keys of their cells.[1] He was certainly a Nestorian, and had done all he could to propagate his heresy in Persia. Only, we may question how far during his life he had succeeded in committing the Church officially as far as he was prepared to go himself. Acacius, too, died in 495 or 496, and was succeeded by Babwai II[2] (497–502). This man marks almost the lowest degradation of the Persian Church. He could not even read, and he had a wife. In his time flourished Narse, one of the great lights of the Nestorians. The Jacobites call him Narse the Leper; to Nestorians he is the "Harp of the Holy Ghost." He was a friend of Bar Ṣaumâ, helped to found the school of Nisibis, and became its President. He died in 507. He wrote a great number of poems and sermons.[3] Narse is quite openly a Nestorian. In his homily on the "three Doctors," Diodore, Theodore and Nestorius,[4] he declares that our Lord is in two natures, two hypostases, and one prosopon. He undertakes a vehement defence of the virtuous Nestorius, who was betrayed for gold by enemies of the truth. For a time this state of things goes on. The Persian Church is vehemently anti-Monophysite; many of her bishops and writers are clearly Nestorian. Such was Rḥimâ of Arbela, who denounced Cyril and the "sacrilegious Synod of Ephesus."[5] There was general sympathy with Nestorius and strong feeling in favour of all the theology of Theodore the Interpreter. But it is perhaps not till we come to formal rejection of the Council of Chalcedon that we can fairly brand the whole Church of Persia as Nestorian.
After the death of Babwai II in 502 follows another period of confusion. There are again rival Patriarchs[6] and mutual excommunications. At last we come to Mârabâ[7] (540–552) and a reform. Mârabâ was of the school of Nisibis. He came to Constantinople between 525 and 533, and there refused to condemn Theodore and the Nestorian teachers. Having returned to Persia,
- ↑ Barhebræus, ed. cit. iii. 78.
- ↑ Babai or Babwai, really the same name.
- ↑ Cf. Duval: Littérature syriaque, pp. 346–347.
- ↑ Published by Martin in the Journal asiatique (July 1900).
- ↑ Mshīḥâzkâ, ed. cit. p. 144.
- ↑ We may use this title from now as that of the Katholikos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.
- ↑ Mâr-abâ, "Lord Father."
