13. This cemetery is perhaps the first on record constructed for the special use of Christians.

17. Jacob of Nisibis was one of the most famous of the bishops of his time. He was at the council of Nicea, and so was Ethilhas or Ethalaha of Edessa.

20. Constantius is said to have built Tela, but probably he restored or enlarged it, and called it Constantina. Dionysius refers this restoration to Constantine. Assemani says the new name was Constantina, and not Constantinople, as Dionysius affirms.

21. Chidon was not far from Edessa.

22. This happened in consequence of an earthquake, at the very time a council was being held in the city. The bishops removed to Seleucia, in Isauria, and finished their business there.

25. Barses seems to have been translated from Haran to Edessa simply by the command of the emperor.

29. The great baptistery may have stood where Mr. Badger says a mosque now stands,-" The mosque called Oloor Jamesi was an old Christian church, as is evident from the hexangular belfry which is now converted into a minaret, and from the lower parts of the building. As in the case of the Great Mosque at Diarbekir, the nave of the church has been turned into a court-yard, in which a fountain has been introduced for the religious ablutions of the Mussulmans; and the southern wall of the church is now the northern wall of the mosque. The fountain is surmounted by a dome raised upon four Corinthian pillars taken from some more ancient building." (Nestorians, i., 326). May not the fountain be really of ancient origin?

30. The grave of Ephraim, or rather his tomb in a cave, is still shewn at Urfah, and upon it the Jacobites consecrate the Eucharistic elements.

33. Certainly not in the same year as the death of Barses. It is not clear when these years begin. They are usually supposed to begin Sept. 1, but our author seems to have some other day, as several of his entries suggest. Above in No. 31 he reckons September, as in the same year with the preceding June. Assemani says this belongs to the year 690.

34. Mar Demet is rendered by Assemani as if it were a contraction of Domitius, "Domus Mar Domitii." He prints it in italics, apparently as if in doubt. The vowels are as we give them, and therefore we prefer to think Demetrius is meant, both here and elsewhere (B. O., i., 215).

35. Resaina signifies Fountain-head, and was restored by Theodosius.

36. The second general council in A.D. 381. It began in October, hence the author assigns it to 693, and not 692; Assemani at least puts it in October, with which however others do not agree. Socrates assigns it to May; and the very ancient MS. quoted in Syriac Miscellanies (A.D. 500) refers it to August. So also the Syriac Chronicle quoted, in Syriac Miscellanies, p. 89. Eulogius of Edessa attended the council.

37. Eulogius died on Good Friday.

38. It does not appear where they obtained the relics of the Apostle. They were, however, deposited in "his great temple," i.e., a church dedicated to his name, or called after him.

40. This invasion of the Huns or Asiatic Tartars (A.D. 395) was probably the first in that direction; it was not the last. 47. The Madrashé of Absamia may have been poems, but the word is also used of prose. Assemani says "odas et sermones composuit."

48. Who was Barlaha, "the son of God?" A writer of the name copied Ephraim's works in A.D. 551, and is spoken of by Assemani as an "egregius scriptor." egregius scriptor." B. O. i., 83.

49. The Syriac text has the word neomenia.

51. This adaptation of a Jewish synagogue for Christian worship at the emperor's bidding, was probably an act of spoliation perpetrated upon the Jews.

53. The Eutychian heresy began later than A.d. 421, and probably later than 431 by a few years at least. Eutyches affirmed that there was but one nature in Christ, and there are many Monophysites to this day.

54. Possibly Jacob the "mutilated," had misunderstood and misapplied Matthew xix. 12. Jacob was, however, doubtless a real martyr; as he was certainly a famous one.

55. Assemani understands this to allude to the heresy of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and thinks the writer favoured him and Pelagius, from the form in which he puts the record. The orthodox held that "sin was implanted in nature;" it was the heterodox who maintained that it was not. The scribe then makes the orthodox the heretics.

57. A shower of dust at Edessa must have been a rare event. 58. For 742 the MS. had 744, which Assemani corrected. 60. The weight of the table offered by Senator is put down at 720 litra, the same as the Latin libra, a pound of about twelve ounces avoirdupois. This would make about 540 lbs. avoirdupois.

61. In the Syriac we read that Anatol the Stratelates made a nauso of silver. The name Anatol is, of course, a shortened form of Anatolius,-proper names are frequently abbreviated in

this chronicle, but we have not always indicated the fact. The Nauso seems to be a mere variation of Naos, a temple or shrine. Christianity was now looking up the trappings of exploded idolatry. The reader will be reminded of the silver shrines of Artemis in Acts xix. 24, where the Greek has this very word, and so has the Syriac Peshito. The other word Stratelates,= σтρATηλáτηs, a commander of soldiers, is as old as Sophocles and Euripides.

63. The second synod of Ephesus, says Assemani, was held, not in 756, but in 760, or A.D. 449. Although Ibas of Edessa was anathematised on that occasion, the fact is recorded without a remark. The bishop, we are told in the following article, left Edessa on January 1st, 759; if, however, the synod was held in 760, the bishop could not have been removed till the next year. Nonnus, called Nono in the Syriac text, "made a hierateion in the church." A "hierateion" is a "locus sacer ac venerandus, tabulato inclusus, clericis tantum, viris sæcularibus raro, mulieribus nunquam penetrabilis."

65. This reference to a "bishop in Rome" (as the Syriac has it), is the first and only indication given by the chronicle that there were bishops there at all. From first to last there is no sign of dependence upon Rome, or of any connection with it.

67. Mar Isaac is called an Archimandrite by Assemani, but the Syriac is "head of a convent," or monastery, the Greek word is not used.

As

68. Ibas was restored and Nonnus removed; but when Ibas died Nonnus resumed episcopal functions. Nonnus was no doubt a zealous churchman, for he not only made a sacristy in the church, he built the Church of John the Baptist, etc. Assemani renders it, he also built a nosocomium pauperum invalidorum extra portam Beth-Semes." The Syriac is here peculiar, and might be rendered "the field of the house of poor invalids." Michaelis says "videtur significare hortos, subdio sed porticibus cinctos, in quibus obambulari ægroti poterant." Within this inclosure Nonnus built a church. His philanthropy and religious zeal further appear in his erection of convents, towers and bridges, and in the improvement of the highways. These things certainly indicate wealth, influence and public spirit.

69. The death of this famous enthusiast, whom Assemani calls "Sanctissimum Stylitam," is said to have happened in the year 770, or A.D. 459. So the Chronicle quoted in Syriac Miscellanies (p. 83), "In 730 Mar Simeon ascended the pillar, and in 770 he died on the 2nd of Elul."

74. All artificers were required to pay a tax of one Aureus

every fourth year. The taxes levied are enumerated in the extracts given by Assemani (B. O., i., 268), and are very curious, including horses, oxen, mules, asses, dogs, beggars, and dunghills.

76. The Syncelli were the personal attendants and assistants of the bishop. Assemani overlooks in his translation the clause about the sign which appeared in the sky, and which was probably a comet.

79. The great fire in the north was no doubt the aurora borealis. From this record we should infer that it is seldom seen in those parts.

82. The sabbath of the resurrection is, of course, the day before Easter Sunday. In the tables of lessons appended by Widmanstadt to his Syriac Testament,, the day after Good Friday is called the "sabbath of the annunciation."

83. The receptacle in question was probably the shrine of St. Euphemia. According to Theophanes, the book was laid up in the altar, and was actually conveyed to the emperor. miracle was of course an after-thought.

The

87. To this item Assemani appends the words "exilio mulctavit," probably because he supposed this implied by the previous verb.

89. This Paul was Bishop of Edessa twice. The Syrians call him an "interpreter of books," either because he translated out of Greek into Syriac, or because he wrote expositions of Scripture. Respecting him Assemani gives an interesting extract from John of Asia (or of Ephesus) preserved by Dionysius in his Chronicle. The baptistery alluded to in the text is probably the one mentioned above, number 29.

90. For "December" Assemani has "October" by mistake. Who were the oriental monks so summarily ejected? They were monophysites, but how came they to be styled "orientals' at Edessa?

92. The remains of Asclepius were exhumed and transferred to Edessa to be buried in the Church of St. Barlaha, upon or beside those of Nonnus.

97. Ephraim of Amida is called "Comes Orientis," a dignity which he appears not to have retained, although Assemani passes over the verbs which we translate "had been."

101. The Huns who thus come upon the scene, it is needless to say, were Asiatic Tartars.

102. Rufinus is called "patricius or the patrician, -a name borne by the presidents or prefects of Edessa. (See Nos. 89, 93.) 104. The word "indiction" occurs in the text. This mode of reckoning is often given in old Syriac writers. Procopius

says that a comet appeared in the thirteenth of Justinian, and hence Assemani infers that for 850 we should read 851 in the text.

105. Shura or Sura is mentioned by Procopius, De Edific. Justin, ii. 9. See Martiniere sub voc. Surum. D'Anville places it on the Euphrates, and with others calls it Sura. Procopius terms it Zupov Tooμa-the town of Surōn. The Syriac word means usually "a wall." Instead of two hundred pounds of gold, or, as the Syriac text has it, "two centenaria of gold," Assemani writes "duobus auri pondo," but surely "pondo' does not equal "centenaria ;" probably we should read "ducentis auri pondo."

106. This Chronicle is followed in Assemani by a list of the kings of Edessa, and a list of its bishops from A.D. 313 to 769. We may note that the Chronicle mentions no Bishop of Edessa before Conon, "who laid the foundation of the Church of Edessa" in A.D. 313. But we must not misinterpret this indication. There had long been Christians in Edessa, as authentic records prove. Not only so, this very Chronicle, in recording the overthrow of the city by water in 513 (A.D. 202), mentions the destruction of the "temple of the church of the Christians." This remarkable phrase shews not only that the disciples had a house of worship then, but that it was called a temple. More than this, the Christian community seems to monopolize the word Church, which was not yet applied to the building in which they assembled. Assemani observes that the words under notice shew that the Archivists were still heathen, although the king was a Christian, as Eusebius notes from Africanus (in Chron). Conon, above-named, refounded the church at Edessa, and hoped to rebuild it, but this work was accomplished by his successor. can hardly be supposed that the reference is to the restoration of the "temple" destroyed in A.D. 202; it is rather to what is called "the old church" in number 60; restored by Justinian with immense splendour.-(Vid. Bayer, p. 250).

B. H. C.

It