TOPOGRAPHY, KACES, EELIGIONS, LANGUAGES AND CUSTOMS. 47 



Nabathean dialect, the most unpolished of the three, cuvrent 

 ill the mountainous parts of Assj^ria and the villages of Irak 

 and Babylonia."* 



These two historical facts ought, to my mind, to convince 

 any sceptical scholar as to the nationality of the present 

 Chaldeans, whose language is the same now as it was in 

 those remote clays, but we Chaldeans do not agree that our 

 pronunciation is unpolished ; on the contrary we consider it 

 the prettiest of all the Aramean dialects. 



Now Ave come to the homestead of the Chaldeans of to-day, 

 and examine geographically that part of the globe where 

 they are to be found. First there is Assyria and Meso- 

 potamia, including the Irak known in history as Babylonia, 

 Avhich has always been their native country, tlirough Avliich 

 the two well-known rivers of the Garden of Eden, Tigris 

 and Euphrates, flow. It cannot but be admitted from 

 historical facts that their Christianity originated in Babylonia 

 in the first century, and the see of their Patriarchate was 

 first established at Ctesiphon, wliich was then the seat of 

 the Persian monarchy after the destruction of Babylon. 

 'JUiey owe their conversion, according to the history of 

 81eewa-ibn Yohanna, loho lived in the, early part of the fourteenth 

 centurif, to one of the seventy disciples named Mar Maree, 

 Avho also was at the same time the proselytizer of the Assyrians 

 of Nineveh and its surroundings. Both nations merged then 

 into one community under that saint's pastorate, and on his 

 death the "company of the faithful" sent to the Holy City 

 to Simon, who succeeded St. James, the brother of our Lord, 

 as head over the church there, requesting him to send them 

 a patriarch. The person selected was Abrees, who was 

 consecrated at Jerusalem and sent to Ctesiphon A.D. OO.f 

 The Chaldeans possess a list of their patriarchs from the 

 time of the Chaldean conversion up to the present time, 

 numbering one hundred and eight, wherein a short history 

 is given of each, but in this catalogue the first patriarch is 

 said to have been St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles 

 of our Lord, who after six years Avent to India and converted 

 the Gentiles on the coast of Malabar, who were allied in 

 their ecclesiastical rites Avith the Chaldeans of Mesopotamia 

 •and Assyria. St. Thomas was succeeded in the Babylonian 

 Patriarchate by St. Adi, one of the seA'enty apostles who 



* Abulfaragius, Hist. Di/nt. 



t Badger's A^estorians and their Rituals, vol. i, p. 136. 



