The Syriac Chronicle

A horizontal decorative line or rule at the top of the text block.

Not without pleasure, already foreseeing the end of my labor, I take up the pen so that I may write down what must be prefaced; and although the labor was long and quite heavy, I do not regret in the least having endured it. Abulpharagius is not, to be sure, some Syriac Livy, and his book is rightly called a Chronicon Chronicle; yet there is no doubt that this very work is most useful. With the presses running hot, and granting me scarcely enough time to write this little preface, I cannot, of course, demonstrate with many examples how truly these things are said, yet I will append a few excerpts from what I have observed regarding its utility. — First, I understood that its reading would be profitable for better interpreting the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments in many places. Here is an example of this from the Old Testament! What kind of animal is denoted by the word חֹלֶד chōled in Leviticus 11:29 could not be defined with certainty by interpreters until now. Most of them thought it was a weasel, others a marten, a species of weasel; Bochart, following etymology, thought it was a mole. The Syriac interpreter translates it as ܚܘܠܕܐ chulda, and this version deserved to be considered by learned men above all. For the Syriac interpreter is a cautious man and very far removed from the vanity of those
te