Tatian's Diatessaron. Next comes the scholar Bardaisan, whom the Church failed to retain and who has been called "the last of the Gnostics." While his authorship of the important work De Fato, already briefly described,[1] is doubtful, he is stated to have written a History of Armenia and a book called Hypomnemata Indica, compiled out of information he obtained from Indian ambassadors on their way through Edessa to the Roman court. Jacob of Nisibis is a famous Syrian writer of the fourth century; but the Homilies once ascribed to him are now said to have been written by Aphraates, who was followed towards the end of the century by Ephraim,[2] and the poets Balai or Balseus, who has given his name to the pentasyllable metre, and Cyrillona, who composed a poem "on the locusts, and on Divine chastisements, and on the Huns." The present form of the famous "Doctrine of Addai"—the work in which the legend of Abgar is enshrined, and where we have the narrative of the early evangelising of Edessa and the first bishops and martyrs—cannot be earlier than the fourth century. Only fragments of the works of Rabbulas have been found. Previous to elevation to the episcopate, his successor Ibas had been one of the translators of Theodore's works. The Monophysites claimed Simeon the Stylite as sharing their views, and an eighth century manuscript contains a letter ascribed to him and addressed to the Emperor Leo, and another manuscript of the same period contains three letters credited with the same authorship; all of which documents, if genuine, go to show that he did not accept the decision of Chalcedon. At the end of the fifth century we come upon Jacob of Serugh, who was described as "the flute of the Holy Spirit and the harp of the believing Church." He left a mass of poems. According to the historian Bar Hebræus, he had seventy amanuenses to copy out his 760 metrical homilies, as well as his commentaries and letters, odes and hymns. The most famous Syrian writer of the sixth century is John of Asia, whose Ecclesiastical History is
Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/532
506
THE GREEK AND EASTERN CHURCHES
