were appointed rectors of the schools and were esteemed as writers, among whom was our Narsai, who was also a priest.

Added to the accumulation of such evils is the fact that Perouz, king of the Persians (from the year 457 or 459 to the year 484 or 485), provided an easy opportunity for all of this original: "facilem ansam praebuerit". For he, foreseeing that through this schism the Christians of his empire, once torn from their co-religionists in the West, could easily be drawn to his side in the wars being waged with the Romans, provided a strong hand to the aforementioned leaders of Nestorianism, both in steel and in soldiers. If we merely recall to mind the victims slaughtered by the sword of the Persians at the hands of Barsauma, we will certainly not be surprised that Nestorianism was able to propagate and take root so easily and in such a short space of time in Persia. Barhebraeus estimates that the number of victims with the help of Barsauma reached 7,700, half of whom were from the order of the clergy who refused to embrace Nestorianism. Forty years after the migration of the Edessan Doctors, the work of destruction was almost complete, and Catholicism had been almost entirely erased from the soil of the East.

NARSAI’S STYLE AND LITERATURE.

We consider it superfluous to pursue Narsai with special praise here. It suffices to report with what encomiums later authors have exalted him, calling him the leshaneh demadhneh tongue of the East and the qithareh deruha lyre of the Holy Spirit. By these words, it is signified that he holds the absolute primacy among his peers in the miraculous power of his expression and the pomp of his diction, with only the exception of the holy Ephrem the Syrian, whose style is easier, more expeditious, and regularly less "sweating oil" a classical metaphor for writing that appears labored or forced.

The homilies of Narsai that survive are for the most part written in the meter of 12 syllables, which is called by the Nestorians memra trehsarya twelve-syllable homily or memra trehsar twelve [syllable] homily, and by