John of Nikiû

John of Nikiu was an Egyptian bishop and historian of the 7th century.

About John's life is little more known than that he was bishop of the 688 Egyptian city Nikiu year. Sometime 691-700 he was ousted and lost his office after he had to punish that one of them died defiant monks so hard.

John already wrote soon after the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs 642 ( see Islamic expansion), a world history. This was probably in Greek, but perhaps also on Coptic, written, although it is still today only in a late Ethiopian translation before, which in turn was made ​​in 1601 by an Arabic version. John wrote the work that handles the events to 643, apparently as a young man, and probably even before his entry into the clergy. The Chronicle formally belongs to the last works of the late antique historiography and is primarily concerned with the Greek and Roman history ( from the Egyptian- Christian perspective ). Important are ultimately only the sections in which John is the story 640-643: 610 begins a long empty space that does not end until 640. Obviously John had for the next 30 years to 610 ( in which Egypt had been eleven years occupied by the Sassanids ) no written sources, or John 's account of these decades was the translators in 1601 no longer exist.

The concise text, despite some errors and mistakes an extremely important source for the conquest of the Byzantine province of Egypt from 640 by the Muslim Arabs, otherwise over which we have no reliable information.

Translation

• R. H. Charles: The Chronicle of John Nikiu. London 1916 (online).