Page:Commentaries of Ishodad of Merv, volume 1.djvu/22

xiv however, impossible that the names of Ishoʿdad and Dad Ishoʿ can be subject to a scribal blunder; and Payne Smith goes on to give the true solution in a note from Bar Hebraeus, who says that Ishoʿdad is a Chaldean name and means 'friend of the Redeemer.' By Chaldean he means Nestorian: and the explanation of Bar Hebraeus only needs to be modified to 'Jesus is friend' or 'has befriended.' So much for the peculiar name. As to his place of origin, that is given in the prologue to Matthew as Maru or Merv. The scribe of one of our MSS. does not understand the place referred to, and, to avoid misunderstanding, adds on the margin the note that—Maruzaya is the name of a place.

Dr Wright catalogues another Ishoʿ Maruzaya as the compiler of a Syriac Lexicon, which was one of the principal authorities made use of by Bar ʿAli the lexicographer: and he assigns him to the latter part of the ninth century. On the other hand Bar Bahlul, in the preface to his lexicon, speaks of the lexicon of Zekharya Maruzaya, so perhaps there has been some confusion of names. In any case Maruzaya (in Arabic alMarwazi) appears to indicate the city of Merv.

The other place-name associated with our author is the town Ḥedatha, or Ḥedhatta. According to Assemani this is a place near Mosul; so that Ishoʿdad must have travelled far before he found his episcopate. The Nestorians were great travellers, and the distance between Merv and Mosul need not trouble us. It is not comparable with the distance between Balkh and China, which we find noted for one of the missionaries on the Hsian-fu inscription. The name (which I cannot find identified by any modern traveller) appears to be only a modification of Newtown, and is explained in this sense by Bar Hebraeus ('Ḥadeth, the city which has been newly,, built by the Arabs). I should have suggested that it was a suburb of Mosul, if Abulfeda had not said that it was on the Tigris, fourteen parasangs distant from that city. The Ooroomiah MS. Cod. 9 describes the commentary as the work of Ishoʿdad, bishop of Ḥedhatta in the district of Mosul, which gives a similar conclusion. The name is ambiguous enough, for, as amongst ourselves, there must have been many Newtowns, but there seems to be no reason against locating Ishoʿdad in a city on the Tigris, which must have been a Nestorian colony, since it is the seat of one of their bishops.