Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/387

Rh But I fear to pursue such investigations any further, and shall leave the above remarks to the indulgent criticism of the learned. Ur, or Edessa, as it was then called, and the capital of the kingdom of Osrhoene, finally became a part of the Roman Empire in the East under Severus, A.D. 316. At that time the purest Syriac dialect was spoken here, where it has now almost disappeared, except as the language of the Jacobite rituals. Here, also, about a hundred years later flourished the famous school which gave birth to the most celebrated apostles of Nestorianism. Edessa fell into the hands of the Saracens in the eighth century, from whom it was wrested by Baldwin, A.D. 1097. The Crusaders only kept possession for about sixty years, and were expelled in their turn by the Seljukians under Zenghi the prince of the Atabeks of Syria.