In Chapter 2, The Syriac Tradition in the Early Islamic Era
Barhebraeus’ dynastic history Taʾrīḫ muḫtaṣar al-duwal [*23: 127,6] tells us that Theophilus (GSL [*27: 341–342], Wright 1894 [*25: 163–164]) was head (raʾīs) astronomer at the court of the caliph al-Mahdī (reg. 158–169/775–785); he calls him ‘Theophilus, son of the Christian Thomas, the astrologer from Edessa’ and presents him as the man who translated the ‘two books’ of Homer from Greek into Syriac [*23: 24,20–21]. Given that the Syriac Rhetoric, which was composed in 825 by Antony of Tagrit (GSL [*27: 278]…