Daniel bar Maryam (or Mariam) was a historian and chronographer of the Church of the East who lived in the 7th century.
Daniel is known to have been a contemporary of the Patriarch Ishoʿyahb III (r. 649–659).[1][2] He may be the same person as Daniel bar Ṭubanitha.[1]
Daniel wrote a four-volume Ecclesiastical History in Syriac that does not survive, but is mentioned by the Patriarch Timothy I, Pseudo-George of Arbela and Ishoʿdad of Merv.[1][3] It is cited or quoted five times in the Arabic Chronicle of Siirt,[1][4] but whether it was used directly may be doubted.[5] It is one of three lost 7th-century histories that the anonymous author of the Chronicle appears to have had access to, along with those of Elias of Merv and Bar Sahde.[1] According to Daniel, as cited by the Chronicle, the Patriarch Ahha wrote the biography of his master, the Life of ʿAbda of Deir Qoni, during his patriarchate.[6] He is also cited in a passage on Demetrianus of Antioch. Philip Wood, however, doubts that Daniel is the main source for these passages.[7] Daniel is quoted on the successors of Demetrianus: a certain Azdaq in Gundeshapur and Paul of Samosata at Antioch.[8]
According to ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha's list of Syriac authors, composed in the 14th century, Daniel also wrote an exposition of the Chronicon of Eusebius.[3]