Christian Cyclopedia

City in NW Mesopotamia (now Urfa in SE Turkey in Asia); adopted Christianity before the end of the 2d c.; became a center of oriental Christian culture and theological activity. Its theol. school, est. ca. 363 and made famous by Ephraem,* furnished ministers for Mesopotamia and Persia; championed orthodoxy, though for a while after the death of Ephraem it was influenced by Arianism*; later succumbed to Nestorianism* and Monophysitism*; closed 489 by Bp. Cyrus II at the direction of Zeno (426–491; E. Roman emp. 474–491). Though Ephraem adopted many things from Origen and used allegories freely, other representatives of the school emphasized the critical and philol. aspects of exegesis. See also Abgar, Letters of. Exegesis, 4; Schools, Early Christian, 6.