Chronicle of Edessa

The Chronicle of Edessa (Latin: Chronicon Edessenum) is an anonymous history of the city of Edessa written in the mid-6th century in the Syriac language. "Chronicle of Edessa" is a conventional title; in the manuscript it is titled Histories of Events in Brief (Syriac: ܬܫ̈ܥܝܬܐ ܕܣܘܥܪ̈ܢܐ ܐܝܟ ܕܒܦܣܝ̈ܩܬܐ, Tašʿyātā d-suʿrāne a(y)k da-b-pāsiqātā).[lower-alpha 1]

The Chronicle of Edessa is generally agreed to have been written around 540–550 CE.[lower-alpha 2] The Chronicle primarily used old Edessan royal archives as its source, as well as some more recent church records,[1] and accordingly is thought to be historically reliable.[2][3][4] It may make use of a lost history of Persia.[5]

It is extant only in an abbreviated version in a single manuscript, Vatican Syriac 163 (Vat. Syr. 163).[6][7] This manuscript, from the Syrian Convent of Our Lady in the Wadi El Natrun,[5] was acquired by Giuseppe Simone Assemani during a trip to the Near East from 1715–1717 taken at the request of Pope Clement XI.[6] Some excerpts of the lost full version of the text—sometimes called the Original Chronicle of Edessa—are preserved in other Syriac chronicles.[7]

The Chronicle covers the period from the founding of the kingdom of Osrhoene in 133/132 BCE until 540,[7] but few events are recorded before the 3rd century.[5] The Chronicle picks up with a record of a flood of the river Daysan during the reign of Abgar VIII in November 201, which damaged a Christian church building in Edessa.[8][9] This is the earliest mention of a building dedicated exclusively to Christian worship,[10] as well as one of few records of Christianity in Edessa at this time.[11][9] Unlike other Syriac literature, the Chronicle does not contain any legends of the Apostle Thaddeus.[3][4]

Published editions

Syriac

"Vatican Syriac 163" (PDF). Brigham Young University. 2004. Retrieved 26 December 2017.
Guidi, Ignatius, ed. (1903). Chronica minora. Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium. Leipzig/Paris: Harrassowitz. pp. 1–13. Archived from the original on 6 November 2017. Retrieved 26 December 2017.

English

Cowper, Benjamin Harris (1865). "The Chronicle of Edessa". Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record. 5 (9): 28–45. (Transcription by Robert Pearse)

Notes

Per Griffith 1991; Witakowski 2018, p. 336, translates it as Stories of Events in Brief.
Dates given are: mid-6th century (Ferguson 1999, p. 267), 540 CE (Palmer 1999, p. 421), 550 CE (Schnabel 2004, p. 899; Yamauchi 1983, p. 85). Samuel, Santiago & Thiagarajan (2008) claim without explanation that it was written in 590 CE (p. 97).

Citations

Palmer 1999, p. 421.
Teixidor 2015, p. 148.
Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 13.
Yamauchi 1983, p. 85.
Cross & Livingstone 2009.
Brigham Young University 2004.
Witakowski 2018, p. 336.
Ferguson 1999, p. 267.
Schnabel 2004, p. 899.
Myers 2010, p. 35.
Frenschkowski 2015, p. 464.

References

Baum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.
Cross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (2009) [2005]. "Chronicon Edessenum". Chronicon Edessenum (Edessene Chronicle). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd rev. ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192802903.
Ferguson, Everett (1999). Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity. Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity. Vol. 4. Garland Pub. ISBN 978-0-8153-3071-4.
Frenschkowski, Marco (2015). "Christianity". In Stausberg, M.; Vevaina, Y.S.D.; Tessmann, A. (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism. Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion. Wiley. p. 457ff. ISBN 978-1-118-78627-7.
Griffith, Sidney H. (1991). "Chronicle of Edessa". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.(subscription required)
Myers, S.E. (2010). Spirit Epicleses in the Acts of Thomas. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. Coronet Books Incorporated. ISBN 978-3-16-149472-7.
Palmer, Andrew (1999). "Edessa". In Bowersock, G.W.; Brown, P.; Grabar, O. (eds.). Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World. Harvard University Press Refer. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 421. ISBN 978-0-674-51173-6.
Samuel, G.J.; Santiago, J.B.; Thiagarajan, P. (2008). Early Christianity in India: (with parallel developments in other parts of Asia). Madras, India: Institute of Asian Studies. ISBN 978-81-87892-40-3.
Schnabel, Eckhard J. (2004). Early Christian Mission: Jesus and the Twelve. Early Christian Mission. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-1-84474-045-1.
Teixidor, J. (2015). The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-7139-1.
Witakowski, Witold (2018). "Chronicle of Edessa". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 336. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8.
Yamauchi, E.M. (1983). Pre-Christian Gnosticism: A Survey of the Proposed Evidences. Twin brooks series. Baker Book House. ISBN 978-0-8010-9919-9.