Author: Roger Pearse

We may as well add today the conclusion of the Life of Mar Aba.

41.  In order to avoid wearying you, through hearing too much, let us pass over what God soon did through him and for his sake in many distant countries, through arbitrating disputes which Satan, the enemy of our nature, had aroused; then in the imprisonment, which he endured for seven years in Azerbaijan; then in the fetters which he wore for three years around his neck, hands and feet at the king’s court.

There is a lot of this, and in many parts; the mouth is unable to tell it all, and you already know much of it.

So we end our words with the words of the blessed David, and say: “Blessed is the people that has such a man, and blessed is the people at whose head stands such a man, to feed the flock of our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Amen.

Dead but not buried yet! (I have split up some of the monster sentences in this one).

40.  He was honoured for seven days in the cathedral, day and night, with scripture readings, hymns, sermons and spiritual songs, and all the hosts of believers from all the provinces took the blessings home, by means of small towels (ὠράριον) and garments, that they laid on his body.  Then the King of Kings and the Mobedan Mobed sent the Mobed (of the province?) and the judge and other magians to see whether it was the saint or not, because, out of fear and terror, they didn’t believe in his death.

After these delegates had seen him, the body of the saint was placed on another bier (λεκτίκιον) and buried with great honour while spiritual songs were sung.  Countless multitudes eagerly honoured him with perfumes and lamps all the way through the city to the monastery of Seleucia.  Likewise the judges and magians who had been sent went before the litter (? BISPK’), in which the saint’s body was, and after he had been honoured through God’s almighty power, the magians returned, amazed and astonished at what they had seen and heard, to those who had sent them.

Thus the multitude lauded and praised God because of the wonderful things that happened at the death of the saint.

The King and the chief priest, the Mobedan Mobed, clearly wanted to make sure that Mar Aba did not stage a fake funeral and pop up somewhere out of their reach!

Mar Aba may be dead; but the political situation was still difficult.  The fire-priests had not forgotten their old adversary.  For Zoroastrians were not buried, and Mar Aba had been a noble Persian.

39.  Then the magians made so much fuss, that nobody dared to bury him until the King commanded it.  When he was laid on the bier (λεκτίκιον) and brought out, with great difficulty because of the crowd of believers, who threw onto it many handkerchiefs (σουδάριον) or coats and took them back again, as means of grace and blessing, until it reached the cathedral of Koke, the magians ordered that he should be thrown to the dogs.

Then the believers in droves shouted, “If anyone approaches the body of the saint, we will begin a bloodbath.”  They came en masse seized the litter (? BSPK’) and took it as a relic, and left nothing except the coffin (γλωσσόκομον) in which was the body of the saint.

The details seem rather gruesome to us.  But funerals in the East are political events, even today.

By this time Mar Aba was an old man.  Clearly he had reached an understanding with the Sassanid King, and was trusted to undertake what were really diplomatic missions.  But his health had suffered from his long period of imprisonment, and it is likely that everyone knew that he did not have long to live.

38.  Afterwards the King of Kings sent him [Mar Aba] into the province of Bêt Hûzâjê, and by God’s work and his care many priests were saved from death and their blood was not shed.  He encouraged them and filled their hearts with the words of spiritual teaching.  Then he returned to the court of the King of Kings, who allowed him to reside wherever he wanted.  The captain of the foot-soldiers (paig) who guarded him was ordered to leave him in peace.

He took up his dwelling next to the church of Bêt Narkôs.  There he lived and concerned himself with divine instruction, and every day he said wonderful things to those who came to him, and converted many from heresy who had come with the King of the Arabs to pay homage to the King of Kings and that made pilgrimage to him.

When he became ill for some time because of his imprisonment, the King ordered that doctors should be sent to him to heal him; but they could not.

The Saint slept from his holy struggle on the Friday of the second week of Lent.

Let’s return to the 6th century Syriac Life of Mar Aba, the Nestorian patriarch.  This life is interesting since it is not far removed in time from the events, and contains what are clearly historical statements about an otherwise little-known period of the history of Christianity in Persia.

A German translation exists, but no English translation.  I can’t translate Syriac, but I can turn German into English, so that is what I am doing.  The last chapter was back in April (you can find the other chapters using the link ‘Mar Aba’ at the foot of the posts).

The story so far.  Mar Aba is a noble Persian who has converted to Christianity and risen to become head of all the Christians in the Persian realm.  He has come into conflict with the Zoroastrian clergy. But something new is happening; the Persian King of Kings has started to realise that, far from being an agent of a foreign power, the Christian patriarch may be a balance to the power of the Zoroastrian clergy.  He is therefore under semi-arrest at the Persian court.

Now read on!

37. Some time later, the chief of the Hephthalites (haftarân chudâ)^[1] sent a priest to the King of Kings, and many Christian Hephthalites sent a letter to the Saint [Mar Aba] to ask him to consecrate the priest as  a bishop for the whole Hephthalite realm.

After the priest had come before the King, and set forth the business of his mission, [the King] wondered at what he heard, and marvelled at the great power of Christ, that the Christian Hephthalites also considered the Lordly One [Mar Aba] as their chief and regent, and he said to him that he should go and adorn the church as was custom, and should go into his church and house and collect the bishops according to custom, and ordain the man sent by the prince of the Hephthalites.

When the people of the Lord heard this message, and the Saint came out of prison and into the cathedral of his apostolic seat, what joy was like that joy, that the Lordly One had returned to his blessed flock after nine years, which he had spent in combat with lions and panthers for his beloved flock,^[2] and returned victorious.

What shepherd loves his flock like our father, the master  of the holy flock, who bore every trouble and persecution for it, and gave himself over to death?  As the good shepherd led his blessed sheep into the holy sheepfold, so the sheep and lambs of Christ ran in to him from all sides, when they heard his beloved voice, surrounded him, sought refuge with him, and kissed his hands and feet and whole body, which was torn and mangled by the claws and fetters.  And they waited to hear the sound of his sweet hymns and to suck spiritual milk from his beloved teaching.  Because the sheep heard the voice of the blessed shepherd, they were very happy about this, and only with difficulty could he enter his blessed appartment because of the crush of people.

The following morning the church was adorned with throngs of believers; the Saint ordained the Hephthalite priest as bishop for the land of the Hephthalites, and in the people of the Lord joy grew over the arrangements of divine providence.

There seems no reason to question any of this.  The spread of Christianity along the Silk Road, led by the Nestorian clergy, is an undoubted fact, and the King of Kings would undoubtedly see a political advantage in the Hephthalites getting their bishops from the (Persian) patriarch.

1. ^[1]Also known as the White Huns; a serious threat on the northern side of the Persian kingdom.↩
2. ^[2]The “lions and panthers” no doubt refers to his battles with the Zoroastrian clergy.↩