ON THE NAME AND PERSON OF APHRAHAT.

But neither from the appellation of the "Persian Sage," nor from the foreign name "Pharhad," is it permissible to deduce that he was a Persian by race, since he uses the Syriac language, indeed purely and cultured, as if it were his native tongue. For the inhabitants of the upper Tigris were called Persians, when the Persian kingdom, having expanded through Assyria, had already long reached the borders of Mesopotamia, and the Persians had first besieged Nisibis in the year 338.

Furthermore, these indications aptly agree with what we know about the location of the monastery of Saint Matthew, in which, according to the annotations of the copyists produced above, Aphrahat had his seat. For the location is found on the borders of Persia and Mesopotamia, specifically on the slope of Mount Maklub, or Meklub, according to the Arabic name مقلب inverted, named so for its shape; but by the Christians, as early as the fifth century, it was called Elpheph ܐܠܦܦ and Chuchta ܟܘܚܬܐ, from the region of the city of Mosul, across the further bank of the river, which is at a distance of four or five hours' journey to the east. By modern inhabitants it is called شيخ متى Sheikh Matta; it belongs to the mountain ridge of Badhinan in Kurdistan, and the valley below the Ghazir torrent, which flows into the Greater Zab¹.

4. If we inquire into the time (postponing the proof that can be gathered from the age of the Armenian translation for the remainder), we have as the first witness Saint Isaac of Antioch († circa 460), who had as his teacher at Edessa, Zenobius, a disciple of Saint Ephrem. He expresses the places of Aphrahat (Demonstr. i, 14; iii, 1, 3) in his poems VIII and XIII, not only with the same sentiment, but often with the same words, so much so that one who reads both together has it as manifest that Aphrahat was already worn by the author of the fifth century².

Moreover, Barhebraeus has already warned us that the Persian Sage became famous in the time of Papa. We said above that this man, also called a Persian, held the pontificate of Seleucia and Ctesiphon from the year 266 to 334 according to Barhebraeus, but according to others from the year 256 or 257 to 326.

¹ Regarding the location of the monastery of Saint Matthew see S. Badger, The Nestorians and their rituals, London, 1852, t. I, p. 95 seqq., and cf. the second chorographic table at the end of the volume, and I. Rich, who describes the place in C. Ritter, die Erdkunde, part. IX, West-Asien, Berlin, 1840, ii, 4; vol. VI, § 23, pp. 732-740.

² Bickell, S. Isaaci Antiocheni, doctoris Syrorum, opera omnia, part I, Giessen, 1873. Carm. VIII, vv. 1280 seqq., p. 138; XIII, vv. 14-20, p. 250; vv. 52-102, p. 252-254, and others. Cf. Bickell, Ausgewählte Abhandlungen des Bischofs Iakob Aphraates von Mar Matthäus (Thalhofers Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, vol. CII), Kempten, 1874, p. 52, note.