PREFACE.

Sahdona left his retreat and managed to be appointed Bishop of Edessa by protesting the sincerity of his Catholic confession to Heraclius. However, the Edessans, who were Jacobites, did not want a Dyophysite bishop. They accused Sahdona of being a Nestorian and obtained his deposition from Heraclius. Sahdona then retired to the hill of Edessa, where he lived in a cave. He never again left his retreat—he finished his days there—despite the solicitations of his former friends, who desired to bring him back into the fold of the Nestorian Church. Gabriel Taureta, abbot of the convent of Beit-Abe, went to look for him in his cave, but he could not overcome his resistance, even though he claimed to have defeated him in the discussion he had with him:

"I, Gabriel, inflamed with an ardent zeal, went to Edessa, and there I discussed with him and confounded him" (Liber fundatorum Book of Founders, p. 515).

From this came the legend that Sahdona had finally retracted and died while confessing the Nestorian doctrine.

If one is to believe Ichodnah or his author (ibid. p. 514), Sahdona, after his deposition from the episcopal see of Edessa, implored the pardon of the Patriarch Mar-Emmeh and requested his reinstatement to the see of Mahoze d'Arewan, which had become vacant by the death of Saba. Mar-Emmeh allegedly let himself be touched, but Ichoyab of Adiabene, then Metropolitan of Arbela, soon dissuaded him from granting this request. This account may be nothing more than a doublet of the first deposition of Sahdona.

Aside from the treatise on the religious life, Sahdona is indicated by Thomas of Marga as the author of Consolations and of articles on different subjects, among which one can include the sentences of wisdom, some of which have reached us. He also wrote a history of Mar