The familiar acquaintance of the Nestorians with Arabic literature is further evinced by the controversial treatises which they wrote against the tenets of their despotic and fanatical rulers. Unlike their abject and timid representatives of the present day, the early Nestorians seem to have dared an invasion of the enemy's camp, and to have fought them on their own ground, instigated thereto, doubtless, by the desperate attempts made to proselyte them to a licentious and heretical creed, as well, perchance, from a desire to wipe out the stigma, that a Nestorian monk was the preceptor and friend of the arch impostor. The list of Mar Abd Yeshua records the names of three authors who feared not to impugn the authority of the False Prophet. Timataos, a Metropolitan, wrote a treatise against the Mehdi; Paulos of Ambar, or Piros-Shaboor, the seat of the first Abbaside Caliphs, wrote a dissertation against the Epistle of Omar, the companion of Mohammed; and Aboo Nuah drew up a confutation of the entire Koran. Polemics such as these could only spring from men of vigorous minds, who possessed intellect equal to the task which they undertook, and sufficient moral courage to abide the probable consequences of their temerity in so good a cause.
But if the Nestorian authors acquired great distinction in these foreign languages, they did not neglect their own native Syriac, but cultivated it with the most assiduous care. Many of their writings which have been preserved to us display great originality, acuteness, and erudition. Their metaphysics, borrowed from the Aristotelian school, are remarkable for their comparative simplicity; their histories and narratives are written in an easy and flowing style; their expositions of Holy Scripture, though often learned and ingenious, are plain and suited to ordinary capacities; and the services of their ritual breathe great spirituality of feeling and depth of devotion. Most of these latter, as well as many of their other literary productions, are written in poetry or measured verse, for which style of writing the Syriac seems to be admirably adapted. Some of these poems display a degree of sentiment and spirit combined with the softest tenderness, a command of phraseology, and a fertility of imagination frequently rising to an almost sublime enthusiasm, together with a thrilling and varied versification, worthy of
