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CASE DISMISSED!
Posted by Paul Younan (Guest) - Thursday, September 23 2004, 17:35:39 (CEST)
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Khizmie David had insisted that the only reason for the burning down of the Zoroastrian fire temple was so that the bishop, in his zeal, could make converts to Christianity.

Well, David is WRONG. Here is the REAL story. (From: "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) :

(MY COMMENTS:)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:

When Yezdegard issued his firman for persecution against those who left the state religion (Zoroastrianism) for Christianity, the Mobeds (Magians) were given the charge to make sure they reclaim all those converts...not by death, by by "a certain amount of beating."

(END MY COMMENTS)

(START QOUTE FROM WIGRAM)

One of the men whom Adarbuzi "turned back" from Christianity--by beating or otherwise--was a man of Seleucia, called Adur-parwa. This man had been converted to Christianity by a Qasha named Sapor, who had cured him in some illness, and for whom the grateful convert had built a church. Sapor, by the advice of a friend named Narses, had secured a regular deed of gift for both building and site, so that both were legally his property; but when the "trouble" began, and Adur-parwa was reconverted to Magianism, he (filled apparently with a renegade's zeal) demanded the restoration of what he had given. Sapor did not contest the point at law, but fled by the advice of Narses, carrying the title-deeds with him, and intending no doubt to return in better times and reclaim the church, which was legally his own. The 1Iagians took possession of the building, and turned it into a fire-temple. Shortly after Narses, ignorant of what had happened, entered the church, and was surprised to find the sacred fire burning in it, and the whole place fitted up as a Magian sanctuary. He removed the furniture (no heavy task, if fire-temples in those days were furnished as simply as is the case now) and extinguished the fire, an act of sacrilege for which he was mobbed by the villagers. Being rescued from them by authority, he was sent to the Mobed Mobedan at Seleucia for trial. Here his Christianity was not urged against him, he being no doubt of the melet by birth; and Adarbuzi seems to have admitted extenuating circumstances in the matter of the extinction of the sacred fire, for the defendant was simply ordered to re-kindle it in the temple, and was promised his release on compliance. This he declared himself unable to do. All parties showed admirable restraint in the matter; the Mobed was anxious to release the prisoner, if he would give what was no doubt regarded as reasonable satisfaction; and Narses on his side indulged in none of the insults to another faith which mar some of the histories, but simply declined to purchase his own release by what he regarded as an act of apostasy, preferring to suffer the penalty instead.

On his refusal he was imprisoned at Seleucia during the winter-"among thieves and murderers," says his biographer, though, in all probability (an oriental prison not being provided with separate cells) this implied no special hardship beyond that of detention-and towards spring a bribe to the gaoler procured his release on bail and permission to reside in a monastery not far from the city.

In spring the Court made its usual move "to the hills"--i.e. to B. Lapat or to Susa--and it was decided to have a general clearance of the city prisons on the occasion. Narses honourably surrendered himself, and his case thus came before the King personally, and was decided summarily. "Let him collect fire from 365 places, and put it in the temple, or let him be put to death." Again he refused to comply, and was therefore ordered for execution-the first man, apparently, to die in this persecution.

Crowds of Christians accompanied him to see the end, exciting the fears of the official in charge, till both they and the martyr assured him that they had no thought of obstructing "the King's justice," but merely wished to see the last of a friend. So, without malice and without display, he met his death, the authorities doing no more than they judged their duty, and the sufferer making no complaint of the penalty that befell him for following his conscience. Both parties acted as became honourable men, the Christian as became his faith. Only the clumsiness of the impressed executioner (a Christian, who refused to act till the martyr bade him "strike," for it should not be imputed to him) marred the nobility of the ending. Its tragedy lay, not in the death of the man who preferred it to treachery to his religion, but in the circumstances which gave honourable men no choice but mutually to inflict and submit to death.

It was impossible, however, for persecution to continue in this gentlemanly style. Bloodshed infuriated both sides, calling out hot zeal in the one party and massacre-lust in the other. Narses could not have been dead many days when a great fire-temple of Seleucia,148 which stood close to a Christian church, was burnt by Christians. A bishop of the name of Abda was arrested, both as being a prominent Christian, and as being suspected of this insult to the State religion; and these facts show that persecution was already drifting beyond the lines of Yezdegerd's original permission. As a matter of fact, it was not Abda who had been guilty of this act of incendiarism; it was an over-zealous Qasha of the name of Hashu, who at once accused himself when he heard of the arrest of the bishop, and boldly justified his action; "it was no shrine of God that we destroyed." When told to hold his tongue, and let the accused speak for himself, he persisted in statements that were, under the circumstances, insults to the State faith, and provocative of persecution. "Fire is no god, it is but a creature given to us for our use." Admitting the burning of the temple, lie absolutely refused to admit that it was even a questionable act. Abda, however, seems to have been regarded as responsible; and it was he, not the zealot, who, according to Theodoret, was ordered to rebuild the temple,149 and was executed on his refusal. With these two martyrdoms, and the feeling which the acts precedent to them would certainly call out (viz. that the Christians were making attacks on "the religion"), a definite persecution of Christians, as distinct from a "disciplining of converts," may be said to have begun.

(END QOUTE FROM WIGRAM)

-Paul =)



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