Bar-Hebraeus somehow managed to accomplish all this while the rest of the known world was being torn apart by the Mongol invasions and the ensuing wars. He even wrote a collection of witty sayings and tales, the Laughable Sayings, which are striking for the very broad range of settings and cultures on which they draw. Living in the cosmopolitan Mesopotamia of his day, he drew on the wit of Persian, Indian, and Hebrew sages, Greek philosophers, Christian recluses, Muslim kings, and Arab ascetics—not to mention irrational beasts, clowns and simpletons, lunatics and demoniacs.19
