The Arabic Christian historians are largely unknown. Starting in the 9th century, the main ones are Agapius, Eutychius, al-Makin, Bar Hebraeus, and one whom I always forget [Yahya ibn Said al-Antaki].
Al-Makin wrote in the 13th century, and contains a version of the Testimonium Flavianum of Josephus, which appears in Shlomo Pines’ much-read but much-misunderstood paper on the subject. But anyone wishing to consult the text of al-Makin, in Arabic, must find a manuscript; no printed edition exists. I did attempt to do something about this, a few years ago, but in vain.
Al-Makin, like other Arabic texts, was translated into Ethiopian. A correspondent writes to tell me about some sources for the Ethiopian version.
Firstly, an article on translation technique from Arabic to Ethiopic, “Arabisch-äthiopische Übersetzungstechnik am Beispiel der Zena Ayhud (Yosippon) und des Tarika Walda-‘Amid” (i.e. “Arabic-Ethiopian translation techniques using the example of Zena Ayhud (Yosippon) and Tarika Walda-Amid”) by Manfred Kropp, with al-Makin as one of the examples, in the ZDMG, is now online in high resolution here. In Ethiopian chronicles Al-Makin is known as Giyorgis Walda-Amid (George, son of Amid) while Tarika Walda-Amid (Chronicle of Walda-Amid) is the title given to his “Blessed Collection”.
Kropp has also published a book, Zekra Nagar – Die universalhistorische Einleitung nach Giyorgis Wala-Amid in der Chronikensammlung des Haylu aka (The preface to the Universal History of Giyorgis Walda-Amid in the Chronicle Collection of Haylu” – Haylu was an 18th c. Ethiopian prince). There is a Google Books preview here.
Modern Ethiopians speak Amharic, not Classical Ethiopic or Ge’ez. I learn that Prof. Sirgiw Gelaw from Addis Ababa University has prepared a translation of the Ge’ez version of Al-Makin into Amharic. The manuscript is 560 pages long and is still waiting publication.
A manuscript copy of the Ethiopian version of the first part of Al-Makin – he divides his work into two parts, pre-Islam and post – is actually online at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, here. The catalogue entry is here.
My thanks to Ezio for all this material!
Hi Roger,
Is it Yahya of Antioch the one you have forgotten?
If I’m not mistaken Shlomo Pines discussed the Arabic Testimonium Flavianum in Agapius not Al-Makim.
See
http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/pines01.pdf
Probably!
Pines professes to discuss Agapius; but in fact the sole manuscript of that part of Agapius doesn’t contain those passages. These are culled from Al-Makin.
Pines mistakenly believed he was translating Agapius but the Arabic text is from the history of Al-Makin. The Testimonium Flavianum is present in both authors but considering Al-Makin uses Agapius as a source, his version is an expansion of the former.
The reason Pines did this is that the edition that he used printed the Al-Makin sections as an appendix, on the basis that Al-Makin “must” have copied them from a now lost manuscript of Agapius. But expansion is the rule in Arabic chronicles, and Al-Makin probably did it himself.
” Starting in the 9th century, the main ones are Agapius, Eutychius, al-Makin, Bar Hebraeus, and one whom I always forget”
For that last one you might be thinking “Severus“, based on a website edited by some guy called Roger Pearse :^) His history was (finally) compiled and copied in Arabic but most believe it was compiled from Coptic sources, since almost all those Patriarchs were Copts by ethnicity.
No, Severus I recall. 🙂