CHAPTER IV
THE GREAT PERSECUTION OF SAPOR II
Papa died about 328; and Shimun bar Saba'i succeeded him peacefully, and ruled, at all events for some years, with the prosperity that came from the royal favour. He was a persona grata at Court, and the young King Sapor (whose coming of age had approximately coincided with the accession of Shimun) apparently had a real personal liking for the bishop.[1]
The great ecclesiastical events that were passing in the West no doubt excited interest in the Church of the East, as far as they were known; but though destined to affect its history most profoundly in time, they had little effect at the moment. The news of the conversion of the Roman Emperor, and of the Edict at Milan, would reach the East, probably, about the time of the council held against Papa. During his later years, and the earlier portion of his successor's episcopate, rumours of the gradual establishment of Christianity as the State religion, of the rise of the Arian heresy, and the assembly of the Great Council of Nicæa, must gradually have filtered through to the Christians of Persia.
That portion of the Church, however, had this piece of exceptional good fortune allowed it—that it (and it only, of all portions of the Church
- ↑ M.-Z., Life of Shri'a; Bedj., ii. 180.
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