Ephrem's life. After his death they got possession of it for a short time, and drove out the Catholic bishop Barses with his followers in 361. But their triumph lasted only a short time; then the Catholics came back.[1] It seems, indeed, that the later Nestorian heresy was taken up at Edessa, at least partly, as an opposition to Arianism (see p. 60).
What was the ecclesiastical position of the see of Edessa? By the unconscious development which we notice in the earliest Church organization, in which, naturally, the main centres obtained authority over lesser outlying dioceses,[2] Edessa certainly was the chief see of far-eastern Christendom. And when the first Christian missions began in Persia, they too came from Edessa, and looked to Edessa as their capital. We may count Edessa from the beginning as Metropolis of East Syria, the centre of Syriac-speaking Christendom, as Antioch was centre of the more Hellenized Churches of West Syria. But it has never been counted a Patriarchate. No Bishop of Edessa ever thought of assuming the tempting title of Patriarch of Mesopotamia. Why not? Because, at any rate in theory, they themselves were subject to Antioch. Edessa and its province, even (as we shall see) its outlying mission in Persia, were part of the great Antiochene Patriarchate. There does not seem any doubt of this in theoretic canon law, though it is a question how much real authority the Antiochene Pontiff exercised over these distant lands. For one thing, all Catholic Christendom before the Council of Constantinople in 381 was supposed to be subject to one of the three original Patriarchs of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch.[3] Edessa was certainly not in the Patriarchate of Rome or Alexandria. Antioch counted as its domain "the East" (πάση ἡ ἀνατολή), that is, the Roman prefecture so-called (Oriens).[4] This covered Asia Minor, Thrace (Egypt), Syria, and stretched eastward as far as the Empire went.[5] Edessa was in that prefecture. The story of Paluṭ going up to Antioch to be ordained, whether it be history or legend, is significant, as showing the idea of dependence on
