An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church/Chapter 8

by William Ainger Wigram

 

CHAPTER VIII

BAR-SOMA AND ACACIUS

Yezdegerd was succeeded on the throne by Piroz. Not altogether peaceably, for there was a rival claimant in the person of Prince Hormizdas, and he was only overthrown by Turkish help—help that had to be paid for by the cession of a frontier fortress. Piroz, however, succeeded, and ruled for twenty-eight years. Christian writers give him a high character, in that he was (they declare^[1]) ruled in all things by the advice of a Christian of whom we shall hear much—Bar-soma of Nisibis. Bar-soma was a favourite of Piroz, no doubt, and his adviser in some things, and no very good adviser either. Still, it may be doubted whether the power of the Christian counsellor was as great as other Christians thought, particularly as they always tend to believe that a man in any post of authority is practically omnipotent. If the power of Bar-soma was anything like as great as Christians believed, Magians must have judged the precedent a very bad one, for no king of the Sassanid house was so consistently unlucky as was Piroz. He was unfortunate in war abroad, for in fighting with the Turks (a war brought on solely by his own perfidy^[2]) he was manœuvred into a hopeless position and forced to capitulate; as the price of life the "King of kings" had to do homage, and to swear never again to lead an army past the boundary stone of his empire.

At home he was even more unfortunate; for a terrible drought of seven years brought, of course, famine and pestilence in its train. Even the snow-fed Tigris had no water in its bed, and all other streams failed completely. Nevertheless, either the King or his advisers managed the great relief works that were instituted so well that not a single man, or, according to another account, one only, died of starvation.

At the beginning of this reign Babowai became patriarch of the Assyrian Church—a man who was a learned philosopher, according to one historian, and mediocriter doctus according to the other. More important, however, than his learning, or lack of it, was the fact that he was a convert from Magianism—an "apostate" Zoroastrians would say—and therefore always liable to death, though many reasons might make it impossible to carry out the sentence. Still, as convert, he had much to suffer. He was imprisoned for seven years and tortured repeatedly, though it is not clear whether this was before or after his consecration made him conspicuous to his enemies.^[3] As it was in his days that the Church of the East was disturbed by the impact of those disputes that for the last half century or more had been agitating the West, we must here say a word on the stage that the Christological controversy had reached when it did at last arrive in Assyrian Church territory.

There is a general impression, even in the minds of historical students, that when once a council which after ages were to style "œcumenical" had given its decision on a point, that question was settled finally; and that any one who did not subscribe to it, wrote himself down heretic at once by his refusal. As a matter of fact no settlement was authoritative till it was generally accepted. In the eyes of contemporaries, Ephesus was simply an assembly, whose dictum needed re-enacting and "stiffening" (according to one party) at the second council held at that place, which we usually call by the name of the "Latrocinium"^[4]; while according to the other party (the majority) its decision needed restating, and co-ordinating with other truths at Chalcedon.

This latter council, too, no more settled the question at issue than did that of Nicæa. Each was the beginning of a period of strife, not its conclusion. But whereas the dispute argued at Nicæa did come to an end (for the time) within three centuries after the dispersal of the council,^[5] the problems "settled" at Chalcedon are causes of schism still, and will remain so, while Armenian, Copt and Jacobite remain unreconciled.

The council was rejected, either at once or after a very short interval, by whole provinces of the empire—not altogether, it is true, for theological reasons—but that does not alter the fact. Broadly, it was rejected absolutely by Egypt and Palestine, the former of which will have none of it to this day. A large majority of the Christians of the Antiochene patriarchate and a considerable minority of those in Asia Minor opposed it also; and one of the two national Churches outside the empire (the Armenian) repudiated it as soon as it had opportunity to speak. Only Rome and what we call "the West" were heartily for it, and that mainly because it was the only œcumenical council where the Pope played a prominent and worthy part.

At first the Emperor, of course, felt bound to maintain its decision; for the gibing name of "melkite,"^[6] given to its adherents in Syria, had this much of truth in it to give it a sting—that the Council of Chalcedon was at least as much under royal influence as it is good for a "general council " to be. As time passed, however, certain facts came out, and were impressed on that imperial consciousness that never seems to die with its possessor.

Any emperor who held Constantinople, held Asia Minor up to the Taurus range: held, that is, the Pontic and Asian themes, and could keep them tolerably quiet and obedient. On the other hand, no "Chalcedonian" could make loyal subjects of the inhabitants of Egypt, Palestine and "Syria,"^[7] and no "anti-Chalcedonian" could do so with Rome and the West. The empire, in fact, was parting asunder like a ship on rocks. Nothing could keep its eastern and western extremities, the bow and stern of the figure, from tearing themselves off by their own weight; but when once they had gone, the strongly knit midship section, left on the rocks on which the ship had splintered, had passive strength enough to resist any waves for many a long year. Had it not been for a gang of wreckers who called themselves crusaders, it might be there still.

The rending process also took time, for the rivets of Roman organization did not "give" readily; and it was not completed till the Khalifs sat in Damascus at one end, and Charlemagne had been crowned at Rome at the other. Successive emperors might give special attention, now to one of the sections that tended to part, and now to the other. At first their attention was drawn to the East. Zeno and Anastasius regarded the West, subdued by Goths and Vandals, as lost already and irrecoverably; they might indeed, as opportunity offered, let loose a second horde of "barbarians" against those in possession, but no more. Thus Anastasius watched Theodoric go against Odoacer with much the feelings, one imagines, of a man who sees the pack of wolves who have been hunting him turn against the second pack that are already ravaging his flocks. The country was lost, and they "cut their losses." They would not run any risk of estranging the subjects who remained—the Monophysites of Syria and Egypt—to conciliate the "Dyophysites"^[8] of Italy who were lost to them already.

Hence these two emperors are monophysite in sympathy; and under them that confession is dominant in the empire, till at last all the great patriarchates save Rome only are held by its followers. Roman Christians, abandoned by the empire, are loyal to an Arian ruler, and Rome anathematizes all the "Eastern Empire."

With the rise of a new dynasty there is a change. Justin and Justinian were Chalcedonian—orthodox—by conviction, and resolute to recover Italy and Africa politically. Hence the portion of the empire that really depends on Constantinople becomes orthodox once more, and continues so to be. As it becomes clear that it has definitely adopted this bias, the lapse of two or three generations sees the Monophysite portions surrender themselves to the Mussulman, rather than be conquered by him; while in another century or so, for different reasons, Rbme and the West are lost to the empire also. Fate decreed—or shall we say that the Devil contrived—that it was in the time of Monophysite supremacy in the empire that the Christological problem should first be presented to the Assyrian Church; and further, that when the Church of the empire had abandoned that inadequate conception, and settled to orthodoxy, knowledge of what "orthodoxy" is, and of what the "Greeks" held, should be hidden from the Assyrians by the bulk of interposed Monophysitism.

It ought to be clearly realized—for it is a fact of the last importance for the formation of a right judgment on the attitude taken by the Assyrian Church—that when the Christological controversy came before its members, the Church of the empire, so far as known to them, was Monophysite. The doctrine of "the one Nature" was not a heresy professed by a handful of Egyptian and Syrian nobodies, who were clearly and avowedly out of Catholic communion; but it was the doctrine that was dominant over all the empire of Constantinople held by every patriarch except only the Roman—and he was in any case beyond Assyrian ken.

We can now approach, with some possibility of just comprehension, the story of the great controversy as it affected the Assyrian Church.

Babowai, as patriarch, had no easy time of rule. It was not only the hourly danger that he, a conspicuous "apostate," must run from the Magi; but he had under him a suffragan of the most awkward character to control, viz., Bar-soma, metropolitan of Nisibis. This was the man who was to be protagonist in the first part of the drama that was to be played; one of the most striking and picturesque, but not one of the most saintly, figures in the history of his Church.

By birth he was of Cordyene, and was possibly slave-born,^[9] though he must have attained freedom, in that case, early in life, for when Ibas was Bishop of Edessa this youth, with several other Assyrians destined to high office in their Church, was a student in the college there. This college, though of no great antiquity (for it owed its foundation to St. Ephraim, and was therefore of later date than the migration of that saint from Nisibis to Edessa, after the cession of the former city to Persia in 363), had become the centre of theological and Western culture to the Christians of the East. There were in Persia, as far as we know, no Christian schools, though Magian colleges abounded, and the teacher was a recognized and honoured grade in their hierarchy. The Christian who desired learning (and the Assyrian thirst for it is keener than even his thirst for money) must cross the frontier to where Christianity ruled.

To Edessa, then, went many an Assyrian, during the long period of peace that marked the patriarchate of Dad-Ishu; and Bar-soma had for companions (amongst others) Acacius, afterwards patriarch of Seleucia, Narses, called "the harp of the Spirit," and first head of the college that was to spring from Edessa, M'ana, afterwards Bishop of Ardashir, and Papa, afterwards metropolitan of B. Lapat. It adds a touch of nature to the history to find that the oriental student of theology was human enough to give nicknames to his fellows, and these lads were known one to another as "Bean-maker," "Dagon," and "Piggy"! Bar-soma's own sobriquet was "Swimmer among the nests."

During the episcopate of Ibas (435–457) one Marun of Dilaita, an Assyrian from the district of Mosul, was head of the college, and the whole atmosphere was pronouncedly "dyophysite"—something, that is to say, which its enemies (and its enemies were rapidly becoming the dominant theological party) would call "Nestorian." The question whether the bishop himself was or was not a "Nestorian," as we understand the term, is one that we may be thankful to leave undisturbed. The fact that one and the same letter of his was accepted as orthodox by one œcumenical council (the fourth) and condemned as heretical by the fifth, may suffice to show how impossible it is to apply the clear-cut distinctions that a later age thinks it can draw, to the men who were actually engaged in the conflict. In looking at a landscape from a distance it is easy to say "that rock lies on the hillside, and that other in the valley." On the spot, one sees that it is a misuse of terms to say "here valley ends and hillside begins."

At Edessa Bar-soma shared the stormy fortunes of his chief, and was expelled with him from school and city when the notorious "Latrocinium" sent Ibas into exile.^[10] The fact that one who must have been still comparatively young was marked out for condemnation by what was meant to be an œcumenical synod, is evidence that he already attained a reputation—of a kind. When Ibas was acquitted at Chalcedon and returned to his see, his pupil seemingly returned with him and remained for about six years. In 457 Ibas died, and the wave of monophysite feeling that he had kept in check swept over the place; Nonnus, whom the Latrocinium had put in as bishop in his room, now regaining the see, of which the Council of Chalcedon had deprived him. Bar-soma and most of his companions were either expelled, or voluntarily quitted a sphere that had ceased to be congenial; and the party returned to Persia, where, as stated, most of them rose to high office in the Assyrian Church.^[11]

Bar-soma in particular became Archbishop of Nisibis, third see in the Church, and was a particular favourite with King Piroz. Further, he was very active in secular business, and (according to one account) actually united with his office as archbishop the post of "Lord of the Marches" of the Roman and Persian Empires—a combination that makes us think we are already in the middle ages. It appears from his own writings, however, that he was not personally "Marquis of Nisibis," though he certainly acted as the assistant and right hand of that official in the border province of Persia.^[12]

For the time being at any rate there was no confinement of promotion to men who had been markedly "dyophysite" at Edessa. The high promotion of Papa,^[13] who certainly had belonged to the other party, and who is noted as "orthodox" by the monophysite Shimun of B. Arsham,^[14] is a proof that there was no controversy in the Church as yet. Still, things were uneasy. In particular there was trouble, if not with the Government, yet with the Magians, in spite of the royal favour to particular Christians. It is possible that we ought to date the imprisonment of Babowai the patriarch somewhere in the period 470–480,^[15] and it is certain that those years saw what we may call a minor persecution. Churches were burnt and Christians imprisoned, though we have no evidence that there were any martyrdoms.

A more dangerous thing was, that the relations between the patriarch and Bar-soma became exceedingly hostile. We have no information as to what the casus belli may have been; but both were Assyrians, and therefore not prone to peace; and of Bar-soma we know that he had separate quarrels with almost every authority, colleague or subordinate, with whom he came in contact. Babowai used discipline,^[16] righteously or otherwise, on some bishops, who fled to Bar-soma and found the prelate of Nisibis ready to take their part. Bar-Hebræus hints, and quite possibly with truth, that the attempt to enforce episcopal celibacy was at the root of this trouble between the two. Apparently this was a point on which party feeling ran high; and though there was no canon on the matter, a strict section wished to enforce it, while a majority were strongly opposed to its enforcement. Whatever the cause, the two quarrelled fiercely, even while persecution was threatening, and while things were so the patriarch made a fatal blunder. He wrote a letter to some "Roman bishops," asking them to use their influence with the emperor, and procure his intercession with the Shah-in-Shah to avert persecution; and in the letter, he used one very unfortunate expression, "God has given us over to an accursed kingdom." This was dispatched by a special messenger, who was directed to smuggle it over the border in the hollow of a cane; but things went awry somehow and the document fell into the hands of Bar-soma.

It is too much to ask of an oriental controversialist, that when the imprudence of an opponent has put the means of ruining him in his hands, the combatant should refrain from using it, merely because the consequences to the writer may be very unpleasant! Further, it was easy for Bar-soma to persuade himself that his mere duty to the Shah-in-Shah demanded that he should forward the letter to him; and it was the fact that he would himself be ruined if the King should ever hear that he had seen—and suppressed—such a document.

Given the choice between using the chance of ruining an opponent and running the risk of ruin himself, it was not likely that Bar-soma should hesitate. He sent the letter to Piroz. It was not generous, but few orientals would have acted otherwise. He may or may not have sent accusations with it, nor does it greatly matter; a man does not reach high office under an oriental despotism without knowing what the writing of such a letter means to its writer if it be discovered.

Piroz was furious when the letter was read to him: the patriarch was summoned at once to "the King's door," and when he entered was shown simply the foot of the folded paper, with the query, "Is this your seal?" He admitted the fact, and the letter was read in full diwan. It was vain for the terror-struck Christians to explain that "accursed" was simply a figure of speech for non-Christian; or, as some gallantly attempted, to say that it was no more than a slip of the pen, and that "sublime"^[17] was what was really meant. The unhappy prelate was sentenced to a horrible death, being hung up by his ring-finger till he expired. The Church in after days reckoned him a martyr, as having been put to death, if not for Christianity, at least by Magian malice.

The post of patriarch was seemingly left vacant for a while, as might easily happen under the circumstances; and for about three years Bar-soma was the most real authority in the Church. Authority in such vigorous hands was not likely to lie idle, but we have unfortunately no very reliable account of the use he made of it. Bar-Hebræus indeed is explicit enough, giving an account borrowed (as Monsignor Chabot points out) from a Monophysite writer of the seventh century, Michael the Syrian.^[18]

According to him, when Babowai was dead, Bar-soma advised Piroz to establish or promote "heresy" in the Church of his empire, for political reasons. It would be very much better for him, if his Christian subjects were entirely separated from those of the Roman Empire. Piroz agreeing and giving his favourite a "free hand," Bar-soma took Persian troops and with them marched through the length and breadth of the land, forcing all Christians into heresy. At Tagrit on the Tigris he was repulsed—the men of that place declaring, "If you dare to interfere with us, we will expose you and your crimes to the King,"^[19] and he dared not enter Armenia; but he drove the "orthodox" monks from Mar Matai, and destroyed with fire and sword all who would not follow him into heresy. Ninety priests in particular were massacred in Nineveh, says the historian, and 7,700 of the faithful in all. Collecting some bishops at B. Adrai in Nuhadra, he forced on them a canon allowing Episcopal marriage—an act repeated at later councils at B. Sluk^[20] and Seleucia. As a result of these acts, "Nestorianism" was spread all over Persia; and with it came such an appalling increase of immorality among the clergy, that all the dust-heaps and roads were full of exposed and abandoned children, and special orphanages had to be made for their reception, to save them from being devoured by dogs!

Finally, some bishops who had fled from Bar-soma consecrated Acacius as patriarch; but the terrible "Bar-sola"^[21] was able to force him into Nestorianism also, and the schism was complete between the Assyrian Church and the rest of the Church Catholic.

This statement is of course the work of a partisan, not of an historian—and of an oriental partisan. To such an one the throwing of mud is "common form," and truth is not so much an object as adhesiveness. Ages of controversy have made him an adept in judging what mud will stick, and he has a full appreciation of the power of a half-truth! Still, even in oriental controversy, regard should be paid to the probabilities, if not to the decencies; and (putting aside a few small blunders) it is simply impossible to believe that the licensing of clerical marriage should have led to the spread of open immorality, and the exposure of thousands of unacknowledged children, and the like. The only result of the wild slander of Bar-Hebræus, is to throw doubt on every statement that he makes to the discredit of his opponent.

It must also be remembered that Bar-Hebræus is a Monophysite, and writes as one. Hence, where he says Catholic or orthodox, we have to substitute the name of that heresy.

Certain broad facts, however, stand out as true. Thus it appears that after the death of Babowai, Bar-soma organized the Church on a footing of separation from, not merely independence of, the Westerns. Piroz of course approved. It was obviously to his interest that his Christian subjects should be separated from those of Rome, and no doubt he threw the weight of royal influence on Bar-soma's side. As the "Henoticon" of Zeno had recently been published (these events took place 482–484), and the Church of the Roman Empire was officially Monophysite, to make an official confession of the "two Natures in Christ"—which to Bar-Hebræus was "Nestorianism"—was to separate from them—and this was done.

There can be little doubt that the great mass of Christians in Persia were on Bar-soma's side in what he did. Bar-Hebræus of course declares that they were "dragooned" into it; but, putting aside the fact that Assyrian Christians were not wont to be very pliant under persecution, does the work of a "dragonade" last as that of Bar-soma has done? It cannot be doubted that the mass of Assyrian Christians were "Dyophysite" to the core, and were perfectly willing to separate from those who held the doctrine of "one Nature."

Their reasons for wishing to separate, however, were not purely doctrinal. That, as we have stated, we hold to have been the case nowhere; even though the oriental has an appetite for abstract theology and philosophical disputation that the Western cannot appreciate. The spirit of nationality, too, had probably less to do with it in their case than in that of others, for their full ecclesiastical independence was won already. The cause was something more mundane, but very natural all the same. For about one hundred and fifty years now they had been always under the shadow, and frequently under the edge of the sword of persecution; and this persecution had been never separate from the feeling "Rome is Christian, therefore no Christian can be loyal." A Persian war with Rome and a persecution of the Assyrian Church had usually gone together, and the answer to the question "which caused which?" had made little difference to the persecuted.

Their faith was a thing they could not and would not give up; but when already estranged from the Westerns by the theological quarrel, was it wonderful that, weary of suffering, they should say, "Let us at all events do something to show that we are a different brand of Christians to the Roman, and so need not be persecuted every time the Emperor and the Shah-in-Shah have a quarrel."

Bar-Hebræus also informs us that a motive force in the matter was the desire for legalized marriage among the clergy and bishops (though marriage is not the word that the historian employs). That this was so, particularly in the light of the fact that the passing of a canon to that effect accompanied the separation, is very probable. There is not much evidence available on the point; but it does seem that the oriental mind was revolting against the false doctrine about celibacy current in "the West"; and while asceticism had a place, and a prominent one, in their religion, there was yet a perfectly true instinct in their minds that marriage was a holy thing to all not specially called to another life, and that sacred office was no bar to what was a duty rather than an indulgence. It has been suggested,^[22] that desire to assimilate themselves to their Zoroastrian neighbours also moved them. The writer does not think it likely that there was conscious desire for assimilation. At the same time, the ideas and conceptions of the religion of the land have a way of soaking into the mind even of the alien, when resident, as we see in our best Indian officials; and how much more must this be the case with the native? It is probable that the Zoroastrian atmosphere they breathed kept their ascetic conceptions (which as orientals they were bound to have in one form or another) within the very reasonable bounds which at present prevail among them.^[23]

As an incident of his work Bar-soma held a council at B. Lapat, and issued a confession of faith, the first of several of the Assyrian Church's declaring, that concerned itself with Christology. It does not survive; but there can be no doubt that it was emphatically "Dyophysite," and opposed to the then dominant creed of "the West." Bar-Hebræus declares it to have been "Nestorian," and so it very possibly was, even in our sense of the word. The point is of no great importance as the confession was formally repudiated soon after; but as the council of Chalcedon was "Nestorian" to all good Monophysites, the evidence of this writer (valeat quantum) would rather point to its being orthodox. Next, the council of B. Lapat proceeded to practically canonize Theodore of Mopsuestia, whom they described (truly enough) as having been "honoured in life, and honoured in death," and whom they further added, "all should follow."^[24] Another canon, the only one to be regularly re-enacted later, declared the lawfulness of marriage for all Christians, including every grade of the hierarchy, and Bar-soma himself took advantage of the permission thus given. Seventeen other canons followed, which concerned themselves, so far as the few fragments remaining will allow us to judge,^[25] with Simony, nepotism, and like matters, which were, in fact, rules highly profitable for the Assyrian or for any Church—if they could be executed.

The council of Bait Lapat was the "high-water mark" of Bar-soma's power. He had become head of his Church, and he had bent it to his will. It had declared itself opposed theologically to "the West"—to the Church of the Emperor and his Henoticon; it was independent and separate, and friendly to the King of Persia, and Bar-soma was its ruler. No doubt he had won this position not only as bishop, but also as warden of the marches. The people and clergy were willing to go with him, but if not he had military as well as theological arguments to urge! The story of extensive massacres of "the faithful," given by Bar-Hebraeus, one may put on one side without hesitation, as on a par with that historian's orphanages; but the fact that Bar-soma's admirer, Amr,^[26] hints at some bloodshed, makes it probable that force was sometimes used. Still, as Shimun of B. Arsham, that very hostile contemporary writer (who must have been a young man, at or near Seleucia, at the time), who knows the career of Bar-soma well enough to be able to give us his school nickname yet knows nothing of any slaughter, we may conclude confidently that if there was any, it was insignificant in amount. It must be remembered that nobody would be shocked at the fact of Bar-soma's making an episcopal tour with an escort drawn from the frontier corps that he seems to have commanded, or much shocked if blood should be shed. Orientals like to have proof that the "Hukumet" is behind the man they are willing to obey. They revere power; and its concrete embodiment in a few soldiers does not strike them as at all unepiscopal. Of course his opponents would exclaim at the sacrilege—and would imitate it, if they got the chance!

Though there is no doubt that the great majority of the Christians of Persia were willing enough to follow the lead given by Bar-soma, there was a minority opposed to him. Papa, Bishop of B. Lapat, was one of them, and there were other bishops with him. The men of Tagrit, too, and the monks of at least one important monastery (Mar Matai by Mosul) clung to the confession of one "Nature"—or adopted it, in opposition to a man they hated—and some monks, about Seleucia-Ctesiphon were of the same way of thinking.^[27]

It is impossible to say how far this minority at the time was Monophysite in doctrine and by conviction, and how far it was merely opposed to Bar-soma, though there is good evidence that its principal bishop, Papa of B. Lapat, acted from the latter of these two motives. Still, here was the root of a Monophysite party in the Church, opposed to the Dyophysite majority. In later days it was to gather strength and to make a bold effort at the capture of the Church itself. Failing in this, it was able to win recognition as a separate melet.

No doubt Bar-soma hoped and expected to be patriarch in place of Babowai, and the prize must have seemed in his grasp when he held the council of B. Lapat in 484. At that very moment, however, it was snatched from him, and the support of much of his power cut from under his feet, by the death of his patron, King Piroz. That sovereign's defeat by the Turks, and his disgraceful homage to their sultan, had of course rankled in his mind; and, oath or no oath, he was resolved to avenge it. Thus he made war against them, and to keep the letter of his bond, made elephants drag in the van of his army the boundary stone that he had sworn that he would never pass. The Turks gathered for battle, and their sultan, like another of his race in another continent, reared the broken treaty on a lance, and bade his troops fight under that banner. As at Kossovo, the God of Battles accepted the appeal, and in the utter rout of the Persians that followed, Piroz himself was killed. The Turks, mere nomad tribesmen still, could not follow up their great success; but Persian power was paralyzed for the moment, and Armenia recognized the opportunity and sprang to arms. The new King, Balas, was glad enough to retain his sovereignty over them at the price of the recognition of their national Christianity.

Balas also filled up the vacant patriarchate of the Assyrian Church, but it was not Bar-soma that he selected. The late King's favourite seldom stands too well with the new ruler, and Balas ordered the consecration of the old school-fellow of Bar-soma, Acacius. This destroyed the very base of the power that the Bishop of Nisibis had wielded. He was, of course, metropolitan still; but he was not head of the melet, and another was. To use a homely metaphor, there had been a new deal, and a change of trumps. All the old figures remained unaltered, but their relations to one another and their relative values had changed.

For a little Bar-soma refused to admit the situation, and would not acknowledge Acacius. We do not know what ostensible reason he gave, but it does not matter, for it was his own power that he fought for, and the dispute was not long. The metropolitan of Nisibis had to admit that he was powerless against the patriarch backed by the King, and finally to submit, making the best terms for himself that he could.

Thus, in August 485, Acacius came north; and a gathering of bishops (for it was hardly a formal council) took place at B. Adrai,^[28] in the province of Nuhadra. Bar-soma had still a strong party behind him, for the metropolitans of Bait Garmai and Fars, with the bishop of the important see of Kashkar, were his supporters; and Papa of B. Lapat was the only bishop of importance who accompanied the patriarch. The metropolitans of Arbela and Prat D'Maishan were not present. Still he had to submit; to acknowledge Acacius as his patriarch and superior; to consent to the full annulment of his own council at B. Lapat, and to agree that another council should be held to review its canons and to re-enact as many of them as should be desirable. On these terms a reconciliation of a kind was effected, and Bar-soma was recognized as metropolitan of Nisibis, whither he now proceeded to hide his diminished head.

Bar-soma had had to submit to his rival, more or less in camera; but it was not likely that he would make a public "journey to Canossa" if that could be avoided and circumstances came to his aid. Opportune frontier disturbances made it impossible for the soldier-bishop to leave his post. One may suspect that the prelate who knew the frontier so well that it was impossible to spare him in time of trouble, knew also enough to make (if necessary) the trouble that made it so impossible that he should be spared! There is, however, absolutely no evidence behind that supposition. All that we know is that an Arab raid put Bar-soma's attendance at the council out of the question; and we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of giving a free translation of the letter in which he announced the fact to his superior.^[29]

"People who don't know think that the Bishop of Nisibis has a fine time of it; but for two years we have been having plague and famine, and now the Tu'an Arabs have been on the raid, plundering round Nisibis and across the Roman border; and the Romans, with their Arabs, the Tai'ans,^[30] are threatening reprisals. The marquis is trying to make terms on condition of mutual return of plunder; but that necessitates a meeting between him and the Roman general, with a big official from Seleucia, and all the chiefs of both Arab tribes, and goodness knows how long that will take to arrange!

"Last August (when I did come to a council, to oblige you) we got the general to come to Nisibis for a talk; and those Tu'ans must needs choose that time to go a-raiding, and of course the Romans thought it was our treachery, and there was no end of a fuss! I cannot possibly come to any council now, in spite of your request and the King's order. The marquis will not hear of it, and will not even summon my suffragans and let them go. Besides, you are just starting on this embassy of yours to Constantinople, and you really had better put off the council till your return. By the way, among the Romans there is the devil of a row ecclesiastically, and you will be delighted at the contrast with our splendid union (!). If you will have the council, I will agree beforehand to all of its decisions that are in accordance with the faith. We have already dropped the Bait Lapat canons. Your humble disciple and subject. Take care of yourself, and pray for us."

Neither the dispositions of men nor the conditions of life have changed in all these centuries in the country where that letter was written; and in course of time even episcopal functions have come to be once more pretty much what Bar-soma made them!

In spite of (or was it because of?) the absence of his formidable suffragan Acacius determined on holding the council, which met accordingly. Either before or during it he received another letter from Bar-soma,^[31] to inform him that the marquis had written to the King (who had clearly authorized the holding of the council) to say that he could not spare his active helper. He reiterates his guarded assurance that he will accept "all that the council does for the preservation of the Faith and in accordance with the canons"—an assertion which, of course, meant that he would accept just as much as he approved—but declares that he is not to be expected at it.

The council met without him in February 486, and was scantily attended. As its first Canon it passed a Confession of Faith, which was declared to be the more necessary as some "false ascetics" were busy spreading false teaching among the Faithful, particularly round Seleucia. The Confession (which speaks of a Trinity in Three perfect "Qnumi"—a point to be noted, as being the first official use of that term in the sense in which it is afterwards habitually employed) is orthodox: but it emphatically asserts the Two Natures, and is (perhaps with intention) so worded that a Nestorian could accept it. Thus it speaks of the ܢܩܝܦܘܬܐ ܓܡܝܪܬܐ‎, naqiputha gamirta, or the "perfect Conjoining" of the two natures, and also of the Unity of the Person^[32] of Christ.

After a second Canon ordering the false ascetics spoken of (who were Monophysite monks) to be confined to their monasteries, and in particular to refrain from schismatic celebrations of the Eucharist—an indication that the Monophysite party were already beginning to try to secure for themselves a separate existence; the council goes on to affirm emphatically the right of all, including bishops and clergy, to marry and to take a second wife if the first should die. Celibacy was to be a matter of choice, scandals having taught the Church that any attempt to make it compulsory led to disaster. A professed celebate, who broke his vow of chastity in secret, naturally received special censure; but it is not clear whether a "Rabban" who found his chosen life too high for him, might (as he may at present) openly declare that fact, and live as an ordinary layman with the wife of his choice—having departed from a holy purpose, but broken no irrevocable vow.

The disciplinary rules seem to an Anglican to be excellent, and the doctrinal canon acceptable,^[33] its indefiniteness being to our thinking no fault. Apparently it either was or could be interpreted as being similar to that of B. Lapat; and indeed that council seems to have been judged irregular rather because of the conduct of Bar-soma, and the absence of the Catholicos, than for any other reason. Bar-soma accepted the council, and Acacius and his turbulent suffragan had peace awhile; the patriarch being soon invoked positively to protect the metropolitan, who was by no means at ease in his own diocese, and who wrote to the patriarch, begging him to excommunicate the malcontents, lest serious trouble should arise and rebellion and persecution follow.^[34] One cannot say that the accusation of tyranny, which was the charge against Bar-soma, is improbable in the light of his career; and it is noteworthy how very humble the sometime ruler of the whole Church had for the time being become. He professes himself "the humblest of the servants" of Acacius, deplores the "human passion" which led to his "unchristian synod" at B. Lapat, and his "unchristian rebellion" against the lawful authority of Babowai. However (standing and immemorial excuse of the Assyrian when his sin has found him out), all this was just because human nature is fallible: and the Devil is the person really responsible—a doctrine which all orientals find very consoling.

Acacius made peace somehow without launching the excommunications which Bar-soma (true Assyrian in this as in all) was sure the judge must pronounce, after hearing the plaintiff's side only; and a little later he had to ask the Bishop of Nisibis to try and bring the Bishop and people of Susa to a sense of their duties to one another and to the patriarch—thus affording Bar-soma the chance of appearing in the one rôle which that versatile hero had never played yet, that of peacemaker. The veteran fighter, magnificently declaring as a preface that he had always been a lover of peace (!), did his best no doubt, but failed. Indeed, one has some sympathy with disputants who failed to recognize the dove of peace in a messenger whose previous career so much more nearly resembled that of a game-cock.

Before long, however, Bar-soma found worthier (his worthiest) work to do. His old school, Edessa, had been suspect by the authorities for thirty years, since Ibas had died and the doctrine of the "one Nature" had been predominant. In 489 Zeno the Emperor ordered its dispersal; telling the bishop, Cyrus, to purge his city of Nestorian venom. Accordingly the great school, the centre of culture for the East, came abruptly to an end; the college by the "spring of Abraham" was destroyed and a church built on the site; and the main channel summarily blocked, through which the Persian Church could receive Western philosophy and theology. By its means they might have been taught that the Greeks were not so far removed from them, after all, and through it they might have made their contribution to the fulness of Catholic life. The Church of the Empire now turned her back on the Church without the border; and the act is another and important stage in the gradual separation of the Assyrian Church from the rest of Christendom.

This circumstance brought to Bar-soma the great opportunity of his life, and it must be owned that he took advantage of it as an enlightened statesman and prelate should. He did a work for which his Church was to be his debtor during a thousand years of existence, and which may weigh in the balance against much that is evil in his chequered and stormy career.

The university that had been destroyed in Edessa he set up in Nisibis. Selecting an able head, Narses, he gathered tutors and pupils once more; found quarters for them somewhere; and established the great school that was to be the nursery of patriarchs and bishops for future generations, and which was to supply to the Church of the East that which Edessa had given her, and of which she was now deprived. It was a great deed, and one that was to have influence that the doer could not dream of. When we remember how much of the culture of mediaeval Europe was to come to her through the Saracens, and that the "Nestorians" were the teachers of the Saracens, one is set asking whether Oxford, Cambridge and Paris do not owe an unsuspected debt to Bar-soma, though the road from Nisibis to those centres may run through Baghdad and Salamanca.

While Bar-soma was superintending the growth of his school, and the Church was assimilating the reforms that he had forced upon her, the Armenian Church to the north was also taking one of the important steps in her history. The bishops gathered in council at Dvin,^[35] and there formally repudiated the council of Chalcedon, an act which they have never since really withdrawn. They were led to this step by a rather curious coincidence, through the influence of another Bar-soma; that Barsumas (to give him the name by which we know him) who won an unhappy notoriety at the "Latrocinium," and who was afterwards a vigorous preacher of Monophysitism in Asia. His disciple, Samuel,^[36] had been sent by him to Armenia.

Of course, this act did not for the moment separate them from the Church of Constantinople, which then professed the Henoticon. That effect came to pass thirty years later, when Chalcedon was acknowledged once more, and Armenia clung obstinately to her national confession. Formal reconciliation has been affected more than once, but it has always been unreal, and this Church has always continued in separation on that point, and has professed some sort of Monophysitism.^[37] Thus (a fact which must have been very gratifying to all Persian statesmen) the two Christian melets in their dominions were separated, not only from the Christians of the Roman Empire, but also from one another.

In the Assyrian Church quarrels soon broke out once more. It would seem really not to have been in Bar-soma's power to be long at peace with anybody, and by the year 491 he was again at open war with Acacius.^[38] We do not know the cause of quarrel; but as open anathemas were exchanged, it was obviously pushed further than any previous disagreement of theirs. On this occasion there was no reconciliation, though (when both were dead) some attempt was made to "whitewash" both parties by the next patriarch. Bar-soma had yet another quarrel on his hands at the time with Narses, head of the Nisibis college. Bar-Hebræus declares it to have been over a woman; but Bar-soma must at the time have been over seventy, and Narses cannot have been much less.

It was probably during this final quarrel (though the date is uncertain) that Acacius was sent by the Shah-in-Shah on an embassy to Constantinople.^[39] Here he was catechized, of course, by the bishops of the empire concerning his faith. Having heard his statement they demanded that, as further proof of orthodoxy, he should anathematize Bar-soma. Acacius made no difficulty in doing that; and in fact the man was, in all probability, already as much under anathema as his patriarch could make him, though for acts which neither the bishops of the time, nor we moderns, would regard as his greatest sins! On the doctrinal point Acacius gave, presumably, the only official statement of faith the Church knew other than the Nicene creed, viz., the Confession that the council of 486 had endorsed; and declared that the "Easterns" knew nothing of Nestorius and his heresy, and had simply kept the faith as they always had received it. This was probably perfectly true, as far as Christology was concerned; for up to that time the Assyrian Church had only retained the loose phraseology of an earlier age, either not knowing that the terms they used were changing their meaning in the "West," or thinking that the fact did not concern them. There is much strength in the position "they may change their terms if they like, but why should they think we ought to?" and had the Assyrian Church always acted thus, their position would be much less equivocal. Acacius was admitted to communion, and this may be taken as in some sort a healing of the separation that Bar-soma had brought about; but the memory of the rift remained, and was of evil omen for the future. As a matter of fact, the Church of the capital was herself too torn by dissensions to act very decisively, and the point is important. When we speak of the Assyrian Church "separating herself from the union of Christendom" we ought not to forget that the phrase presupposes the existence of an united body to separate from; and that such a body did not exist after the council of Chalcedon. What really happened was this. When all was in confusion and schism rife everywhere, one portion of the Church, isolated and independent before, took an independent line which led her into further isolation. Whether her teaching was really different from that portion of the Church which we now call "orthodox," and whether, granting that, it is now so different from that of another and younger portion of the Church that these two cannot enter into fraternal relations; these are two distinct and difficult questions, neither of which admit of an offhand answer.

Acacius returned to Persia. He had anathematized Bar-soma, and engaged to depose him—perhaps with a mental reservation, "if he could"; but their quarrel was ended before he arrived, for the Bishop of Nisibis was dead. He was killed, says Bar-Hebræus, by the monks of Mt. Abdin;^[40] but he was dead in any case, and that most strangely mingled character had passed to its account.

A man who did much good, and much evil. Who would win the power he desired by any means; and would use it at once for his own advancement and for what he judged to be the good of his melet. In his status he reminds us of the mediæval prince-prelate, rather than the oriental ecclesiastic. May we judge him by the same rule that we apply to them? Yet he is, withal, the epitome of his people. We see in him their qualities; but those qualities are exaggerated, and he is cast altogether in a larger mould than is the wont. In his quarrelsomeness, in his unscrupulousness, in his love for his Church and love for learning, joined with personal ambition, he is a true son of his annoying and attractive nation. One who has studied the history of the Church must feel some gratitude towards the man who wrote some of its most picturesque pages; and one who has learnt to care for the people must own to a kindness for so representative an Assyrian.

 

1. M.-Z., p. 147.
2. Rawlinson, Seventh Monarchy, ch. xvi. Peace had been made with the Turks, and it was to be cemented by a royal marriage. Piroz substituted a slave for the princess, and (the real crime to oriental thinkers) was detected.
3. B.-H. and Liber Turris. The former says that he was imprisoned after consecration, and released " when peace was made with Rome." We have no information of any war, and the statement reads like a confusion of his career with that of his predecessor.
4. One may accept fully the doctrinal statement endorsed by the first Council of Ephesus, and yet feel that the contrast between it and the second is not so marked as to make it obvious why the members of the first form a gathering of inspired fathers, and of the second, a "gang of brigands."
5. i.e. with the abandonment of Arianism by the Lombards, temp. Gregory the Great.
6. i. e. "King's man," from melka, king.
7. One must use this improper term for what was properly called "the Orient." One has to use the term "western" in two different senses, for the folk about Antioch and the folk about Rome. It is too much to have the same difficulty with the word "eastern."
8. A convenient term for those who held the doctrine of the "two natures" in some form: the alternative terms " Orthodox" and "Nestorian" both beg the question of the status of those so labelled.
9. Shimun of Bait. Arsham. Assemani, i. 351.
10. Labourt, p. 133.
11. Shimun of B. Arsham confuses this expulsion of Bar-soma and his companions with the general dispersion of the school, thirty years later. There can be no doubt that Bar-soma was Bishop of Nisibis long before the latter event occurred.
12. Liber Turris, Life of Babowai. M.-Z., Life of Abushta, p. 147. Bar-soma, Letter 2 (Syn. Or., 526, 532).
13. To the Bishopric of B. Lapat. Syn. Or., 83, 300; Assem., i. 352.
14. Assem. declares Shimun to have been orthodox, but a man who accepted the Henoticon and rejected Chalcedon can only have belonged to one party in sympathy.
15. Bedj., ii. 631–634.
16. Bar-soma, Letter 3. Syn. Or., 528, 534; Bedj., ii. 631.
17. The omission or insertion of one soundless consonant makes the difference of meaning ܪܝܫܝܬܐ‎, rishaita, for ܪܫܝܥܬܐ‎, reshi'ta. Incidentally, it is interesting to notice how many of the formalities of the Sassanids survive in their modern heirs, the Ottomans. The familiar phrase, "the sublime Porte," is only "the King's door"; Turkey is in all formal documents "the sublime Kingdom," all others being merely "princely." It even appears that the Mobed Mobedan had a position like that of the Sheik-ul-Islam, and could on cause shown issue a "fetva" declaring his King unfit to rule—unless the King anticipated the intention, and executed him!
18. Labourt, p. 136.
19. Bar-Hebræus does not seem to think this policy of blackmail at all discreditable to his heroes!
20. B.-H., p. 71. As a matter of fact it was B. Lapat. It is said to have been held in the "house of Yazdin, the Tax-farmer." The only man of that description we know lived 150 years later, but the name is common.
21. "Son of shoes" instead of "son of fast." The name given to Bar-soma by Bar-Hebræus in derision.
22. Adeney, The Greek and Eastern Churches.
23. It is also quite true, that things do go more smoothly for the melet, if they do not outrage the prejudices of the dominant religion too openly; and the enforced celibacy of an order is not a thing that can be concealed. Thus, the Moslem of to-day thinks that a Christian who does not use pictures or images in his worship, is a decidedly less contemptible animal than one who does use them. It is, of course, quite easy to prove that this matter of devotion or discipline is a purely Christian affair, nothing to Magian or Moslem; but what profit to prove it, if your opponent of the dominant faith does not agree? He has a vast superiority to argument.
24. This canon is only preserved to us through its having been quoted and adopted by a later council (Gregory, a.d. 605; Syn. Or., 211, 475). It was of course annulled with the other canons when the council was repudiated; but the fact of the canonization of the then uncondemned Theodore, in 484, must be remembered when we come to discuss the attitude of the Assyrian Church toward the posthumous anathema, pronounced on him in 553.
25. Syn. Or., 621.
26. Liber Turris. It is about the only reliable statement in that account.
27. Council of Acacius, Canons I and II.
28. Syn. Or., 61, 308. Bar-soma, Letter 1.
29. Bar-soma, Letter 2. S.O., 526, 532.
30. This tribe at least, and very probably the Tu'ans also, still live in the district.
31. Letter 4.
32. Parsopa. For the force of this term in the councils, see chap. xiii.
33. The word naqiputha has a ring that is not quite pleasant, but is no more Nestorian than the συντρέχοντες of the Council of Chalcedon.
34. S. O., 528.
35. Otherwise Vagarshapat. It is the place now generally called Etchmiadzin, which was originally only the name of the great monastery.
36. Ass., ii. 266.
37. The question of Armenian "heresy" does not concern us. We may mention, however, that so severe a judge as J. M. Neale considers them to be "orthodox in intention"; and that they have introduced into their version of the Creed clauses emphasizing the reality and eternity of the Human nature of Christ, and therefore can hardly be "Monophysite" in the ordinary sense.
38. Syn. Or., Council of Babai, 63, 312.
39. B.-H., 76. In that case, he either did not go on the embassy referred to in the second letter of Bar-soma, or he went twice. Both explanations are possible. It is possible, too, that Acacius did not anathematize Bar-soma till the "West" insisted on it as a condition of Communion. In that case, one must feel some sympathy with Bar-soma in his retaliation, and admit that in this case he was not the aggressor. To us, what we have written above appears more probable.
40. B.-H., p. 78. "Killed with the keys of their cells," says the historian. If so, one would like to know how it was achieved, for the oriental key is not an iron bar that can be a weapon on emergency, but a notched slip of wood some eight inches long, and about as formidable as a paper-knife.