Omission of migration of 345 in Chronicles of Michael Rabo and Bar Hebraeus

If the 1^st Syrian Migration to Kerala was such an important event, why have Michael Rabo and Bar Hebraeus not mentioned it in their great and comprehensive histories?

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1.Every book is written with a purpose for a particular readership.

The writer, of necessity, has to be selective in what he includes, as everything cannot be included. Mor Michael Rabo (Patr. of Antioch from 1166 to1199) wrote his Chronicle in 21 Books. The subject-matter is vast, starting from creation, to the major events until 4 years before his death.  The book encompasses about 4780 years of history, with different epochs, huge cataclysms, important historical figures and parallel events. He could not possibly have included everything that happened in every epoch he touched upon. As is common with many such vast histories, there are hundreds of personages and events the author omits.

For example:

• a) The Holy Gospels do not include all words uttered by the Lord Jesus Christ, nor all His miracles. (John 20:25) ‘There are many more things that Jesus did. If all of them were written down, I suppose that not even the world itself would have space for the books that would be written.’  The Gospel-writers also omitted many imp. events of their own lifetime. (For eg. the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the killing of St. James the Just (the Lord’s ‘brother’); the Jewish insurrection 46-48AD; the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD by Titus, etc. The Gospels were written for a particular purpose, for a particular audience. That does not negate the historicity of these events.

• b) The great English ecclesiastical and political historian, the Venerable Bede, wrote a similar history in the 8^th c., but omits many ecclesiastical and political events of England, even some of his own life-time. 

• c) In recounting the miracles that happened in his own time, when they were working on directing a water-channel towards the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, Michael Rabo himself states: “No matter how long we talk about the opening of the water canals, there is insufficient place to include all the miracles that took place during this work”, indicating that a historian can only be selective in his account.

2. The period of Michael Rabo was one of great turmoil in the political, social, ecclesiastical and secular fields in Syria, Palestine, Anatolia, Alexandria, Western Roman Empire, Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium and Persia regions. The arrival of a new religious groups (Islamic Caliphates), the rise and fall of kings and dynasties, wars, conquests, burning of cities and attendant atrocities, by the Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Mongolians, Frankish Crusaders and the Greeks, the changing loyalties of bishops, persecutions, the changes in allegiances and affinities of individuals and groups, were all continuous occurrences at the time, constantly re-drawing the political and ecclesiastical map. Violence against the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch from all sides was a prevailing context.

3. In the midst of these above, Michael Rabo wrote his Chronicles, narrating very briefly, the succession of patriarchs and kings, the Church Canon, the computation of epochs and years etc., including an examination of motives and methods, and assessing the unfolding events and their impact on the SOC, placing them alongside contemporary ecclesiastic, social, military, political and even celestial events and contexts.

4. From these it appears that Michael Rabo’s objective in writing this Chronology was not just to write a history of the SO Church, but as scholars have noted, with “a cognitive interest in the history and chronology of knowledge”, it was ultimately to delineate “the rise and progress of his own Church, the trīsׅay šubho= the (Syrian) Orthodox Faith”, “its historical role as a cultural and ethnic group and as a Church”, and “as a Universal reality” amidst these cataclysms and changes.  (See Preface by Archbishop Gregorius Yohanna Ibrahim of Aleppo and chapter-wise summary by Sebastian Brock included in Vol. I, and Introduction to Books XV to XXI by Amir Harrak.)

5. The first Books of Michael Rabo affirm the Jewish Scriptures as the foundation and fountainhead of the SO Church, and later ones trace the formation of the Christian Church and its vicissitudes over the next 11 centuries, all the way down to his own times. Michael Rabo contains this vast subject-matter within about 275 chapters in 21 “Books”, adding Appendices of Lists of pontiffs and kings, ancient and modern history of the Aramean (Syrian) people, a list of the Patriarchs of Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch from the Great Mar Severus of Antioch (d.538) to himself, a list of the names of the bishops of the different Sees of his time, and a list of the Nestorian Catholicoses.  It is no surprise that the Edessan migration of 345 to remote Kerala was not significant enough for the purpose of the writing the book to have been included in this absolutely crowded Chronicle dense with far, far greater events and personages.

6. Similarly, Bar Hebraeus also possessed encyclopaedic knowledge in almost all branches of ecclesiastical and secular fields.  He preserved and systematized the work of his predecessors, condensing some, directly reproducing others. His first volume the Chronicon Syriacum deals with history from Creation down to his own day. Like the first part of Michael Rabo’s Chronicle, this volume gave context to the second portion, called the Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, which covered, firstly the history of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Patriarchs of Antioch, followed by an interwoven history of the Jacobite Maphrianate and the Nestorian Patriarchs of Church of the East.

7. Examining Vol. I and IV, parts of others, Brock’s chapter-wise summary of all 21 Books, and G. Chediath’s Malayalam translation of Bar Hebraeus, one is struck by the vastness of the subject and density of material, and we have to concede that events concerning our Church in Kerala in the 4^th century, though of monumental importance to us, were peripheral to the subject these scholars were dealing with. Encompassing much more than just the history of the SOC, they were written for a wider audience. Thus, it seems unsurprising that the Syrian migration to Kerala in 345AD is not mentioned by neither of them.