Bar Hebraeus (1226-1286)

Armenian-born cleric and historian, the last major writer in the Syriac language. His most famous works are the Ecclesiastical Chronicle, and a history of the world written in both Syriac and Arabic.

Bar Hebraeus was born the son of a doctor of Jewish descent in Melitene, Armenia (now Malatya, central Turkey). In 1246, aged just 20, he was made bishop of Gubos and rose to become a maphrian (the highest rank under the patriarch) of the Eastern Jacobite Church by 1264.