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,"[1] 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[2] 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"[3] 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
- ↑ Bar-Hebræus does not seem to think this policy of blackmail at all discreditable to his heroes!
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ "Son of shoes" instead of "son of fast." The name given to Bar-soma by Bar-Hebræus in derision.
