An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church/Chapter 3

by William Ainger Wigram

 

CHAPTER III

THE EPISCOPATE OF PAPA

Rapid and strong though the growth of the Church had been elsewhere, there was one conspicuous exception to the rule of progress. The capital city, Seleucia-Ctesiphon, for some reason difficult to explain, was a spot where Christianity did not take root in early centuries. The author of the Acta S. Maris shows that he was aware of this, by his declaration that his hero was so discouraged by the incurably vicious and frivolous character of the inhabitants of the place, that he actually demanded his recall from his superiors at Edessa; a statement that shows the saint as somewhat easily cast down by one check following on a series of magnificent successes, and which is probably more true to historic fact than the said successes.^[1] It is true that he covers up Man's defeat by assigning a whole series of miracles to the saint's later ministry in the neighbourhood; but in spite of this his account gives a general impression of agreement with the express statement of Mshikha-Zca,^[2] that Christianity could not establish itself in any strength at the capital for some considerable time.

As late as 270 Shakhlupa of Arbela, visiting the place, found only "a few Christians" there, worshipping probably in the Church which Mari is represented as establishing in a ruined temple; and he ordained a priest for them, staying for a year in the city. This example was followed, a few years later, by his successor, Akha d'abuh'.^[3] It was probably a vague recollection of indebtedness to these two bishops that led to the inclusion of their names in the lists made by mediæval chroniclers in later days, when it was judged necessary to discover predecessors to Papa, who should fill the gap between him and Mari.

Later historians made Akha d'abuh' the hero of an episode of which writers nearer the time are conspicuously ignorant. Mari Ibn Sulieman, for instance (Bar-Hebræus giving the same story in a shorter form), states that when Jacob, fourth Catholicos, was dying in the year 190, he specially ordered the sending of two of his disciples, Akha d'abuh' and Qam-Ishu, to Antioch, in order that one of them might be consecrated Catholicos by the patriarch there. On arrival, however, the unlucky Qam-Ishu was seized as a Persian spy and crucified; Sliba, Bishop of Antioch, sharing his fate. His companion was smuggled out of the city and sent to Jerusalem for consecration, whence he returned to the East with a letter from all four Western patriarchs declaring that (to avoid a recurrence of such misfortune) the Church of the East should in future elect its own patriarch without reference to Antioch, and that that prelate should take rank with the other four great sees of Christendom. Once elected, he was to be superior to all judgment of his suffragans, or of any human power except the King, when God should grant a Christian King in the East. Even if he should fall into open vice no bishops could pass sentence on him, but "differatur judicium ejus ad adventum Christi Domini nostri."^[4] The story is clearly fictitious, considered as evidence of the origin of the independence of the Eastern patriarchate. The absolute ignorance of it shown not only by the biographer of Akha d'abuh' and the contemporaries of Papa, but also by the bishops assembled in council at the time of Dad-Ishu^[5] (when its production would have been eminently ad rem), are enough to condemn it, even if the anachronisms^[6] of the Liber Turris did not betray a later hand. Of course it is possible that Akha d'abuh' may have had some personal adventures in Antioch, when he visited the place as a Persian soldier; but the whole Qam-Ishu episode belongs to the realm of romance, whither we unhesitatingly but regretfully dismiss it.

So far from Seleucia being recognized at this time as the seat of a patriarch equal in dignity to Rome or Antioch, it had not even a bishop of its own and was dependent on the ministrations of chance visitors. It was in no diocese, but was res nullius; and apparently any bishop available, or who happened to be in the capital on business of his own, performed any episcopal act that the small body of Christians there present required. We have record of such good offices being rendered by visiting prelates from Arbela and Susa—sees each of them at least ten days' journey away—and we may infer that similar visits were paid by bishops known to have been existing in the much nearer province of Garmistan.

Akha d'abuh' paid one of these visits during^[7] his episcopate of eighteen years, but was obliged to stay considerably longer than he had intended, as he seemingly felt bound in honour to remain in what became a post of considerable danger until the excitement produced by an episcopal indiscretion had fairly subsided. The Bishop of Arbela had been accompanied to Seleucia by two colleagues, Shabta of Bait Zabdai and Zca-Ishu of Kharbeth-Gelal. During their stay in the capital the former of these preached an unfortunately vivid sermon, which being reported to the Shah-in-shah by a non-Christian auditor very nearly produced a general persecution.

The worthy bishop, falling into the preacher's error of thinking that every one must take his statements in the sense that he intends, waxed eloquent over the victories—greater than any of those won by the "Great King"—that Christians could gain; and called on his hearers not to envy the Shah-in-Shah, seeing that in days to come he would be burning for ever with Satan while good Christians would be ruling in heaven. The sermon was no doubt stimulating for the congregation, but as reported to the King (probably Bahram III) it had a very different effect. He and his took it (to quote a modern parallel from a land where little changes, except the uniforms of the soldiers) much as Ottoman officials took an unfortunately literal translation of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," while the preacher on his part was as genuinely astonished at the misunderstanding, as were the American translators of the hymn.

It was no doubt startling for the "King of kings" to hear that his subjects were preparing great victories independently of him, and that a fiery furnace was in readiness to consume his own "divine" person! The only interpretation that Suggested itself to him was that of a conspiracy of all Christians. And for a time it seemed more than likely that he would anticipate its outbreak by ordering a massacre of the "conspirators." The King was fairly frightened; and an oriental in such a case is apt to "take precautions" of a grim kind, for nobody can be so utterly merciless as an Easterrt ruler in a panic. The danger could not be considered over for two years, and at the end of that time Akha d'abuh', naturally anxious to return to his own diocese, joined with the Bishop of Susa in giving a responsible head to the Church in the capital.^[8] They chose and consecrated a man named Papa, who thus became the first bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon after the legendary Mari, and began a series of prelates whose representatives to this day continue in the same land.

It was in all probability this position of his, as first bishop after the traditional founder, that made the biographer of Mari assert^[9]—with a gay defiance of possible chronology—that the "Apostle" himself selected and consecrated Papa for Seleucia, and decreed that that see should ever hold the primacy in the Church of the East.

The date of the consecration of Papa was probably about 280.^[10] Accordingly, we can hardly conclude that a picturesque incident related by Mari Ibn Sulieman actually happened in his day, though it is by no means an impossible thing in itself. The writer states that Demetrius, Bishop of Antioch, formed one of the immense horde of captives carried off by Sapor I when he raided Roman Asia in 258–259, after his capture of the Emperor Valerian. The bishop, with the other captives, was settled in Gondisapor; the great city into which Sapor transformed the little village of Bait Lapat in Khuzistan. Here, refusing the office of Catholicos, which the chronicler declares that Papa offered to yield to him, he remained as pastor and bishop of his fellows of the captivity; and in compliment to the rank that he had held in the West, his new see was granted the position of first among the Metropolitans subject to Seleucia.

As Seleucia had no bishop at the time of the raid, and the metropolitical provinces of the East were not organized for 150 years after this date, the tradition must not be taken au pied de la lettre. Antioch, however, was almost depopulated by Sapor,^[11] and thus it is likely enough that the bishop was among the captives; while the presence of many Christians among them, and the fact that they became an important element in the Church of the East, is amply attested by the Acta Sanctorum. Demetrius, however (if the name given in the Liber Turris be correct), must have been comfortably established as bishop in his new see, long before Papa was even consecrated.

One effect of the presence of this "captivity" must, of course, have been a strengthening of the bonds that united the Church of Persia to that of the Roman Empire: and some time after, and within Papa's episcopate (297), another political event repeated the process. After the defeat of Narses by Galerius, the "Cæsar" of the Emperor Diocletian, five "trans-Tigrene" provinces, of which Cordyene, Zabdicene and Arzenene were the chief,^[12] were ceded to Rome by Persia; and the frontier of the empire was thus pushed forward, till it rested on both of the rivers called Khabor. These provinces contained many Christians, and at least two bishops (B. Zabdai and Arzun), who were thus made Roman subjects and brought more or less under the control of the patriarch of Antioch. On the retrocession of these provinces sixty-five years later, the returning bishops brought with them knowledge of such events as the council of Nicæa, of which (startling as the statement is) the Church of Persia seems to have been, in great measure, ignorant.

By the same peace Armenia was recognized as within the Roman "sphere of influence." This fact must have had important effects on the coming national conversion of that kingdom, which was brought about soon after the peace by that same Tiridates, King of Armenia, who had been the comrade of Galerius (afterwards the persecutor) in the war with Persia.

Papa was in many ways a remarkable character. A man of considerable learning both in Persian and Syriac literature, and of some power of statesmanship,^[13] he was able to see that it was time for the unorganized episcopacy that had hitherto been the government of the Church of the East, to give place to an ordered subordination of all the bishops to one archbishop or catholicos; and he apparently bent all his energies to securing the acceptance of this change by his colleagues. Though temporarily defeated, he succeeded in his aim. The catholicate was established. The man who did most to hinder it in Papa's day succeeded unchallenged to the primacy whose establishment he had endeavoured to defeat; and the fact that Papa's work has existed ever since in Papa's Church, shows how thoroughly he gauged the disposition and needs of his people.

If, however, his aims were lofty and statesmanlike, it appears that he lacked tact in executing them. The facts of history show him to have been ambitious, if not personally, at least for his see; probably overbearing and oppressive as a ruler, and certainly of a passionate and hot-tempered disposition.

All the circumstances in his day, in the West as well as in the East, were promoting the growth of metropolitical and patriarchal jurisdictions. Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, were each of them drawing the provinces round them under their sway; and the "customs," growing up thus informally, were to be regularized at Nicæa. A little later, Constantinople was also to show that the bishop of the capital of an empire must inevitably develop into a chief of bishops, if only from his position as the standing host of a stream of episcopal visitors. No historical insignificance in his see, no memories of apostolic preaching or residence in other centres, could prevent their mutual relations becoming those of patriarch and suffragan. Ecclesiastical convenience is apt to be stronger than ecclesiastical tradition.

All the facts that produced patriarchal jurisdiction elsewhere, tended to produce it also in the Church of the East; and another important fact, peculiar to its position, probably did as much as any one cause to elevate the Bishop of Seleucia into a Catholicos.

As bishop of the capital, in touch with the King, and (an even more important thing in the East) with the King's ministers, Papa was almost bound to become chief of those bishops who came to him for assistance in their business. They "had need of him, ad externa," as the chronicler puts it.^[14] The patriarchal jurisdiction, here as at Constantinople, was a frank development, and could never claim apostolic origin or sanction with any seriousness.^[15] If thus one throne acquired supremacy over others, it was simply because that arrangement was found to work best practically.

Further, Christians in Persia were a subject melet in an oriental empire; and such a melet always develops some one head. The ruler is usually willing enough to recognize a division, or several divisions, of his subjects; but he always demands some one responsible melet-bashi through whom he can deal with them, and they with him. The phenomenon is universal in both the Arab and Ottoman Empires. In the Sassanian Sapor II deals with the Bishop of Seleucia as the responsible head of his melet; and Isaac is put by Yezdegerd I in a position exactly parallel to that of the patriarch of any one of the many Christian Churches of today. We have no positive evidence that Papa had any dealings with the kings of his time; but it is at least probable that the influence that did so much to confirm the position of the Catholicos, helped also to establish it.^[16]

Had Papa then held his hand, and allowed circumstances to work for him, it is probable that before the end of his life—especially as that life was destined to be a long one—he would have seen himself Catholicos, in fact if not in name, without friction. This, however, he could not do; on the contrary, he claimed supremacy, apparently in right of his position as bishop of the capital, and by so doing naturally roused odium.^[17] Further, as Catholicos, he claimed to use discipline on certain bishops, who may or may not have deserved it,^[18] and so made them his enemies. He was also accused of oppression and tyranny in his own diocese; and the truth of this charge is rendered probable by the fact that his own clergy, under his Archdeacon Shimun bar Saba'i,^[19] were among the principal opponents both of him and of his policy.^[20] One suspects that there must have been good reason for opposition on their part to a line of action that tended so directly to their own exaltation in the Church. Charges of personal misconduct were also made, but these are simply "common form." One remembers how easily such charges were trumped up against an Athanasius; and in the East they are an ordinary feature of controversy. The opposition soon found episcopal leaders, and the first council in the history of the Church of the East met at Seleucia about 315^[21] to investigate the matter.

The two leaders of the accusers in the council were Aqib-Alaha, Bishop of Karka d'Baith Slok, and Miles, the non-resident Bishop of Susa. Of the former we know little, save that on conversion he showed such zeal that he gave all his father's goods to feed the poor (a socialistic form of charity, of which there is more than one instance in the history of Eastern ascetics, and which always seems to have been regarded as an indubitable act of virtue); and that later he was a zealous and successful evangelist. The career of Miles is sufficiently characteristic to be worth sketching. Born in the land of Raziqai, the modern Teheran, he was apparently a Zoroastrian by birth; but was converted while staying in Khuzistan, and was "led by the Spirit to the ascetic life." He became Bishop of Susa, and there began to show that combination of devotion, zeal, quarrelsomeness and restlessness, which make him so typical a son of his nation.

It did not take him long to quarrel with his diocese—"because they were utterly given to idolatry and Magianism," says his biographer, though one would like to hear their side of the case also. Whatever the cause, he was stoned in the streets, and left the city in a rage, solemnly cursing it as he did so. The biographer is at some pains to tell us how destruction fell on the city, in accordance with the word of the holy man. After this, he went wandering "to countries," much in the fashion that men of his race still do, equipped with the clothes he stood up in and a copy of the Gospels in a satchel. Neither traveller nor beggar ever starves in the East, and Miles arrived safely in Jerusalem; whence, "drawn by the fame of Ammonius,"^[22] he descended to Egypt. Here a hermit, unnamed, received the wanderer; but very soon found, as his flock had done before, that the saint was no comfortable man to live with. In this case the casus belli was a tame snake of huge size that lived with the hermit (who apparently had not warned his guest of the fact), and that came in and disturbed the saint at prayers. Miles promptly destroyed it—miraculously, says his biographer—and when the hermit not unnaturally protested at this treatment of his dumb friend, rebuked him severely for un-Christian conduct in making a pet of a creature between which and mankind Heaven had established enmity. The hermit left his rather difficult guest in sole possession of the cell, and went to seek another. Miles, however, soon abandoned it, and returned to the East by way of Nisibis; where he scented the quarrel with Papa from afar, and hastened to join in the fray. Though he had abandoned his own diocese he had this much of sympathy with it—that he would not see it made subordinate to another see that had once been more or less under its authority.

Feeling ran very high when the council met. Papa absolutely refused to submit to its authority, "exalting himself above the bishops who were assembled to judge him," though it is not clear on what he based this claim to supremacy. Perhaps he simply "would not receive" the council; much as a modern Assyrian often will declare, when angry, "I do not receive X. as my patriarch," and considers himself thereby freed from all obligation or obedience to the man named. Old Syrian writers reveal a state of mind, if not of circumstance, so exactly similar to that of their modern descendants, that one is often tempted to "fill up gaps" from modern knowledge.

Miles called the angry bishop to order. "Is it not written, He that is chief among you, let him be a servant?" "You fool, don't I know that?" replied the Catholicos, "Then be judged by the Gospel, if you will not be judged by man," retorted Miles, and drawing his copy of the Gospel from his satchel he placed it on a cushion in the midst. Papa, who was obviously in a furious rage, struck the book with his hand, exclaiming, "Then speak, Gospel, speak!"^[23] This sacrilege roused the horror of friends and foes alike; but the fury of the old man then overcame him—struck with paralysis or apoplexy, he fell senseless in the council chamber, and we cannot wonder that all present felt that they had seen judgment fall on him from Heaven for his impiety. After such a portent the condemnation of the Catholicos followed as a matter of course. He was deposed from his rank; and his archdeacon, Shimun, consecrated in his room, unwilling though he apparently was to accept the honour. All accusations against Papa were taken as proved, and published as such. The supremacy of Seleucia over the Church of Persia seemed to have been strangled at birth. Papa, however, though defeated, was by no means a broken man. His stroke, whatever its nature, must have passed soon, at least as far as his mental powers were concerned, though apparently he never recovered the use of one arm.^[24] He was resolved to recover his position, and with that object he laid his case before the "Western bishops." An Assyrian's ordinary course in such a case is to appeal to the Government, St. Paul's dictum about going to law with unbelievers being held in scant respect practically among them; and it is to Papa's credit that he refrained from this, and took a course more ecclesiastically correct. Possibly, too, the appeal to secular authority was barred to him, on account of the fact that the family interest of his archdeacon and rival, Shimun, stood very high with the guardian of the boy king, Sapor II.^[25]

The appeal of the Catholicos to the Western bishops was made, not to the Patriarch of Antioch, but to the Bishop of Edessa, S'ada.^[26] Neither then nor at any other time did the Church of the East regard Antioch as its mother or superior. Later tradition asserted, and in this case probably with truth, that the appeal went also to the famous James of Nisibis.^[26] It appears that the matter was put before the nearest Western bishops of eminence. The answer, whoever gave it, was definite enough, at least as quoted in a council held a century later. All the proceedings against Papa were annulled, the accusers were deposed from their orders, and only such members of the council as had acted in "their simplicity" were allowed to retain their rank. Shimun, as having been consecrated against his will, was to remain as archdeacon, "cum jure successionis."

According to another historian, however, the judgment of the Western fathers was not nearly so trenchant, and simply recommended a general reconciliation, on the ground that submission to a patriarch was for the common advantage.^[27] Certainly the decision, even if given as quoted, was not carried out. The only protagonists in the dispute of whom we know anything were not degraded. Miles and Aqib-Alaha retained their rank; and the only reason why the former did not resume his see was that he preferred the work of wandering evangelist to that of diocesan bishop. Shimun was specially marked for promotion as a result of what he had done. The most probable explanation is, that all parties were a little ashamed of themselves and their actions, and were glad of a reconciliation on any, and preferably on indefinite, terms. It is with some regret that we find that the one man who resisted the reconciliation was Shimun. He refused to accept the advice of the Western bishops; was anxious to appeal to the Regent of the kingdom; and was only withheld from doing so by the flat refusal of his father, on whom his political power depended, to stir in the matter.

Ultimately all consented to let the matter drop, without attempting to reach too formal a settlement. Possibly it was expected that tension would soon be eased automatically, by the death of Papa; though, as a matter of fact, he seems to have lived for twelve years after this time. Shimun was reconciled by the prospect of the succession, and what else we know of his story gives us ground for hoping that higher motives also may have influenced him. Practically, the victory rested with Papa, who regained his see, and whose primacy among the bishops came to be accepted as a thing too practically useful to resist. All recognized that it was useless to argue against the law of gravitation, which had decreed that Seleucia should be the primary, round which all the planets of the system must revolve. Papa's ambition, says Mshikha-Zca, worked out to the advantage of the Church.

What remained of his long episcopate was peaceful, and about 327 he died,^[28] having held his office for hard on fifty years—a length sufficient to be remarkable, even if it be less than the seventy or eighty which later historians assigned him. Shimun bar Saba'i took his place peacefully. By the irony of fate the man who had strained every nerve to prevent the establishment of the Catholicate of Seleucia, was destined, by his glorious death, to establish its prestige on an unshakable foundation.

 

1. Acta Maris, ch. viii, § 19.
2. M.-Z., Lives of Shakhlupa and of Akha d'abuh'.
3. This bishop is said (Liber Turris) to have been given his strange name, meaning "brother of his father," from his personal resemblance to that relative. M.-Z. declares, with much greater probability, that it was applied to him from the fact that he was born of one of the incestuous marriages common among Zoroastrians. He was of that faith by birth; and served as a soldier in Sapor's great invasion of Roman territory that followed the capture of Valerian in 258.
4. We incline to date the composition of this document as between the years 424 and 530, i. e. to place it after the Council of Dad-Ishu, seeing that it seems reminiscent of some of the language there used; and previous to the time of Mar Aba, seeing that the arrangements described in it for the election of a patriarch do not agree with those prescribed by that prelate. If this be correct, the document would roughly coincide in date with the separation of the "Nestorian" or "Dyophysite" Church of the Persian Empire from the West; a date in itself not unlikely for its composition. In this case the fact that the tradition is common to both Dyophysites and Monophysites, and so is probably older in date than their separation one from the other, would be explained.
5. Chabot, Synodicon Orientale, pp. 46–49, 289–291.
6. The author rather imprudently gives us some synchronisms, and gets sadly confused therein; making his imaginary Bishop Jacob (172–190) contemporary not only with Cornmodus, but with Ardashir I of Persia (acceded 225), and with Porphyry (born 232). Of course, the existence of four patriarchates in the year 190 is itself unhistorical.
7. M.-Z., Life of Akha d'abuh'.
8. We follow M.-Z. in preference to Bar-Hebræus, who says that Papa was consecrated by the Bishop of Prat d'Maishan or Bassora. That see, however, was in existence at this time. M.-Z., Life of Khiran.
9. Acta S. Maris, § 32.
10. The Episcopate of Akha d'abuh' lasted 273–291 (M.-Z.). There is no evidence where the consecration should be placed, inside those limits.
11. Rawlinson, Seventh Oriental Empire, ch. iv.
12. In Syriac, Qardu, Bait Zabdai, and Arzun. The others are, Bait Rakhimi (Rehimene), and Bait Moksai (Moxœne). See Map. Arzun and B. Moksai still retain their ancient names. Qardu is Jezire, and B. Zabdai Fundik.
13. If we identify Papa, as seems least difficult on the whole, with the oppressive Bishop of Aphraat's Fourteenth Mimra, he was also a man of very fine presence. In any case, a man who held his bishopric for more than three times the ordinary period, must have had some unusual physical qualities.

    Bar-Hebræus calls him learned in Syriac. One must own that we do not know in what Syriac books he could have been learned (except the Diatessaron), at a period when even Aphraat was still unwritten.

14. M.-Z., Life of Shri'a.
15. The life of Mar Mari does make the claim, but it is significant that Seleucia was regarded as the throne of Shimun the Martyr, not of Mari the Apostle.
16. It may be noted that this influence, which always tends to give some one head (whether he be called patriarch or not) to the Church of a subject melet, tends also to make it independent of any extra-national authority. The non-Christian ruler does not like his subjects to carry appeals, even on purely ecclesiastical points, out of his dominions. Hence the favour of the Mussulman or Zoroastrian ruler is always thrown on the side of the native Church, as against that subject to any patriarch or pope outside the kingdom; — provided, of course, that the non-Christian ruler is strong enough to keep the foreigner out of his dominions.
17. M.-Z., Life of Shri'a.
18. Syn. Or., 46, 289.
19. Or Sabbâ'e.
20. Life of Miles, Bedj., ii. 267.
21. The date, hitherto a matter of doubt, is practically settled by M.-Z. (Life of Shri'a). The council met during the episcopate of Shri'a, Bishop of Arbela 291–317. Papa, after the council, appealed to S'ada of Edessa, who was consecrated 313. The period 313–317, therefore, must have seen the assembling of the council.
22. Ammonius must be a slip for Ammon, pupil of Anthony.
23. The above is taken mainly from the Life of Mar Miles (Bedj. ii. 260). This document is marked by a tone much opposed to the Catholicos, but the main incidents, and notably the "Speak, Gospel, speak" episode, which struck the imagination of all parties, are corroborated by other writers, See council of Dad-Ishu, Synodicon Orientale.
24. Life of Miles, Bedj., ii. 264.
25. M.-Z., Life of Shri'a.
26. B.-H. says, also to Ephraim Syrus, but that saint was then about ten years old. The existing correspondence of Papa with these bishops is apocryphal. See Labourt, p. 83, note 2.
27. M.-Z., Life of Shri'a. I incline to think that this more nearly represents what happened. With M. Labourt, I hold that the acts of the Council of Dad-Ishu ought not to be trusted too absolutely, in that they have gone through a process of doctoring themselves; and in any case, the historical statements about Papa are the reported speech of a member of the council only, not its formal declaration.
28. The statement in the Life of Miles, that Papa survived his stroke of paralysis twelve years, has the ring of truth about it, as stated, though Bar-Hebræus has doubts on the matter.