Theophilus of Edessa

Theophanes was born in 760 to noble and rich parents. His father, governor of the region by the Aegean Sea, died while his son was still young. As heir to extensive estates in Bithynia and a considerable fortune, Theophanes spent his youth in ‘hunting and riding’ and married a woman of comparable wealth. He entered imperial service with the rank of groom and was assigned the task of superintending the rebuilding of the fortifications at Cyzicus on the southern side of the Sea of Marmara. He would undoubtedly information on both Byzantine and Arab affairs. For the latter he is heavily dependent upon the ‘eastern source’ for the period 630-740s. Even after this date, however, Theophanes continues to narrate events occurring in Muslim-ruled lands, until ca. 780. Either he made use of another chronicle for these three decades or, more likely, he had at his disposal a continuation of the ‘eastern source’.²⁷ The preponderance of material concerning Syria and Palestine suggests that the continuator was from that region.²⁸ Most of the very few entries in Theophanes for the period 630-740s that are not from the ‘eastern source’ are also concerned with Syria and Palestine, so it is likely that this continuator was a redactor as well, inserting the occasional entry within the text of the ‘eastern source’.²⁹ The addition of notices on the succession of the Melkite patriarchs of Antioch in the years 742-56 implies that this continuator/redactor was a Melkite clergyman. It is quite possible that it was George Syncellus himself who did this work. We know he was based in Palestine for a time, at one of the monasteries in the Judaean desert,³⁰ and he specifically states that, in addition to the material of earlier historians, he added ‘a few events which happened in our own times’ (quoted in full above). This suggestion is not in the end provable, but it is plausible and is a very neat and economical solution.

When compared to Agapius and Dionysius, it becomes immediately apparent that the ‘eastern source’, as he appears in Theophanes, has been substantially abbreviated and his notices have sometimes been amalgamated, thus creating’ a causal link between events that seem originally to have been unconnected.³¹ This compression is probably a consequence of Theophanes’ bias for Byzantine affairs and should not be attributed to the continuator.³²

Dionysius came from a wealthy and well-established Edessan family. He studied at the monasteries of Qenneshre and of Mar Jacob at Kayshum before being elevated to the position of patriarch of the West Syrian church in 818, which position he held until his death in 845.³³ At the request of John, metropolitan of Dara, he consented to undertake what others, despite his exhortations, had declined to do, namely ‘to set down in writing for the generations which are to come the events which have occurred (in the past) and which are occurring in our own time’.³⁴ The finished product was described by a later chronicler as follows:

He composed it in two parts and in sixteen books, each part containing eight books divided into chapters. He wrote it at the request of John, metropolitan of Dara. In this chronicle are included the times, a period of 260 years, from the beginning of the reign of Maurice - that is, from the year 894 of the Greeks (582) - until the year 1154 (842) in which there died Theophilus, emperor of the Romans, and Abu Ishaq (Mu‘tasim), king of the Arabs.³⁵

The earliest manuscript of this author’s chronicle, Sinai Arab 580 of the late tenth century,⁴⁵ assigns it the following title: ‘The book of history, the composition of Mahbub son of Constantine the Byzantine of Manbij, the title of which is (dedicated) to the man crowned with the virtues of wisdom, versed in the ways of philosophy, commended by the truths of knowledge, righteous and benevolent, Abu Musa ‘Isa son of Husayn.’⁴⁶ Unfortunately we know nothing about the latter character and very little about Agapius (the Greek equivalent of Mahbub) himself beyond what is in the heading.⁴⁷ His work begins with Creation and halts abruptly at the end of the reign of Leo IV (775-80), but he would seem to have continued until ca. 942, since at one point he states that ‘the kingdom of the Arabs’ has endured for 330 years.⁴⁸ The work was known to the Muslim polymath Mas‘udi (d. 956), who deemed it one of the best books he had seen by the Melkites on history.⁴⁹

Agapius has very little information for the years 630-750s that is not drawn from Theophilus of Edessa. The only other source that we can detect is a Muslim history, which is revealed from the occasional provision of a Hijri date or the full name of a Muslim authority, and also from notices such as who led the pilgrimage in certain years and who the governors were for a particular caliph.⁵⁰ He would also seem to be dipping into it for certain events of key importance to the political life of the Muslims, especially their various civil wars.⁵¹ In addition, it may underlie his chronology, for most of his notices are dated according to the years of the reigning caliph. As regards his use of Theophilus, Agapius is rather erratic, sometimes quoting him at length, at other times abbreviating him considerably.

This text, so called because the manuscript was discovered in the town of southern Türkey bearing that name, narrates the history of the saints and patriarchs of the Nestorian church, and the principal events of the Roman, Persian and Arab empires that impinged upon it. Its interest for us is somewhat limited since the two volumes that contain the work are both defective at the beginning and end: it starts abruptly in 251, has a lacuna in the middle corresponding to the years 423-83, and halts mid-sentence in 650.⁵² It presumably began with Jesus, demonstrating the continuity of the Eastern Church with Christianity’s fount. How far it extended is less easy to say. The mention of place names such as Baghdad (founded in 762), Samarra (830s) and Jazirat ibn ‘Umar (founded by and named after Hasan ibn ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab al-Taghlibi, d. ca. 865), and the reference to Mosul as the seat of a metropolitan (from 820s) take us to the late ninth century.⁵³

Further indications can be gleaned from the sources that the chronicler names at intervals. The Ecclesiastical History of Daniel bar Maryam, a contemporary of the patriarch Isho‘yahb III (d. 658), is cited five times, and that of two other approximate contemporaries, Elias of Merw and Bar Sahde, are cited two and three times respectively. The works of the eighth-century theologian Shahdust, bishop of Tirhan, and the biographies compiled by the patriarch Isho‘ bar Nun (824—28) are each excerpted twice. And the Chalcedonian philosopher and physician Qusta ibn Luqa, who died some time in the reign of the caliph Muqtadir (907-32), is cited four times, bringing us into the tenth century.⁵⁴ A terminus ante quem is given by the observation that Isho‘yahb III was the last head of the church to bear this name,⁵⁵ which means that the work antedates the appointment of Isho‘yahb IV in 1020. The Chronicle of Siirt was, therefore, composed between 907 and 1020.

A source not cited by the chronicler is the work of Theophilus of Edessa. Unfortunately, since the Chronicle ofSiirt breaks off in 650, we do not have much material for comparison with Theophilus, but there are a few notices that reveal close correspondence: the pact between Heraclius and Nicetas to depose Phocas (AD 610), the rift between Khusrau and Shahrbaraz (ca. 626), Khusrau’s dispatch of Rozbihan against Heraclius (627), a sign in the sky ca. 634 and ‘Umar’s building activity in Jerusalem ca. 642 (all cited in the translation section below). However, for the first three notices, which occur before the Arab conquests, we cannot be sure whether they go back to Theophilus or to some other source that Agapius and Dionysius have in common, such as the Sergius of Rusafa whom Dionysius names as a source for this period (see below) and who may have been accessible to the chronicler of Siirt. The sign in the sky is a brief entry that is likely to travel easily between chronicles, so we are only left with the account of ‘Umar’s building activity in Jerusalem. This is quite close to the narratives of Theophanes, Agapius and Dionysius (see the entry thereon in the translation section below), but as a single notice it does not give us a sufficient basis for assessing how much and in what way the Chronicle of Siirt used Theophilus.

This is a somewhat odd composition. Its content is as follows:

Spanish affairs (99c): six cursory references to Visigothic kings (§§1-3, 5, 9, 14). dated according to the Spanish era. from the death of Reccared in 602 to the accession of Suinthila in 621. The Spanish dating era is no longer used after 640. The conquest of Spain is only mentioned among other triumphs of Walid’s reign (§36), but there is an entry devoted to the battle of Toulouse in 721 (§42). Byzantine affairs (299c): brief notices on the emperors from the death of Phocas in 610 to the accession of Leo III in 717: only Heraclius receives any substantial treatment (629c of Byzantine notices; 18% of all notices). Arab affairs (629c): this is the major component of the chronicle and comprises entries on each ruler from Muhammad until Yazid II (720-24), giving the length and events of their reigns and often some personal description.

A most pleasant man and deemed highly agreeable by all the peoples subject to his rule. He never, as is the wont of men, sought glory for himself because of his royal rank, but lived as a citizen along with all the common people (§28).⁵⁷

Then Yazid, king of the Saracens, his fourth year having unfolded, departed from this life, leaving the rule to his brother, Hisham by name; and he determined that after his brother the one bom of his (Yazid’s) own seed, named Walid, should rule (§43).

There are frequent laments in modem scholarship about the lack of Byzantine writing on the Arab conquests, and yet Theophilus presents us with some quite lengthy and detailed notices on this subject: the battles with the Arabs (of the patrician Sergius; of Theodore, brother of Heraclius; and of the general Baanes), Heraclius’ farewell to Syria, the Arab conquest of Egypt, the Arab subjection of Syria and Mesopotamia, the Arab capture of Cyprus and Arwad, the naval battle of Phoenix, the failed rebellion of Shabur (supported by the Arabs) against Constans, the defeat of an Arab fleet in the 670s and successful Mardaite raids against the Arabs.⁷⁵ One could assume that these battle narratives were a unit in themselves, an account of Arab-Byzantine clashes that ended on a positive note, a few Byzantine triumphs that held out hope for the future recovery of this Christian regime. Otherwise one might suppose that Theophilus received them already collated with all the rest of the Byzantine material, most obviously the notices on Byzantine emperors, and postulate that he had to hand a full Byzantine chronicle covering the period ca. 630-750s or ca. 590-750s.

I label these accounts Byzantine simply because they describe events involving Byzantine characters and would seem to take the Byzantine side rather than the Arab. Indeed, a number of the battle accounts were evidently selected because they constitute victories for the Byzantines (e.g. Phoenix, Shabur’s aborted revolt, the failed Arab naval advance on Constantinople and devastating Mardaite raids against the Arabs). Even with defeats, the tenor is pro-Byzantine; think, for example, of the image of the heroic patrician Sergius, who, having fallen off his horse, brushes aside offers of help from his soldiers, selflessly advising them rather to run and save themselves from the pursuing Arabs; or the loyal chamberlain Andrew who courageously stands his ground against the caliph Mu‘awiya and lectures him on the art of rule.⁷⁶ Now the perspective of such narratives is rather at odds with Theophilus’ documentation of the third Arab civil war and the Abbasid revolution (743-54), where his interests would seem to lie almost wholly with the Muslim Arab government. It is entirely plausible, then, that Theophilus did have a Byzantine chronicle at his disposal, and that he simply supplemented it and brought it up to date with material drawn from the Muslim sphere. I would also venture to suggest that we should identify this Byzantine chronicle with the aforementioned ‘eastern source’ and so dissociate it from Theophilus, if only for the practical purpose of trying to identify the latter’s Byzantine source(s).⁷⁷

Since Theophilus was highly accomplished at translating from Greek into Syriac, as noted above, it is tempting to assume that this ‘eastern source’ was in Greek, and there are some hints from Theophilus’ dependants that this might have been the case.⁷⁸ But since Syriac was replete with Greek vocabulary and a high proportion of educated Syriac-speakers were competent in Greek, it is extremely difficult to demonstrate that a Syriac text is definitely derived from Greek, especially if, as here, one no longer has the original Syriac text. Who might have been the author of this ‘eastern source’? He was without doubt a Chalcedonian, which would explain his pro-Byzantine leanings, but probably from the Levant rather than from a Byzantine-ruled region, for many of his notices, such as those about the sabotage of the Arab fleet in Tripoli and the encounter between Andrew and Shabur at the court of Mu‘awiya, even if pro-Byzantine, reveal a fair degree of familiarity with what was happening in Muslim-ruled lands. One possible candidate is the aforementioned George Syncellus. We know, from his own admission, that he was intending to write a world chronicle up to his own day, and it was only ill health that prevented him from completing it past the reign of Diocletian (285-305). Possibly the latter portion (305-813) was more complete than is usually supposed, even if still a little rough and not properly edited.⁷⁹ We would then have to look for another continuator of the ‘eastern source’, since it is unlikely that a copy of George’s chronicle, halting at ca. 743, would have gone to Theophilus while another copy, which he extended to ca. 780, went to Theophanes.⁸⁰ Another possible candidate for the authorship of the ‘eastern source’ is John son of Samuel, whom Dionysius describes as ‘of the western country’ (i.e. somewhere in the Levant, most likely the Mediterranean coastal region) and whom he places among those who wrote ‘narratives resembling ecclesiastical history’.⁸¹ This is the same category that Dionysius uses for Theophilus of Edessa, which both strengthens the argument (i.e. their styles are compatible) and weakens it (would not Dionysius have noticed if Theophilus was heavily reliant on John, though would he have said so if he did?)

A final matter that requires consideration is whether this ‘eastern source’ reached Theophanes, Dionysius and Agapius only via Theophilus of Edessa or by means of an intermediary. The former scenario seems most likely for Agapius and Dionysius, but it is possible that the ‘eastern source’ reached Theophanes independently, via someone who extended it until 780 (and translated it into Greek, if it was originally written in Syriac rather Aan in Greek). This and all questions to do with the authorship and nature of the ‘eastern source’ will, however, remain highly speculative until more work has been done on them, but it is interesting to observe that there was considerably more Byzantine history writing at this time than is usually allowed for.

Comparison between Theophilus and the Syriac Chronicle of 819, written by a monk of Qartmin monastery in northern Mesopotamia, reveals a number of close textual correspondences in quite a few of the notices on Muslim affairs and natural phenomena (listed in Appendix 2 below). It is not totally impossible that the Chronicle of 819 was using Theophilus, but the two works have many notices that they do not share and they have a very different character,⁸² and so it is much more likely that they are independent of each other, but have a common source, and this is evidently a Syriac chronicle that went up to the 730s, the point at which they cease to have any shared notices. It has been argued that this common source is John of Litarb (d. 737),⁸³ a stylite monk living in early eighth-century northern Syria. We still have the remnants of a lively correspondence that took place between John, Jacob, bishop of Edessa (d. 708), and George, bishop of the Arabs (d. 724), and he seems to have been a major Christian intellectual of early Islamic Syria.⁸⁴ His spiritual master, Jacob of Edessa, wrote a Eusebian-style chronicle up to 692, and it is reported that John continued it up to the time of his own death.⁸⁶ The only potential problem with this is that Dionysius remarks that ‘part of his (John of Litarb’s) book is conveyed (hmil) in this book (of mine)’,⁸⁶ and so he would effectively be using John twice (directly and via Theophilus of Edessa), though this is not impossible.⁸⁷

One important aspect of this common source of Theophilus and the Chronicle of 819 is that it draws our attention to how and in what form information about Muslim affairs circulated among Christians of the Near East. The items these two texts share (listed in Appendix 2 below) are particularly concerned with caliphs, and indeed it is the reigns and deeds of caliphs and their opponents that make up the bulk of the Muslim Arab material found in the various Christian chronological texts for the period ca. 630-750s. Should we think of one single ‘history of the caliphs' (a sort of Liber calipharum) on which all Christian chronicles relied or of a multiplicity of them?⁸⁸ On the one hand the material in Christian chronicles does follow a fairly standard pattern and they share the same basic contents. Yet on the other hand each chronicle possesses details that are not in the others. For example, the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle of 741 and the Chronicle of 819 have very different notices on Walid I:

Walid succeeded to power, (taking up) the sceptre of rule of the Saracens in accordance with what his father had arranged. He reigned for 9 years. (He was) a man of great prudence in arranging his armies to the extent that, though destitute of divine favour, he crushed the strength of almost all the neighbouring peoples adjoining him. He debilitated Byzantium in particular with constant raiding, brought the islands to the point of destruction and tamed the land of India by raids. In the western regions, through a general of his army by the name of Musa, he attacked and conquered the kingdom of the Goths established in Spain with ancient solidity, and having cast out their rule he imposed tribute. So, waging all things successfully, he (Walid) gave an end to his life in the ninth year of his rule, having already seen the riches of all the peoples displayed to him. (Chron Byz-Arab 741, §36)

A devious man, who increased the exactions and hardships more than all his predecessors; he completely wiped out robbers and bandits; and he built a city and called it ‘Ayn Gara. (Chron 819, 14)