ABSTRACT
Gregory Abû al-Faraj bar ‘Ebrâyâ (or Bar ‘Ebroyo, in the pronunciation of the West Syrian tradition to which he himself belonged), known in the Arab world as Ibn al-‘Ibrî and to the European scholarly world since the seventeenth century as Barhebraeus, was described as “the foremost by far of the Jacobite [i.e. Syrian Orthodox] authors” (scriptorum Jacobitarum facilè princeps) by one who was himself the foremost Maronite scholar of his own age ( Assemanus 1721: 244). Few will dispute Barhebraeus’ claim also to be princeps among the authors of all Syriac traditions from the period of revival of Syriac literature that took place in the early centuries of the second millennium and that has since Baumstark often been characterized as a “Renaissance” ( Baumstark 1922: 285, 290; cf. Teule et al. 2010).
