Thomas of Marga knows a Gabriel metropolitan of "the Seleucian Karka". This one works in concert with Cyriacus of Nisibis. Thomas of Marga thinks this Cyriacus and knows that Gabriel to have gained their bishoprics during the sedevacancy of Khusro Parvez. Isho'yahb bishop of Nineveh writes letters to both over AD 630-6 (-ish).
Thomas knows of a second Gabriel in this bishopric, whom he calls the Dancer. This one, Sliba-Zeka as Catholicos AD 714-28 appointed.
Thomas heard, at Bet-'Abe, a memra blasting the monks of that monastery. It was in the form of a memra to Rabban Jacob. Sahdona had composed another such memra. But where Thomas (correctly) puts Sahdona's memra at Jacob's funeral, Thomas credits the backhanded critique to the second Gabriel.
On his way, Thomas glosses "Catholicos Isho'yahb" as Isho'yahb III and adds Catholicos George, also. Those make sense - if a Gabriel of the AD 700s is singing this song. But if you take out the glosses . . .
To that: the whole account begins because the locals are bemoaning their want of a funeral-oration for their saint. That's in agreement with Isho'yahb of Nineveh's #19 and sounds much like what Sahdona might have put in his own preface. It does not, however, agree with Thomas where he sets this almost a century later, by which time Thomas himself knows (and approves) Sahdona's early work.
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