An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church/Chapter 5

by William Ainger Wigram

 

CHAPTER V

REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH—COUNCIL OF MAR ISAAC (410)

Three great conflicts, or rather a stage in each of three great conflicts, came to an end when Sapor the long-lived died, and one of the lengthiest reigns in history was closed. In Persia the first great attempt of the Magian hierarchy to destroy Christianity by force had been made, and failed.

In the Roman Empire paganism had practically passed away as a religion; and the victory of Christianity over it had been proclaimed by the removal of the altar of Victory from the Senate House at Rome, and the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria. Furthermore, Arianism had been definitely conquered as an official creed. For some time past it had been beaten in the Church; but yet, while it was supported by imperial patronage it had remained formidable—at least in Asia Minor, and the other parts of the Empire which had found their natural centre in Constantinople. Now that support was withdrawn by Theodosius, and the faith passed out of practical importance within Roman territory. The Emperor held a council of the bishops of the Eastern Empire, to solemnly proclaim its burial, so to speak; and this gathering, almost accidentally, took rank as "œcumenical" in later years, though at the moment it passed almost unnoticed. One incident in the course of it, however, has some importance for our main subject, viz., that this council saw the commencement of that rivalry between Alexandria and Constantinople (the throne of the Evangelist, and the upstart city of yesterday) which was to cost three bishops of the capital their lives, and one his see. Now, Gregory Nazianzen, the duly appointed bishop^[1] of the capital, was practically cast out of his diocese by the protest of the Egyptian bishops against the translated "intruder"; and the feud, for it was nothing less, between the two sees was to continue till communion between them had been finally broken off. In the course of it three bishops of Constantinople (Chrysostom, Nestorius and Flavian) were hounded to death by as many patriarchs of Alexandria, assisted by the emperors; and at least one patriarch of Alexandria, Proterius, was murdered in his own cathedral. This quarrel is an important factor in the ecclesiastical history of the next seventy years; for it was destined to have considerable influence in embittering the Christological controversy, and to have a "repercussion," of which the effects are felt to-day, on the history of the Persian Church.^[2]

Politically the question of the day for the Empire was the defence of the State against the barbarians. Theodosius was to effect this during his life; and thanks to his genius, the eastern portion of the empire, though raided from end to end, was destined ultimately to survive the flood before which the western half of it went down. This, however, was not so clear at the moment; and while the Ostro-Goths were riding at will over Asia Minor, and Athens and Antioch were in the act of being plundered by Visi-Goths and Huns respectively, it must have been difficult to believe that so overwhelming an attack was destined to pass away.

In Persia, as is often the case, a series of nonentities followed the death of a great king. Neither Ardashir II, Sapor III, nor Bahram IV made any impression on their contemporaries; and the only important event of the twenty years that covered their three reigns was the practical extinction of the kingdom of Armenia.^[3]

During the Romo-Persian War, Arsaces, the ruler of that country, had endeavoured to keep himself safe by impartially betraying both sides, and then executing his own agents. There was this much of excuse for him—that he, like the dukes of Savoy, was forbidden by his geographical position to indulge in the luxury of a conscience. Naturally, when peace was made, his convenience was consulted by neither party, and Armenia was handed over to the mercies of Persia. Sapor requited treachery with treachery; and having secured the person of Arsaces by a safe-conduct, blinded him, and consigned him to the "Castle of Oblivion," the ominously-named "Loches" of the Sassanid kings.

The Shah-in-Shah then attempted to govern the turbulent province by the appointment of Armenian nobles as Persian satraps, or Marzbans; but the effort failed. This Poland of the East showed itself in the character it has borne ever since—a land that can neither govern itself, nor submit peaceably to the government of any foreigner.^[4] As it is in the twentieth century, so it was in the fourth. A patriotic party existed which united a real care for their country with a good deal of personal ambition, and an absolute lack of scruple in their methods. They intrigued with Rome or Persia, and betrayed each to the other. They invited in a foreign garrison; and then, in panic at their own act, butchered them in a sort of "Sicilian vespers." None of these "patriots" would be loyal to the foreigner; though at any time any of them would betray his fellows and his country to whatever power was the enemy at the moment. But he would act thus, be it understood, to gain neither money nor power (though he would take both, if they came his way as reward), but the gratification of some petty personal spite. Probably, too, all were genuinely convinced that Armenia—civilized and Christian Armenia—was the true salt of the earth; and that these regrettable incidents were purely the result of oppression, and the fault of her oppressors.

Was it wonderful that the two great powers whose peace was endangered by such a neighbour should agree to partition the country; and resolve to govern somehow—however badly—those who were unable to govern themselves? Thus the Armenian kingdom ended, and the Armenian question began. It is a proof of the continuity of history, and the permanence of national characteristics, that this problem, started in the early fifth century, should still remain unsolved. During the persecution, the Christians of Armenia (that is to say, the nation, which Tiridates had brought to confess Christianity en masse by the most drastic of methods) were left undisturbed. Their independence protected them; and while their co-religionists to the south were undergoing their great trial, the Armenians—under their Catholicos Narses^[5]—were peaceably organizing their hierarchy, after the most approved Western model, that of Cæsarea. Of course the Church had its troubles; but these arose either from the royal contempt of Church discipline, as not made for kings; or from the attempt of Narses to force all the ecclesiastical machinery of civilized Cappadocia on semi-barbarous Armenia— a blunder which the rulers of infant Churches have repeated more than once since. Once the Catholicos was exiled, only to return with fresh zeal from the mother-Church to carry out the precepts of St. Basil. The cause of this quarrel was the establishment by the King of a "city of refuge"—an institution in which Arsaces (probably gauging the needs of his people much more accurately than Narses) saw a means of abating the blood-feuds that devastated the country; but which the archbishop called "a licensed Sodom." On his return from banishment, Narses was poisoned by the then King, Para or Bab; and the crime caused a breach With Cæsarea, and the proclamation of Armenian ecclesiastical independence. This policy was no doubt welcome to the Persian King when in 384 he became the avowed suzerain of the bulk of the country; and a few generations later the Christological quarrel was destined—both in Armenia and Persia—to make a temporary breach permanent. Up to the close of the fourth century, however, there was no religious persecution in Armenia; or rather, all persecution had been of pagans by Christians, when the nation was forcibly converted. Massacres, and extensive ones, had taken place when the Persians occupied the country on the deposition of Arsaces; and here the sufferers were Christians, and the inflictors Zoroastrians; but these were acts of war, not of religion. The Church of Armenia, however, was to have her full share of persecution, properly so called, during future centuries.

In Persia, as the long persecution gradually flickered out (and there is evidence that it was not fully over till thirty years after the death of Sapor), it is not wonderful that the Church should be left in a most shattered and disorganized condition. The marvel is, indeed, that life remained in the body at all; and it is doubtful whether a Western Church would have survived such an ordeal. An Eastern melet, however, if it has not the vigorous and energetic (perhaps interfering) vitality of its Western counterpart; and if, like certain animals, it maintains itself by an external armour of custom and inherited habit, rather than by a strong principle of internal life; has this in common also with the crustacean—that it can endure an amount of cutting and slashing that would be fatal to a more highly organized body.

Thus, though crushed and maimed—with probably hardly any bishops remaining, and certainly a very scanty supply of priests—the Church began its reparative process almost as soon as the persecution was stayed. Naturally it is difficult to trace the stages, for the confusion of the time is repeated in the confused and fragmentary statements of the historians.

It appears, however, from the statements of both the later writers who give us an account of this period^[6] that a Catholicos, or, at all events, a bishop of Seleucia, was chosen soon after the death of Sapor; and probably in the time of his son, though not immediate successor, Sapor III. Bar-Hebræus, indeed, declares that permission was given for the election by Sapor II, after the death of Julian had convinced him of the iniquity and folly of persecuting Christians.^[7] As, however, we know from other sources that the event had no such effect, the statement of other writers that it was Sapor III who gave the necessary leave seems much more probable. We know from Persian history^[8] that this King had the reputation of being "a just and merciful man"; and it was also during his reign that the Bishop of Arbela, Shubkha l'Ishu, ventured on what he had feared to do before, and commenced the ordination of clergy for his diocese.^[9]

Of the bishop chosen, whose name was Tamuza,^[10] or Tumarsa, we know little; except that he was assisted in his organizing work by "Bokht-Ishu the martyr"^[11] (of whom nothing else is known), and by Mar Abda.

The name of Bokht-Ishu suggests the continuance of persecution in some cases; and Abda we know as a famous ascetic who founded a monastery in the little Arab state of Khirta or Kufa, whence came more than one Catholicos in later days.

As a rule, however, Tamuza was no great advocate of asceticism. Death and apostasy had so diminished the melet that he urged all young people to marry, and produce children to recoup its numbers.^[12] The advice was sound, under the circumstances; but it shows how thoroughly the "melet conception" was getting into the minds of the people. It was far more natural, in their eyes, that the Church should extend by growth rather than by conversions. The thought was taking root that a man born in the Church naturally belonged to it; but that it was out of the common for folk to join it from outside, or for men to work with the object of winning them.^[13]

In recommending marriage, however, Tamuza had to guard his people against marriages condemned by the Christian conscience, though even applauded by the Magian code. This was one of the standing temptations of all Persian Christians; and their obedience to their stricter law was one of the standing provocations that their existence offered to Zoroastrians, That the incestuous unions of Magianism should be unknown now—thanks to the influence of a faith that borrowed this point of its morality at least from Christianity—is not the least of the triumphs (albeit an indirect one) of the faith.

Tamuza died a natural death—a thing sufficiently unusual among bishops of the period for Bar-Hebræus to note the fact specially—but in spite of this encouraging event it was hard to find any one who, at the time of his departure, would accept the dangerous post. After a considerable interval, one Qaiuma (Cajumas) volunteered for the perilous honour; on the ground that he, being already an old man, had little to lose by a speedy death, and that such service as his age could render was at the disposal of the Church. The date of his consecration is both uncertain and unimportant. For a few years (five, according to Bar-Hebræus) he acted as an avowed stop-gap in the see; and then the accession of Yezdegerd and the commencement of friendly relations with the Christian Empire of Rome offered a prospect of definite peace for the Church, The Catholicos at once offered to lay down an office which he had only accepted when it was dangerous, and whose duties he could not efficiently discharge. A gathering of bishops, however, unanimously refused the resignation; though they appointed as his coadjutor a man named Isaac, of ancient and honourable house, and of kin to the late Catholicos, Tamuza. This man acted as son to Qaiuma during the brief remainder of the old man's honourable life, arid succeeded to his throne at his decease.

Such is the story given to us, with no important variations,^[14] by both the Monophysite and Nestorian writers. Both are certainly late in date, but there seems no solid reason for doubting the substantial truth of that which both affirm.

In 399 Yezdegerd I became King of Persia. Magian historians are hard put to it to find epithets adequate to express their detestation of this prince—"the apostate," "the wicked," the friend of Rome and of Christians, and the persecutor of Magi. As a matter of fact, this much-abused man appears from his acts to have been a strong and able king of peaceful disposition; who refrained from making war on the Roman Empire when it was hardly in a state to resist him, and who was uniformly friendly to the two emperors of his day.

The statement made by Procopius^[15] that Yezdegerd actually acted as guardian of the infant Theodosius II has been naturally questioned; but even its startling character makes it credible when given us by an historian who, when not blinded by prejudice, is usually painstaking and accurate. In his home policy Yezdegerd set himself steadily to oppose the nobles, and specially the Magi whose great corporation was powerful enough to be formidable to the King. Hence he appears to Magian writers as a tyrant; so suspicious of everybody that if ever A. came to him to ask a favour for B., he would at once ask A. what payment he was to receive as his share.^[16]

This philo-Roman and anti-Magian policy naturally led him to show favour to the Christians of his land; though there was probably never any ground for the hope entertained by them that this Shah-in-Shah would declare himself a Christian, and be the Persian Constantine. When Christians threatened to be dangerous, he could repress them as sternly as he disciplined Magi; and while good folk in Constantinople were hoping to hear of his conversion, he was actually issuing a Firman of persecution.^[17]

Still, for all the early part of his reign Yezdegerd was distinctly a pro-Christian king; and was probably much influenced in this direction by a Roman subject who was a welcome guest at his court—the diplomatist-prelate, Marutha of Maipherqat by Amida. When relations between Rome and Persia were friendly, embassies (to quote the contemporary historian) "were always being necessary"; and though the post of ambassador might be trusted only to some high dignitary of the empire sending the embassy, yet it was constantly found convenient, in both countries, to associate with him one or more episcopal assessors, who were no doubt valuable assistants, thanks to the ecclesiastical free-masonry that then prevailed from York to Seleucia-Ctesiphon.

Marutha was one of the men most frequently employed in this fashion. So frequently that one doubts whether, between the claims of embassies and of councils, his diocese had much benefit from his services! Thus, having been present, apparently, at the council of Constantinople in 381,^[18] he makes his first appearance in Assyrian Church history at the somewhat informal council that elected Isaac to the Catholicate—the decision reached being much affected by his advice.^[19] Next (perhaps two years later) he is at Constantinople once more; and not, it must be owned, in the best of company, as he was a member of the too notorious synod of the Oak that condemned St. Chrysostom.^[20] Five years elapsed, and the great opportunity of his life presented itself to the diplomatist bishop, who seems to have added the art of a physician to his other accomplishments. In 408 or 409 he was again dispatched (and this time apparently in all three of his capacities, as diplomatist, bishop and doctor) to the Persian court; and during a lengthy sojourn there he rendered to his Eastern brethren the greatest service that a "Western" bishop ever performed for them. He accomplished his work as diplomatist and doctor to the satisfaction of his employers; and displayed his versatile character in a new light, as a Church historian, or at least as a collector of material for Church history.

The diplomatic side of Marutha's work was soon accomplished, if, as is the most probable suggestion, the embassy had nothing more serious to do than to formally announce the accession of Theodosius II to his brother and guardian. Medically, he cured the King (by his prayers, says Socrates) of severe attacks of headache, which the Persian doctors had been unable to alleviate. According to one account,^[21] the presence of a doctor in the embassy had been specially requested; the Persians declaring with regret that there were no physicians like the Christians, and that all the best of them had been killed or driven away during the persecution. Grateful for his cure, the King showed such honour to Marutha that Magians oegan to fear the conversion of one who was no strict Zoroastrian, and took measures to prevent it. When Yezdegerd was at one of the usual services in one of the fire-temples of the capital, a voice was suddenly heard proclaiming from the midst of the sacred fire, "Turn out that apostate." All applied the words to Yezdegerd, who seems to have been genuinely frightened for the moment, and to have hurried from the temple. Marutha (who, of course, was not in the building) reassured him, and advised him to make close search for evidence of fraud; which he did, and was rewarded by finding a place where a man could stand concealed and utter "supernatural" messages. Severe punishment for the Magi followed, of course (though neither this nor the remembrance of ignominious failure prevented the repetition of the trick, with like result, on another occasion); and Marutha was emboldened to ask and obtain from the Shah-in-Shah the two great favours that he had been charged, if possible, to procure. These were, first, a firman of toleration for Christians; and second, the leave to assemble a council for the regulation of Church affairs.

There was no difficulty about the firman, which was issued some time in the year 409.^[22] Permission was formally given to the Christians to worship openly, and to rebuild their churches. Confessors who were still in prison were set at liberty, and bishops were given free leave to travel in their dioceses. This decree was practically the Edict of Milan for the Assyrian Church. It was the formal recognition of the Christians as being in law what they had hitherto been in fact, viz. a melet with the right to exist and worship in the Persian Empire. Of course this toleration was something very far removed from liberty or equality, as we understand the words. First, the decree was Valid only durante beneplacito—till it was the pleasure of the Shah-in-Shah to withdraw it; and next, while in existence, the toleration that It gave was limited. A Christian might exist, but not proselytize. Apostasy from Magianism was as much a capital offence as ever; and the leave to rebuild old churches did not (and does not) imply the right to build new ones. Still the grant was a long step forward for the Church; and the simultaneous recognition of the right to organize and make laws for itself gave to it all that was necessary for its future growth.

Incidentally, we note the right given to "the chiefs" (i. e. the bishops) to travel and itinerate in their dioceses without being disturbed. Of course this is necessary for a bishop anywhere, and it is doubly necessary in the East; yet where the clear right to act thus is not recognized the proceeding rouses the suspicions of every oriental official, who is accustomed to the belief that those who are doing nothing are doing right, and that inexplicable activity is either insane or treasonable. "What is the man really after that he goes round among the rayats in that fashion?" is the question that is always asked; so that the right to visit his diocese undisturbed by officials must have been an immense relief to any zealous Assyrian bishop.

Further (though this is assumed rather than expressed in formal documents), the Shah-in-Shah now fully accepted Isaac, Bishop of Seleucia, as head of the melet, and Catholicos of the Church in his dominions. Again, this was only the recognition of what was the fact previously, though hardly for long enough to make it established custom. Facts had created the presidency of the see; and though circumstances had put it, and everything else that was regular, in abeyance for about seventy years, nevertheless, as soon as peace was restored, and the existence of the Church recognized by the State, it was natural that the existence and position of its chief officer should be recognized also. The Catholicate, thus established, has remained an established fact ever since; and the right of the throne of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, or its successor,^[23] to the presidency of the Assyrian Church has never been challenged. There have, of course, been disputes over the succession, which has been claimed by two rival lines since the seventeenth century; and there have been occasional vacancies; but the right of this throne to the Catholicate has been axiomatic.

The title, henceforth used habitually and regularly^[24] by the Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and still employed by his successors (though in the course of the next half-century they began to use the term Patriarch along with it, and still continue to do so), needs a word of explanation. In the Roman Empire it was the name of a civil and financial office; but previously to its use as an ecclesiastical title in Persia it had been adopted by the Armenians as the title of the principal bishop of their national Church. It was probably from them that the Bishops of Seleucia adopted the word, and they used it in the same sense.^[25]

The office, as we have seen, was a natural growth from the conditions of Christian life in Persia. In later ages men felt obliged to account for the origin of the Patriarchate, as it has by that time become,^[26] by the fiction of a grant made in the year 190 by the four "Western" patriarchates to an "Eastern" brother;^[27] and other writers, referring back to primitive times the growths of the fourth and fifth centuries, have seen in the "Catholicos" of Seleucia the Procurator-general or legatus natus of the see of Antioch.

There is, however, so far as I am aware, no evidence in writers of the Assyrian or Persian Church that they ever regarded themselves as under Antiochene jurisdiction; or their chief as in any sense the delegate of that patriarch.^[28] It is extremely improbable that any Persian king would ever have tolerated the subjection of "his rayats" to "the Roman Emperor's patriarch"; or that members of a Church liable enough to persecution in any case would have thus gone out of their way to secure a perpetuity of it! The "Patriarchates" of Seleucia and Antioch are parallel growths, and neither of them is an offshoot of the other. Just about the time that the "custom" referred to at Nicæa was bringing the sees round Antioch, Alexandria and Rome into formal dependence on those bishoprics, circumstances were bringing the sees of Persia into like dependence on the bishopric of their capital. Kings and councils recognized the facts, but did not create them.^[29]

Toleration and the State recognition of the Catholicos, however, were not all that was needed. Forty years of persecution, and thirty of no-government, had naturally left a legacy of confusion behind them; and a council was necessary, both to straighten out this tangle, and to link up the Church "of the East" once more with her Western sisters. Further, the decision of some indisputable authority was needful to settle various disputes that had arisen.

Some sees had two, some three bishops contending for them; and there were other quarrels current. For instance, there was in existence a party of personal opponents of Isaac, the members of which were filing accusations against him before the King.^[30] No doubt these accusations collapsed as soon as the royal favour towards Isaac was shown beyond possibility of error, and no opportunity for their revival ever occurred. This, however, did not necessarily mean that they were dead in the minds of their promoters until Isaac was dead too. It is one of the special beauties of oriental intrigue that any accusation may be dropped automatically when its object is in favour; and, after remaining dormant for half a lifetime, spring to full life again if he lose power.

Marutha, in expectation of the permission which Yezdegerd granted readily enough, had brought letters from "the Western bishops" (or those whom Assyrians called Westerns^[31]), both for the hypothetical council and for the Catholicos, recommending the action that they judged advisable. There was also a covering letter to the Shah-in-Shah, to whom Marutha discreetly showed all the documents before the council met.

The "Western" bishops thus writing were Porphyrius, "Catholicos" of Antioch, and Acacius of Berœa; both of them friends of Theophilus, and bitter foes of John Chrysostom, then quite recently dead. One of them, it must be owned, was to play a worthier part in his old age, as the peacemaker between John of Antioch and Cyril of Alexandria. Joined with them was another, Acacius of Amida, later the saintly ransomer of Persian captives, and ambassador to the Church of Assyria on a second occasion; and the Bishops of Edessa and Tella. Thus all the greater sees of the Antiochene province were represented. It is noteworthy that there is no evidence in the acts of the council of the slightest claim made by Antioch to jurisdiction in Persia. A "Catholicos," with some brother bishops, writes to a brother "Catholicos," making recommendations which the independent national Church accepts and adopts.

The recommendations were simple enough;^[32] namely, (a) That in future only one bishop should be allowed in each see, and that care should be taken to have at least three consecrators. (b) That in future all should celebrate the feast of Easter, and the feast of Christmas and Epiphany (still regarded as one solemnity), on the same days; and should observe the fast of forty days^[33] and Good Friday, (c) That if a council were possible, that council should solemnly declare its adherence to the decrees of Nicæa.

Yezdegerd, in giving permission for the council, gave licence also to use the royal posts for its assembly; and forty bishops were thus summoned, from Nisibis in the north to Fars by the Persian Gulf in the south, "to put a stop to all quarrels, schisms and divisions, and to establish proper canons for the regulation of the Catholic Church."

On the feast of Epiphany, 410, the council met at Seleucia; and after a brief formal sitting under the presidency of Isaac and Marutha, adjourned for nearly a month—an interval spent probably in discussions, and in the drawing up informally of the canons which were to be passed at a later session. On February 1 the second session opened. The letter of the "Westerns" was read and approved; the Nicene canons, including, of course, the creed, were read, adopted and signed by the council; and either then or at the next session the twenty-one canons of the council formally passed unanimously. A second adjournment followed, during which Isaac and Marutha had an audience of Yezdegerd, probably submitting the canons for his approval, as a preliminary to their publication; and finally, two royal commissioners of high rank the (Grand Vizier and the Commander-in-chief) summoned the synod to their presence, republished the Firman of Toleration, declared that Isaac had been established by the King as "Chief of all the Christians of the East," and that the joint decisions of the Catholicos and Marutha were to be final in all existing disputes and would be enforced by royal authority.

Thus, at this council the Church was put formally and finally into the position of a recognized melet in the Persian kingdom. It was subject to its own ruler (who was also its religious head), whose appointment must be at the least approved by the State. It could make its own laws in its own way, subject to State approval; and disobedience to them could be punished by State authority, if the moral and temporal power of the Catholicos failed. And it could own its own buildings, endowments and institutions. Any man could leave the melet by either abandoning his Christianity, or (in later times, when melets multiplied) by leaving his original Church for some other; but while he remained in it he must obey its rules.

This precedent set by Yezdegerd has been followed so often, through so many centuries, by so many varying non-Christian rulers, and towards so many varieties of Christianity, that the first setting of it forms a really noteworthy point in oriental history. This system is essentially the one under which all Christians in "the Empire of the East" (whether the rulers of that empire are Persian, Saracen, Mongol, Seljuk, or Ottoman) have lived since, and still live to-day; and if survival can prove fitness, this fact would seem to show that it is, on the whole, well adapted for them.

Of course it has disadvantages. The appointment of all high officers of the Church by a non-Christian Government tends, in oriental circumstances, to bribery and intrigue; just as free election (supposing, per impossibile, that an oriental ruler would allow it) produces equally inevitably quarrels and schisms. Further, it tends, on the whole, to keep the strong and saintly characters out of the episcopate, and in obscurity. As things go in the East, it is the supple intriguer rather than the straightforward man who will get such prizes as are open to the rayat; and there is, further, a natural tendency to select as bishops such men as will be "safe," and give the Government no trouble. Hence, great men are rare among Eastern bishops; and respectable nonentities and followers of routine are the rule under good rulers, and self-seeking courtiers under evil. Thus it comes, too, that when reform is needed, and a feeling in favour of it is in the air, the standing obstacle in the way is apt to be the hierarchy. It is not often that sheer force of lofty character can prevail and win high office in the Church under a Government that does not care for loftiness of character, and dreads strong men anywhere.

At first, no doubt, the fact that the secular Government was ready to support the head of the melet made for strong discipline in the Church. But melets tend to multiply; a Government that distrusts its Christian subjects is always ready to encourage them to divide, and will readily recognize a new division among them; while their ingrained quarrelsomeness always leads them to take advantage of this. Under such circumstances discipline can hardly be pressed. A bishop may threaten a rich evil-doer with excommunication; but will be met by the threat, "If you dare, I register myself as Jacobite or Romanist. They will receive me readily enough, and it will be bad for any man in my village who does not follow me."

The melet system guarantees the existence of, and gives some freedom to, the Church of a subject population; but it also puts a premium on that spirit of quarrel and intrigue which is the bane of Eastern Christianity.

The canons passed by the council numbered twenty-one; and are in effect an adaptation of certain Nicene rules to the circumstances of the Church, together with other rules of their own devising for its organization. It is a strong proof of the spirit of independence in the Assyrians that at this moment—when they owed so much to the West—they should have dealt thus boldly with the canons even of Nicæa. The creed, of course, they accepted; but all other rules they seem to have felt themselves free to accept, alter or neglect, according to their own judgment as an autocephalous Church.

The creed that was put before them was the original Nicene,^[34] including the anathemas. But Assyrians of to-day do not use it in the precise conciliar form, any more than Westerns do; and in each case the story of the growth of the form used from the form sanctioned is an extremely difficult one to trace. Of the two crucial technical terms in the creed, ὁμοουσίος is rendered by ܒܪ ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‎;^[35] a different and (to the writer's thinking) much better rendering of the Greek than the ܒܪ ܟܝܢܐ‎^[36] which is in use to-day. ὑποστασις in the third anathema is rendered by ܩܢܘܡܐ‎^[37], a fact which was important in future doctrinal controversy. The Greek term, as is obvious, is here equivalent to οὐσία or the Syriac ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‎;^[38] and ܩܢܘܡܐ‎^[39] has therefore the same force. Unfortunately, under the influence of the Cappadocian fathers, ὑποστάσις was already being used in the West in the different (and very artificial) sense of Person; so that the Assyrian Church—just when effort was being made to link their thought to the West—adopted an important technical term in a sense which the Westerns were just then abandoning. This was to be fruitful of misunderstanding, and a principal cause of separation.

In the remaining canons the tone is that of the substitution of law for tolerated indiscipline; and the large majority of them concern themselves with the position and duties of the various ranks of the hierarchy, from the Catholicos and his metropolitans to the sub-deacon. Certain things are for bidden that would naturally be the custom in times of peril, such as celebration of the Eucharist in private houses, and consecration of bishops by one bishop only. We also find that which occurs in every oriental council—and was apparently equally ineffective in every one—viz., the stern prohibition of the practice of magic and the use of charms. No canons, in East or West, have prevailed against the fascination of that forbidden fruit.

Other canons (XX and XXI) regulate the position and precedence of the five metropolitans, Bait Lapat, Nisibis, Prat d'Maishan, Karka d'Bait Sluk and Arbela, which owed obedience to the Catholicos. Their provinces are duly assigned to them, and the number of suffragans under each clearly laid down.^[40] A special canon (XVIII) secured to each bishop the right of appeal to the Catholicos, without whose confirmation no episcopal consecration was valid. Definite rules (Canons I and XX) were laid down for the election of bishops; but not for the choice of a Catholicos, though provision was made for government during a vacancy. Later, rules were made on the point; but, as a matter of fact, he was usually nominated by the Shah-in-Shah.

Broadly (Canons I, VI, XVIII), the council recognizes in, or confers on, the holder of the see of Seleucia a power over his suffragans that is singularly extensive and defined. He has a practical veto on their appointment; appeal from all their acts lies to him; and they are to report themselves to him personally twice a year. It may be doubted whether any patriarch in the Roman Empire (except possibly the Patriarch of Alexandria) had so unquestioned, and so clearly defined, a sway over his diocese as the "Catholicos of the East." It is not surprising that the holder of it should soon have begun to use the term "patriarch" (though not dropping the title Catholicos), before the Christological controversy had separated him from the West, and long before it was the habitual and peculiar title of five special sees in the empire. This centralizing tendency is the fruit, as we have seen, of melet life, and is fostered, no doubt, by the natural Eastern attraction towards an autocracy; but it should also be noted that a force which retarded similar development in Asia Minor was absent in Persia. In the empire, if there was no provincial self-government, there was considerable municipal independence; and the tendency of the oriental to submit to authority—and of the greater sees to exalt themselves over the lesser—was counterbalanced, in a measure, by the fact that the bishop was a principal citizen of his own town as well as a subject of the Emperor, and a suffragan of Antioch or Constantinople.

One other tendency we see in the fathers of Seleucia which might well have spelt disaster for the Church had their circumstances allowed them to give way to it. This was the desire to rely on the State, the secular arm, even when that arm was non-Christian. The King decrees the supremacy of the Catholicos, the King will enforce the decrees of the council, and so on. Centuries of obstinate hostility, to their creed and to themselves, on the part of several successive rulers have not eradicated this feeling from any branch of Eastern Christianity. The fact that their rulers have never been Christian has saved them, at a terrible cost to themselves, from becoming a mere State Church of Byzantine pattern; but the fact remains that every variety of Christian Church in the Ottoman Empire (which is in this, as in much else, the heir of the Sassanid) is State established and State controlled, and that its officers, up to the date of writing, are partially State paid. It was, of course, out of policy (and admirable policy too, from their point of view) that Mahommedan rulers allowed this to continue; but the proceeding absolutely coincided with popular feeling, and it will be long before the theory that connection between Church and State is necessarily iniquitous finds acceptance in the East.

 

1. He had been appointed by the council, and the act of an œcumenical council can hardly be irregular!
2. It is not meant, of course, that this rivalry between two great sees was the only, or primary, cause of their quarrels; only that it was a factor in it, and one that ought not to be forgotten. No doubt Timothy, Theophilus and Dioscuros were no less convinced than was Cyril that their zeal in the conflict was purely zeal for God and Truth.
3. See Rawlinson, Seventh Oriental Empire, ch. xi.–xii.; Lynch, Armenia, i. pp. 277–315.
4. Let us in fairness admit, however, that as yet no foreigner has even attempted to govern the country respectably!
5. Or Norseses.
6. Bar-Hebræus and Amr, in the Liber Turris. See also Elia of Nisibis (Ass.)
7. B.-H., p. 42 note, and additional note, p. 81.
8. Tabari, p. 71, Ed. Noldeke.
9. M.-Z., Life of Shubkha l'Ishu.
10. The name is that of the planet Mars, according to both B.-H. and modern Assyrians. The connection between the planet, the month July–August (Tamuz), and the Babylonian sun-god, is outside our present field.
11. A. and S., Liber Turris.
12. B.-H., p. 42. It is quite possible that the historian may have mistakenly attributed the thought of his own age to an earlier one. Still the conception referred to is certainly one of the innate stock ideas of the oriental Christian to-day.
13. B.H., p. 42.
14. B.-H. declares that the synod, by advice of Marutha (who may or may not have been present at it) accepted the resignation, and that Qaiuma retired to a hermit's cell. Both agree that he practically withdrew from office.
15. De Bello Persico, i. 2. There may have been no formal act. Perhaps Arcadius only commended his successor to the care of his "brother," and received such a reply as "he shall be to me as my own son."
16. Yezdegerd knew his countrymen! One might not ask, but would always suspect some such bargain to be behind any such request.
17. Socr., vii. 8. No doubt the historian repeats what was common talk in Church circles in Constantinople; and which he, a lad of twelve at the time, might remember.
18. Amr, Assem., iii. 363. The Assyrian "Sunhadus" declares he was present at Nicæa also; but this is a manifest blunder, due to his having brought the canons of Nicæa to Seleucia in 410.
19. So says Amr. His whole account, however, is too confused to be much relied on. For instance, he declares that Marutha after this gathering, reported the devotion and orthodoxy of the Assyrian Church to the Council of Constantinople.
20. Socr., vi. 15. The only definite act recorded as his, however, is that he trod so emphatically on the (presumably gouty) toe of Cyrinus of Chalcedon, as to incapacitate that determined enemy of St. Chrysostom from attendance at the council.
21. Amr, Liber Turris. A few centuries later Eastern Christians had certainly a practical monopoly of medical practice under the Khalifate; and to this day, Mahommedan doctors are few in number and primitive in practice.

    There does not seem any reason to doubt the story that Marutha was a doctor; and, if it be admitted, this prelate may fairly be claimed as the first historic instance of the medical missionary.

22. For the rest of this chapter, see Synodicon Orientale: Council of Isaac.
23. The seat of the holder of the office has changed repeatedly in the course of ages, from Seleucia-Ctesiphon to Baghdad, Mosul, Maragha on Lake Urmi, and, for the last century or so, to Qudshanis in Kurdistan.
24. The word is used in the acts of Shimun and his two successors (Bedj., ii. 134, 276, 296). Previously, there was hardly opportunity for official use.
25. See Dict. Christian Antiquities, and Procopius De Bello Persico, ii. 25. It is noteworthy that Assyrian writers also use the term for the prelate whom we should certainly call "Patriarch" of Antioch. Chabot, Syn. Or., 18, 255. An expert in hierarchical precedence may say what the difference between Catholicos and patriarch ought to be, but to a Persian in the early fifth century, they were practically interchangeable terms.
26. See Ass., iii. 59, note 4. It will be seen that the theory first broached by Assemani, and accepted by others (E. G. Neale, but not by Labourt), that Seleucia was a metropolitan in the Antiochene patriarchate till the Nestorian controversy, is rendered untenable by the evidence of the Synodicon and Mshikha-Zca.
27. Assem., iii. 51-58. The so-called "letter of the patriarchs" is a very late composition. See p. 41.
28. It will be remembered that Papa, when condemned by the council, did not appeal to Antioch, but to Edessa and Nisibis.
29. The maxim of a later age, "imperium sine Patriarcha non staret," may not commend itself to the purist, but it represents one of those facts that are apt to deal rather discourteously with a purist's theories. Nationality is bound to express itself in the religious sphere; and the lesson is writ large on Church history, that the refusal of its legitimate expression to this natural human instinct leads to disaster. From the days of Jacobites and Nestorians in Syria, to those of Vlachs and Exarchists in the Balkans today, the story has been the same.
30. Chabot, Synodicon Orientale, 49, 293.
31. Anything west of Constantinople was as thoroughly beyond the purview of Assyrians as they were beyond the purview of writers in Italy, Gaul or Africa.
32. Syn. Or., 20, 258.
33. "Forty days in seven weeks," showing that Lent was kept originally according to the modern Western rule. Modern Assyrians keep a Lent of fifty days, and include Sundays in it.
34. As Marutha was at Constantinople; this fact is noteworthy.
35. Bar Ithutha.
36. Bar Kiana.
37. Qnuma
38. Ithutha.
39. Qnuma.
40. The council had to determine whether Bait Lapat or Karka d'Lidan (Susa), (both of which were royal residences), should be metropolitan; and decided in favour of the former. Further, it had to say which of four, or more, claimants to these two sees was in the right. For the time all the soi-disant bishops were suspended; but as one of them, Agapitus of B. Lapat, appears fourteen years later as a warm supporter of Seleucian supremacy, it would seem that a modus vivendi was reached. The condemnation of a bishop of the Bahrein Islands in the Persian Gulf shows how far the Church had extended (p. 273, 34).

 

Note on the Catholici, Tamuza and Qaiuma.

Mons. Labourt (Christianisme dans la Perse, p. 86) doubts the existence of both these Catholici, on the double ground that (a) Elia of Damascus, whose list of the Catholici is older than any other, places both before, not after, Papa (Ass., ii. 391); and that (b) the Council of Dad-Ishu—or to be accurate, a speaker in it—speaks of a vacancy of twenty-two years before Isaac's election. The list given by Elia, however, is purely traditional, and very incorrect in other ways. The speaker in the council (Agapetus of B. Lapat, Chabot, Synod. Or., 48, 292) certainly uses language suggesting that the vacancy of twenty-two years in the Catholicate (which admittedly came somewhere) was immediately before Isaac's election; but it also could mean that such vacancy was simply "before Isaac."

If however there was no holder of the office after the death of Bar b'ash-min till Yezdegerd gave leave for an election, the vacancy was not for twenty-two but for fortyseven years at least; and this does not agree with other information. Hence the explanation that gives least difficulty is, that Tamuza and Qaiuma were real characters, and Bishops of Seleucia during the period 380–408. It is quite probable, as Labourt suggests, that the authority of neither was recognized outside the limits of Seleucia. The Catholicate had no length of custom behind it, to give it weight; and it would be quite natural that the holder of it should be disregarded, till the firman of Yezdegerd put his position beyond challenge. To this day a patriarch may be duly elected and consecrated; he may be the lawful nephew of his predecessor, duly marked out from childhood for the post, and nominated by that predecessor before his death; but yet, lacking the firman of the Sultan, he is only half a patriarch in the eyes of half his people, and there is no getting over the fact.

You may prove to the full that he has every title—from the most admirably regular to the most scandalously uncanonical—for his office; but till he has the firman, much is lacking. It is a prejudice only, of course, and therefore argument fails. To argue away a European prejudice is not easy. But for a European to argue away the oriental variety is hopeless.

Similarly, when the firman has been granted, and in virtue of it the patriarch has been duly installed, loyal obedience will usually be rendered to him. A Western may kick at an order, but show him that obedience is for the general good, and he will often give up his own ideas. To the oriental, to give up your own ideas for the general good is impossible; but it is wonderful how often loyal obedience will be rendered to "a good large order."