RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
OTerswin Mesrob
sistorial councilor at Stuttgart (1869), and prelate and general superintendent of Reutlingen (1873). With these positions was also associated his entrance into the house of deputies, in which capacity he was a member of the state synod. His own distinctive province, however, was the cultivation of Christian art, in which field he succeeded Griineisen as director of the Verein fur christliche Kunst in der evangelischen Kirche Wurttembergs and as editor of the Christliches Kunstblatt from 1878 onward. He gave the impulse, counsel, and ready assistance toward furnishing and renovating many churches in Wurttemberg, and also took a leading part in all the more important enterprises in the domain of church art in his time, both in and beyond Wurttemberg proper. J. Meez. Bibliography: Lutheranische Kirchenzeitung, xcviii. 473 sqq.
MESHECH. See Gog and Magog; and Table of the Nations.
MESOPOTAMIA, mes"o-po-t6'mi-a: The name applied by the Greeks after the time of Alexander and by the Romans to the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates (cf. Acts ii. 9). In earlier times the equivalent term applied only to the region northwest of Babylonia through which the Balich and the Chabur flowed. Before the Assyrian period the district was the locus of independent states, one of which was Kisshati, capital Haran, the title of whose king was assumed by early Babylonian monarchs. Of the history of this region before 1500 b.c little is known. About 2000 B.C. it was settled by the peoples of the branch of Semites to which Canaanites, Phenicians, and Hyksos belonged. The Egyptian wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, following the expulsion of the Hyksos, were in part directed against Nahrina (see below), " land of the rivers," which was Mesopotamia in its proper sense (cf. W. M. Midler, Asien und Euro-pa, pp. 144, 249 sqq., Leipsic, 1893), and reports of these wars give the earliest information of the region. The next news comes from the Amarna Tablets, which speak of non-Semitic conquerors, the Mitanni (see Assyria, VI., 2, § 1), under a King Tushratta (see Amabna Tablets, III.), whose father and grandfather had had diplomatic relations with Egypt, while his own kingdom had a considerable area. Shortly afterward, the region belonged to Assyria, the kings of which assumed the title " king of Kisshati," and Shalmaneser II. (see Assyria, VI., 3, § 7) extinguished the remains of the independence of its princes. Much of the culture, especially on its linguistic side, which came to be known as Assyrian, was due to the influence of this region of Kisshati. After the subjection of the Mitanni, the Arameans overran the region (cf. A. Sand a, Die Aramder, Leipsic, 1902). A result of this migration was the establishment of the kingdom of Bit-Adini (the " children of Eden " of Isa. xxxvii. 12), which reached from the Balich to the Euphrates and was destroyed by the Assyrians (see Assyria, VI., 2; 3, § 7).
Acts vii. 2 refers to a command received by Abraham " when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran." The common explanation that by Mesopotamia is here meant the entire region VII.— 21
between the Euphrates and the Tigris is untenable. Winckler would read the passage " when he was (once) in Mesopotamia, before he (finally) came to dwell in Charran," and refer it to a legendary missionary journey of Abraham, mention of which occurs in the pseudepigraphic Apocalypse of Abraham (ed. N. Bonwetsch, in Studien zur Geschichte der Theologie und Kirche, i. 1, Leipsic, 1897; see Pseudepigrapha, II., 21). The history of Jacob is also connected with Mesopotamia proper (Gen. xxix. 1). The narrator in Gen. xxiv. 10 calls the region Aramnaharaim (cf. R. V. margin), the Nahrina of the Egyptian inscriptions and the Narima of the Amarna Tablets, and in Gen. xxv. 20 it appears as Padan-aram (" plain of Aram," cf. Hos. xii. 12, R. V.). See Aram, Arameans. (A. Jeremias.)
Bibliography: On the geography: C. Chesney, The Expedition of the Survey of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris, vol. i., London, 1850; J. C. F. Hoefer, Chaldee, Assyrie, Medie, Babylonie, Mesopotamie, pp. 151-192, Paris, 1852; W. K. Loftus, Travels and Researches in Chaldea and Susiana, London, 1859; H. Kiepert, Lehrbuch der alten Geographie, Berlin, 1878, Eng. transl., Manual of Ancient Geography, London, 1881. On the history: H. Winckler, in Schrader, KAT, i. 26-32 et passim; F. Vigouroux, La Bible et les decouvertes modernes, vol. iii., 4 vols., Paris, 1881—82; G. Maspero, Hist, ancienne des peuples de I'orient classique, i. 551-564, ib. 1895; L. B. Paton, Early Hist, of Syria and Palestine, New York, 1901.
MESROB (MESROP, MASHTOZ): The inventor of the Armenian alphabet, founder of Armenian literature, and one of the original translators of the Bible into that language; b. at Hazegaz (Hatzik) in the province of Taron, Armenia, c. 350; d. at Valarsabad Feb. 19, 441. He was a son of a certain Wardan, and studied Greek, Persian, and Syriac under the Catholicos Nerses I. the Great (see Armenia, III., § 3), whose secretary he became. After the death of Nerses, he was for seven years a royal secretary under King Vramshapuh, having under his charge matters concerned with the Persian tongue. He then followed his bent for the ascetic life and entered a monastery, but very soon from the Catholicos Sahag (Isaac) the Great, successor of Nerses, he received the commission to preach the Gospel, which he did in various parts of the country. In this work his attention was called to the lack of Armenian Christian literature and indeed of a vehicle for it, since Syriac and Persian were used respectively in the churches and at court. He set himself to supply the need of an Armenian script and provided an alphabet. His important work for Armenia having become known in Georgia and Albania, he was invited thither by Bakur, the ruler of Georgia, and by the Archbishop Moses, and created the Georgian and later the Albanian alphabet, one result of which was the foundation of schools in Albania for the teaching of Christianity under the patronage of King Arswagh and Bishop Jeremiah. Returning then to Armenia, Mesrob assisted Sahag in translating the entire Bible into Armenian (see Bible Versions, A, VI.).
The political and religious persecutions set in motion by the Persian king after the death of Vramshapuh drove Sahag and Mesrob for a time into Grecian Armenia. After the subsidence of thes« disturbances, both returned to their own region and engaged in translating into Armenian Syriae
Messaliane Messiah