the biographer of Mari assert[1]—with a gay defiance of possible chronology—that the "Apostle" himself selected and consecrated Papa for Seleucia, and decreed that that see should ever hold the primacy in the Church of the East.
The date of the consecration of Papa was probably about 280.[2] Accordingly, we can hardly conclude that a picturesque incident related by Mari Ibn Sulieman actually happened in his day, though it is by no means an impossible thing in itself. The writer states that Demetrius, Bishop of Antioch, formed one of the immense horde of captives carried off by Sapor I when he raided Roman Asia in 258–259, after his capture of the Emperor Valerian. The bishop, with the other captives, was settled in Gondisapor; the great city into which Sapor transformed the little village of Bait Lapat in Khuzistan. Here, refusing the office of Catholicos, which the chronicler declares that Papa offered to yield to him, he remained as pastor and bishop of his fellows of the captivity; and in compliment to the rank that he had held in the West, his new see was granted the position of first among the Metropolitans subject to Seleucia.
As Seleucia had no bishop at the time of the raid, and the metropolitical provinces of the East were not organized for 150 years after this date, the tradition must not be taken au pied de la lettre. Antioch, however, was almost depopulated by Sapor,[3] and thus it is likely enough that the bishop was among the captives; while the presence of many Christians among them, and the fact that they became an important element in the Church of
