OP THE UNIYEBSE. THE ARABIANS. 211 



intercourse of the coasts with highly-civilised neighbouring 

 states, in explaining how the irruptions into Syria and Persia, 

 and at a later period the possession of Egypt, could have 

 so rapidly awakened in the conquerors a love for the sciences, 

 and a disposition to original investigation. We may per- 

 ceive that, in the wonderful arrangement of the order of the 

 world, the Christian sect of the Nestorians, who had exerted 

 a very important influence on the diffusion of knowledge, 

 became also of use to the Arabians before the latter came to 

 the learned and controversial city of Alexandria ; and even 

 that Nestorian Christianity was enabled to penetrate far into 

 eastern Asia under the protection of armed Islam. The 

 Arabians were first made acquainted with Greek literature 

 through the Syrians, ( 327 ) a cognate Semitic race, who had 

 received this knowledge hardly a century and a half be* 

 fore from the Nestorians. Physicians trained in Grecian 

 establishments of learning, or in the celebrated medical 

 school founded at Edessa in Mesopotamia by Nestorian 

 Christians, were living at Mecca in the time of Mahomet, 

 and connected by family ties with himself and Abu-Bekr. 



The school of Edessa, a prototype of the Benedictine 

 schools of Monte-Cassino and Salerno, awakened a disposition 

 for the pursuit of natural history, bj the investigation of 

 " healing substances in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms." 

 When this school was dissolved from motives of fanaticism 

 under Zeno the Isaurian, the Nestorians were scattered into 

 Persia, where they soon obtained a political importance, and 

 founded a new and much-frequented medicinal institution 

 at Chondisapur, in Khusistan. They succeeded in carrying 

 both their scientific and literary knowledge and their religion 

 as far as China, under the dynasty of the Thang, towards 



