Chronicle of Zuqnin

The work is a historical compilation covering the period from the Creation to the time of the author. The only manuscript preserving the text is incomplete in the end; the last mentioned date is 775. The compilation has four parts: the first, from the Creation to 313 is mainly based on Eusebius' Chronicle; the second, up to 506, is based on Socrates Scholasticus up to 450 and then it includes the Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite; the third part, up to Justinian, is largely based on the second part of John of Ephesus' Ecclesiastical history; the fourth part seems to be the original composition of the compiler.

Assemani (1721: 98) erroneously identified the work with Dionysius of Tell Mahre's lost History, and for this reason it is still widely referred to as 'Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell Mahre'. In the preface to the fourth part, the author dedicates the work to the chorepiskopos of Amida and to the monks of the monastery of Amida, which leads to suppose that he was a monk in that monastery.

Harrak (1999) and Palmer (1990) suggest that Joshua the Stylite (who in a colophon on f. 66 of the manuscript is mentioned as the one who "wrote this book") is actually the author of the whole Chronicle of Zuqnin, and not just the copyist of the Vatican manuscript, nor the author of the section covering the period 494-506.