Apart from a few leading writers - such as Jacob of Edessa, the anonymous historian whose work has passed under the name of Dionysius of TellMahre, Thomas of Marga, Dionysius Bar *alibi, and Barhebraeus 3 - there are not enough names of interest to make it worth while to continue our chronological catalogue.
Biography, Monastic History, eec. - Besides the important work by Thomas of Marga (q.v.) the following deserve special mention.
Sahdona, who was a monk in the Nestorian monastery of Beth `Abhe (the same to which Thomas of Marga belonged two centuries later) and afterwards a bishop early in the 7th century, wrote a biography of and a funeral sermon on his superior Mar Jacob who founded the monastery, and also a long treatise in two parts on the monastic life, of which all that survives has been edited by P. Bedjan (Paris, 1902).
In the beginning of the 8th century David of Beth Rabban, also a Nestorian monk, wrote, besides a geographical work, " a monastic history, called The Little Paradise, which is frequently cited by Thomas of Marga."
That the ascetic ideal was by no means wholly extinct is evident from the Book of Governors written by Thomas, bishop of Marga, in 840 which bears witness to a Syrian monasticism founded by one Awgin of Egyptian descent, who settled in Nisibis about 3 50, and lasting uninterruptedly until the time of Thomas, though it had long been absorbed in the great Nestorian movement that had annexed the church in Mesopotamia.