Re: the date of the newly found Syriac inscription from the region of Najran, Saudia Arabia. Here's a small suggestion of a late terminus ad quem of late 8th/early 9th ce. based on a Syriac literary source I worked with once. 1/6
https://twitter.com/HughSlaman/status/1351423506769190913
A letter sent by Timothy I (r. 780 to 823), patriarch-catholicos of 'Nestorian' Church of the East in Baghdad, to the monks of Mar Maron in Syria. Here, Timothy attempts to convince the monks to switch allegiance to his church. 2/6
He makes a number of claims re: his Church's apostolicity, perpetual orthodoxy, and the fact that its christology had never been subject to the whims of a Christian king (the Church of the East having developed outside the Roman Empire, under Sasanian & later Muslim rule). 3/6
Towards the end of the letter, he tells his correspondent of all those who had recently joined the church. Some of these were newly converted peoples such as the Turks along the Silk Road. 4/6
Others had already been Christian, albeit heretical in his eyes. Says Timothy (ed. Bidawid/Heimgartner): 'Also the famous city of Najran, which adhered to the heresy of Julian, thirteen [of its] churches were joined with us last year, a congregation exceeding 2,000 people.' 5/6
Re: later sources, I've read mention from an encyclopaedia entry by Christian Robin of an agreement between Christians of Najran & Zaydī principality in 897, according to 'a Yemenite Arab source.' I'd be curious to know from colleagues what source he has in mind. 6/6
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