Chronicon Orientale Open this page in a new tab

The Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia reports that the Chronicon Orientale is 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). The Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia further reports that the dates are in good order but untrustworthy as to actual calendar years.
The author of Chronicon Orientale

The Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia reports

The Copt ABU SHAKIR ibn Butrus al-Rahib (aka Petrus Ibn Rahib in Karcz (2004) 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). - VINCENT FREDERICK
Sidarus (2014:223) reports
Since the publication by the Maronite scholar Abraham Ecchellensis (alias Ibrāhīm al-Ḥaqillānī, 1605-1664) of the so-called Chronicon Orientale (ChronOr), Ibn al-Rāhib (IR) – erroneously identified as Buṭrus Ibn al-Rāhib – has been universally considered the author of this work
Sidarus (2014:224-225) reports on the biography of Ibn al-Rāhib
We may recall that Nushū’ al-Khilāfa Abū Shākir Ibn (Buṭrus) al-Rāhib (c. 1205/10-1295) was an illustrious representative of the Golden Age of Copto-Arabic literature in the thirteenth/fourteenth century. He belonged to a prominent family of notables, men of the Church who were also senior civil servants in the Ayyubid state. He himself held high office at the Armies Ministry (Dīwān al-juyūsh) and was a deacon serving the important al-Mu‛allaqa church in Fusṭāṭ Miṣr (Old Cairo).

The somewhat late literary output of our polymath was limited to the period 1257-1270, and comprises four works of an encyclopaedic nature, almost entirely unpublished. For Copto-Arabic literary history, if not that of Arabic Christianity in general, IR’s work is unique. For one thing, all the writings are precisely dated. For another, two autograph copies of two works have come down to us, showing that one of them has known three different ‘editions’