The earliest form of the name of the symbol which we can reach is the Hebrew beth, to which the Phoenician must have been closely akin, as is shown by the Greek Oiira, which is borrowed from it with a vowel affixed.
In the East, Joseph Karo (Qaro) wrote his Beth Yoseph (Venice, 1550), a commentary on the Tur, and his Shulhan `Arukh (Venice, 1564) an halakhic work like the Tur, which is still a standard authority.
By this permutation, Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet, becomes Lamed, the twelfth letter; Beth becomes Mem, and so on.
To the Nestorian movement in Persia he rendered useful service by his letter to Mari of Beth Hardasher, in which he maintained the tenets of Diodore and Theodore, while allowing that Nestorius had erred.
Another early Monophysite was Simeon of Beth Arsham, who by a series of journeys and disputations within the Persian empire did all he could to prevent the triumph of Nestorianism among the Persian Christians.