as the province of Fars, where he "smelt the smell of the Apostle Thomas."[1] Everywhere he builds churches and monasteries, and at last dies in peace at Dar-Ḳoni, just below the capital, having ordained Papa Bar 'Aggai to be first Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. This Papa is a real person, who lived at the end of the 3rd century; so, again, we have an impossible connection, an anachronism of two centuries. Is there any historical basis for Mâr[2] Mari, or is he only a legendary figure? Labourt and Duval do not think that his story can really be defended at all. Labourt conceives it as a late legend, composed to exalt the insignificant village Dar-Ḳoni, and to make it a place of general pilgrimage. But he would admit as possible that there was such a person.[3] Dr. Wigram, on the strength of Mšīḥâzkâ,[4] would admit Addai and a bishop Pḳidâ whom he ordained for Adiabene in 104. For Mari (whom Mšīḥâzkâ does not mention) he thinks there is less evidence.[5]
Labourt regrets that instead of these legends we can advance "only timid conjectures" about the origin of Persian Christianity.[6] There were flourishing Jewish colonies in Babylonia under the Parthian king. Whitsunday saw "Parthians and Medes and Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia" at Jerusalem,[7] that is, Jews from those countries. No doubt, among them in their own homes, too, the name of Christ was preached very early. Another source of Persian Christianity was the land of Adiabene (Ḥadyab), between the Tigris and the Zab, just across the Roman frontier. Here during the Roman persecutions Christians would find peace under the tolerant Parthian kings. But there is a city, Roman at first, which became the second centre of East Syrian Christianity, and then one of the most important places of the Persian Church. This is Nisibis,[8] about 120 miles almost
- ↑ Acta S. Maris, § 32 (transl. by R. Raabe, p. 59).
- ↑ Mâr, by the way., is a title we shall often meet. Syriac, mâr (mârâ), fem. mârt; Arabic, mār, f. mārah, means Lord (Lady). It is used for bishops, patriarchs and saints (sometimes with the first pers. suffix: mâri, etc.).
- ↑ Labourt: op. cit. 14–15. Duval: loc. cit.
- ↑ Above, p. 32.
- ↑ Hist. of the Assyrian Church, pp. 28–30.
- ↑ Op. cit. 15.
- ↑ Acts ii. 9.
- ↑ Νίσιβις. Syr: Nṣībīn, Nšībīn, now a mean Arabic village with a few Armenians and Jacobites.
