Mar Elijah

Ishoʿdnah #19 (in a hurry, so tr. from Fr., lightly-corrected):

Concerning Mar Elia who founded the monastery in the mount of Mosul - He was from Hirta, city of the Arabs. After having studied ecclesiastical sciences in the church of his village, he went with great eagerness to [the monastery] Mar Abraham on Mount Izla, and took the monastic habit. He then left and came to Mosul. He climbed a nearby mountain, and lived in solitude there. When the number of brothers increased, Mar Elia built the hêkla. He did wonders like the Apostles. He migrated to his Lord when he was over a hundred years old. They laid him in the little martyrion he had built. May his prayer [protect] the sinful writer.

Ishoʿdnah elsewhere knows the city Mosul as founded upon that Hesna ʿEbraya which was then just a fort. So this is the same Elia as in Guidi's Khuzestan #19: [and Mar] Elia who built the monastery on the Tigris by Hesna ʿEbraya. (We are here doing a sight better than we were with al-Haditha earlier today.)

Hêkla is Sumerian E-GAL of course, the Big House. Usually the Semites interpreted this as "palace". Chabot went with "church". I suspect something like this was what Ishoʿyahb III will build for Bet-Abe.

As to when: Guidi's chronicle set Mar Elia alongside Mar Jacob and Mar Babay Nisibene, so implied the time of Babay the Great in Izla - early AD seventh century / AG tenth. Ishoʿyahb III will mention a couple Elia's; p. 245 l.4 is a priest (q-sh). Although I doubt our Elia lived this long and he ain't just a priest. UPDATE 3/8: ... and he taught Mar Hnanishoʿ, an Ishoʿyahb contemporary and probable friend.