Saturday, November 7, 2009

James of Edessa

I've placed online an English translation of the table of years and events in the Chronicle of the Syriac writer James of Edessa. This continues the table in the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea from where that ends, in 325 AD, down to the early Islamic period ca. 700 AD. Naturally it focuses on eastern events, and includes one of the earliest mentions of Mohammed.

The material is here:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm#James_of_Edessa_Chronicle

The original publication of this material was frankly a mess. I've written a preface explaining a bit more clearly what we're looking at. I've also uploaded the translator's preface, and also translated the Latin preface by the same editor to his publication of a Latin translation some years later. In addition I've added fragments from Elias of Nisibis scattered across the publications.

All this material is public domain, so please help yourselves, do whatever you like with it, place copies online and so on.

Other free material by the fathers can be found in the same collection:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm

If you want to support the work of the site, a CDROM is available for $37:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/all_the_fathers_on_cd.htm

Funds from sales are currently going to pay translators to do the homilies on Ezechiel of Origen, the Gospel problems and solutions of Eusebius, and a 13th century catalogue of Arabic Christian literature by Abu'l Barakat which should help us see what patristic material got into that language. None of these have been translated before.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

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