Chronicle of Edessa

Not to be confused with Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa.

The Chronicle of Edessa (Latin: Chronicon Edessenum) is an anonymous record of the history 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.

The Chronicle of Edessa is generally agreed to have been written around 540–550 CE. The Chronicle primarily used old Edessan royal archives as its source, as well as some more recent church records, and accordingly is thought to be historically reliable. It may have made use of a lost history of Persia.

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

The Chronicle covers the period from the founding of the kingdom of Osrhoene in 133/132 BCE until 540, but few other events are recorded before the 3rd century. The Chronicle begins 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. This is the earliest mention of a building dedicated exclusively to Christian worship, as well as one of few records of Christianity in Edessa at this time. Unlike other Syriac literature, the Chronicle does not contain any legends of the Apostle Thaddeus.

Published editions

English

• (Transcription by Robert Pearse)

References

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