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.[1] 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.[2]
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
