C 7°2 ] 
TRE ; the Syrians (a) and Arabs fometimes apply- 
ing it in that fenfe as a title, or mark of didindtion, 
to the Jacobite patriarchs, and probably others, as 
we learn from Al Makin. Nay, it feems as natural 
to fuppofe, that the Syrians ufed the word ABVNA 
promifcuoufly for OVR FATHER, and FATHER; 
as that ABA, or ABBA, (hould have been admitted by 
them in two fnnilar fign ideations. Nor can the words 
ANTI nATPOE, in the correfpondent Greek inferip- 
tion, pofhbly anfwer to any other word, in that I am 
conlidering, than LABVNA. This will fugged: to 
us one or two curious oblervations, which I have 
not time at prefent fo much as to touch upon. 
6 . The Syriac ZENOBIA, is exprefled 
by the Greek ZHNOEIOT; and confequcntly mull 
be looked upon as a mafeuline proper name. But 
whether the fame letters, amongd the Palmyrenes, 
formed the proper name of Zcnobia , the famous 
queen or emprefs of that nation, I cannot yet take 
upon me to determine. 
7 . ACOBA, or ACABA, the city, as it diould feem, 
to which ZENOBIVS, mentioned in the fird inferip- 
tion,did originally belong, might poffiblyhave been the 
capital of Acabene , a province or didridt of Mefopo- 
tamia,a region feparated from Palmyrene by the Eu- 
phrates. This didridt is placed by Ptolemy at no 
great didance from the Tigris ; and its capital might 
have been called by the Palmyrene Greeks, in the 
third century, AKOI1A. But that this was really 
{a) Val. Schind. Lex. Pentaglot. p. 8. Geor. Elmacin. HijK 
Saracen, p. 144, 145, 151, 152, & alib. pafs. 
the 
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