illustrate and explain the references which shall be made thereto in the following narrative.
According to ecclesiastical tradition, Mar Addai and Mar Mari, of the Seventy, were the founders of the Christian Church in Chaldea and Mesopotamia. The latter is regarded by the Nestorians as their first Patriarch; from him they derive the validity of their present sacerdotal orders in an unbroken line of spiritual descent, and to him and Mar Addai, his companion in the work of evangelization, they ascribe the authorship of one of their three Liturgies or Communion Offices. The following is a summary of the labours of Mar Mari, taken from the history of Sleewa ibn Yohanna, a Nestorian author, who lived in the early part of the 14th century.[1] After founding the Eastern See at Ctesiphon, then the seat of the Persian monarchy, and inhabited chiefly by Magians, Mar Mari discipled Doorkan and Cashgar, and travelled on the same mission through the two Irâks, El-Ahrâz, Yemen, and the islands of the Arabian and Indian seas, converting many heathen to Christianity, by his preaching, and by the signs and miracles which he wrought, and forming them into churches. On his return to Ctesiphon, he ordained that that city should be raised into a Patriarchal See, and before his death, which took place a.d. 82, he intimated that his successor was at Jerusalem, and should be sought for there.
Accordingly, after the decease of Mar Mari, the company of the faithful sent to the Holy City, to Simeon, who succeeded James, the brother of the Lord, as head over the Church there, requesting him to send them a Patriarch. The person elected was Abrees, who was consecrated at Jerusalem, and sent to Ctesiphon, a.d. 90. Abrees died during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, having filled the Eastern See for the space of seventeen years.
- ↑ I am indebted to the same source for the notices which follow respecting the immediate successors of Mar Mari in the Eastern Patriarchate. A copy of this rare and valuable MS., containing a catena of the Eastern Patriarchs up to the time of the author, with biographical and historical sketches attached to each, fell under my observation after these pages were prepared for the press. Should a second edition of this work be called for, an opportunity will be afforded for embodying therein from the above-named MS. some interesting and important annals of the early Christian Church in Chaldea, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, hitherto but little known to western historians and theologians.
