Deliverance from the Cross — Page 131
gathered together and went to Naarda and Nasibus, and obtained security there from the strength of those cities and also their inhabitants who were a great many, and were all warlike men. ² The Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh and fourteenth editions, mention: Nisbis (Nasibina in the Assyrian description), modern Nezib or Nasibin, is an ancient city and fortress in the north of Mesopotamia, near the point where the Mygdonians (modem Jaghjagha) leaves the mountain by a narrow defile. It consists of some 4,000 inhabitants, largely Jews. Cyrus the Great of Persia is greatly revered among the Jews because of his deliverance of the Israelites from their captivity and the restoration of some of them to Judaea. A large number of them, however, settled in Iran and it was, therefore, natural for Jesus to journey through Iran to convey his message to the Jewish settlements in that country. That during the course of his journey castwards, Jesus passed through Herat, a town near the border of Afghanistan with Iran, appears, from a brief account of a community in the environs of Herat who are followers of Jesus, in the book Among the Dervishes, where it is stated: The followers of Isa, son of Maryam - Jesus the son of Mary generally call themselves Moslems and inhabit a number of villages scattered throughout the Western area of Afghanistan whose centre is Herat. I 2 The Works of Flavius Josephus, Whiston's translation with notes by Sir C. W. Wilson, London, 1887. 131