Though he had abandoned his own diocese he had this much of sympathy with it—that he would not see it made subordinate to another see that had once been more or less under its authority.
Feeling ran very high when the council met. Papa absolutely refused to submit to its authority, "exalting himself above the bishops who were assembled to judge him," though it is not clear on what he based this claim to supremacy. Perhaps he simply "would not receive" the council; much as a modern Assyrian often will declare, when angry, "I do not receive X. as my patriarch," and considers himself thereby freed from all obligation or obedience to the man named. Old Syrian writers reveal a state of mind, if not of circumstance, so exactly similar to that of their modern descendants, that one is often tempted to "fill up gaps" from modern knowledge.
Miles called the angry bishop to order. "Is it not written, He that is chief among you, let him be a servant?" "You fool, don't I know that?" replied the Catholicos, "Then be judged by the Gospel, if you will not be judged by man," retorted Miles, and drawing his copy of the Gospel from his satchel he placed it on a cushion in the midst. Papa, who was obviously in a furious rage, struck the book with his hand, exclaiming, "Then speak, Gospel, speak!"[1] This sacrilege roused the horror of friends and foes alike; but the fury of the old man then overcame him—struck with paralysis or apoplexy, he fell senseless in the council chamber, and we cannot wonder that all present felt that they had seen judgment fall on him from Heaven for
- ↑ The above is taken mainly from the Life of Mar Miles (Bedj. ii. 260). This document is marked by a tone much opposed to the Catholicos, but the main incidents, and notably the "Speak, Gospel, speak" episode, which struck the imagination of all parties, are corroborated by other writers, See council of Dad-Ishu, Synodicon Orientale.
