An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church/Chapter 6

by William Ainger Wigram

 

CHAPTER VI

THE COUNCILS OF YAHB-ALAHA AND DAD-ISHU

 

I. The Council of Yahb-Alaha

The Council of Seleucia dispersed. Marutha returned home from what was, as it turned out, his last visit to the East, laden with the relics and histories of martyrs, his work well and thoroughly done. The Church of the East settled in its new security to a period of quiet and rapid growth.

As is usual in Church history, periods of peace and spiritual work have no history; and it is only from the names in the episcopal lists of the two councils, held during the next fifteen years, that we can see how rapid that growth was. Forty bishoprics are enumerated as existing in 410, at Isaac's Council, and that gathering was at all events intended to be complete. But in the next two councils no fewer than twenty-six additional sees are mentioned, which do not appear in the former list. It is possible, of course, that some of those existed before Yezdegerd issued his firman, and were vacant then; but most are probably evidence of increase.

And this increase, so rapid and so sure (for most of the sees named are known to have been still existing centuries later), took place either in lands where Christian missions do not exist to-day, or where they find their work least promising and most difficult. Bishops sign for the sees of Segestan, Teheran, Ispahan, Herat, Khorassan. What would we give to have native, self-supporting bishoprics in those centres to-day? Merv, which is also in the list, has now probably a bishop once more—an official of the conquering Russian Government, brought and maintained by their bayonets; but his fifth-century predecessor came there by the power of the living extension of the Church, and he speedily developed into a metropolitan, with other bishops under him. Christianity could certainly be so proclaimed as to suit the oriental, when taught by easterns to their brethren; and when a religion, intrinsically eastern, was presented without the western externals which a western is apt to identify with its essence.

Yet if this oriental Christianity, oriental taught, could spread itself and flourish in these lands once, it has passed from them now; and with the exception of some scattered colonies of Armenians, may be said to have passed from them completely. How is it that it failed? How is it that another and a lower faith has expelled it? The question is a serious one for a writer who believes fully in the gospel of the Word made Flesh, and who holds that it, and it alone, can fully answer the cravings of the human heart. It is easy to say that this wonderful extension was "founded on Nestorius, and not on Christ," and therefore had no strength. But—putting aside the point that much of the growth took place before Nestorius was heard of—the explanation that a form of Christianity that has failed must have been heretical does not seem to cover the facts. Admitting for argument's sake (we must deal with the point more at length in a later chapter) that the Church of the Assyrians did teach what we mean by "Nestorianism," the fact remains that it is not the only great Church that has gone down before Islam, and that others have shared its fate to which the explanation given above will not apply. The Church of Africa was orthodox—and has perished; and the fall of the Nestorians has been only a little more complete than that of the unimpeachably correct Greeks of Asia Minor. It is a difficulty. If we could say what made the tree wither, we might also be able to say what would restore strength and vigour for fresh growth to its still living roots.

In the list of new sees there are three names of bishops which have some peculiar interest. First, "Adraq, bishop of the tents of the Kurds."^[1] A nomad bishop, with a nomad flock, strikes us as unusual; and the fact shows that instinctive and natural adaptation to the habits of those to whom he ministered which was part of the strength of the oriental teacher. Perhaps with us a bishop of a new country, whose palace and cathedral are contained within the limits of one railway carriage, or one ox-wagon, is not a wholly unthinkable phenomenon.

Traces of this early spread of Christianity among the Kurds—those turbulent nomads and semi-nomads who are the bane of modern Assyrian Christians—exist to-day. It is probable that some at least of the Christians of Hakkiari are of Kurdish blood, though they themselves would strenuously deny it: and some tribes of Mussalman Kurds have clear recollection of the fact that their fathers were Christian; and retain a desire to return, if it be possible, to that unforgotten faith.^[2]

The two other names that we may notice are, "Domit" (or Domitius), "Bishop of the Captivity of Gurgan," and "Hatit" (Ætius?), "Bishop of the Captivity of Belashpar,"^[3]—names that betray at once the Roman origin of their bearers. The existence of these "Roman captivities" is well known, and captives are frequently referred to in the Acta Sanctorum.^[4] Thus, it was "Roman captives " who collected the bodies of Mar Shimun and his companions; and Pusai the martyr was "the son of a captive"; while another famous martyr, Bar-shbia, would seem by his name to have been so also.

When captivities were carried off en masse from the Christian empire, as sometimes happened, their bishops were taken with them. This we see from the history of the captives of B. Zabdai,^[5] even if the story of Demetrius of B. Lapat be purely legendary.

Earlier kings like Sapor I made a special point of securing artisans and craftsmen, as the most valuable plunder in their colossal raids, and it was precisely among these classes that Christianity spread most rapidly. Indeed, this ancient habit of the Sassanids was one of the causes of the spread of the Church in "the East"; and in the times of their later kings, a cause of the extension of Monophysitism within its bounds. We have no means of telling which of the numerous captivities are referred to here; but there is no impossibility in the supposition that they date back to Sapor I, one hundred and eighty years previously. A captivity—even when settled in its new home—will retain its identity for centuries, particularly if its religion be also of a distinctive character. The Jews of Babylon are, of course, an instance of this, but other proofs can be given from much more modern times. The present Jewish colony in Mosul declare that they have been there since the days of Nebuchadnezzar, if not from the time of Sargon; and Julfa, a suburb of Ispahan, is populated still by the descendants of an Armenian captivity, brought from Erivan and Julfa on the river Aras in the time of our Queen Elizabeth. There is nothing impossible, then, in Roman captivities having a distinct existence in Persia.^[6]

Early in this period of quiet Isaac the Catholicos passed away. The exact date of his death is not known; but it is clear that Yahb-Alaha^[7] was elected Catholicos in 415–416, and at least a year or two must be allowed for the tenure of the see by Akha, immediate successor of Isaac. We shall probably, therefore, not be far from the truth if we place the death of Isaac in the year 412.

Akha succeeded him. This man had been the pupil of the hermit Abda, whose life he wrote; and one of the helpers of Marutha, in his collection of the Acts of the Martyrs.^[8] It was perhaps this circumstance that brought him to the notice of Yezdegerd, with whom he was a favourite, and from whom he received as Catholicos,^[9] amplissimam potestatem gregem regendi, an endowment that no doubt saved trouble for the time, but was of evil omen for the future. A strict ascetic in his habits—for his food consisted of nothing but dry bread and olives—he was respected by that section of growing importance in the Church, the monastic party. His pontificate, however, was brief, and certainly did not include more than the three years that the mediæval chronicler assigns to him.

Yahb-Alaha (whose not very euphonious name is the equivalent of Theodore) succeeded him. He had been the fellow pupil of Akha under Abda, and was, like him, a rigorous ascetic. Later tradition assigned to him the miraculous curing of a son of the Shah-in-Shah.^[10] Yezdegerd, who still continued friendly with Rome, sent him on an embassy to Theodosius II shortly after his consecration, and from this he returned with splendid gifts for the adornment of his cathedral and private tent-chapel. On returning, however, he also found a somewhat disturbed Church awaiting him, and a situation that threatened that the religious peace established by Marutha would not continue for long. That Zoroastrians generally, and Magians more particularly, should be disturbed and angry at the rapid spread of Christianity—"particularly among the nobles and freemen (azatan)"^[11]—was natural, but ominous; however, the internal troubles of the Church were far more dangerous in reality. Unworthy men who had powerful Zoroastrian friends were making use of their influence, both to avoid discipline and to win promotion, even to the Episcopate; and dangerous quarrels and schisms were resulting.^[12]

This use of pagan patronage to gain Church power was at once a scandal and a problem, and one very likely to arise under melet conditions of life. The interference of a non-Christian noblenjan in the election of a bishop was, of course, the negation of all Church law; but it appeared perfectly natural, for instance, to the Zoroastrian seigneur to drop a hint to a village of his rayats that X. had done him good service more than once, and that, as they were choosing their religious headman, he thought that they might make a worse choice. The Shah-in-Shah nominated the Catholicos, why should not the Agha name the bishop? Supposing the man named to be not absolutely impossible, would the villagers neglect the seigneur's hint, and face the probability that double dues would be exacted next harvest? Similarly, discipline ought, of course, to be moved solely by the consideration of the law of the Church, and the guilt of the sinner. But supposing a bishop to have told a village of Christians that they ought not to tolerate a strange teacher in their midst, it would take some resolution to carry out the order in the face of a warning from the Agha over the hill, "if you dare to disturb my friend I will burn your village, as I did the seven others in your valley."^[13] Furthermore, though this use of pagan patronage was a very evil thing for the Church and a fatal thing for the spiritual life of those who availed themselves of it, it was, after all, only the correlative, in another sphere, of the reliance of Catholicos and bishops on the secular arm. If the Catholicos, who owed his throne to the fact that he was a persona grata at Court, used the power that the King gave him tyrannically, why should not the victims make use of their interest with lesser potentates to evade that tyranny?

The practice, evil enough, was a symptom only; and the real disease was ingrained quarrelsomeness, and the habit of mind that sticks at nothing if only the immediate end can be attained. Men who used pagan patronage to get themselves made bishops, or to get censures removed, did not wish to injure the Church, or Christianity; they merely wanted to get their own way. Their present descendants act in precisely the same fashion, and when the inevitable results of their proposed action are pointed out, they are apt to reply, "Ah, but we will work a pand^[14] and avoid that." Orientals are always inclined to think that they can call up the devil to do their work, and then cheat him and avoid paying him his fee!

Thus Yahb-Alaha came back, to find these tendencies running riot in the Church for which he was responsible. At a loss what to do, he fell back on the usual expedient of a council; and as the presence of another episcopal ambassador from Rome (Acacius of Amida, sent, it would seem, to return the visit of Yahb-Alaha) gave a convenient opportunity for obtaining leave, the assembly was able to meet in 420.^[15]

The gathering was scantily attended, for only ten bishops, and among them only two representatives of metropolitan sees, were present with the Catholicos and Acacius; nor could they—or for that matter any assembly of bishops—really solve the problem that was before them. What was wanted was a change of disposition, and all that they could suggest was the acceptance of a number of rules. "We have not kept our old rules, therefore let us bind ourselves to keep them in future, and many more besides." It was decided (apparently at the suggestion of Acacius) that the Church of the "East" should not only re-enact its own canons, passed ten years ago, but should also accept as binding all the rules of several purely "western" councils, viz. those of Gangra, Antioch (the "dedication" council), Cæsarea, Ancyra and Laodicea. All the canons of all these councils were therefore accepted en bloc, in spite of a hint from the Catholicos that it might be well to keep their own rules better before binding themselves to observe so many new ones. Perfect peace and concord reigned (so the argument ran) in the West (!), therefore the inspired rules that had produced that peace must be adopted in the "East." The expedient takes one's breath away. Putting aside the ignorance of things "western" shown in the placid assumption that peace existed there—and, also, the doubtful wisdom of attempting to control the schismatic spirit by the mere multiplication of canons—the adoption of an undigested mass of laws, made for other circumstances and other conditions, was necessarily useless. What, for instance, had the Church of the Persian Empire to do with canons like IV and XI of the "Dedication Council," composed specially to prevent St. Athanasius from ever getting a fair hearing? What had it to do with appeals to the Emperor at Constantinople? With the rules made at Laodicea for the reception of Novatians, Photinians, Quartodecimans and Montanists—none of whom ever seem to have gained a footing in Persia? With the purely local sect of Eustathians, whose practices were condemned at Ancyra? Or with the reconciliation of men who had lapsed under Roman conditions of persecution?

Of course adoption of such canons as were really fitted to their circumstances, coupled with a reasoned application of the excellent principles that underlay the others, would have been a very possible policy, particularly as the Assyrian Church seems never to have adopted any definite rules for dealing with "the lapsed" in her numerous persecutions; or to have attempted any control of irregular appeals to the secular power. But this was precisely what was not done. The councils were adopted bodily, and it was a question only whether the one hundred and eighty inconsistent canons thus added to the Corpus Juris of the Church would remain a mere brutum fulmen, or whether they would be the source of endless litigation and schism. Fortunately, and no thanks to the council therefor, it was the former alternative that resulted.

The council of Mar Yahb-Alaha presents an unpleasant contrast to that of Isaac. In the earlier, the canons of a much greater council were considered, and those adapted to Assyrian conditions adopted. In the later, Catholicos and bishops, having heard the advice of the ambassador who would seem to have been more saint than statesman, appear to have "opened their mouths and gulped down David whole."

The fact is that the Assyrian Church seems to have been in a frame of mind not unknown to their descendants. Suddenly realizing that things were unsatisfactory generally, they grasped at the first panacea that offered. In each case the feeling was, "All is wrong with us, and all is right with the West; let us therefore all be as western as we can." There was no consideration as to how far things were really wrong or right with either party; or whether things passably good for the "western" would for that reason be absolutely good for the "eastern." The panacea was adopted unanimously—till the reaction came.

As a general thing, when a change of habit or an abandonment of prejudice is in question, the oriental is found by the European to be "gifted with the noble firmness of the mule." But nature takes her revenge on him occasionally, for at times he will exhibit a positively sheep-like docility—a readiness to follow any leader along a new track, over a bridge or into a swamp as the case may be. Needless to say, no European can ever foretell with any certainty which disposition he will exhibit in a given case.

II. The Persecution of Bahram V

Troubles external as well as internal were soon to come upon the Assyrian Church. The increase of the number of converts from Zoroastrianism to Christianity was seriously alarming the Magian hierarchy; and it was obvious to those who had eyes to read the signs of the times that an effort would soon be made to check this flow of "apostasy" by drastic means. The best that could be hoped for was that a tolerant king would be able to keep the peace for his lifetime. Let another take his place, and the inevitable struggle between the two faiths could not be delayed.

Yahb-Alaha, the Catholicos, at least understood this, and prayed that his old age might be spared the sight of suffering. This prayer was granted; for the Catholicos died, perhaps before the persecution had begun, certainly before it had become serious. His successor, M'ana, was hardly settled in his seat before the storm burst.

Its commencement was brought about by a deputation representing all the Magians of the kingdom, and headed by the "Mobed Mobedan," Adarbuzi, in person, which sought audience of the Shah-in-Shah, and practically called upon him to take some action in view of the increase of apostasy from the State faith.^[16] The great corporation was stronger than the King, who had to give way; and the prelate received power to turn back those who had fallen away, "not, however, by death, but by fear and a certain amount of beating." The Mobeds had to be content with this for the moment, and perhaps felt some confidence that persecution could not long continue to be confined to converts only. In any case so it turned out; and we are enabled to trace the steps of the process in one of the most vivid pieces of hagiology in the Syriac or any other collection of that literature.^[17]

One of the men whom Adarbuzi "turned back" from Christianity—by beating or otherwise—was a man of Seleucia, called Adur-parwa. This man had been converted to Christianity by a Qasha named Sapor, who had cured him in some illness, and for whom the grateful convert had built a church. Sapor, by the advice of a friend named Narses, had secured a regular deed of gift for both building and site, so that both were legally his property; but when the "trouble" began, and Adur-parwa was reconverted to Magianism, he (filled apparently with a renegade's zeal) demanded the restoration of what he had given. Sapor did not contest the point at law, but fled by the advice of Narses, carrying the title-deeds with him, and intending no doubt to return in better times and reclaim the church, which was legally his own. The Magians took possession of the building, and turned it into a fire-temple. Shortly after Narses, ignorant of what had happened, entered the church, and was surprised to find the sacred fire burning in it, and the whole place fitted up as a Magian sanctuary. He removed the furniture (no heavy task, if fire-temples in those days were furnished as simply as is the case now) and extinguished the fire, an act of sacrilege for which he was mobbed by the villagers. Being rescued from them by authority, he was sent to the Mobed Mobedan at Seleucia for trial. Here his Christianity was not urged against him, he being no doubt of the melet by birth; and Adarbuzi seems to have admitted extenuating circumstances in the matter of the extinction of the sacred fire, for the defendant was simply ordered to re-kindle it in the temple, and was promised his release on compliance. This he declared himself unable to do. All parties showed admirable restraint in the matter; the Mobed was anxious to release the prisoner, if he would give what was no doubt regarded as reasonable satisfaction; and Narses on his side indulged in none of the insults to another faith which mar some of the histories, but simply declined to purchase his own release by what he regarded as an act of apostasy, preferring to suffer the penalty instead.

On his refusal he was imprisoned at Seleucia during the winter—"among thieves and murderers," says his biographer, though in all probability (an oriental prison not being provided with separate cells) this implied no special hardship beyond that of detention—and towards spring a bribe to the gaoler procured his release on bail and permission to reside in a monastery not far from the city.

In spring the Court made its usual move "to the hills"—i. e. to B. Lapat or to Susa—and it was decided to have a general clearance of the city prisons on the occasion. Narses honourably surrendered himself, and his case thus came before the King personally, and was decided summarily. "Let him collect fire from 365 places, and put it in the temple, or let him be put to death." Again he refused to comply, and was therefore ordered for execution—the first man, apparently, to die in this persecution.

Crowds of Christians accompanied him to see the end, exciting the fears of the official in charge, till both they and the martyr assured him that they had no thought of obstructing "the King's justice," but merely wished to see the last of a friend. So, without malice and without display, he met his death, the authorities doing no more than they judged their duty, and the sufferer making no complaint of the penalty that befell him for following his conscience. Both parties acted as became honourable men, the Christian as became his faith. Only the clumsiness of the impressed executioner (a Christian, who refused to act till the martyr bade him "strike," for it should not be imputed to him) marred the nobility of the ending. Its tragedy lay, not in the death of the man who preferred it to treachery to his religion, but in the circumstances which gave honourable men no choice but mutually to inflict and submit to death.

It was impossible, however, for persecution to continue in this gentlemanly style. Bloodshed infuriated both sides, calling out hot zeal in the one party and massacre-lust in the other. Narses could not have been dead many days when a great fire-temple of Seleucia,^[18] which stood close to a Christian church, was burnt by Christians. A bishop of the name of Abda was arrested, both as being a prominent Christian, and as being suspected of this insult to the State religion; and these facts show that persecution was already drifting beyond the lines of Yezdegerd's original permission. As a matter of fact, it was not Abda who had been guilty of this act of incendiarism; it was an over-zealous Qasha of the name of Hashu, who at once accused himself when he heard of the arrest of the bishop, and boldly justified his action; "it was no shrine of God that we destroyed." When told to hold his tongue, and let the accused speak for himself, he persisted in statements that were, under the circumstances, insults to the State faith, and provocative of persecution. "Fire is no god, it is but a creature given to us for our use." Admitting the burning of the temple, he absolutely refused to admit that it was even a questionable act. Abda, however, seems to have been regarded as responsible; and it was he, not the zealot, who, according to Theodoret, was ordered to rebuild the temple,^[19]and was executed on his refusal. With these two martyrdoms, and the feeling which the acts precedent to them would certainly call out (viz. that the Christians were making attacks on "the religion"), a definite persecution of Christians, as distinct from a "disciplining of converts," may be said to have begun.

About this time, too, any chance of the Shah-in-Shah using his influence on the side of moderation was removed by the sudden death of Yezdegerd from the kick of a horse. Both religions saw a divine judgment on a persecutor in the accident; the Magians holding it a punishment for his early acts, and the Christians (with somewhat less than justice to the memory of one who had been on the whole their benefactor) for the final episodes of his reign.

Bahram V, who succeeded his father Yezdegerd, was practically the Magian nominee. There was another candidate for the throne, and the prince, to secure the support of the hierarchy,^[20] was obliged to give pledges of some sort to the Mobeds—an act which of course implied that his full support should be given to the persecution of the Christians. Thus the religious war continued with peculiar ferocity, the hideous tortures which Theodoret details^[21] being fully supported by the evidence of Syriac writers. It is not necessary to dwell on these horrors. Churches, of course, were destroyed, the tent-church of the Catholicos being made into a hunting-tent for the King; and all freemen (azatan) who were known to be Christians were deprived of their fiefs. Theodoret records the case of one of these last in particular: a Christian named Hormizdas, "who was of the ancient house of the Achæmenids, and the son of a Marzban." He was degraded from his rank, and set to do the work of the lowest slaves (grooming camels) without his staunchness being affected; and he died a martyr at the last. Probably this persecution, for the four years of its duration, was as savage as any that this much-tried Church was ever called upon to face.

As was the case previously, Christian persecution and war with Rome went hand in hand, though in this instance the former caused the latter, and not vice versa. Bahram made the amazing request that Theodosius should surrender all Christian refugees to his officers, and the inevitable refusal produced a renewal of war. The course of hostilities was dull and eventless. The Romans besieged Nisibis, only to find that the ramparts they had themselves constructed were too strong for them; while in the north the Persian army, under Bahram himself, failed in similar fashion before Theodosiopolis, or Erzerum. Persian siege engineering was always clumsy, and it was not till they had at last learnt to copy Roman methods that any attempt of theirs on a strong fort was formidable. The siege of Erzerum, however, furnished one picturesque incident at least. The bishop of the city, Eunomius—not content with the giving of moral strength to the garrison after the model of St. James of Nisibis—appeared in person on the ramparts, and himself pointed and discharged "the great ballista, blessed in the name of St. Thomas." He killed one of the sub-kings present in the Persian army, and earned for himself the doubtful honour of being the first of the company of fighting bishops. The whole episode, and particularly the giving of the name of an apostle to the catapult, has a very mediæval ring, and prepares us for the exploits of Bar-soma, half a century later.

Another bishop, Acacius of Amida, already known in Persia, played a more episcopal part in the famous episode of the ransoming of the Persian captives with the Church treasures;—an act which both facilitated the making of peace, and probably contributed to bring about the cessation of persecution that accompanied the conclusion of hostilities.

As an effect of the war the last relics of Armenian independence passed away. The notables of the nation, wearied of the misrule of their own native prince who was a Persian sub-king, disregarded the protests of the patriotic Catholicos of Armenia, and requested the Shah-in-Shah to put them under the rule of an ordinary Marzban. This petition the Persians naturally granted at once.

III. The Council of Dad-Ishu

Domestic confusions and troubles beset the Assyrian Church even during the course of the external trial. Armies have fought through an earthquake before now; and similarly it took more than a mere persecution to keep the members of the Church from quarrelling among themselves.^[22]

Yahb-Alaha the Catholicos had died very shortly after the conclusion of the council at which he presided, and M'ana was elected or nominated in his stead. This prelate, however, was almost immediately deprived and banished to Fars—on account of the destruction of a fire-temple,^[23] says one authority. It is quite possible that he somehow incurred the royal displeasure over the Abda-Hashu incident, and was exiled on that account. In any case, he held office for a very short time, and sometimes is not reckoned among the Catholici. It would seem that he died in exile.

Bar-Hebræus, on the other hand,^[24] states that M'ana or Magnes introduced the heresy of Nestorius into Persia, and was for that reason expelled by the orthodox zeal of his flock. This account we may reject without hesitation, as founded on the confusion of M'ana the Catholicos with a later namesake, the friend and helper of Bar-soma. The Catholicos, whatever his sins, did not introduce "Nestorianism" into Persia ten years previous to the Council of Ephesus, while Nestorius was still an unknown monk at Antioch. M'ana being thus banished two claimants arose in his place. One was Marbokht or Farbokht, a man who procured an unauthorized consecration by purely Zoroastrian influence; while a second candidate, Dad-Ishu, was more regularly elected, by a council which apparently met during the actual course of the persecution. This must have taken place, we suppose, during the first stage, while Yezdegerd was still alive, and only converts from Zoroastrianism ran any serious risk. Even so, it was only rendered possible by the interest of one particular man, Samuel, Bishop of Khorassan, who had a claim on the royal gratitude for his services in checking an invasion of Turks.^[25] Dad-Ishu was duly elected and consecrated, and the usurpation of Farbokht declared to be utterly void.

Farbokht's proceedings were apparently too irregular to be seriously defended; but that fact did not prevent him and his party from making the wildest accusations, more orientali, against a successful rival.^[26] To the King they declared the Catholicos to be a Roman sympathizer; while to the Christians they asserted him to be debauched in morals, utterly unlearned, unable even to read the scriptures, a usurer, a pillager of churches, and an apostate who had stirred up the existing persecution! Bahram may have cared but little for the other accusations, but a Roman sympathizer was, of course, suspect, and the Catholicos was arrested, beaten and imprisoned.^[27] This proceeding not improbably saved his life in fact; for being already in prison on a secular charge, he remained there forgotten till the peril of martyrdom had passed. His imprisonment continued until the war with Rome had come to an end and Christians had liberty to exist once more.

When the persecution and the war ended together, the Christian "melet" ipso facto resumed their own position towards the Government, as naturally as did Armenians, for instance, in a later age. Dad-Ishu was released; but his sufferings and the slanders combined had broken his spirit. He refused to take his place at the head of the Church, and crept off alone to the "Monastery of the Ark," in Cordyene,^[28] intending there to spend his days in a hermit's cell, "weeping over the fall of the Church."

This, however, by no means suited the intentions of his brother bishops. They were now proposing to organize the Church again after the persecution, and, moreover, to emphasize its independent and autocephalous character; and for this, the presence of the Catholicos was a vital necessity. The pro-western wave of feeling, which had been in the ascendant four years previously, had now spent its force—the more so, that the panacea adopted under its influence had conspicuously failed to do what was expected of it—and the inevitable reaction was now beginning. Perhaps, with the post hoc propter hoc style of reasoning dear to the oriental, folk attributed both their suffering and disorders to the westernizing line they had taken recently; and in any case, they were now resolved to reverse it.

Accordingly,^[29] a council of all six metropolitans and thirty-one other bishops met in the spring of 434 at the little town of "Markabta of the Arabs," a place chosen probably because, when persecution was barely ended, it was not prudent to attract attention by meeting at "the King's door." When they gathered there was one conspicuous absentee; the Catholicos indeed was there—brought by something very like force from his monastery, and put on to a throne to preside; but this time there was no ambassador from "the westerns" to be the moving spirit, as in 410 and 420. To make the gap more marked, Acacius, their visitor and guide four years before, was actually the guest of the King at the time: and this on an errand equally honourable to himself and to Bahram, viz. to receive the royal thanks for his most Christian treatment of Persian captives. He was not invited to the council that was to reverse his policy. Proceedings were opened by a pathetic appeal from the Catholicos (who recounted his past sufferings in detail) to be allowed to lay down a burden that was too heavy for him, and to retire to the cell whence he had most reluctantly been dragged; but though all the bishops present were moved to tears at the recital, they had absolutely no intention of acceding to the petition. Agapitus, Metropolitan of Bait Lapat,^[30] then rose and made a speech of some length. This is a valuable historical document from which we have drawn freely in the previous chapters. He acknowledged in the fullest way Assyrian indebtedness to "westerns" in the past, snowing how repeatedly their intervention had saved "easterns" from the consequences of their own acts, and how invaluable their influence with the Government had been. Then, in apparent contradiction with the lessons of this recent history, it was proposed by Hosea, Bishop of Nisibis, and carried by acclamation, that Dad-Ishu should be begged to resume his throne as Patriarch (the title is now used for the first time); that in future absolute obedience must be rendered to him, and, in particular, that no appeal should be made from his decrees to "western patriarchs."^[31] If there were cause for complaint against him, neither suffragans nor foreigners might presume to judge him; that office being the right of Christ alone, who placed him at the head of the Church. Dad-Ishu yielded to the prayer of the council, and resumed his throne, and this decision was solemnly placed on record.

The act of the council, as will be seen, was twofold. It declared the "Church of the East" to be absolutely independent, and it did as much as a council could do to set up an oriental papacy over itself, in the person of him whom we may now call its patriarch.

Of these two, the first was probably the important point in the eyes of contemporaries, and the second necessary to guard it. Westernization spelt persecution and must be stopped, and the readiest way to stop it was to proclaim independence, and no longer to invite western bishops to concern themselves in eastern affairs.

The decision of the council (which was apparently not challenged by Antioch, though it may conceivably have been not quite welcome there) did not make very much practical difference. Political reasons—that is to say, the impossibility of Persian subjects existing under the rule of any Roman prelate—had decreed the independence of the Persian Church. No oriental ruler who is strong enough to prevent it will have his rayats subject ecclesiastically to a foreign king, or a foreign king's subject; and just as Yezdegerd's firman had only formally declared the Catholicos and his melet to be that which they already were in fact, so this council declared formally an independence and supremacy which already really existed. Circumstances had previously made orientals welcome western interference: an interference which was not the assertion of a jurisdiction, but yet was something on which the assertion of a jurisdiction might be based if ever opportunity presented itself. It was a possibility that was repudiated rather than a fact. They now proclaimed the independence that was already theirs by right and custom, and declared their patriarch the supreme head of their branch of the Church.

The question now before us is: How did this independence, which was right and helpful, harden into the separation which we now see and deplore?

 

1. Synodicon Orientale, 43, 285.
2. A Kurd is a Mussulman, but no fanatic, though sometimes represented as such. He is not very zealous in any direction, except that of plundering his neighbour's goods; and is not specially efficient, even as a brigand.

   A sept of Heriki, wildest of nomad Kurds, still carry with them as a tribal palladium a relic that purports to be the head of Mar Giwergis, a Christian martyr. It is the last relic of the Christianity of their ancestors.

   It is worth mentioning that the Catholicos Yahb-Alaha had a tent-church (Bedj., iv. 256), which may have been for the benefit of nomad Christians, Arab or Kurd. Its existence, however, may only mean that then, as now, all who could afford it camped outside the towns, in gardens, during the summer heats.

3. Syn. Or., 43, 285.
4. Bedj., ii. 206, 208, 281. Bar-shbia means "son of captivity."
5. Bedj., ii. 316. This captivity was settled in Huzistan, and may possibly be the captivity of Belashpar referred to. Even if Demetrius of B. Lapat be legendary the growth of the legend is evidence of the existence of "Roman captivities."
6. If the fact of violent transportation be condoned, captives were generally well treated in their new homes, and even their supposed whims consulted. Thus, Chosroes I built his "New Antioch" exactly on the lines of the city on the Orontes; and the shah who transported the Armenians to Ispahan was anxious to bring the Cathedral of Etchmiadzin with them—and would have done it, but for his captives' petition!
7. Syn. Or., 276, note.
8. Amr, Assemani, iii. 368.
9. Liber Turris.
10. Liber Turris. Socrates (vii. 8) also mentions the miracle, but refers it to Abda.
11. Bedj., iv. 170.
12. Syn. Or., 49, 293.
13. This actually occurred during the twentieth century, but was equally possible during the fifth.
14. "Pand," i. e. an expedient, clever and usually shady. The two go together.
15. Syn. Or., 37, 276; 43, 284.
16. Bedj., iv. 171–2.
17. Bedj., iv. 170–180: Acts of Narses.
18. Bedj., iv. 250; Theodoret, v. 39. Seleucia-Ctesiphon was an "urban district" rather than a city, in which separate towns existed. One of these, Dastagerd, had a separate bishop in 424 (Syn. Or., 44, 287). Probably this fact explains the existence of a bishop in the capital, who was not the Catholicos.
19. The Syriac acts, which are far fuller and more reliable, fail us here.
20. Tabari, p. 95.
21. Theod., v. 39; Bedj., ii. 539–558; iv. 189, 253,
22. It must be remembered that they were not alone in this trait. St. Cyprian records that African confessors could not communicate together when in prison for their common faith. The fact really shows oriental acceptance of violence, rather than oriental quarrelsomeness. An occasional massacre stands on much the same footing in their minds as an occasional invasion or flood.
23. Liber Turris, Amr, Assem., iii. 376.
24. Bar-Hebræus, p. 54. B.-H., ordinarily tolerant, can no more do justice to a Nestorian than can a Protestant to the Scarlet Woman.
25. Amr, Assem., iii. 214. It is possible that we have another martial prelate here!
26. Syn. Or., 45, 288.
27. Amr, Assem., ii. 214.
28. i.e. to Judi Dagh, near the modern Jezireh, a mountain which local tradition identifies with the Ararat on which the Ark rested. Here St. James of Nisibis had a hermitage, and here there exist still the remains of a monastery, which we may probably identify with that of the "Ark" to which Dad-Ishu retired.
29. We follow the acts of the Council of Dad-Ishu (Syn. Or., 43, 285; 53, 298), though, as stated above, with some doubt as to their absolute authenticity.
30. See p. 99.
31. Syn. Or., 51, 296.