The Book of the Bee

Syriac Cosmology

The Book of the Bee is a 13th-century Syriac encyclopaedia of sacred history written by Solomon, Bishop of Basra — a bishop of the Church of the East, the Nestorian tradition that the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD declared heretical and expelled from the Roman Empire. The Nestorian Church spread eastward instead: through Persia, India, China, and Central Asia, becoming the most geographically wides

Codex Digital EditionComing soonEdition currently in preparation

Edition069

FormatDigital PDF

Editorial statusIn review

TraditionMystery Schools

Before you read

Context without the mythology.

Codex ISO separates the surviving evidence from later interpretation, so you can encounter the text without being told what to believe about it first.

01 / Historical context

Written by Solomon of Basra, 13th century. A Nestorian Christian encyclopaedia of sacred history from Creation to the Last Day. Suppressed in the West as Eastern heresy.

02 / Why it matters

The Nestorian tradition reached China before Europe discovered America. Here is its scripture.

From / associated with the text

““The bee gathers from all flowers and from all herbs; and so did Solomon, the compiler of this book, gather from all scriptures.””

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Source before story.

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Continue the archive

The Book of the Bee

Context without the mythology.

Source before story.

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