with Grecian divines, and as having themselves written elaborate treatises in Greek. The effects of this intercourse upon Syriac literature were the enrichment of the language by a great variety of words from the Grecian classics, especially of such as are requisite to express compound and abstract ideas not represented in their own native dialect, and which, in the course of time, became embodied with their own vocabulary. These terms and phrases are of constant occurrence in the metaphysical and theological writings still existing among the Nestorians, and this foreign, but now naturalized, idiom is met with in every page of their latest ritual and other ecclesiastical compositions, and thus seems to have formed a part of their ordinary literary discourse. Moreover in order to assist beginners in the cultivation of the Greek language, and to inform such as had no other means of attaining to the true signification of these exotic additions, several Greco-Syriac lexicons were compiled, and many smaller vocabularies of difficult words drawn up, some of which are still extant, in which such terms and phrases are fully and clearly expounded.
Besides the study of Greek classical authors, the Nestorians appear to have acquired great eminence in the languages of their Persian and Arabian masters. Mar Abd Yeshua mentions several Bishops who wrote learned treatises in Persian; and it is certain that a Nestorian translated the works of Aristotle into that language for Chosroes the then ruling prince. Under the Caliphs of Baghdad also, the native literature seems to have been highly cultivated among them, as their skill and learning frequently secured their appointment to the most important offices both in the cabinet and in the provinces. Some few ancient Arabic works of Nestorian authorship are still occasionally to be met with, one of which is a poem by Mar Elia el-Hadeethy, written after the style of the famous Hariri, and which, by competent judges, is deemed to rival the excellencies of his model. And Mar Abd Yeshua has left behind a Nestorian creed in the same language, a translation of which is given under Chapter VI., which for vigour of style, purity of diction, and elegance of arrangement, deserves to be ranked with the compositions of those Arabian classics to which the suffrages of the learned have adjudged the first place of genius and glory.
