Page:Introduction to the Assyrian church.djvu/147

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PATRIARCHATE OF DAD-ISHU
141

able leaders on a small scale, but somehow producing no great general.[1] As usual, too, their worst foes were those of their own households, and none did so much to subdue Armenia as Armenian renegades.

Finally, a sullen submission was secured; and Zoroastrianism drove Christianity out of sight for the moment, so that the Shah-in-Shah could plume himself on a new country won to Magianism—a conversion which lasted, of course, for just so long as it could be enforced. It is worth mentioning that the history of their country, between the years 448 and 456, affords an ample explanation of the non-appearance of the Armenian bishops of Chalcedon, and of their consequent non-acceptance of that council. The Assyrian Church was not represented at it either, any more than at the preceding councils; nevertheless, they seem to have accepted, at some subsequent date, what they understood to be the decision of this synod.[2]

  1. To call Armenians a nation of cowards is a gross injustice; but as soldiers they have never produced anything higher than good "generals of division" like Loris Melikon, and partisan leaders.
  2. Syn. Or., p. 6. See chap. xiii. note 2.