# An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church

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AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
HISTORY OF THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH
OR
THE CHURCH OF THE SASSANID PERSIAN EMPIRE
100–640 a.d.
BY
W. A. WIGRAM, M.A., D.D.
HEAD OF THE MISSION OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS
WITH MAP
LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. Brighton: 129, NORTH STREET New York: E. S. GORHAM 1910
TO
BENYAMIN MAR SHIMUN,
PRESENT "HOLDER OF THE THRONE OF MAR ADAI"
AND
PATRIARCH OF THE "ASSYRIAN" CHURCH
I DEDICATE THIS RECORD
OF THE WORK OF HIS SPIRITUAL ANCESTORS
PREFACE
This essay is an attempt at the filling of what appeared to the writer to be a distinct void in English ecclesiastical histories; and to give some account of a branch of the Church unknown to all except a very few students, during the most critical and important period of its history.
No one can be more conscious than the writer how much his work has suffered and been handicapped from the circumstances of its composition. The book was necessarily written away from any libraries except what was contained in the author's study; at a place where the procuring of any pamphlet required might take any time from six to twelve weeks; and where on one occasion the consultation of an authority implied waiting till a chance offered of making a laborious and dangerous journey of fourteen days' duration.
If it gains anything in vividness, and in grasp of the difficulties of those of whom it treats, from the fact that it was written among their modern descendants, whose circumstances have changed but little during the course of ages—this may be one compensation among many disadvantages.
The writer has throughout used for the Church in question the name "Assyrian." There is no historical authority for this name; but the various appellations given to the body by various writers ("Easterns," Persians, Syrians, Chaldæans, Nestorians) are all, for various reasons, misleading to the English reader.
​To the ordinary English Churchman of to-day "the Eastern Church" is the Church to the east of him—viz. the Greek Orthodox; the Church of the old "Eastern Roman Empire," of Constantinople, with her great daughter, the Russian Church. The name "Eastern," however, as applied by those Greeks, meant the Church to the east of them—beyond the oriental frontier of the Roman Empire.
To speak of "the Persian Church" is to do as much violence to ancient facts, as to speak to-day of "the Turkish Church" (meaning thereby some one Christian melet in the Ottoman Empire) is to disregard modern facts.
"Syrian," to an Englishman, does not mean "a Syriac-speaking man"; but a man of that district between Antioch and the Euphrates where Syriac was the vernacular once, but which is Arabic-speaking to-day, and which was never the country of the "Assyrian" Church. "Chaldæan" would suit admirably; but it is put out of court by the fact that in modern use it means only those members of the Church in question who have abandoned their old fold for the Roman obedience: and "Nestorian" has a theological significance which is not justified. Thus it seemed better to discard all these, and to adopt a name which has at least the merit of familiarity to most friends of the Church to-day.
The representation of the Syriac names of men and places in English, presents a problem almost as incapable of ideal solution as that of finding a name for the Church; and we make no claim to consistency in our practice. As a rule we have transliterated; marking compounds by a hyphen which has no existence in Syriac (e.g. Ishu-yahb). But where the name has a western version (Greek or biblical), which for any reason is familiar to ​the western reader, we have employed it. Few English readers would recognize in "Khizqi'il" the familiar "Ezekiel"; and though most students of Church history have a bowing acquaintance with Ibas of Edessa, how many would understand who was meant by "Yahba"? Greek versions are usually barbarous etymologically; and their historians are not even consistent—who without special study can recognize Cyrus and Chosroes as the same name? But at least they are familiar and are more euphonious than most Syriac names in English letters.
Van,
Turkey in Asia,
1909.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE SASSANID EMPIRE
CHAPTER II
THE CHURCH UNDER ARSACID KINGS
CHAPTER III
THE EPISCOPATE OF PAPA
CHAPTER IV
THE GREAT PERSECUTION OF SAPOR II
CHAPTER V
REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH—COUNCIL OF MAR ISAAC
CHAPTER VI
THE COUNCILS OF YAHB-ALAHA AND DAD-ISHU
CHAPTER VII
PATRIARCHATE OF DAD-ISHU—PERSECUTION OF YEZDEGERD II
CHAPTER VIII
BAR-SOMA AND ACACIUS
CHAPTER IX
DISORDER AND REFORM—PATRIARCHATES OF BABAI, SILAS, MAR ABA
CHAPTER X
552–604—PATRIARCHATE OF JOSEPH, EZEKIEL, ISHU-YAHB, SABR-ISHU
CHAPTER XI
THE STATE OF THE CHURCH IN THE SIXTH CENTURY
CHAPTER XII
THE VACANCY IN THE PATRIARCHATE—STRUGGLE WITH MONOPHYSITISM, 608–628
CHAPTER XIII
OFFICIAL CHRISTOLOGY OF THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH
CHAPTER XIV
LAST EFFORTS AT RECONCILIATION—ISHU-YAHB AND SAHDONA
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1953, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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