Homilies and Hymns, Volume 2

The simile of a ship on the sea is found also in it 16, 147, 228, 240, 246, 252, 264, 318, 350, and in a good many more places. The peaceful harbour and the fishing net are figures used by Narsai even more frequently than that of the ship.

The foregoing evidence points out to the conclusion that the writer of A was Narsai himself. A possible alternate indeed would be that the homily was composed on deliberate imitation of his style by a writer who had studied his works and noted his peculiarities with elaborate care.

But in the present case I do not feel that the supposition of a 13th century imitator is one that has any claim to be seriously entertained. “For we can go further than mere argument of peculiarities of style. As a matter of fact the Syriac poetry commonly written in the 13th century differs markedly from anything produced in the fifth. Long before this time the Syrians had learned from the Arabs to write rhymed verse. When exactly they began to do so does not concern us here, though the evidence that I have examined leads me to believe that rhyme was not much used by the Syrians before the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 10th century.”

There is, however, another very important point in this issue which Robinson has overlooked or perhaps was unaware of, namely, the use of fans in the liturgy. The use of fans mentioned by Narsai is not mentioned in the liturgy nor was it used at any time in the Eastern section of the Church of the East, and there is no evidence that they were used even in the Western section in the time of Mar Audishau either when the Church of the East still possessed several diocese in Syria proper. But these are still in use in the Jacobite Church, thus offering further proof that these were in common use throughout the western section of the Church in the time of Narsai and, therefore, further evidence of his authorship of the homilies in question.

Nevertheless, in view of the fact that no scholar of the Church of the East throughout the centuries has questioned the authenticity of any of the homilies of Mar Narsai, and the unbiased scholarly testimony to the same effect by Robinson, the question arises why then did Mingana and Connolly as two Roman Catholic scholars question the authenticity of homily xvii and only that?

Could the evidence that Robinson has so clearly presented that both the Greek and the Latin Churches in the matter of liturgy borrowed from the Church of the East, even after the Council of Ephesus and, therefore, if in the liturgy, why not in matters of faith and order prior to Ephesus, been a motivating factor in Mingana and Connolly unreasonable observations?

EVIDENCE OVERWHELMING

This is not the place to go into all the historic facts regarding this matter but suffice to say that evidence to the effect that Christianity is of Semitic