David,_Bishop_of_the_Kurds
David, Bishop of the Kurds
Monk, bishop and historian in the 7th or 8th century
David (Syriac: ܕܘܝܕ ܕܟܪ̈ܬܘܝܐ, romanized: Dawid d-Kartwāyē) was a monk, bishop and historian of the Church of the East in the 7th or 8th century.
Originally a monk of Beth Abe,[1] he later became the bishop of the Kurdish tribes in the region of Kartaw.[2] This region was located in Upper Mesopotamia, in the north of Adiabene, west of the Lower Zab and north of Erbil.[3][4][5][6] He was writing no earlier than the reign of Hnanisho I, patriarch of the Church of the East from 686 to 698.[1]
David wrote in Syriac a work known as the Little Paradise (Syriac: Pardīsā zʿūrā) to distinguish it from the Paradise of the Fathers of Palladius of Galatia and the Paradise of the Orientals of Joseph Hazzaya.[4][7][8] It is presumed lost.[9] According to Thomas of Marga in chapter XXI of his Book of Governors, David wrote at the request of a Persian nobleman named Khuznahir, a Christian from Bashosh (near Shalmash).[10] The Little Paradise was a series of "histories" of Mesopotamian ascetics beginning with George bar Sayyadhe, who was the ninth abbot of Beth Abe in 590.[1][11] It certainly also contained biographies of the next four abbots of Beth Abe: George's brother and successor, Sama of Neshra; Nathaniel; Selibha the Aramaean; and Gabriel, called the Little Sparrow, who flourished in the late seventh century.[12] It does not appear to have been an extensive work, more probably having a "bite-size, compilatory structure."[13] It was probably conceived as a companion volume to Enanisho's Syriac edition of Palladius.[1] Thomas of Marga cites it in his chapter XXIV concerning a famine that took place during the youth of John of Daylam.[9][14] David's work is also cited in the metrical history of Beth Qoqa by John bar Zobi.[1]
Several modern authors[15][16][6][17] identify the David who was bishop of the Kurds and author of the Little Paradise with David of Beth Rabban, who was active during the reign of Timothy I (780–823).[18] Carl Anton Baumstark and Sebastian Brock, however, clearly distinguish the two.[19][20]