CHRONICON ORIENTALE

A chronicle of world history composed by an unknown thirteenth-century author who put events he thought important into a table of secular and ecclesiastical rulers. Its chronological bases are the Old Testament for the pre-Christian era, the Roman emperors for the period from the time of Christ to Muhammad, and thereafter the Arab regimes in Syria and Egypt, along with a history of the caliphs to his own time (1260).

It includes a section that gives an outline history of the Alexandrian patriarchs from Saint MARK (43-68) to ATHANASIUS III (1250- 1261). The dates are in good order but untrustworthy as to actual calendar years.

The Copt ABU SHAKIR ibn Butrus al-Rahib has been taken to be the author since the Chronicon’s first translation into Latin was done by a Maronite, Abraham Ecchelensis (Chronicon orientale, nunc primum latinitate donatum . . . , Paris, 1651; Paris, 1685). This translation was revised by J. ASSEMANI and published with four added dissertations in Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Vol. 17, Venice, 1729).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Cheikho, L. Petrus ibn Rahib’s Chronicon Orientale. In CSCO 45- 46, Scriptores Arabici, ser. 3, 1-2. Louvain, 1955.

VINCENT FREDERICK