CHAPTER II
THE CHURCH UNDER ARSACID KINGS
The history of the Church from the time of Adai to that of Papa, or, roughly, from the year 100 to 300, is, on the whole, one of quiet progress, unmarked either by the quarrels or organized persecutions that were to chequer its later history; and unmarked, too, by the rise of any such striking personalities as we find, for instance, in the story of the African Church, or, in a less degree, in our own. Adai is too shadowy a person to have, for us at any rate, the charm of an Aidan; and not even the inventiveness of his chronicler can give to Mari's life the romance that encircles Columba's. The conditions of the life of a subject melet[1] in an oriental empire do not tend to produce very striking characters in normal times.
At first, at any rate, the body was not formidable enough to excite the State to persecute; and the rule of the Parthian kings was always tolerant. They appear to have favoured a sort of religious eclecticism themselves, and to have recognized all creeds among their subjects; though there is some evidence that the political power of the Magian clan
- ↑ Melet ("Millet"), is the technical word in Turkey for a Christian subject nation, organized, as they always are, in a Church, and dealing with the Government through its religious head. It suits the condition of the Church in Zoroastrian Persia so perfectly that we must use the word, particularly as no Western nation possesses the name or the thing. A rayat, or subject, is a member of such a melet.
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