ABSTRACT
Historiography in general, however, was also widely cultivated in circles of East Syrian scholars; but here the primary focus was on ecclesiastical and monastic history and on the lives of the saints and the pious. After this period of peace, people recurred to the question which had already since the first decades of the seventh century occupied the minds of many oriental Christians, whether contemporary events might be taken as indicating that world history had run now its course in the apocalyptic times. History is a process, by which mankind, step by step, by God's administering measured doses of knowledge, is brought to that ultimate goal. Theodore's view of God's pedagogical acting in history, whereby the Old Testament writings have a predominantly instructive meaning and function, comes clearly to the fore in John's world history, as may be illustrated by one particular example.
