PREFACE

§ 1

THE LIFE OF NARSAI

Narsai of Maalta Mari: Book of the Tower, p. 44 (Gismondi edition; Rome 1899), etc. Maalta is today a small village twelve leagues from Mosul, toward the north. According to ancient Nestorian Hudhras (service books), Narsai was born in Dilebb (or Ain-Doulba), in a village a short distance from Maalta. (1) was born before the middle of the fifth century. While still a youth, he traveled to Edessa to attend biblical and theological lectures in the School of the Persians of that city. The Greek language, which was considered part of theological studies in those times, was also taught there (2). As some reasonably suppose, that most celebrated school was founded by Saint Ephrem and the other teachers who had departed from Nisibis at the time when the Emperor Jovian ceded it to the dominion of Sapor, King of the Persians (in the year 363). If we may follow this opinion, the establishment of this school should be assigned to the year 363 or 364. Narsai lived there for about twenty years (3). But Constantinople, the mother of Eastern heresies, which shortly before had begun to administer the lethal poison of its doctrines to the entire Syrian world, had also spread discord and doctrinal dissension among the professors of this school. They, without doubt, could not remove themselves from the Christological controversies occupying the other Christian schools. These disputes arose especially from the fact that not all the students of that famous school followed the famous Nestorian Ihibas Ibas of Edessa, the bishop of the city. According to the letter of Simeon of Beth-Arsham (4), such men were: Papa of Beth-Lapat, from the province of Ahwaz; Akhsnaia Philoxenus of Mabbug (a Monophysite believer in one nature of Christ), from the province of Garamea (5), with his brother, whose name was Addai; Barhadh-

Footnotes from page 13:
(2) According to R. Duval: History of Edessa, p. 161. cf. Syriac Literature by the same author, p. 15.
(3) Barhebraeus: Ecclesiastical Chronicle, vol. II, p. 77 (Abbeloos and Lamy edition).
(4) In Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis I, 346, and in the chrestomathy of Michael. "This letter," says Duval (Syriac Literature p. 344-345), "is the oldest document on the propagation of Nestorianism the teaching that Christ had two distinct natures in Persia. Simeon is partial and unjust toward his adversaries, but well-informed." I follow this letter in my narrative.
(5) Whether Philoxenus went to Edessa after being driven from his homeland by the Nestorians, or not? An anonymous history, subtly compiled by Assemani (B. O. II, p. 10-11), answers in the affirmative.