“ JACOB OF SĔRŪGH, one of the best Syriac authors, named by one of his biographers “the flute of the Holy Spirit and the harp of the believing church,” was born in 451 at Kurtam, a village on the Euphrates to the west of Ḥarrān, and was probably educated at Edessa. At an early age he attracted the attention of his countrymen by his piety and his literary gifts, and entered on the composition of the long series of metrical homilies on religious themes which formed the great work of his life. ”

“ When on the 10th of January 503 Amid was captured by the Persians after a three months’ siege and all its citizens put to the sword or carried captive, a panic seized the whole district, and the Christian inhabitants of many neighbouring cities planned to leave their homes and flee to the west of the Euphrates. ”