Thomas the Presbyter (
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
640) was a
Syriac Orthodox
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = St_George_Syriac_orthodox_church_in_Damascus.jpg
, imagewidth = 250
, alt = Cathedral of Saint George
, caption = Cathedral of Saint George, Damascu ...
priest from the vicinity of
Reshaina
Ras al-Ayn ( ar, رَأْس ٱلْعَيْن, Raʾs al-ʿAyn, ku, سەرێ کانیێ, Serê Kaniyê, syc, ܪܝܫ ܥܝܢܐ, Rēš Aynā), also spelled Ras al-Ain, is a city in al-Hasakah Governorate in northeastern Syria, on the Syria–Turkey ...
in
Upper Mesopotamia who wrote the
Syriac ''Chronicle of 640'', which is also known by many other names.
The ''Chronicle of 640'' is an idiosyncratic
universal history down to the year AD 640. It survives only in a single manuscript
codex
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
, now
British Library, Add MS 14,643. This manuscript was copied in 724 and the copyist added a single folio of text to the end, containing a
list of caliphs translated from
Arabic. Although it has been taken as an integral part of the text, the copying scribe clearly marked off his addition by preceding it with the words "it is finished" to indicate the end of the work he was copying.
Robert Hoyland
Robert G. Hoyland (born 1966) is a historian, specializing in the medieval history of the Middle East. He is a former student of historian Patricia Crone and was a Leverhulme Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford. He is currently Professor of Late ...
identifies seven parts to the original ''Chronicle of 640'':
#an incomplete geographical treatise
#a genealogy from
Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
to the sons of
Jacob
#a table of pagan rulers from
Abraham to
Constantine I
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea ...
with the main events of their reigns and, in Thomas's words, "a narrative to show how they were subjected to the Romans"
#a chronological table from Abraham and
Ninus to Constantine summarizing the ''
Chronicon'' of
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christia ...
#a continuation of Eusebius down to the thirtieth year of the Emperor
Heraclius
Heraclius ( grc-gre, Ἡράκλειος, Hērákleios; c. 575 – 11 February 641), was List of Byzantine emperors, Eastern Roman emperor from 610 to 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the Exa ...
, i.e., 640
#an "explanation (''sūkālā'') of the years" with seemingly random theological and historical notes
#a list of
ecumenical councils
An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote ar ...
with dates and rulers, including a condemnation of the
Council of Chalcedon
The writings provide an eyewitness account to the Islamic conquest in the mid-7th century (the 10th century according to the
Seleucid year numbering):
In the year 945, indiction 7, on Friday 4 February at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Tayyaye of Muhmd in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician bryrdn, whom the Arabs killed. Some 4,000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region.
In the year 947, indiction 9,[Corresponds with the interval 1 September AD 635 to 31 August AD 636.] the Arabs invaded the whole of Syria and went down to Persia and conquered it. The Arabs climbed the mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in he monasteries of
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
Qedar and Bnata. There died the blessed man Simon, doorkeeper of Qedar, brother of Thomas the priest.
Notes
Bibliography
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{{Authority control
7th-century writers
Syriac writers