chrysostomica (spigolature pseudocrisostomiche), organised by the text in question. A new publication has just appeared, the seventh:

Sever Voicu, “Settime spigolature pseudocrisostomiche”, Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata III vol. 22 (2025), 191-223.

The “Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata III” is the “terza serie” of the journal.

He used to email these out to researchers, but the last two have been sent as a cloud link, and of course these links expire! Luckily I found the last one, number 6, on my disk, and emailed it to myself for future reference. Make sure you have it!

The introduction:

Nel vasto mondo degli scritti spuri tramandati sotto il nome di Giovanni Crisostomo i problemi non mancano. Le pagine che seguono sono un modesto apporto riguardo alla tradizione indiretta di alcuni di questi testi1

In the vast world of spurious writings transmitted under the name of John Chrysostom, problems abound. The following pages are a modest contribution to the indirect tradition of some of these texts.

If you are working in this area, and were not aware of this journal, and specifically of this digest (spigolature), then you need to be.

The Ephraem Graecus problem: some thoughts

Posted on February 21, 2026 by Roger Pearse

The 4th century writer Ephraem the Syrian wrote in Syriac. But in the Greek manuscripts that have come down to us, there is a great mass of sermons and related material, all attributed to “Ephraem”. This material was printed in Rome in 1732 in three volumes under the name of “Ephraem Graecus” by J. Assemani, with a Latin translation. All the works included by Assemani are listed in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum. A very large part – but not all – of this material was reprinted by C. Phrantzolas in seven volumes: Κων. Γ. Φραντζόλάς, Ὁσιοῦ Ἐφραίμ τοῦ Σύρου, Thessaloniki, (1988-98), 7 vols, with modern Greek translation, and volumes circulate online. More biblio here.

The problem with all this “Ephraem Graecus” material is that the so-called “works” are not unique. If you take seven “works” connected to a study on the Antichrist, and compare them, you quickly find that each contains long passages which are verbally identical with passages in other “works”. In fact the CPG lists the parallel passages under each “work”.

It’s as if there was originally a large pile of lego, and the lego pieces have been put together in many different ways, to make up a “work” or sermon; and that many different people have used the same pile of lego.

Here is a diagram from the 1895 book by W. Bossuet on the Antichrist legend in early Christian literature. The study leads him to the Ephraem Graecus works that mention the Antichrist, and therefore he must confront the Ephraem Graecus problem.¹ His comments are interesting enough that I have translated the five pages in question, and you can read them – if you feel inclined – here:

bossuet-english (Word .docx)
bossuet-english (PDF)

I have tidied up the table of parallel passages on page 24 – I can use shading, which he could not! -, and it looks like this:

So Assemani lists seven works, homilies, which are concerned with the Antichrist. Bossuet has looked at these, and found parallel passages. So he gives the volume and page number in Assemani for each passage which is identical. As an example, he states that material in homily 2, found in Assemani volume II, page 248, is also found in homily 6, in Assemani volume 3, on page 371. And so on.

Bossuet thinks that there are four texts from which all these passages were mined, and calls these A, B, C and D. But that need not concern us here.

Worse yet, some of the passages come from different text recensions of the same text. For instance the version printed in volume 2 is from an inferior text where certain words have fallen out, while the version in volume 3 is a better text, but omits the opening which only volume 2 preserves.

There’s the problem, at the most basic level. For most works, we know what the text is. So if we propose to edit a letter of Cicero, at least we know that it is letter 123 of Cicero. But what is the actual work here that we intend to edit? Has the original work even survived? Or has it been chopped up into dozens of pieces and survives only as passages in other works. How will we recognise what the original was?

In some of the works given by Assemani, there is a clear unit which can be treated as the text, and the other versions of it can be used as textual sources. But what then do we do with those other texts?

Or should we instead simply do what Assemani did – and has often been reviled for doing – and treat each text that has reached us as a literary produce, and never mind that it contains stuff which is common to others?

Some of the “works” are in fact portions of identifiable authors, such as pseudo-Macarius. What do we do here?

It’s a puzzle, which I have not seen discussed. Instead scholars concentrate on this text or that text and work on that. Which is, indeed, a very worthwhile business of its own.

But the Ephraem Graecus problem cannot be solved unless there is an answer to this problem. We’ve sat staring at this stuff for 280 years now. Isn’t it time to draw up a roadmap?

Wilhelm Bousset, Der Antichrist in der Überlieferung des Judentums, des neuen Testaments und der alten Kirche [= “The Antichrist in the tradition of Judaism, the New Testament and the early Church”], Göttingen (1895). Ephraem on p. 21-25. Online here.[↩]

Updating the list of works of Ephraem Graecus, and a couple of articles in PDF

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Roger Pearse

I have just updated the page with the list of the works of “Ephraem Graecus”. This I compiled back in 2018. I had occasion to look at it yesterday. I also signed up again for the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) database. Comparing the TLG reference numbers with the page, I found that they no longer aligned. It seems that in the TLG two “works” had been merged together, and another one had been split into three. So I updated the page.

Everyone who works with this massive splodge of Greek texts knows that the first editor, Assemani, just printed whatever he could find under the name of Ephraem in whatever manuscripts he had to hand. This means that some of the “works” are duplicates, or partially so.

There is a list of what the duplications are, referenced to the volumes, pages and line numbers of the Assemani three volume edition. It is D. Hemmerdinger, “Les doublets de l’édition de l’Éphrem grec par Assemani”, in: Orientalia christiana periodica 24 (1958), p. 371-382. I was able to lay hands on a copy, and I have uploaded a PDF of the article here. I’ve also put it at the top of the list of works page. The list is rather hard to work with, tho, because it is page numbers and lines.

D. Hemmerdinger-Iliadou also published a “detailed though sometimes disorganised analysis of the Ephraem Graecus corpus” in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 4 (1960), columns 800-815 (PDF here). This I was able to lay hands on today. This also contains a section on doublets (column 814 f.), rather more clearly organised and referencing the names of the works, and I have uploaded this article too.

(By the way I must apologise for the “tables of contents” that have started to appear on pages and posts, including the Ephraem Graecus list. This is not my doing. Something about the infernal WordPress software has changed. When I find out how to turn these off, I will do so. In the meantime, just minimise them.)

From my diary

Posted on February 19, 2026 by Roger Pearse

I’m working through the letters of Procopius of Gaza. He was a sophist living in the early 6th century, after the end of the Origenist disputes, and before the rise of Islam. Only three of the letters are addressed to priests, and the tone is secular. But he lived in a period when the traditional Roman upper class was starting to be replaced by the ecclesiastical dignitaries, themselves rich and powerful and full of patronage. In other words, he lived at the changeover period between the Roman and Byzantine periods.

Initially I was rather charmed with the letters. I got hold of the Italian translation, and ran the lot through DeepSeek, the Chinese AI, so that I could have a read. I’ve tended to find that DeepSeek produces less “wild” results than ChatGPT, so I use it. The translations are readable enough. I thought that others might find them interesting also.

This has led me to start to run each letter in turn in Italian through Google Translate, and compare with the DeepSeek output. In Latin I have often found that Google Translate is closer to the Latin. It’s also based on a neural net technology, rather than AI, so the comparison ought to reveal hallucinations in the DeepSeek output. So far, after 57 letters, I have discovered no hallucinations.

Interestingly, Google Translate is often producing more focused language than DeepSeek. The latter can waffle around something which could be expressed more concisely and clearly. Some of the AI stuff makes your eyes close. You read the words, but they convey nothing to the mind.

I then got hold of the TLG Greek text of letter 1, and ran that through DeepSeek and Google Translate. The latter was futile – Google Translate doesn’t support ancient Greek. The former produced an interesting output, and I compared it to the evolving translation for letter 1. It revealed that the Greek is quite a bit more concise than the Italian. In a couple of places I preferred the output from Greek.

Originally my intention was simply to run the Italian translation through DeepSeek so that I could read them myself. I’d add a few notes; and then throw the thing over the wall, so that others could easily do the same. How else, after all, would any normal person be able to engage with Procopius’ letters? It’s not a translation as such; but it makes life easier for the researcher. And this, I thought, might take a day to do.

Once you start doing this, and comparing other outputs, the timescale stretches out. It’s starting to get slow, and cumbersome.

I’m also getting rather fed up with Procopius. All the letters so far seem to be the same letter – the author whining to some correspondent that he hasn’t had a letter from him, suggesting sometimes that perhaps the latter is now too rich and important to reply, adding maybe a classical allusion, and so on. I’ve worked through 57 of these, and I am getting rather jaded. The historical content is nil. Are these letters really just rhetorical exercises, saying “look at how nicely I can write Greek!”? Maybe.

So I may cut this short, and do less from here on. We’ll see.

I always take the view that whatever I do is a step forward from whatever we had before, because there was nothing there before. I also consider that I have no obligation to do more than I feel like doing. There are people out there who are paid to do this stuff, after all!

So I won’t hesitate to shirk if I have to. Sorry Procopius!

Notes on Sylvester I, Patriarch of Antioch (d. 1766)

Posted on February 16, 2026February 16, 2026 by Roger Pearse

Sylvester was a Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch in the 18th century, so rather out of our period of history. His accession in 1724 led to a schism, creating the Greek Catholic Church, as a portion of his church preferred communion with Rome. He is remembered for his attempts to get books printed for his flock: not a simple matter in the Ottoman Empire. The post earlier about the unpublished collection of his official letters led me to wonder who he was. I learned via BlueSky that a study on his life has recently been published through De Gruyer-Brill, as part of a series on Arabic printing:

Ţipău, Mihai. Sylvester of Antioch: Life and Achievements of an 18th-Century Christian Orthodox Patriarch, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110988420

The abstract:

In 1724, Sylvester, a native of the island of Cyprus, was elected Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East. For more than four decades, he endeavored to preserve the legacy of one of the earliest Christian Churches in the Levant. He faced major challenges because of the ever changing balance of power between the Latin Church and its missionaries, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the French and English interests in the Levant, and the central and local Ottoman authorities.

In his efforts to provide church books for the Arab Orthodox Christians, Sylvester was helped by rulers of the Romanian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia. He printed a number of books in Jassy and Bucharest and opened an Arabic press in Beirut. Alongside his patriarchal duties,

Sylvester was also an accomplished icon painter. His works, in the Post-Byzantine Greek style of the 18th century, are preserved in Syrian and Lebanese churches, as well as elsewhere. Their study reveals just another aspect of his complex activity.

The book presents for the first time in English the biography and achievements of Sylvester of Antioch, based on a wide range of contemporary Greek, Arabic and Romanian historical sources.

Pleasingly, this book is open-access, in PDF and epub formats. That means that you can read about this oriental dignitary of the Ottoman Empire on your phone while sitting in a train carriage on your way to work.

All the CSEL series PDFs up to 2010 made open-access

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Roger Pearse

Something wonderful has happened over in Vienna. We all know of the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) series of critical Latin texts of the fathers. This began back in 1866, and then seemed to dwindle in the 1950s, and was overtaken by other series. Collections of PDFs of the volumes have gone around the web for years.

Some years ago I was pleasantly surprised to learn of new activity there, and many new editions, although of course these were all inaccessible.

Now it seems that someone at the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW) has had a brilliant idea. They’ve placed online at their site PDFs of all the volumes up to 2010 as open-access. All the volumes of the CSEL series are here. You click on the link, and it takes you to the page where you can buy a printed copy – some very inexpensive, which was a surprise! – and also the PDF, available free without any messing about.

Here for instance is a screen grab of the relevant part of the site for the very first volume, CSEL 1, from 1883:

The PDFs are all labelled “nicht barrierefrei” which Google renders as “not accessible”, which is strange. But if you click “add to cart”, it just saves the PDF.

The explanation is at the publisher website here (in German):

The Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, abbreviated CSEL, is a scholarly publication series that publishes critical editions of the works of Latin Christian writers of late antiquity. The series is published by the CSEL research unit at the University of Salzburg.

In 2013, as part of a comprehensive digitization project, 70 previously out-of-print CSEL volumes were reprinted and made accessible.

In 2023, the CSEL volumes that were previously available digitally were made open access , and this is to be extended to all volumes held by the publisher by the beginning of 2024.

Well!

This is actually a very intelligent decision, and done in a clever way. After all, if I needed to work on a text in a volume, and a reprint is only 20 euros, I think I’d buy a copy, even if I had a PDF. The fact that the purchase price dangles right there when you do the download may well cause a few impulse buys. After all, wouldn’t most of us like a shelf-full of CSEL volumes? They do look good on the shelf.

Likewise it indicates that the CSEL and the ÖAW have grasped that almost all scholars are collecting PDFs. Likewise lists of the series circulate online, with links attached. Given the expense of scholarly books, it is not likely that these collections of PDFs cost the publishers much. And aren’t these publishers all funded from tax money anyway?

This availability of material in PDF is why so much work gets done from some editions, and not from others. Indeed some scholarly work probably never happens purely because an interested scholar simply can’t access a volume without a struggle. I speak here from knowledge: my own intermittent urge to translate some of Eusebius of Emesa has been foiled by my inability to get hold of Buytaert’s edition without taking a day trip.

The way in which the ÖAW have done this makes instantly obsolete the lists of volumes available elsewhere online. In a sense, they have taken back control of their own series, and drawn traffic back to their own site. Likewise the existence of the good official PDF volumes will drive the others out of use. They will probably sell more books because of the website design. And… they will bring the CSEL series, and its current activity, right back into the forefront of the minds of patristics scholars.

It is truly very brilliant thinking. Somebody there is exceedingly clever. Everyone will benefit. Well done.

The Register of Sylvester I, Patriarch of Antioch (d.1766): Manuscript 210 of the Missionary Society of Saint Paul in Harissa

Posted on February 16, 2026February 16, 2026 by Roger Pearse

Further to Alex Hourani’s work on the new Maronite Chronicle, he has also done work on a much more recent Christian Arabic manuscript:

I think you will be interested in my article, “The register of Sylvester patriarch of Antioch: Manuscript 210 of the Missionary Society of Saint Paul in Harissa”, (link here: https://archive.org/details/the-register-of-sylvester-patriarch-of-antioch-part-2).

This is the register of letters sent or received by Sylvester patriarch of Antioch 1724-1766, including many other ecclesiastical documents.

My work is an index of the manuscript, which hasn’t been described before. I also transcribed some of the documents.

There are links to my work at the pages of this manuscript here:

1) Hill Museum and Manuscript Library: https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/600049

2) Pinakes: https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/32446/

Dr H. has itemised the letters and documents and transcribed some of them. The language varies – some are in Greek, some in Arabic, some in Ottoman Turkish, etc. This makes this material very much more accessible to everyone!

This may seem a little dry, but work on primary sources like this is invaluable to researchers. Thank you!

UPDATE: Dr H. advises that “The manuscript of patriarch Sylvester is in its majority in Greek, with some documents in Turkish, Arabic and Armenian.”

Alex Hourani’s translation of the latter half of the new “Maronite Chronicle of 713” now online!

Posted on February 16, 2026February 16, 2026 by Roger Pearse

The discovery of a new Syriac Chronicle (in Arabic translation) and publication in Medieval Worlds 23 (2025), pp.155-167 by Adrian Pirtea caused Alex Hourani to upload a transcription, as I reported in my last post here.

The Chronicle is a new source for the early history of Islam, found in a manscript on Mount Sinai. The discovery highlights the importance of Christian Arabic literature, and the real need to fund more work on it.

Dr Hourani has now made a provisional translation of the last half of the Chronicle, and uploaded it to Archive.org here. He has also kindly allowed me to upload it here:

Chronicle of 693 translation (PDF)
Chronicle of 693 translation (Word .docx)

(Alex feels that it should be dated to 693 AD, rather than 713, so the title of the Chronicle is also provisional).

The text is still being worked on – the manuscript is not very legible in places – so the Archive.org file will be the most up-to-date.

This is wonderful stuff. Let’s have some of the translation here.

* * * *

[129b]

[706 Sel.]

[ ] while the emperor was with the army of the Romans in the territories of the West and Eugenius was … (?) in the Eastern territories of the Romans, the Hunns made a tumult and crossed … (?) and Sophanene and Mesopotamia then crossed to Galatia. This catastrophe happened in [ ] in the times of Theodosius in his 2^nd year of rule which was the year 706.

Theodosius ruled 17 years and few months, then after him the government was taken by his sons Arcadius and Honorius.

[693 Sel.]

As for Arcadius, he was in reign since the year 693 and was ruling with his father 13 years, then he ruled after the death of his father, him holding the East and his brother the West.

During the rule of Arcadius, was [130a] the bishopric of John ////

Also Theodosius the bishop of [ ], then was a bishop [ ]

Arc[adius] ruled after his father 8 years, then his son Theodosius sat on the throne, and he was a little boy [ ] Honorius was still alive [ ] the Western territories, and Honorius ruled 28 years.

During the rule of Theodosius the young, the churches of the Romans were in an elevated situation. However, among the Persians there was strong harm against the Christians, and many saints were crowned there with the known grieves of faith.

[729 Sel.]

During this time, in the year 729, in 16 June, there was an eclipse of the sun and there was great darkness for 8 hours [130b] during the day ////////

////////

[132a][1]

////////

[Cy]ril bishop of Alexandria [132b] and Theodore bishop of Cyrus were among the Greek teachers, and in the Syriac language there was the blessed Isaac the teacher, and since this period grew [ ] started to diminish in the churches.

During this reign, many became saints in various types of worship.

And blessed Symeon who was the first to show the standing [on the column] was during these times.

Then at the completion of the reign of Theodosius, there was a tumult in the churches because of illegal acts in the … (?) of Constantinople, and also in Eusebius (?) [ ] and Leo from Dioscorus, and this horrible act that was done then in Ephesus for the sake of Eutyches, and during the time of this heresy died Theodosius the pious emperor and the length of his reign was 41 years.

And his aforementioned sister Pulcheria [133a] held the reign with Marcian who sat after Theodosius.

She was diligent to fix the [ ] which was astray from righteousness, [and Marc]ian the emperor through his diligence gathered the great synod that gathered in Chalcedon, and he abolished the bad acts of the synod of Dioscorus.

[762 Sel.]

The year in which this great synod assembled was 762, until this period the church was in growth and relief, and also the monasteries until then were being built and fixed especially in Jerusalem and around it, by saint Euthymius the blessed, and Theodosius and Saba his two disciples, and also the blessed Maron ordered his monastery, and the security of the monasteries and the churches was growing everywhere, and also the gladness of the rule of the Romans was tending to … (?) on glory.

[133b]

////////

[769 Sel.]

During the ruler of Leo in the year 769 there was a seism in the morning of Sunday 14 March, and fell [ ]

////

And in this year, saint Symeon reposed.

[134a]

//////// she was obeying them and [ ] a long time until the reign of emperor Justinian [ ] Leo ruled 17 years.

[ ] the reign after him Zenon, and during his times a rebel rebelled against Zenon and he was removed from his reign for a short period, then this rebel was killed and Zenon stayed holding [ ].

[7-9 Sel.]

And in the year seven hundred and nine and [ ] there was a great famine.

And also in the year seven hundred [134b] ////////

//// their sway, because in older days and times they used to raid the surrounding lands and take captives and make ruins, and [ ] under the rule of the Romans [ ] and they used to reach the lands of the East [ ] and at times they used to attack the towns.

[135a]

//////// the Romans [ ] the two kings [ ] the fight of the two armies was causing great damage.

[6000 AM, 19 Anastasius]

In the 19^th year of Anastasius, the 6^th millennium was completed.

During this time, appeared Romanus and Jacob as teachers, and Romanus was in the town of Emesa and in Greek he was composing [hymns] according to various melodies and psalms, [135b] and Jacob was in Mesopotamia writing in Syriac various homilies [ ].

[823 Sel.]

In the year 823 there was an eclipse of the sun at midday in 29 June, and darkness stayed for one hour.

In this period, there was a great tumult in the churches, and many monasteries were torn apart and divided, since the time of that tumult that was in Alexandria because of Proterius and Timotheus which we mentioned before. This bad leaven was buried and started to grow secretly in some people, and it started to appear in that time when it found a cause in some monks and bishops and in the emperor who extended the hand of their concealed intentions and who did dirty foul acts in the churches back then. And any man was able to teach even [136b] without books, and also the things that were outside the rule of the Romans this happened (?). The chiefs of the mischief during this time were Severus and Xenaias, one among the Greeks and the other among the Syrians, [they …] this error. The tumult in the churches remained until the death of emperor Anastasius, and after that there was peace in the churches through the emperor who sat after him, but monasteries remained thorn apart and schism was still growing in them and expand until now.

Anastasius ruled 27 years, then Justin sat after him on the throne.

After a while, blessed Jacob the teacher who was among the Syrians died, and in the same manner blessed Romanus who was among the Greeks had died since a while, and since then teaching and knowledge disappeared from the churches, and also [136b] nobody had the intention to teach himself in perfection.

[831 Sel.]

In the year 831, there was great snow and cold, and it was mixed with ice, and during the day it was seen falling, those who preferred to hunt in it (?), and all trees were damaged by it from up to down, and this [ ] was followed by many [ ].

Then after this year, rain … (?) and the plants of the earth dried out both crops and olives, and other hardships, and with this there was great thirst, and for the difficulty of all this there was great anxiety among people.

Then a plague was added to this, and locusts, so that the suffering of all this prevailed for a period of six years.

[837 Sel.]

Then in the year 837, Friday 29 May, the earth quaked in the 8^th hour of the day, and this [137a] also during the night of this day, and Antioch the town of Syria was destroyed, and most of its inhabitants were injured, and with it also Seleucia which is on the sea coast [ ] during this time.

Justin ruled 9 years and took Justinian his nephew as an associate to his rule, and when he was with him in the reign for 9 months he died, so that the whole period of his reign was around 10 years.

[839 Sel.]

Justinian sat alone on the rule of the Romans in the year 839.

In this year, in 29 October, there was a seism, and some places in Antioch were destroyed, and in this seism Laodicea of Syria fell, and this seism was Friday at the 11^th hour of the day.

[840 Sel.]

And in the year 840, a thief appeared [137b] ////////

////

[ in this] time the order of the emperor [came out to …] all the Pagans who were under the rule of the Romans [138a] /////////

////

As for Rome and Italy, when [ ] the Barbarians who were in the past [ ] they fought a great fight and after [ ] they became strong and held [ ] and it went back to the government of the Romans.

[138b]

//////// the light was faint, so that many because of the gravity of this event [ ].

In the summer of the year //// it was an impossible view //// .

[ ] the land of Syria and Palestine

[139a]

////////

//////// which is on Theodore and on those [who were] with him, and because of them a tumult happened in the church [139b] which was not few.

[853 Sel.]

In the year 853, there was a plague called “common”, and news of it started coming from the internal lands [ ], and it toured the west and east, and also to the north, and it stayed spreading a period of 3 years, and the fight with the Persians was still going on.

In the first year of the fight, in 19 November, while the thief of the Arabs was in the land of the Romans, a great marvelous sign happened, similar to a sword in the sky, and its sight stayed throughout winter, and its sight began from west to east, and its sight kept turning and transforming to all directions, similarly to the plague which was after this. It became evident that it indicated the appearance of the acts that preceded this sign with the hardship throughout the period of plague and fighting, and as such also its rotation was (?).

[855 Sel.]

During the time of the fight in the year 855, [140a] the king of the Persians besieged the town of Edessa of Mesopotamia which was preserved by the right hand of God.

[863 Sel.]

Also, in the year 863, there was a plague in cows, and people were in grief [ ], and never a story told that there was something similar to it neither in old times, years ago, and it was similar to the plague which roamed among people and swam in the lands.

In this time and in these years, there was a tumult in the towns, and all the people became anxious, both the … (?) and the chiefs. And this wasn’t like the old usage when a town used to be agitated for few days then there was agreement, but all the land of the Romans and all its sides were agitated. And great fear and damage fell on many. And many of the calamities, that fell on the towns that used to fight the enemies, were not diminishing.

[865 Sel.]

And in the year 865, there was [140b] a seism Friday 31 July in the 11^th hour of the day, and also after 7 days there was a seism, and they were two great seisms, and towns on the coast of the sea fell and many villages near them were fell down in these two great seisms. And also, in other places in towns and villages there was injury because of these two seisms. From the first day of the seism, the earth stayed in continuous agitation, and its agitation and intensity did not calm down all the time, and it stayed quaking as such gently for many days.

In this year, Saturday 13 June, al-Munđir king of the Arabs … (?) and fought the Romans.

And all these sorrows in the world happened in their times. Then the tumult that happened in the church followed this, as well as that great confusion and schism which happened in the monasteries and which started since the days of Anastasius then kept following each other throughout the time. Indeed, this is the worst of times [141a], in which all hard times followed each other like the revolving days of the year.

In this time also, the Jews – the enemies of the cross – started to tremble because they were counting the weeks that were mentioned by prophet Daniel from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The amount of the 70 weeks was 490 years and this was completed in the year 870 of the reign of the Greeks. When a holy angel talked about its first destruction, he was talking about its destruction by the ‘Ajamites, but through their stupidity they were attributing this to the later destruction by the Romans. When the time, they were expecting, approached and arrived then nothing of what they were hoping for happened, they started to disdain and neglect their false hope.

[867 Sel.]

In the year 867, the people of the town of Constantinople imposed on the emperor [141b] //////// Justinian.

[ ] all his slaves and went down to the gathering. When all the people gathered, Belisarius sent his slaves and set the fire in the Great Church. When the rumor spread in the town, all the people hurried to the Church and left the new emperor whom they have made.

Then, Belisarius hit Hypatius and killed him [142a] //////// which he called Sophia.

[875 Sel.]

In the year 875, //// the Paulists. He used to say that [ ] did not feel in his inner self and was unchangeable, similarly to those [ ] – the ones of Julian. As for the bishops, they made his … (?) and they asked the emperor about that. Then, when he didn’t accept [ ] he sent him to them, and begged them to answer him. [142b]

Then, when all the land of the East fell in this sight, emperor Justinian died after staying 39 years.

Then Justin, his nephew, ruled after him and removed this foul tumult.

Emperor Justinian stayed on this intention [ ] the dignity of right (?), but he surpassed all the emperor who preceded him by great virtues, and he acquired so much greatness of the self and a wide shining ambition and profuse graces. Also, he founded great churches and strong castles in the towns that were under his empire. He was holding Christianity in great reverence and he brought many nations to the faith of Christ. He was eager to lead the schism of the churches into peace and concord. He made efforts to make everybody reconcile and agree. With all straight manners [143a] that were for all [ ] and all order he was [ ]. He was disciplining his [ ] in the zeal of the piety towards God. Through ecclesiastical teaching he was inflamed [ ] from many. If someone contemplates the true comparison of what was before him and what was after him, he finds that with him was the utmost piety and righteousness all [ ] of excellent Christianity (?), not only those of the reign but also those of the glorious church. I am talking about excessive knowledge and understanding, and a gift of knowing beforehand what is going to happen, and the power of making marvels. And also the use of affection, and the zeal of the piety to God which was inflaming in all forms [and] all amounts for the believers. As such, from old times, this was moving and spreading to the children of the church, and in the days of Constantine the victorious emperor it strengthened and spread exceedingly, and until [143b] the end of the rule of Justinian it kept following each other, and the [ray] of rectitude disseminated, and since then it started going down little by little, it diminished day by day, and … (?) became weak [ ]. And glory to the only Knower to whom arrives the end of the time.

[877 Sel.]

In the year 877, Justin, the relative of the first one, reigned. When he sat, he also showed care towards the state of the churches and he wrote an orthodox creed, and he sent to the territories his submission, and he ordered that all those who didn’t follow the church should fall from his position.

In the beginning of his rule, a thing similar to a column of fire was seen towards the north for a year.

[885 Sel.]

In the year 885, the rebel of the Persians – the one of Adarmihr – came out and took Apamea and took all its inhabitant as captives to Persia and set the fire and burnt the Great Church [144a] which was in it with all the ornaments of the town. Then, Jordan the bishop, who was there after that, built and renewed it. Also, other places were taken and taken as captives by this destructive rebel.

Also, in the same manner, the chiefs of the Avars made destructions among the Romans.

And Justin the emperor fell into a sickness [ ] which had no cure, and he gave his daughter to Tiberius and made him rule after he stayed 13 years.

[1 Tiberius]

In the 1^st year of Tiberius, Hormuzd son of Kisrā ruled for 12 years.

[894 Sel., 4 Tiberius]

When Tiberius ruled 4 years and the time of death arrived, he also gave his daughter to Mauricius the commander of his army and made him rule in his place in the year 894.

[9 Mauricius]

In the 9^th year of his rule, [144b] Kosrōn son of Hormurzd ruled in Persia for 38 years.

In this time, Anastasius the Palestinian Patriarch of Antioch and Eulogius the pope of Alexandria were debating each other for the sake of truth.

[896 Sel., 2 Mauricius]

In the year 896 which is the 2^nd year of Mauricius, George the elder and the great just man, the one who followed the church and refused the teachings of adversaries, died in the monastery of Maron the pious and the blessed.

Emperor Mauricius made truce with Kosrōn king of the Persians. There was great affection between them because when the Persians fought his father Hormuzd, he fled and went to Mauricius who received him with great gladness and gave him the army of the Romans, so that he defeated the Persians in the battle and ruled after his father.

Mauricius made also truce with the Avars and made peace with all those who surrounded him, and with effort he strengthened the situation of the Romans. Then they rebelled against him and killed him after he [145a] ruled 20 years and made Phoca emperor in his place.

When king Kosrōn heard that the Romans killed Mauricius, he became wrathful and stood to take vengeance on them. He led his army and alighted on Dara the town, which was between the two limits, and fought it and invaded it. Also, he alighted on Mardin and invaded it. In the same manner, during the 8 years in which Phoca ruled, the Persians invaded unto the Euphrates. However, not only the evil of the sword was in the eastern territories, but also those to the west of the Euphrates were not spared by it.

Because of the absurd reasons of the Veneti and the Prasini, the peoples of the towns fought each other and were destroying themselves with swords sharper than the swords of the enemies.

Bonosus, the tyrant and the enemy of good, with a haughtiness exceeding all, was killing and destroying many every day.

[145b]

////////////////

There was also in Africa, //// the name of one of the two was Gregory [ ] Nicetas, and the name of the other Heraclius //// emperor Phoca //////// and they send them two to kill the emperor. So, the two agreed that one will go by sea and the other by land, and that whoever precedes and enters the town and kills the emperor will reign. So, Heraclius went by sea and Nicetas by land, and Heraclius preceded Nicetas and entered and killed Phoca, after he ruled 8 years, and ruled after him. He lapidated Bonosus the wicked with stones.

[146a]

//////////////// Anastasius [ ].

[921 Sel.]

In the year 921, Heraclius ruled //// they alighted on the town of //// in front of them the town //// and the Romans were expelled from the territories of Syria and Egypt, and the Persians inhabited it 20 years, and nothing like this happened a long time ago. Since the Romans took it in the beginning of their rule, before the coming of our lord Christ, no strange people inhabited it. Then the Romans went out of it completely until now. But, glory is to the one who does what pleases him.

In the beginning of the rule of Heraclius, there was a man from the nation of the Arabs who was a wise man in his appearance, … … (?) knowledge [146b] ////////////////

[2 Heraclius]

In the second year of Heraclius //////// from Caesarea //////// and fought it and defeated it //////// to Persia. And [ ] Rūzmīzan went out and entered into Egypt, then went and alighted on Alexandria and defeated it in the following year. And they held sway over all the land.

[935 Sel.]

Heraclius the faithful emperor after many battles fought the Persians and didn’t obey them. He made his son Constantine sit on the throne and handed him the town, then took the army of the Romans and went down to Persia, in the year 935. And he made great damage there and took fortified towns [147a][2] ////

//// on him and killed him and ruled after him until the year 939 which is the 18^th year of Heraclius the pure. When Qawad ruled, he made truce with the Romans and gave hem the limit of their land until the Euphrates.

The aforementioned one made efforts among the Arabs and was able patiently to teach knowledge to those of his doctrine that they should stay away from the false idols that they were worshiping and that they should pray to and worship the one God. He didn’t lead them to something hideous. [147b][3] When the Arabs obeyed him and answered his call all of them ////////[4]

[931 Sel., 10 Heraclius]

In the year 931, the 10^th year of Heraclius, from here begins the chronology of [ ] of the Arabs.

As for Qawad king of the Persians, his reign didn’t last long and he died. His son Ardašīr ruled after him. In the same manner, his son didn’t complete a year, then he was killed by Rūzmīzan, who is Šahrbar[az], who ruled after him.

[941 Sel.]

In the year 941, in November, all the Persians crossed the Euphrates to the east, after they inhabited this land 20 years. In this year, my lord Ṣlībā the pure was sent by Šahrbaraz to the Romans.

[Note: “my lord Ṣlībā the pure” is a bad translation of “my lord the pure cross”.]

[148a]

/////////////// 942 ////////////////

[944 Sel.]

In the year 944, Yazdjird sat as a king in Persia for 21 years.

[942 Sel., 21 Heraclius]

Muhammad the first and beginning [ ] of the Arabs died, after he ruled them 10 years and taught them and wrote to them [ ] his book the Coran, in the year 942 which is the year 21 of Heraclius. [ ] then Abū Bakr sat as a second king on the Arabs. When he ruled, he divided all his armies into 4 divisions, [148b] then sent them to invade the land, according to their saying that their prophet Muhammad had previously ordered them to do this. One division of the Arabs [came] to Egypt, and one division [came] to Palestine and Syria, and one division to Persia, and one division to the Qatarites.

[945 Sel., 24 Heraclius]

In the year 945 and 24 of Heraclius, the thieves of the Arabs came and fell onto the land of the south, and they made great damage in it with the sword and with captives.

Then, Theodoracius, the brother of the emperor, took the army of the Romans, and marched to meet the Arabs, but the Romans fell in calamity and were defeated, and a marvelous sign appeared in the sky indicating the wrath that will fall on earth through their hands.

The faithful emperor Heraclius was in Nisibis with the army of the Romans when the terrible news reached him about the damages that the Arabs have done in the southern side. Therefore, he sent patrician Bahanes with the sacellarius with a great army of the Romans.

[149a]

[947 Sel., 26 Heraclius]

In the year 947, the 26^th of the emperor, Bahanes and the sacellarius fought the Arabs in Gabitha, and a great crowd of Romans fell them, while the rest fled away. At this moment, the Romans were ruined in front of the Arabs and their fear fell on them until this day of ours. When the faithful emperor Heraclius understood from the [signs] that appeared and from what befell the Romans, and when he knew that the land is to the Arabs, he went out of Syria, and went to the town of Constantinople. And the Arabs possessed the land.

Their king Abū Bakr died after ruling them 4 years, and ‘Umar sat after him 10 years.

Faithful emperor Heraclius sent messages to the Arabs many times asking peace from them, in order to extinguish the flame of their sword which had been drenched with the blood of people without mercy. But they didn’t answer his prayer, because they were sent by the Just himself [149b] ////////////////

After ruling 4 months he died [ ] the wife of his daughter with Heracleona her son 8 months, then the armies refused her and her son.

[954 Sel.]

Then [ ] Constans son of Constantine, and the year was 954 when Constans sat on the throne.

[2 Constans]

In the 2^nd year of Constans, [ ] died.

[150a]

////////////////

In all the land of the Romans, they took captives, looted, killed, burnt and damaged in all [ ] and they did all what they wanted to do without mercy. Not a place remained that didn’t escape from their hands except the town of the emperor. They brought down the strong reign of the Romans, that has never obtained the like of it, into this state of great humiliation. [150b] But praise is to the wise Judge who … (?) all [ ] from his joy.

[962 Sel., 8 Constans]

Also, in the land of the Persians, the Arabs did greater than this after many battles fought with the Persians. The last king who was killed was Yazdjird their king. And all their armies perished and the reign of the Persians vanished totally in the year 962, the 8^th year of Constans emperor of the Romans. The rest of those who were left of the Persians became slaves paying the jizyah to the Arabs. The reign of the Persians lasted 400 years, from its beginning in the last time until this occurrence.

[967 Sel., 13 Constans, 36 H.]

In the year 967, the 13^th of Constans, the year 36 of the chronology of the Arabs, the Arabs rose against their king ‘Uṯmān son of ‘Affān and killed him, after he ruled 12 years. They used to say about ‘Uṯmān that he wrote [151a] Muhammad their rule and … (?), and that he gathered and wrote to them a book and sent it to all his armies and ordered them to follow it only and to burn everything else held in their hands. The Arabs who were in the West with Mu‘āwiyah their chief, accepted and followed all what he ordered them. As for those who were inhabiting the East, some of them obeyed and some didn’t. Those who didn’t obey anything [ ] are called the Harurites. When ‘Uṯmān was killed, Mu‘āwiyah the lord of the armies of the West didn’t agree with those who killed him, but he gathered the armies of the West and went down to fight the Easterners. Also, the emir of the East gathered all the eastern armies and went up to meet Mu‘āwiyah.

[968 Sel.]

In the year 968, Friday in July, the kindled the fight in Ṣiffīn on the Euphrates, and many people from both sides fell.

[151b]

////////////////

//// many of them [ ] fell to Rome.

As for Mu‘āwiyah, he used to send every year the army of the Arabs to the land of the Romans [ ] until they destroyed and took captives, and looted all their lands.

[976 Sel.]

In the year 976, [ ] in December, there was a seism and known places fell.

[152a]

////////////////

//// of them he ruled 27 years. And when [ ] Mezezius wanted to usurp the reign to himself, he was killed by the [chiefs] and the Romans who were with him.

In this year, Constantine ruled with his two brothers. In this year in which emperor Constans died, the island of Sicily was raided by the Arabs.

[152b]

////////////////

//// no success, and against them came out Petronas and Galatius the two chiefs [ ] sitting in a copper ship with a ship of fighting infantry, and many of the ships of the Arabs were burnt and sank in the sea. And the remaining others returned fleeing to their land when [fell] this calamity which is a loss born from the excess of strength.

In this year, the castle which when they went [153a] ////

////////////

Also [ ] evil destroying Jurjumite thieves came out to Syria and held all the coast of the sea and the hard mountains [ ] from them and because of them and 7 years [ ] the hardships from them and from the mentioned locusts.

[990 Sel.]

In the year 990, Great Sunday 3 April, around the 3^rd hour [153b], there was a great hard seism, and many known places were destroyed because of it, especially in the land east of the Euphrates where hard destruction appeared there.

[991 Sel., 24 Mu‘āwiyah]

In the following year, Mu‘āwiyah the 5^th king of the Arabs died, after ruling 24 years. Then his son Yazīd ruled after him.

[992 Sel., 12 Constanine]

In the year 992, the 12^th year of Constantine, there was an inquiry on the two wills and the two persons, and a synod gathered in Rome and also in Constantinople, then they ordered and confirmed the belief in the two wills and the two persons. Then they anathemized and removed all those who opposed this, not only those who were alive at that time but also those who had died of old, I mean Honorius pope of Rome, and Sergius, and Cyrus, and Paul and Peter the two patriarchs of the emperor’s town, and Cyrus pope of Alexandria, and the pure Theodore [154a] the Pharanite, those who have passed to our Lord. And they anathemized and banished Macarius the Antiochian with Stephen his disciple who were gathered with them.

Then, emperor Constantine, before the end of this synod, gathered many armies of Romans and marched against the nation of the Bulgars, and a great army of Romans perished there, and the emperor was about to perish with his army from this Barbarian nation. This great calamity from the enemy happened because those, who were ruling, defiled the true faith. And the emperor, after he was defeated by the foreign nation, went back to fight his family and he damaged the face of his two brothers Tiberius and Heracleonas and brought them down from the royal house, and in the same manner he chased away his mother and his wife. Also, he killed Leo patrician of Sarṭīna (?). And in all forbidden acts he was revolving in tyranny.

[154b]

//////////////// and he died after he ruled //////// then Justinian ruled ////////////////

[994 Sel.]

He died in the year 994, then //////// in the nation of the Arabs, and they were fighting each other in all territories ////////////////

Then, after 1 ½ year of Marwān passed, he died before he enslaved all the Arabs, and he left on the government of the Arabs his son ‘Abd al-Malik.

[997 Sel.]

In the year 997, which is the beginning of the rule of Justinian emperor of the Romans and ‘Abd al-Malik king of the Arabs, rain and crops diminished.

[998 Sel.]

And in the following year, famine arrived and food diminished in all [155a] ////////////////

[4 Justinian]

In the 4^th year of Justinian //////// the army of the Romans and he entered among the Slavs and damaged them [ ] great, and he deported from them a great crowd and brought them out to the land of his crossing.

And also, ‘Abd al-Malik chief of the Arabs, after having fought those of his people many battles, he [ ] and enslaved all of them.

[1002 Sel.]

Then when all the Arabs, who were in his realm, obeyed him, all wars between them ceased, and they were all reconciled [155b] and they made peace with each other in the year 1002 of the reckoning of the Greeks.

[1004 Sel.]

In the year 1004, which is the 8^th year of the rule of Justinian and the 9^th year of the rule of ‘Abd al-Malik, the truce between the Romans and the Arabs was annulled after it stayed 9 years.

[1] 132a follows directly 130b.

[2] 3 lines lost, leaf cut from above.

[3] 3 lines lost, leaf cut from above.

[4] Margin, left: [ ]دل كتبه انه لم [ ]حداتهما على ..

Machine-translated portions of the new Maronite Chronicle of 713 in English

Posted on February 12, 2026February 16, 2026 by Roger Pearse

I learn from twitter that Alex Hourani has made a transcription from the manuscript (MS Sinai Arab. 597) of most of the text of this chronicle, discovered by Adrian Pirtea, which is online here. But there is still work to do, as the manuscript is damaged. So the transcription is just provisional and incomplete. But as Dr Pirtea generously says, the more people working on this text, the better.

UPDATE: Alex Hourani has now made a draft English translation of the second half, which you can find here!

Of course this means that non-Arabic-speaking non-specialist plebs like us can now read it, thanks to the marvels of Google Translate. So I thought I’d run a few pages through it. Here’s a quick version of the opening bit.

[85b] In the name of God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

[ ] The History of the Years and Times, called the Greek Chronicle, beginning with the creation of the world.

With the help of Christ, God above all, we begin in this history by explaining the things that were in the world, starting with the origin of creation, which God created.

Some members of the Church undertook the task of copying the Book of Times, diligently recording all the years found in the books of the prophets. They began with Adam and explained the years that followed, adding to them the years found in other versions, and those not fully recorded by the prophets. They also followed this with explanations of matters, some of which are found in the prophets, and some of which are accounts compiled from other books.

Because of the long period after the completion of their books, we [86a] undertook to explain matters that were anomalous and added them to the ancient texts. We explained the earlier versions and followed them with what was available to us in our time. Some of this was what we heard, some from books, some from the accounts of trustworthy people, and some we learned through investigation, concerning events that occurred in our time.

We arranged all the years from Adam to this point, in addition to explaining matters that occurred at different times. This was not in the order of the final stories, but rather the outlines of the events. Furthermore, we arranged and narrated the accounts that were included in the explanations of the accounts that served as reminders. We presented them in simple language so that their knowledge would be readily available to those who encounter them.

We begin with Adam, the beginning of our human race, the first human being, and then proceed down to this year and this year.

And here’s the final third:

[132a]
//////// and forty.

[ ] One hundred and forty-seven went out
[ ] with his partner, Valentinianus
[ ]
[ ] in the name of Simon.

[ ] Rillis, Bishop of Alexandria [132b], and Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus, were counted among the Greek teachers, and in the Syriac language, the blessed Isaac was appointed to teach, and from that time, the number [ ] began to decrease in the churches.

During this reign, many became saints in various denominations of worship.

And the blessed Mary Simeon, who was the first to demonstrate the resurrection [ ], was present at that time.

At the height of Theodosius’s reign, there was unrest in the churches, stemming from the unlawful acts of the council of Constantinople, and also from Paus and Leon of Dioscorus, and that abominable act committed in Ephesus at that time, when they gathered and did what transpired, instigated by the misguided Eutyches. During this period of error, the pious King Theodosius died, having reigned for forty-one years.

His sister, Plucria, mentioned earlier [133a], apprehended the king along with Marcion, who succeeded Theodosius.

She was eager to correct the deviation from the truth, and King Marcion, in his eagerness, convened the great synod that met in Chalcisonia, and it nullified and invalidated the wicked acts of the council of Dioscorus. [762 Sel.] The year in which this great council convened was seven hundred and sixty-two. Until that time, the Church and its magnificent monasteries were increasing, growing, and flourishing. They were being built and established, especially in and around Jerusalem, by the blessed Saint Euthymius, and his disciples Theodosius and Sabbas. The blessed Maron also established a monastery during that time, and the security of the monastery and the churches increased in every place. Likewise, the pleasures of the Roman emperor were inclined towards glory.

[The following appears to be a separate, unrelated statement:] … [133b]

[769 Sel.] [And] in the reign of Leo in the year seven hundred and sixty-nine, there was an earthquake on the morning of Sunday, the fourteenth of March, and it occurred [ ] and in the aftermath of that year there was [ ] on the twenty [ ] morning ////
And in that year Saint Mary Simeon rested
[134a]

[And] they obeyed them, and [ ] a long time until the reign of Justinian, the king [ ] Leo reigned for seventeen years.

[ ] The king after him was Zenon, and during his time there was a rebellious and difficult enemy of King Zenon, and he was removed from the throne for a short time, and after that the rebellious one was killed, and Zenon remained in command [ ].

[ ] [7-9 Sel.] And in the year seven hundred and nine [ ] there was a great famine,

And also in the year seven hundred [134b] //////// their attack, for they had been in ancient times and ages forming in the countries around them, taking captives and destroying, and they [ ] under the rule of the Romans [ ] their kings did not [ ] that, and they destroyed many places [ ] they reached the countries of the East [ ] villages, and at times they attacked the cities.

[135a]
//////// The Romans [ ] kings [ ] fighting the two armies was doing great destruction.

[6000 AM] And in the nineteenth year of this Anastasius the sixth millennium was completed.

At this time, Romanus and Mary Jacob appeared in teaching. Romanus was in the city of Homs, and in Greek he composed hymns on various melodies and psalms.

[135b] Mary Jacob was among the rivers, copying in Syriac many different articles.

[823 Sel.] In the year 823, the sun appeared at midday on the 29th of June, and darkness lasted for one hour.

At that time, there was a great disturbance that defiled the churches, and many monasteries were also torn apart and cracked, since the time of that disturbance in Alexandria concerning Protoris and Timothy, which we have already mentioned.

This yeast was buried and secretly growing among the people. At this time, it surfaced, finding a pretext among some monks and bishops, and the king who had extended his hand to their hidden agendas. They then committed vile and defiling acts in the churches.

So, a man was able to learn even without [136a] the copies, and so too did matters outside the realm of the Romans.

The two leaders of the sectarianism at that time were Savaras and Xenia, one among the Greeks and the other among the Syrians [ ]—this tyranny.

The turmoil in the churches continued until the death of Emperor Anastasius. After that, peace was established in the churches by the king who succeeded him, and the monasteries remained divided, with sectarianism growing and spreading to this day.

Anastasius reigned for twenty-seven years, and then Justina succeeded him.

And after a short time, the blessed Jacob, the teacher among the Syrians, died, and likewise the blessed Romanus, who was among the Greeks, had died some time before. From that time onward, teaching and knowledge ceased in the churches, and no one was seen [136b] [seemingly] seeking to teach himself fully.

[831 Sel.] Also, in the year 831, there was great snow and intense cold, and ice mixed with it. Even during the day, it was seen on the slope where those who preferred hunting were stricken, and all the trees in the surrounding areas were struck down from top to bottom. Many other calamities followed this.

Then, at the end of that year, the rains ceased, and the crops of the land, the grain, and the oil were withered, and other hardships occurred. Moreover, there was a great thirst, and because of this difficulty, the people were greatly distressed.

And in addition to this, there was a plague and locusts, and the torment of all these things lasted for six years.

[837 Sel.] In the year 837, on the twenty-ninth of May, a Friday, the earth shook for eight hours during the day, and this [137a] also occurred during the night of that day. Antioch, a Syrian city, was destroyed, and many of its inhabitants perished, along with Seleucia, which was on the coast [ ] at that time.

Justinus reigned for nine years and made Justinian, his nephew, his co-ruler. When he had been in charge with him for about nine months, he died, so the rest of his reign was about ten years.

[839 Sel.] Justinian then sat alone on the throne of the Romans in the year 839

[839 Sel.] In that year, on the twenty-ninth of October, there was also an earthquake, and parts of the city of Antioch were destroyed. In this earthquake, Laodicea in Syria was also affected. This earthquake occurred at eleven o’clock in the daylight on a Friday.

[840 Sel.] In the year eight hundred and forty, a thief [137b] came forth, and the land of the East was affected, and he established a great [ ].

[ ] The king’s army also came to them, and from the first king whom they had seated and killed, they made another king [ ] and this one also killed [ ] they conquered [ ].

[ ] The time came when the king’s decree [ ] all the Hanifites who were under the rule of the Romans [138a] //////// his kingdom.

As for Rome and the land of Italy, when the Persians, who had previously fought a great battle, and then grew stronger and were controlled by a great force, there were times when the Roman Empire was also restored.

[138b] The light was so dim that many, due to the greatness of the universe, were blinded.

In the summer of the year ////, the sight was impossible ////.

[ ] The land of Syria and Palestine

[139a] //////// which was upon Theodore, and upon those [ ] with him, and because of this, a considerable anxiety was renewed in the Church [139b].

[853 Sel.] Also, in the year 853, there was a widespread plague, and news of it began to come from the interior [ ] countries, and from the west and the east, and also to the north. Its spread lasted for three years, and the war with the Persians was also ongoing.

In the first year of the war, on the nineteenth of November, when the Arab raider was in the land of the Romans, a great and astonishing sign appeared: a vision like a drawn sword in the sky. This vision remained throughout the winter, and its appearance began from the west to the east. Its appearance changed and shifted in every direction, like the plague that followed.

The emergence of the actions that signify severity, with the prolonged duration of the plague and the fighting, was preceded and made clear by that lesson, and thus was its course.

[855 Sel.] During the fighting in the year 855 [140a], the Persian king descended upon the city of Edessa, which is part of Mesopotamia, but it was preserved by the mighty hand of God.

[863 Sel.] Also in the year 863, there was a plague among the cattle, and it greatly afflicted the people. [ ] There is no account that tells of anything like it, neither in the times past, nor in the years since. It was like a plague that spread among the people and swept through the lands.

At that time, and in those years, there was also unrest in the cities, and anxiety afflicted all the people, both the Tibetan and the Russians. It was not as was the custom in the past, that a city would be unsettled for a few days and then things would settle down. But the whole Roman province, in its entirety, was in turmoil, and great fear and destruction befell many. The calamities that struck the cities, accustomed to fighting their enemies, were not lacking.

[865 Sel.] In the year 865, there was an earthquake [140b] on the 21st of July, at eleven hours on a Friday. And there was another earthquake seven days later. Both earthquakes were great, and cities on the coast and many villages nearby were overturned in these two great earthquakes.

Also in other places, in cities and villages, there was damage from these two earthquakes.

From the first day of the earthquake, the earth remained in constant turmoil, its disturbances and intensity never subsiding. It continued to tremble gently for several days.

[865 Sel.] Then, on the thirteenth of June of that year, a Saturday, al-Mundhir, king of the Arabs, fought the Romans. All these sorrows that afflicted the world occurred at their appointed times. This was followed by the disturbances that took place in the churches, and the great confusion and fragmentation that occurred in the monastery, which had begun in the days of King Anastasius. Then the period of time continued, for it is the worst of times [141a], in which all the difficult times follow one another like the days of the year.

It also happened at this time that the Jews, who had prepared the cross, were deterred by this reason: the weeks mentioned in the prophet Daniel, from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, they were counting. This number of seventy weeks amounts to four hundred and ninety years, and it will be completed in the year eight hundred and seventy of the king of the Greeks.

When a holy king spoke of its first destruction by a foreigner, he informed them of the matter, but in their foolishness they attributed it to this other one, who was from the Romans.

When the time they were waiting for drew near and nothing of what they hoped for came to pass, they scorned and squandered their false hope.

[867 Sel.] And in the year eight hundred and sixty-seven, they set the people of Constantinople against the king [141b] //////// Justinian.

[ ] All his servants, then he went down to the assembly. When the rest of the people had gathered, Plesser sent his servants, and they set fire to the great church.

When the sound reached the city, all the people rushed to the church and abandoned the new king they had appointed.

Then Plesser struck down Hobutus and killed him [142a] //////// which he called Sophia.

[875 Sel.] And in the year eight hundred and seventy-five //// the Paulists.

He was saying that [ ] was not perceptible within himself and did not change, like those [ ] of Julian.

As for the bishops, they made a slate and asked the king about it.

When he refused to accept, he sent him to them and demanded that they submit to him. [142b] When all the lands of the East were in this state of turmoil, King Justinian died after a reign of thirty-nine years.

Then his nephew Justinian succeeded him and ended that unclean upheaval.

King Justinian, with this conscience, established the honor of truth, but with great virtues, he surpassed all the kings who preceded him. He possessed great magnanimity, a broad and enlightened vision, and abundant blessings.

He also established great churches and strong fortresses in the cities under his rule. He upheld Christianity with great dignity, and many nations came to the faith of Christ. He was keen to guide the derivation of the churches towards reconciliation and agreement, and he diligently worked to unite and bring everyone together, and to follow the straight paths [143a] that each [ ] and each order was [ ], and he disciplined [ ] them with piety towards God and with church teachings that he was ignited [ ] by many.

And if one were to consider the validity of comparing what came before him with what came after him, he would find that to him was reached the ultimate in piety and righteousness of all the glorious [ ] Christian denominations, not only those of the monarchy but also those of the glorious Church.

I speak of the abundance of knowledge, the depth of understanding, the gift of foreknowledge and foresight, the power to perform miracles and wonders, and also the use of love, and other than that, the piety of God, which was present in every aspect of the believers, was ablaze. Thus, from ancient times, this was readily available and spread to the sons of the Church. And in the days of Constantine the Victorious, it grew strong and spread abundantly. And until the end of Justinian’s reign, this righteousness continued to flourish and spread. And since then, one of the degrees of decline has been gradually diminishing, day by day, and the light has weakened. And glory be to God alone, what will be the end result of this chapter?

[877 Sel.] In the year eight hundred and seventy-seven, Justinian reigned, similar to the first. When he also ascended the throne, he showed concern for the affairs of the churches and wrote a covenant of uprightness and praise, and sent it to the lands under his authority, and ordered that whoever does not follow the church should be deposed.

From his position.

And at the beginning of his reign, he saw to the north something like a pillar of fire, which remained for a year.

[885 Sel.] In the year 885, the Persian foreigner, who was from Ladarmah, came and captured Apamea, and took all its inhabitants captive to Persia. He set fire to and burned the great church [144a] there, along with all the city’s decorations.

Bishop Furdan, who was appointed there afterward, rebuilt and restored it.

Other places were also taken and plundered by that corrupt foreigner.

Likewise, among the Romans, Risa destroyed the people of Apries.

King Justinian fell ill and was struck with a disease from which there was no cure. He gave his daughter to Tiberius and made him king after he had reigned for thirteen years.

[1 Tiberius] In the first year of Tiberius, Hormizd, son of Khosrow, reigned in Persia for twelve years.

[894 Sel.] When Tiberius the king had ruled for four years, and the time of his death approached, he also gave his daughter to Mauricius, the commander of the army, and made him king in his place in the year 894.

[9 Mauricius] In the ninth year of his reign, [144b] Kasrun, son of Hormizd, reigned in Persia for thirty-eight years.

At that time, Anastasius the Palestinian, who was Patriarch of Antioch, and Eulogius, Pope of Alexandria, were debating about the truth.

[896 Sel.] In the year 896, which was the second year of Mauricius’s reign, the pious and blessed Elder George, the Just and Great, who had joined the Church and rejected the teachings of the heretics, passed away in the monastery called Mar Maroun.

King Maurice made peace with Chosroes, the Persian king, and there was great affection between them. For when the Persians killed his father Hormizd, Maurice fled to Chosroes, who received him with great warmth. Chosroes provided him with the Roman army, and Maurice defeated the Persians in battle and succeeded his father as king.

Maurix also made peace with Ambrose and all those around him, and with great effort, he strengthened the Roman forces.

Then they rebelled against him and killed him after he had reigned for twenty years, and they seized his position in Phoca.

When King Chosroes heard that the Romans had killed Maurice, he was enraged and sought revenge.

Then he led his army and besieged Dara, the city between the two cities, and besieged and captured it.

He also besieged and captured Marda. And likewise, during the eight years of Phocas’ reign, they pressed the Persians to the Euphrates. The evil of the sword was not confined to the eastern lands, but those west of the Euphrates were not spared.

And because of the false cause of the Bentites and the Persians, the peoples of the cities turned against one another, and with swords sharper than those of their enemies, they perished.

Ponus the tyrant, the enemy of righteousness, with his arrogance that exceeded all bounds, destroyed and annihilated many every day.
[145b]

/////////////////
And there were also in Africa, //// one named Gregory [ ] Nectaneous, and the other named Heracles ///// King Phocas //////// They sent them to kill the king, and they agreed that one would go by sea and the other by land, and whichever of them entered the city first and killed the king would become king.

Heraclius traveled by sea, and Nekita by land. Heraclius reached Nekita first and entered, killing Phocas after he had reigned for eight years.

Then he reigned after him, and he stoned the wicked Lobonus.

[146a]

//////////////// Anastasius [ ]

[921 Sel.] In the year nine hundred and twenty-one, Heraclius reigned. //// They descended upon a city //// before them was a city, //// and they drove the Romans out of the lands of Syria and Egypt. The Persians inhabited it for twenty years, and such a thing had not happened for a long time since the Romans had taken it at the beginning of their reign before the coming of our Lord Christ. No foreign people had inhabited it. Then the Romans also left it completely and came here. But praise be to Him who does His will.

At the beginning of the reign of Heraclius, he was a man of Arab descent, learned in his appearance, when it was said of him:

[146b]

/////////////////
[2 Heraclius] In the second year of the reign of Heraclius, //////// from Caesarea //////// and fought and conquered it //////// to Persia.

And Rosemizd went out and entered Egypt, and marched and descended to Alexandria and conquered it in the second year, and they ruled over all the land.

[ ] Rosemizd went out and entered Egypt, and marched and descended to Alexandria and conquered it in the second year, and they ruled over all the land. [935 Sel.] After many wars, the faithful king Heraclius fought the Persians and refused to submit to them. His son Constantine ascended the throne and surrendered the city to him. He then took the Roman army and marched into Persia in the year 935 AH (1536 CE). There, he inflicted a great defeat and conquered fortified cities.

[147a]

////////
He killed him and ruled after him until the year 939 AH (1536 CE), which was the eighteenth year of the reign of the righteous Heraclius.

When he became king, he made peace with the Romans and granted them their territory up to the Euphrates.

He diligently worked with the Arabs we mentioned earlier and patiently instructed and taught his followers to turn away from the false idols they worshipped and to call upon and worship the One God. He did not lead them to anything reprehensible.

[147b] When all the Arabs obeyed and submitted to him ////////
[931 CE] In the year nine hundred and thirty-one, which was the tenth year of the reign of Heraclius, and from here began the history of the Arabs.

As for Quds, the king of Persia, his reign was short, and he died, and his son Ardashir succeeded him. Likewise, this son did not complete a year in power, for he was killed by Ruzmazin, who was Shahrbar, and he succeeded him.

[941 CE] In the year nine hundred and forty-one, in November, all the Persians crossed the Euphrates to the east, after having inhabited this land for twenty years. And in this year, Mari sent the pure cross from Shahrbar to the Romans.

[148a]

//////////////// Nine hundred and forty-two ////////////////
[944 CE.] [And] in the year nine hundred and forty-four, Yazdegerd, king of Persia, reigned for twenty-one years.

[942 CE.] And Muhammad, the first, began [ ] the Arabs, when he had guided them for ten years, taught them, and copied for them [ ] his book, the Qur’an. He died in the year nine hundred and forty-two, which was the twenty-first year of King Heraclius [ ] Then a second king, Abu Bakr, reigned over the Arabs.

When he became king, he divided all his armies into four divisions [148b] and sent them to conquer the land, as they said that Muhammad, their prophet, had previously instructed them to do so.

One of the Arab divisions went to Egypt.

[ ] Another division went to Palestine and Syria.

And he divided them into two groups: one group to the Persians, and another group to the Qataris.

[945 Sel.] In the year 945, during the reign of Heraclius in the year 24, Arab raiders came and attacked the land of the Qibla, inflicting great harm with the sword and taking captives.

Then Theodorakis, the king’s brother, took the Roman army and marched to meet the Arabs. The Arabs defeated the Romans, and they were routed before them. A wondrous sign appeared in the Seleucid calendar, revealing the wrath that would befall the land at their hands.

The faithful king Heraclius was in Nisibis with the Roman armies when terrifying news reached him of the atrocities committed by the Arabs in the direction of Mecca. He dispatched Paphnutius the patriarch with a large Roman army.

[149a]
[947 Sel.] In the year 947 AH (1540 CE), and not until the king’s reign in the year 26 AH (1546 CE), Paphnutius and the patriarch fought the Arabs at Jabiyah. Many Romans fell there, and the rest were defeated. At that point, the Romans were humbled before the Arabs, and their fear of them has persisted to this day.

When the faithful king Heraclius understood from the events that had transpired and what had happened to the Romans, and realized that the land belonged to the Arabs, he left Syria and marched towards Constantinople. The Arabs had conquered the land.

Their king, Abu Bakr, ruled for four years before he died, and Umar succeeded him for ten years.

And the faithful King Heraclius sent many letters to the Arabs, seeking peace from them to extinguish the flames of their swords, which had mercilessly drunk the blood of the people.

But they did not respond to him, for they were the very embodiment of justice.
[149b]

/////////////////
After he had reigned for four months, his son’s wife died, along with her son Heraclius, who had been dead for eight months. Then the armies rejected her and her son.

[954 Sel.] Then Constus, son of Constantine, ascended the throne in the year 954.

[954 Sel.] [2 Constans] And in the second year of Constans, he died [ ]

[150a]

////////////////
They plundered the lands of the Romans, pillaging, killing, burning, and destroying throughout [ ] and did as they pleased without mercy. No place escaped their hands except the city of the king.

And to this great humiliation and after this disgrace, they brought down the mighty king of the Romans, the like of whom had never been seen before.

[150b] But glory be to the Wise Judge who causes all to perish [ ] for His own pleasure.

[962 Sel.] Also in the land of Persia, the Arabs did even greater things after many wars in which the Persians fought them. The last king, Yazdegerd, was killed, and all their armies perished. The Persian kingdom was completely destroyed in the year 962, which was the eighth year of the reign of Augustus, the Roman emperor. The remaining Persians became slaves, paying tribute to the Arabs. The Persian kingdom had lasted four hundred years from the beginning of this last period until its end.

[967 Sel.] In the year 967, which was the thirteenth year of Augustus, and in the Arab calendar, the thirty-sixth year, the Arabs rose up against their king, Uthman ibn Affan, and killed him after he had ruled them for twelve years.

They said of this Uthman that he was one of those whom Muhammad had appointed as their leader [151a] and with whom he had pledged allegiance. He gathered and wrote a document for them and sent it to all his troops, instructing them to adhere to it alone and to burn everything else in their possession.

The Arabs who were in the Maghreb with Mu’awiya, their leader, accepted and obeyed all his commands.

As for those who were inhabitants of the eastern region, some obeyed and some did not.

Those who did not obey anything were called the Kharijites.

When Uthman was killed, Mu’awiya, the commander of the Maghreb armies, did not agree with those who had killed him, but he gathered the Maghreb troops and marched down to fight the easterners.

Likewise, the commander of the east gathered the eastern armies and marched out to meet Mu’awiya.

[968 Sel.] In the year nine hundred and sixty-eight, on a Friday in the month of July, the battle of Siffin on the Euphrates was raging, and a great multitude fell there on both sides.

[151b]

///////////////// Many of them [ ] fell to Rome.

As for Muawiyah, every year he would send an Arab army into the land of the Romans [ ] until they destroyed and plundered, and pillaged all their lands.

[976 Sel.] In the year nine hundred and seventy-six [ ] in December, there was a great earthquake, and well-known places collapsed.

[152a]

///////////////// He ruled over them for twenty-seven years.

When [ ] Muzizi wanted to seize a king for himself, he killed some of the [Rus] and Romans who were with him.

And in that year Constantine reigned with his two brothers, and in that year King Constus died, the island of Sicily was captured by the Arabs.

[152b]

///////////////// A small success, they [Fatruna] and Jalti the chieftains [ ] came out against them, sitting in a yellow ship with a vessel full of fighting men, and many of the Arab riders were burned and drowned at sea.

And the rest of the others returned fleeing to their country when the calamity [ ] occurred, the grief born of extreme hardship.

The year of that fortress when they went

[153a]

/////////////////
And also, wicked and corrupt thieves from the Jurjum tribe went out to Syria and seized control of the entire coast and the mountains. Severe hardships arose from them and because of them, and seven years of hardships ensued, caused by them and the aforementioned locusts.

[990 Sel.] In the year nine hundred and ninety, in the month of Nisan, on the third of the month, on a great Sunday, around the third hour [153b], there was a great and severe earthquake, and well-known places were destroyed by it, especially the region east of the Euphrates, where a great corruption appeared.

[991 Sel.] In the following year, Mu’awiya, the fifth king of the Arabs, died. He had reigned for twenty-four years, and his son Yazid succeeded him.

[992 Sel.] In the year nine hundred and ninety-two, which was the twelfth year of the reign of Constantine, the examination of the mystics and the persons of the church took place. The council of Rome convened, and also in the city of Constantinople. Then they arranged and confirmed the mystics and the persons of the church.

Then they excommunicated and deposed all who opposed this, not only those who were alive at the time, but also those who had died long ago.

I say: Anorius, Pope of Rome; Sergius and Qura; Paula; and Petra, Patriarchs of the city of the king; Qura, Pope of Alexandria; and the pious Theodora [154a] of Pharisee, who had gone to our master; and Consecrated Antioch with his disciple Stephen. These, who were gathered with them, were excommunicated, deposed, and banished.

And before the assembly dispersed, King Constantine gathered a large Roman army and marched against the Bulgars. A great Roman army was stationed there, and the king and his army were nearly destroyed by that foreign people.

This great calamity befell them because they had corrupted and defiled the sacred trust they were supposed to uphold.

After the king suffered this defeat and was overthrown by the foreign people, he returned to his war against his own two sons, Tiberius and Heracleion, and cast them out of the royal court. He did the same to his mother and wife, expelling and casting them out.

Likewise, he killed Leo, the Patriarch of Sparta, and he was being tortured throughout the entire sanctuary. [154b]

///////////////// And he died after he had risen to power //////// Then Justiniana became king from ////////////////
[994 Sel.] He died in the year nine hundred and ninety-four, then //////// among the Arab people, and they were in every land fighting each other ///////////////// and he killed them and enslaved the rest [ ].

Then, after Maron had lived for one and a half years, he died before he had enslaved all the Arabs, and his son Abd al-Malik succeeded him in governing the Arabs.

[997 CE] In the year nine hundred and ninety-seven, which was the beginning of the reign of Justinian, king of the Romans, and Abd al-Malik, king of the Arabs, the rains decreased and the crops failed. In the following year, famine struck and food became scarce throughout [155a] ////////////////

[4 Justinian] In the fourth year of Justinian’s reign, the Roman army entered the Slavic lands and inflicted a great defeat upon them, expelling a large number of them and taking them with him to his own territory.

Also, Abd al-Malik, the leader of the Arabs, after fighting his people in many battles, enslaved them all.

[1002 CE] When all the Arabs in every region obeyed him at that time, the conflict among them ceased, and they all made peace [155b] and made peace with one another in the year one thousand and two of the Greek censuses. [1004 Sel.] And in the year one thousand and four, which is the eighth year of the reign of Justiniana and the ninth year of Abd al-Malik, the truce that was between the Romans and the Arabs was broken, after it had lasted for nine years.

Very grateful to Dr Pirtea for discovering and promoting the text, and to Dr Hourani for putting his transcription online.

The Sermons of Eusebius of Emesa

Posted on February 11, 2026 by Roger Pearse

I’ve written in the past about Eusebius of Emesa (d. ca. 360). He was a pupil of Eusebius of Caesarea, and therefore, inevitably, a scholarly man. He is identified by Jerome as an Arian. But in truth he was perhaps one of the many in the east who rejected the Nicene watch-word “homoousios” – consubstantial – as a key term of belief, because it was not scriptural. These people were thereby driven into the arms of the Arians, and it was part of the Nicene recovery to identify and separate these people, who only objected to the word, from the true Arians.

His career is recorded by Socrates, in his Ecclesiastical History book 2, chapter 9. After the emperor Constantius II arranged for Athanasius to be deposed as bishop of Alexandria, an Arian synod nominated Eusebius of Emesa to replace him. But Eusebius wisely refused, and his refusal was accepted. Probably the bishops realised that he was not the man for the rough work they had in mind. They nominated George of Cappadocia instead, who was to meet a violent end after the death of Constantius.

Eusebius was instead made bishop of Emesa, modern Homs, in Syria. He was in fact a native Syriac speaker, and therefore should have been acceptable. But he was unable to remain there, after his interest in scholarship and astronomy caused the locals to worry that he was a sorceror. A reconciliation was patched up, which collapsed, and thereafter he retreated to Antioch and lived a quiet life.

Most of the works attributed to him by Jerome have perished. A few quotations survive in later writers. But two collections of homilies have survived, one in an ancient Latin translation, the other in Armenian.

Both are basically inaccessible, even today.

The Latin homilies were edited by E. Buytaert in the 1950s, in two volumes. The first is a collection preserved only in a manuscript at Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale 523, which also contains some works by Tertullian, and the De solstitiis et aequinoctibus. The second contains works published under other names in the 17th century by Sirmond.

But Buytaert’s edition is not accessible online. Indeed it is one of the ironies of our age that the actual manuscript, Troyes 523, is online as a scanned microfilm, while the edition is not. Thankfully Peeters of Leuven keep it in print, remarkably, so it can be purchased that way.

The Armenian homilies were edited by Nerses Akinian around the same time, and published in Handes Amsorya (= Monthly Review), published by the Mechitarist Fathers in Vienna. This is not online as far as I can tell, and actually I can’t find a research library near me that might have them. Worse, it seems that the University of Michigan did scan all their volumes, which it made available through Hathi, who make them unavailable on copyright grounds. The fact that the whole lot is in Armenian script makes it very hard to work with anyway. But I suspect that it might be OCR’d, and then machine translated. Or maybe not.

There do not seem to be any translations of any of this material.

The name of Eusebius of Emesa also became attached to a Latin collection of homilies known as “Eusebius Gallicanus”. The publication history of the latter involved confusion on exactly this point. But I will write more about these two, and also the homilies of Eusebius of Alexandria, which also feature in both cases.

I wondered about that. That may well be the problem.

Thank you - I didn't know that!

What I remember about Aetia the Nurse of Menander is the comments that the status of the palimpsest is such…

Empedocles is a name that is familiar if you have read Lucian of Samosata. He is one of the philosophers…

Fascinating. I'm right there with you on the tour of Iran.