Page:Commentaries of Ishodad of Merv, volume 1.djvu/28

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Here is the legend of Ishoʿdad, in a somewhat modified form, and I can believe the reader to be as much puzzled as myself to determine the origin of the tradition. Let us see if we can do anything to elucidate the matter. Henry Vaughan can hardly have been reading Ishoʿdad; and indeed his version of the decollation of Salome is simpler than that of the Syrian father. Vaughan is, however, a man of some Oriental erudition. In his verses on St Mary Magdalen we have the following lines: