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,[1] 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.[2] 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
