Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/62

 against their fellow clergy and this was the commonest cause of interference which the historians describe as persecution. Such was the experience of Henanyeshu‘ who became Nestorian Catholicos in A.D. 686. The bishop of Nisibis made complaints against him to the Khalif ’Abdul-Malik in consequence of which he was deposed, imprisoned, and then thrown over a cliff. He was not killed by his fall, though severely lamed; by the kindness of some shepherds he was sheltered and nursed back to health, and then retired to the monastery of Yannan near Mosul, resuming his patriarchal office after the death of the bishop of Nisibis, and holding it until his own death in 701 (Bar Heb. Chron. Eccles. Abbeloos et Lamy. ii. 135-140). Besides sermons, letters, and a biography of Dewada, he wrote an educational treatise on "the twofold duty of the school" as a place of religious and moral influence on the one hand, and of an academy of the humanities on the other (cf. Assemsan BO.) iii. part I. 154 and also an "Explanation of the Analytica" (id).

Mar Abha III. became Nestorian Catholicos somewhere about 740 (133 A.H.) and produced a commentary on Aristotle's logic (cf. Bar Heb. ii. 153).

This brings us down to the period when the Muslim world began to take an interest in these philosophical and scientific studies, and translations and commentaries began to appear in Arabic. But Syriac studies did not at once disappear and it will be convenient to enumerate briefly some of those who appeared in