Demetrian

ON ST. DEMETRIAN, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH,

ABOUT THE YEAR 260

Demetrian, bishop of Antioch (S.)

By P. P.

§ I. The memory of St. Demetrian in the Greek church.

[1] The Hieronymian martyrology records Demetrian, bishop of Antioch, As far as can be perceived from the most corrupt series of names which the Hieronymian copies announce at the 10th day of November, there seems to have stood in the archetype an entry drawn up in these words: At Antioch, of Demetrius, bishop, of Amesis, deacon, of Eustochius and his companions … Act. SS., Nov. volume II, 1, p. [141.]. But whether a band of martyrs in the proper sense is designated by this formula, or, on the contrary, the individual names have been connected with one another and with the name of Antioch by mere chance, cannot be decided with certainty. Yet it seems fairly probable that the name of Demetrius is to be joined with Antioch; although the same Demetrius perhaps already occurs in another company and place at the 9th day of November, and will emerge again below at the 14th, 20th and 21st days of November Ibid., pp. [143, [145].].

[2] and the Edessene, A certain Demetrius, priest and martyr, is recorded at the 14th day of November by the very ancient Syriac epitome of the Oriental martyrology, in a mention which can hardly be understood by itself. The context of the mention is of this kind [Act. SS., volume cited, p. LXII – LXIII; F. Nau, Un martyrologe et douze ménologes syriaques, in Patrologia Orientalis, volume X, (1912), p. 22.]: And (on the) thirteenth day, at Perinthus Pedinthos the codex; compare at the 29th day of September: , aphdinthos. 〈…〉 and The conjunction is to be deleted unless a name is missing before Hedistus. of Hedistus, priest. And on the fourteenth day in the same city Theodotus and Demetrius, priests, martyrs. And on the fifteenth day at Antioch Secundus and Orentis, martyrs of the ancient ones… We do not trust that the source of this passage can be tracked down by subtleties and conjectures. But whoever compares these three elogia with the farrago of names which is presented at the same days in the Hieronymian martyrologies will be almost driven to believe that a much fuller Greek list was carelessly and ignorantly contracted by the Syrian translator, who dissolved and jumbled its whole structure [Compare S. Démétrianus évêque d'Antioche? in Anal. Boll., volume XLII, p. 289 – 90.]. And so it could easily have happened that the one who is now called Demetrius, priest and martyr at Perinthus, a city of Thrace, robbed Demetrius, bishop of Antioch, of place and name. Yet until this error is demonstrated from the very letter of the codices, the testimony of the Syriac martyrology contributes nothing to the present question.

[3] the oration on the martyrs In the same very ancient codex of the British Museum Add. 12 150, from which that Syriac epitome of the Oriental martyrology was brought out, there was copied in the same year 411/412 a panegyrical oration on the martyrs, translated from the Greek tongue into Syriac, which Benjamin Harris Cowper persuaded himself, from the catalogue of Ebedjesu of Nisibis, should be inscribed with the name of Eusebius of Caesarea The Journal of Sacred Literature, second series, volume V (1864), p. 403 – 404.. not by Eusebius. This, however, not by Eusebius

was composed is shown by the brevity of speech alone, even if this praise must be shared between the writer himself and the Syrian translator, who certainly cut away many things, superfluous and not superfluous. In this encomium, then, after he has spoken of the praises of the martyrs in general, the orator, a little before the conclusion, calls up some saints by name in this manner [Place cited, p. 408. At our request the codex was most obligingly collated by the very distinguished J. Leveen.]: By our commemoration likewise let there be honoured Asclepiades, Sarapion, Philetus, Zebinas, Demetrius, Flavianus, Cyril, Sosipater, Andrew, Babylas, Cyril, Izabenus [A monster, not a name. Very cautiously indeed I would conjecture that by an error either of the copyist or of the translator himself the names of SS. Antony and Zebinas, Palestinian martyrs, have grown together, whose feast was celebrated on the 13th or 12th day of November. On them Eusebius, Mart. Palaest., chapter 9; BHG. 20; BHO. 65; Synax. Eccl. CP., pp. 221, 217.], Zenobius, and Paul, son of that race which was deemed worthy [So it must most certainly be translated. A man of (our) race, who has been deemed worthy, as B. Harris Cowper seems to have understood (Journal of Sacred Literature, volume VI, 1865, p. 133), is not read in the Syriac text.] that a divine portion should fall to it, and that from it [B. H. Cowper, place cited: ex ea, as if he had read . However the corrupted sentence is to be restored, it is established that in this place a man is signified who was of the nation and homeland of Christ. Perhaps Paul is to be understood, likewise a Palestinian martyr, whom Eusebius reports to have been born at Jamnia in Galilee. On him, BHO. 918.] he should be. Let Marinus hasten, and let Fronto come to heaven, and the chaste old man Hippolytus. I know indeed and I profess that there were many others who were illustrious in this contest…

[4] but composed by a writer of Antioch It is not ours to inquire by what choice or counsel those saints seem to be extolled here before all others [See H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyrs (Brussels, 1912), p. 225 – 27.]. For the present question it will be enough to have noted these things. Asclepiades, Sarapion, Philetus, Zebinas, Cyril and Babylas are names from the most ancient series of the bishops of Antioch [Delehaye, place cited, p. 225; compare A. Harnack, Die Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius, volume I (Leipzig, 1897), p. 212 and following.]. In place of Flavianus Fabianus may fairly probably be written, who succeeded St. Babylas in the same see of Antioch. And the name of Demetrian, about whom we are now inquiring, is here and there interchanged with Demetrius. Marinus and Fronto are two martyrs who were venerated together at Antioch on the 16th day of November. Assuredly it was not by some sport of memory that the orator was led to set so many Antiochenes in the first rank in a brief survey of the whole court of the saints. He was therefore addressing those to whom their glory was most dear. and rendered more briefly in Syriac; And if this is so, the enumeration as it stands has certainly been mutilated. For who, reviewing the glories of the church of Antioch, would have passed over St. Ignatius? But let others see to these things; for us it must be retained that before the year 412 there flourished at Antioch the memory of a certain Demetrius, who was recalled in the series of the holy bishops.

[5] the calendars of the monastery of Qennesre. To him is also referred a mention inscribed in two calendars of the monastery of Qennesre, which is preserved in the Syriac codices of the British Museum Add. 17 134 and Add. 14 504 On which Anal. Boll., volume XLII, p. 78.. In the former, indeed, which was copied about the year 675 under the eyes of James, bishop of Edessa, if not by his very hand, we read thus [Ed. F. Nau, Un martyrologe et douze ménologes syriaques, in Patrologia Orientalis, volume X (1912), p. 35.]: On the twentieth day of the latter Teshrin (the commemoration) of the holy Dometrinus, bishop, and of Honorius the king. But in the codex Add. 14 504, which had already been written at the beginning of the tenth century Anal. Boll., volume cited, p. 79; compare above, p. 8., the same mention is expressed more correctly in this form Ed. F. Nau, work cited, Patrologia Orientalis, place cited, p. 47.: (On the day of the latter Teshrin) X: Of Demetrian, bishop, and of the most religious king Honorius. And to which day, the tenth or the twentieth, this entry belongs, there is no room for doubt; for the emperor Honorius was recalled by the Monophysite Syrians on the tenth day of November. The day, then, is established. Nor is it less evident that the Demetrian who is announced here is the same as the one who is read in the Hieronymian martyrologies as Demetrius, bishop of Antioch, and that here, as elsewhere, a certain rivulet flowed into the calendar from the same Antiochene source whose waters have trickled here and there into the Hieronymian martyrology.

[6] The testimonies of Dionysius of Alexandria, About Demetrian, bishop of Antioch, very little has been handed down to us from Greek and Latin documents. Eusebius excerpted the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria to Pope Cornelius, in which he reports that he had been invited by Helenus, bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, Firmilian, bishop of Cappadocia, Theoctistus, bishop of Palestine, and others, to a synod which was to be held at Antioch, where the followers of Novatus had gained strength. Then he adds: Φάβιον μὲν κεκοιμῆσθαι, Δημητριανὸν δὲ διάδοχον ἐκείνου τῆς κατ᾽ Ἀντιόχειαν ἐπισκοπῆς καθεστάναι Historia ecclesiastica, VI, 46, ed. Schwartz, p. 628.. So Demetrian had already been elected before the month of June of the year 253, in which St. Cornelius the pope died a martyr Harnack, Chronologie, volume I, 1, p. 215.. The same Dionysius, writing to Pope Stephen, names Demetrian in the first place among the bishops who restored the peace disturbed by Novatus, to whose sect Fabius of Antioch had been too favourable Eusebius, Hist. eccl. VII, 29, Schwartz, p. 704.. Whence Harnack concludes, not without reason, that Demetrian presided over that synod of Antioch to which Dionysius of Alexandria had been invited Chronologie, place cited.. of the synod of Antioch, Finally, Demetrian is praised by the fathers of the other synod of Antioch, in which Paul of Samosata, his successor, was cast out of the church: who in their synodal letter, after reporting that they had expelled the unworthy bishop from his see, announce that there had been substituted by them for him τὸν τοῦ μακαρίου Δημητριανοῦ καὶ ἐπιφανῶς προστάντος πρὸ τούτου τῆς αὐτῆς παροικίας υἱὸν Δόμνον, ἅπασιν τοῖς πρέπουσιν ἐπισκόπῳ καλοῖς κεκοσμημένον Eusebius, Hist. eccl. VII, 30, 17, Schwartz, p. 712..

[7] of Eusebius, In the Chronicle of Eusebius, in the first year of the 258th olympiad, the second of Gallus and Volusian, and therefore in the year 253 from the nativity of Christ [See F. K. Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, volume II (Leipzig, 1911), p. 585.], this mention occurs: At Antioch, as fourteenth bishop, Demetrian is appointed [Eusebii Pamphili Chronici canones latine vertit, adauxit, ad sua tempora produxit S. Eusebius Hieronymus, ed. John Knight Fotheringham (London, 1923), p. 301.]. And in the first year of the 260th olympiad, the seventh year of Valerian and Gallienus, or 261 of Christ, the successor of Demetrian is reported elected, in these words: At Antioch, as fifteenth bishop, Paul of Samosata is appointed Fotheringham, volume cited, p. 302.. If this note is understood by the common rule of interpretation, this latter year is that in which Demetrian died, in the ninth year of his episcopate. But from what is presently to be said it will be plain that it could have happened that between the death of Demetrian and the accession of Paul of Samosata to the see of Antioch a rather long interval of time also passed. Nor is the chronography of Nicephorus the patriarch to be marked with a prejudiced suspicion of error, where in the series of the bishops of Antioch, in the fourteenth place, there is read: Δημητριανός· ἔτη δ᾽ [Nicephori archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani opuscula historica, ed. C. De Boor (Leipzig, 1880), p. 130.].

§ II. The memory of St. Demetrian among the Orientals.

[8] In the Chronicle of Seert there is read By an unexpected yet not incredible chance, the memory of Demetrian, which among Western writers almost vanished, has lately emerged into the light in Oriental literature. Leaving aside for a little an Arabic booklet of lighter authority, which must borrow its credit from elsewhere, there must be brought forward in the first place a testimony which is worthy of much greater consideration. Namely, in the year 1907 there was edited by Addai Scher of blessed memory, a Chaldean, archbishop of the church of Seert in Corduene [Who in the month of August of the year 1915, while the world war was raging, being ordered by Muhammadan assassins to abjure the faith, bravely poured out his life for Christ.], from a codex of the patriarchal library of the Chaldeans at Mosul, the first part of an ecclesiastical history, likewise in the Arabic tongue, collected by a certain Nestorian compiler from Greek and Syriac sources [Addai Scher, with the collaboration of J. Périer, Histoire nestorienne inédite, (Chronique de Séert), in Patrologia Orientalis volume IV, p. 215 – 313. The second part, with the help of P. Dib, came out in the same place, volume V, p. 219 – 344, in the year 1910; the third finally, in the year 1919, after the editor's murder, was inserted by the care of R. Griveau in volume XIII, p. 437 – 639.]. About the first 18 folios of the codex have perished, in which the history was carried down to the times of the emperors Valerian and Gallienus. And on the first folio that has been preserved, or page 38, this narrative is read with a heading prefixed [Patrologia Orientalis, volume IV, p. 220 – 23; compare Anal. Boll., volume XLII, p. 294 – 95. We learned late that at this place several emendations had been proposed by the learned C. F. Seybold, which partly agree with ours; see Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, volume LXVI (1912), p. 745 – 46. On the Chronicle of Seert the very distinguished E. Sachau discoursed learnedly, Vom Christentum in der Persis, in Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1916; see especially p. 963 – 65; compare the same, Zur Ausbreitung des Christentums in Asien, in Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1919, 1, p. 26 – 42.]: The death of Valerian [The text in this place and in what follows: Ulifranios. See the note to the Arabic text.] the emperor.

[9] Demetrian, by Shapur In the eleventh year In the year of Christ 252/253. of 〈his〉 reign, Shapur, son of Ardashir, marched against the regions of the Romans, in which he remained a long time; he overthrew very many cities, defeated the emperor Valerian and took him captive; and with him he came to the lands of the Nabataeans [That the name is manifestly corrupted from Beth Lāpāṭ, that is Gundaisabur (see p. 387, note 5), Seybold pronounces, place cited, p. 745. But the Nabataeans of Babylonia are recorded here and there in Tabari, and indeed in the very place where he lists the cities founded by Shapur (Annales quos scripsit Abu Djafar Mohammed, ibn At-Tabari, series 1, volume I, 2, edited by J. Barth and Th. Nöldeke, Leiden, 1879 – 1881, pp. 821, 830, etc.; compare p. 387, note 1).]. And he, worn out by grief, died there. And the fathers whom the accursed

Valerian had cast out returned to their sees. with the Antiochene captives And Shapur, departing from the land of the Romans with the captives, settled them in the regions of Babylonia In Arabic: al- 'Irāq., of Huzaina [It is most worthy of note that the Christian faith fixed its first roots in Babylonia among the Huzaini. Compare the Preliminary Commentary to the Passion of St. Isbozetas, above, p. 194 and following. Where, however, on p. 200, note 3, it ought not to have been said that the Huzaini Melchites were recorded by the Arab Maqdisi; who in the place cited designates not Christians but followers of the Muhammadan Malik ben Anas.] and Persis, and in the cities which his father had founded. He himself also founded three cities, led away into Babylonia; to which he assigned names drawn from his own name; of which one in the land of Maišân, which he called Sad Sapor [Read: Šādh Sābūr, in Pahlavi Šādh-i Šahpuhr, a city of Mesene which Tabari reports was founded by Shapur son of Ardashir; who adds that it is called Raimā "in the Nabataean tongue". Annales, volume cited, p. 830; compare p. 386, note 4.], which is the monastery of Miḥrāq [Read: Miḫrāq. On the testimony of bar Bahlul: Raimā was a place of the region of the Euphrates in Mesene, of the province of Basra, the seat of a bishop; which is called Dair Miḫrāq (Lexicon syriacum, ed. Rubens Duval, volume III, p. 1899). Bar 'Ali adds that the church of Raimā was independent and not subject to the jurisdiction of any metropolitan (see Payne Smith, Thesaurus syriacus under the word). Yet in the synod of the year 410 Raimā is named among the sees subject to the archbishop of Kaskar. J.-B. Chabot, Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil de synodes nestoriens, in Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, volume XXXVII (1902), p. 272; compare Anal. Boll., volume cited, p. 298.]; the second in the region of Persis That is, in Persis properly so called (Pārs), to the south of Media., which down to this our age is called Sapor [This is the city of Sābūr in the Persian province of Kazerun, where even today images of Shapur triumphing over Valerian are seen carved on the rocks, a work of great size and not unbecoming, which shows the appearance of Roman art. See below, num. 11; Anal. Boll., volume cited, pp. 299, 308. On these monuments, besides not a few others, there may be consulted: Ch. Texier, Description de l'Arménie, la Perse, la Mésopotamie, volume II (Paris, 1852), p. 206 – 208, plates 146 – 48; Th. Nöldeke, Encyclopaedia Britannica, under the word Persepolis, ed. 11, volume XXI, p. 185 – 86; F. Sarre, L'art de la Perse ancienne, translated by P. Budry, in L'Art de l'Orient (Paris, 1921), plate 75.]. And he rebuilt Bendosabora [Ǧundaïsabur, in Syriac Beth Lāpāṭ; compare below, num. 12, and Anal. Boll., volume cited, p. 299 – 300. See also J.-B. Chabot, Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil de synodes nestoriens, in Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la bibliotheque Nationale, volume XXXVII (1902), p. 668. We have interpreted the name of the city from the Greek: Βενδοσαβόρων τῆς πόλεως, Theophylact Simocatta, Hist., book III, 5, 2, ed. C. De Boor (Leipzig, 1887), p. 117. On its Persian form see J. Marquart, Erānšahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenac'i, in Abhandlungen der Kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, N. F., volume III, 2 (1901), p. 145.], which had been destroyed, and called it Antisabor [The name of the city seems to have been "Parthian", or Pahlavi: Weh Antijok-i Šahpuhr, "Better Antioch of Shapur". Thence by a certain popular corruption it became in Persian: Beh az Andev-i Šābūr (Tabari, Annales, ed. Nöldeke, volume cited, p. 831; Hamzae Ispahanensis Annalium libri X, ed. I. M. E. Gottwaldt, volume I, St Petersburg, 1844, p. 49), that is, "Better than Antioch is (the city) of Shapur" (see Marquart, Erānšahr, p. 145; compare Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, p. 41 – 42, note 2). The rest some little Greek devised, more foolishly than falsely.], which name is compounded of Greek and Persian, and signifies: "Be you in place of Shapur". The third city he built on the Tigris, which he called Murûḥābur [Read with Seybold: Buzūrg Sābōr. Compare Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, p. 57, note 5, p. 500 – 501; Anal. Boll., volume cited, p. 301.]; this is 'Okbarā ['Okbarā, on the lesser Tigris, to the east of the city of Baghdād. See Iāqūt, volume III, p. 705, who cites Ḥamza of Ispahan as witness. 'Okbarā was an episcopal see which Elias of Nisibis records (Opus chronologicum, ed. E. W. Brooks, Corp. Script. christ. orient., Scr. syr., textus, series 3, volume VII, 1910, p. 72), Maris ben Sulaimān (H. Gismondi, Maris, Amri et Slibae, De patriarchis nestorianorum commentaria, Pars prior. Maris textus arabicus, Rome, 1899, p. 118) and others. See also Sachau, Zur Ausbreitung des Christentums, place cited, p. 35.] and its neighbourhood. In these cities, moreover, he settled people from the captives; to whom he granted lands to till and houses to dwell in. For this cause, then, the Christians increased in number in the region of the Persians; monasteries and churches were built. And there were among them priests who had been brought captive from Antioch. the church of Bendosabora These settled at Bendosabora, and chose Azdaq [The very distinguished E. Sachau, relying on an example which he read in Chabot, Synodicon Orientale, p. 43, conjectures that should be written. Yet this can hardly have been the name of a Greek from the land of Antioch. Our conjecture in Anal. Boll., volume cited, p. 311, is still more unhappy; for that Hierax was present at Antioch in the synod of the year 267 (on which above, num. 6). We now wonder by what wandering of mind it escaped us that Eudocius should be read. Note that with Demetrius the bishop a certain Eustochius is announced in the Hieronymian martyrologies.] of Antioch, whom they appointed bishop for themselves, for Demetrius, patriarch of Antioch, had died worn out by grief. For he had already, before this second captivity, departed (from Antioch). founded by Greek exiles; And as patriarch of Antioch, after Demetrius its patriarch had been led away captive, Paul of Samosata was made; whose history Daniel son of Mary eloquently related. Shapur also built a city in Kaškar See below, num. 13., which he called Ḥasar-Šābū [By all means to be written with Seybold: Ḫosrau Sābūr. In the name indeed there is no difficulty. Ḫosrau Sābūr, commonly Ḫossābū, was a village not far from the city of Kaskar (Iāqūt, volume II, p. 442), which was the chief place of the region until at the beginning of the eighth century the primacy was transferred to that city (ibid., volume IV, p. 274). But Ḫosrau Sābūr has nowhere yet appeared either among the cities founded by Shapur or in the series of episcopal sees. It must be seen, therefore, whether perhaps its name has crept in at this place in place of Sābūr Ḫuāst, which is read in Arabic writers in the same little story. See the following note, and Anal. Boll., volume cited, p. 301 – 302.], and in it he settled people from the Orientals. The cause of its building was of this kind [The little story that follows is itself the fable of the old man Bel, which Tabari related about the origin of the city of Bendosabora, Annales, volume I, p. 830 – 31. Nöldeke judged very acutely that it was fabricated from the Syriac name Beth Lāpāṭ (Geschichte der Perser, p. 41 – 42, note 2). The chronographer of Seert, therefore, twisted it or received it corrupted by another.]. When (the king) was making for Persis, he passed through the wilderness of Kaškar and there saw an old man advanced in age, who was gathering wood. And the king, having changed his dress, asked him about his country and family, and inquired whether a city could be built in that place. The old man said to him: "If I, burdened with age as I am, can learn letters, put your hand to building a city in this place." Then the king ordered that the old man be taught the discipline of the magi and constantly attend the masters of the superstition, until he himself should return from Persepolis [In Arabic: Iṣṭaḫri, a very well known city of Persis. This name too, which is omitted by Tabari, shows that the fable about the city of Ḫosrau Sābūr was not first told here. On the contrary, between Persepolis and Bendosabora there was situated the city of Sābūr Ḫuāst, of which mention occurs in another little story about the origin of Bendosabora, which ibn al-Faqīh related already in the ninth century (in Iāqūt, volume II, p. 130). It seems, then, that our writer found this in some fuller commentary on the cities founded by Shapur and mixed everything up.]. And so the old man was taught, by them the faith was propagated in the East. and the city was built. And the Christians were scattered into other regions and increased in number in the East. In Eranšahir [Read Rev Ardašīr, in Arabic Rīšahr, the metropolitan see of Persis properly so called, on the bank of the greater Ṭāb; to be distinguished from the city of Rēšīr, on the coast of the Persian Gulf. See Chabot, Synodicon Orientale, p. 681; Marquart, Erānsahr, p. 147; compare p. 27; Seybold, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, volume VII (1904), p. 394; the same, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellschaft, volume cited, p. 746; etc.], indeed, which is the see of the metropolitans of Persis, two churches were built, of which one was called the church of the Romans, the other of the Caramanians [Seybold writes in its place: of the Syrians, . But it is by no means probable that the copyist erred in this name, especially since the same recurs in the following line.], and in both [The words plainly say this, but against the will of the writer, who meant to say: "in the one prayer was made in Greek, in the other in Syriac".] prayer was made in the Greek (tongue) and the Syriac. And God compensated the Romans for the loss which had befallen them from captivity and servitude by the prosperous fortune which they enjoyed. Their affairs grew strong in their regions — the regions, I mean, of the Persians — and their life became happier than in their homeland. God did not forsake them, as the prophet said to the sons of Israel for their consolation, when the armies of Sennacherib were pressing them and he was leading away the ten tribes captive, and hope had been taken from them. He said, then, to them: "If a woman should forget her offspring and not have pity on the child of her womb, let her be allowed to be forgetful: but I will not forget you. Behold, I have written you on my hands, and your walls The codex: your mysteries. are always before me Compare Isa. 49, 15 – 16.." As David too said: "I multiplied The codex: I wrote. mercy to them before those who had led them captive Ps. 105, 46.." God won for those Romans the friendship of the Persians. They possessed lands freely, and through them the Christian religion was propagated in the region of the East.

[10] The authority of the narrative is confirmed by So the Nestorian writer, who seems to have patched his work together not long after the year 1036 Seybold, place cited, p. 743.. It is idle to inquire into the sources from which he drew, since in this place he himself cites as his witness Daniel ben Mariam, whom he used as an authority elsewhere too. That Daniel ben Mariam, indeed, in Syriac bar Mariam, or son of Mary, is found to have flourished about the middle of the seventh century See A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur (Bonn, 1922), p. 207.. Besides other works in the Syriac tongue, of which traces survive, he wrote an ecclesiastical history, in which 'Amr [Ed. H. Gismondi, Maris, Amri et Slibae, De patriarchis Nestorianorum commentaria, Pars altera: Amri et Slibae textus (Rome, 1896), p. 26. It may be asked whether 'Amr perhaps took this mention, which is not read in Mari, from the Chronicle of Seert. The matter has not yet been explored.] and our anonymous writer himself Ed. Scher, volume cited, p. 289. report that he set out the martyrs killed by Shapur II. Until certain indications suggest otherwise, it is to be believed that Daniel related the deeds of Paul of Samosata not in some separate booklet but in that history. With this narrative, then, the things which are recorded here about the destruction of Antioch and the captivity of Demetrian cohere most closely. Let the origin of both mentions, then, be the same. But by whatever way they trickled into the Chronicle of Seert, it is clearly established that they must at last be traced back to some Greek source. For who would believe that some Nestorian of the eleventh century, in the mountains of Corduene, fell by chance upon the genuine name of the bishop who in fact administered the church of Antioch in the reign of the emperor Valerian? Nor, unless warned by some approved author, could he have been on his guard not to say that Valerian was captured by the Persians at Antioch, in the very town; which false opinion prevailed among the Persians Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, p. 32, note 4. and even in our age is carried about by several learned men by a certain ready error Compare Anal. Boll., volume XLII, p. 310, note 2.. Nay more, he knew that Antioch was twice taken by storm by Shapur I within a few years Nöldeke, place cited.: which more recent historians have demonstrated by sure reasons, although among the ancient writers the memory of this double irruption was for the most part obscured. And that Demetrian fell into the hands of the enemy not together with Valerian but in the first storming of the city, no author besides ours has handed down. But even from the mere carelessness of style alone, with which these things are recorded in passing and in the wrong order, it is manifest that the chronographer is bringing forward another's testimony, not a fiction which he devised of his own accord. Thus far, then, it is established that the history of Demetrian was taken from some source of the best stamp, Antiochene or at any rate Greek.

[11] profane monuments It is less probable that the fortunes of the Greeks exiled in Persis or Babylonia were ever consigned to writing in their native literature. Whence, then, Daniel bar Mariam, or someone else, received this part of the narrative is not established. Yet this part establishes its own credit brilliantly. How aptly it coheres with the history of the church and kingdom of the Persians we have shown in the Analecta Bollandiana Volume cited, p. 297 – 309., more at length perhaps than the matter required. Nor is it worth while to linger longer on so plain a question. Let this be the sum of the conclusions: it is established by the testimonies of the Greeks [Zosimus, Book I, chapter 27, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1837), [p. 27; compare Sachau, Vom Christentum in der Persis, volume cited, p. 961, note.] and equally of the Orientals that very many inhabitants of the overthrown city of Antioch and of the neighbouring region were led away captive by Shapur I: whom the king of the Persians, after the barbarous custom of his nation, destined as colonists, as it were, to various provinces of his kingdom. The same is confirmed by the monuments and buildings erected by him, in which the art and hand of Roman craftsmen are recognized even today [Th. Nöldeke, Aufsätze zur persischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887), p. 94; Sarre, L'art de la Perse ancienne, volume cited, p. 36 – 37; Justi, Geschichte Iran's, in Grundriss für iranische Philologie, volume II, 3 (1897), p. 519; compare Anal Boll., volume cited, pp. 299, 308.]. The Muhammadan Arabs themselves, who from the ninth century wrote about Persian affairs, record cities, especially in Huzaina and Susiana, which Shapur partly founded, partly restored or enlarged, in order to settle the Greek exiles in them [Compare Anal. Boll., volume cited p. 298 and following. At Bendosabora (Beth Lāpāṭ), in the year 375, the funeral of the holy martyrs Abda and Ebedjesu was attended to by , captives from the Romans, word for word: sons of the captivity of the Romans (Assemani, Acta martyrum orientalium, p. 159). Not rashly can there be understood the grandsons of the Greeks once led away thither by Shapur I.]. Their chief testimonies we have noted above at the narrative of the Chronicle of Seert; with which they agree in most points so well that you would believe them to have been copied out piecemeal and carelessly by the chronographer. But that a Christian writer wished to be taught by Moslems is almost unheard of. Certainly it could more easily have happened that the Arabs who investigated Persian antiquities read Syrian authors, especially those who had flourished before Muhammad was born. Yet it is far more likely that the fame of the deeds of Shapur, which had not only grown into the memory of the common people but clung in a manner to the very places and monuments, and was celebrated also in the Parthian tongue in heroic tales, came by a forked road, on the one side to the Arabic historians, on the other, through some Syrian author, to the writer of Seert. But enough of these things. Those who track down all the most minute rivulets of all these sources will perhaps teach us more certain things. As far as the credibility of the things narrated is concerned, this cannot be called into doubt.

[12] and ecclesiastical, Nor does the history of the Persian church agree less aptly. If for a little the pious fictions which sprouted in a later age are left aside, very many indications show more clearly than daylight that in the middle of the third century the Christian religion had not yet been propagated in southern Assyria. When, therefore, the Antiochene captives settled at Bendosabora, they certainly found no bishop, especially in a recent city. That in that Greek colony a Greek church was founded by Demetrian [Whoever presses the words of the narrative too hard may somewhat doubt whether, while Demetrian was still living, the colony of Greek exiles first settled at Bendosabora. But it is hardly likely that a successor to the bishop was not elected in the place in which he himself had died. Nor did the more recent writers who will be recorded below, §§16 – 18, read the matter set out otherwise.], to whom, when he had died, another Antiochene succeeded, is not only not suspicious but coheres excellently with the truth of affairs. The city of Bendosabora, by its Pahlavi or "Parthian" name Gund-i Šahpuhr, which the Syrians preferred to call , Beth Lāpāṭ, and the Greeks πόλιν Βηλαπατών [Procopius, De Bello Gothico, IV, 10, ed. J. Haury, volume II (Leipzig, 1905), p. 532; compare above, num. 9, p. 387, note 5.], always held a certain pre-eminent place among the metropolitan sees of the Persian church [Synod of the year 410, canon 21, in Chabot, Synodicon Orientale, volume cited, p. 33.], yet not the first, which the bishop of the royal cities claimed for himself [Synod of the year 410, place cited, compare Sachau, Christentum in der Persis, volume cited, p. 969.; the same, Zur Ausbreitung des Christentums, place cited, pp. 15, 39.]. Nor could it have turned out otherwise. But even when the bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon was made catholicos of the whole East, subject to no one's jurisdiction, the Syro-Persian Christians never forgot that their church was the daughter of the church of Antioch, from which it should have received the transmission of hierarchical power. And lest any claim upon their liberty should threaten from that quarter, they devised a certain fabulous rescript, by which "the Western fathers" were said already of old to have decreed that the catholicoi of Seleucia were no longer to be compelled to go, at the peril of their lives, to the patriarch of Antioch to lay hands upon them [Mari, ed. Gismondi, work cited, volume I, p. 5; 'Amr and Ṣliba, ibid., volume II, p. 4; Barhebraeus, Chronicon ecclesiasticum, ed. I. B. Abbeloos and Th. J. Lamy, volume II (Louvain, 1874), p. 26. That ridiculous fiction was exploded with great effort by B. Bolotov, in , 1901, p. 100 – 111; compare Labourt, Le christianisme dans l'empire Perse sous la dynastie Sassanide (Paris, 1904), p. 11 – 12.]. Whence it is plain that it was once the custom for the metropolitans of the Persians to be consecrated by the patriarch of Antioch. There is no one who does not see how aptly the history of our Demetrian fits into this discipline.

[13] which the origins of the Persian hierarchy, And the remaining cities, which, if the Chronicle of Seert is to be believed, received Greek captives, were also episcopal sees, some strong in some rights and prerogatives, others in others, which are wont to be the marks of antiquity. Among all these the church of Kaskar excelled in dignity, which in the Syro-Persian hierarchy was second only to the metropolis of Seleucia and Ctesiphon Synod of the year 410, canon 21, Chabot, place cited.. Now that Archelaus who about the year 270 or 271 held a disputation in Mesopotamia against Mani is said by Socrates to have been bishop Κασχάρων Historia ecclesiastica, I, 22, ed. R. Hussey (Oxford, 1859), p. 128.. By this name there can certainly be understood the district of Kaškar, where the author whom the chronographer of Seert seems to have read with too little care recorded a colony of Christians settled by Shapur See above, num. 9, p. 387.. In the synodal booklet of about the year 880, which Charles H. Beeson brings forward from John Pappus [Hegemonius, Acta Archelai, ed. C. H. Beeson, in Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, volume XVI (Leipzig, 1906), p. XIII.], the same Archelaus is called bishop Καρχάρων: which form of the name rather favours the opinion of Konrad Kessler [K. Kessler, Mani, Forschungen über die Manichäische Religion, volume I (Berlin, 1889), p. 87 – 97. Other learned men agreed with his opinion, J. Labourt, Le christianisme dans l'empire Perse, p. 20; A. von Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, volume II, ed. 4 (Leipzig, 1924), p. 690.], who prefers that this refutation of Mani was held in the city of Karkā de Maišān, or Šād-i Šahpuhr See above, p. 387, note 1., which was formerly called by the Greeks Σπασίνου Χάραξ Kessler, place cited. Marquart, Erānsahr, p. 41.. Neither interpretation, indeed, is contradicted by what Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius and Jerome reported about the altercation of Archelaus with Mani See their testimonies in Beeson, volume cited, p. IX – XII.. Whichever is the more probable, it is gathered from it that at about the same time as that at which the church of Bendosabora was instituted by Demetrian

we read in the Chronicle of Seert, there existed in a province neighbouring on Babylonia, where other Antiochene captives had settled, another Greek bishop, who surely could have succeeded no Syrian, and must certainly be believed to have been the founder of his see. What could be more fitting to confirm the narrative of our chronographer? But before this testimony is accepted, the doubts of the very learned Theodor Nöldeke must be excluded, who denies that Archelaus met Mani in Babylonia, and conjectures that by the name Καρχάρων Charrae (Ḥarrān) in Mesopotamia is designated [Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, volume XLIII (1889), p. 540 – 41.]. This discussion is a matter for a longer discourse, and little necessary for the present question. For clearer than all these lesser indications is the mark of truth which shines out from the very subject of the whole narrative.

[14] show them not yet obscured by fables. And in very truth, when in the fifth century the Persian church wished to withdraw itself from the jurisdiction of the patriarchs of Antioch, the hagiographers came to its aid, who said that it had been founded by St. Mari, disciple of the apostle Addai. Nor were there lacking those who contended that the gospel had been preached in Babylonia by Addai himself [See Labourt, Le christianisme dans l'empire perse, p. 10 – 15; Bolotov, in , volume cited, p. 137 and following.]. This opinion, creeping on little by little, gained such wide strength that it entirely obscured the true history; and all the Persian churches began, each for itself, to trace back their origins to that fabulous preaching either of Mari or of Addai. Who, then, would not feel that he had fallen upon a precious trace of antiquity, when in a Nestorian farrago of a later age he reads that the Christian faith was propagated in Persis by Greek exiles and their descendants at the close of the third century; that the church of the city of Bendosabora, which was also a royal city [See P. Schwartz, Iran in Mittelalter nach den arabischen Geographen, IV, in Quellen und Forschungen zur Erd- und Kulturkunde, volume IX (Leipzig, 1921), p. 346 and following.], was founded by those exiles; that its first pontiff was an Antiochene, who in fact was sitting at Antioch when Shapur invaded Syria, and that another Antiochene succeeded this bishop? I pass over the rest, which has already been indicated above. Assuredly the Nestorian writer, in narrating these things, neither blurts out his own dreams nor reports a ditty heard in schools or circles, but copies out a fragment of some genuine history, which perished by chance, if it was not deliberately smothered by artful fables.

[15] More recent chronographers Whether from the same source or from some other, Māri ibn-Sulaimān in the twelfth century learned of the fortunes of Demetrian and his fellow citizens in their Persian exile; who, however, accommodated their memory to those traditional fictions. These are his words in the Book of the Tower Ed. Gismondi, work cited, volume I, p. 8.:

[16] the memory of Demetrian, In his time the ecclesiastical annals, ἐκκλησιαστική, began to be written. At the beginning of his administration Hormizd, son of Ardashir, set out for the parts of the West. In other narratives this is said of Shapur. And making for Antioch and its neighbourhood, he attacked their inhabitants, of whom he led very many captive, a great crowd of bishops and faithful with the patriarch of Antioch named Demetrius. These he brought into the region of the Huzaini; and he built for them a city, which he called Bendosabora, and gave it them to inhabit. Further it was said (to Demetrius): "You are patriarch of Antioch. Let the patriarchal title be yours; and administer those who have been led away captive with you." And he said: "May God keep me from doing what is not lawful for me nor given by the Holy Spirit." And yet Papas the catholicos had permitted him to be called by the title of patriarch, as he was wont to be at Antioch, and to administer the affairs of the exiles together with himself. But he refused to do it. Then (Papas) created him metropolitan of Bendosabora, and assigned him the seat on the right in synods and the first part in the consecration of the catholicoi.

[17] relying on no document, Mari was followed in their epitome of the Book of the Tower by 'Amr ben Mattā and Ṣalibā ben Ioḥannā; who opportunely remembered that there had been no Hormizd son of Ardashir, and deleted mention of him. In the rest, after their manner, they so pressed the footsteps of their leader that it is manifest that they used no other document. Let us hear these too Gismondi, work cited, volume II, p. 14.:

[18] In the time of this father, Shapur, having gone out into the parts of the West, (there) too made slaughter, led captives, raged with fires. And turning his march to the regions of the Romans, he made for Antioch, and led away its inhabitants captive. And among the captives fell Demetrius the patriarch with some of the bishops. All these (Shapur) transported into Huzaina, and founded for them a city which he called Bendosabora. And when the patriarch arrived there, Papas, patriarch of the East, went out to meet him and asked him to sit in the chair and administer it in his time. He refused and did not do so. (Papas) said to him: "Administer the captives who are with you, as is your custom, since you are patriarch." He said: "May God keep me from doing what the Holy Spirit has not granted me; for in the East the government belongs to Papas, not to me." And Papas asked him to be willing to be metropolitan of Bendosabora; he set him before the other Oriental metropolitans and made him the right-hand assessor (of the patriarch), to whom it belonged to hand over the patriarchal power to him who had been designated by votes. Which ordinance has been preserved down to our times.

[19] mixed it with fictions. He would waste his labour in vain who should search out what is said falsely and absurdly in so inept a little narrative. Nor is it very surprising that men otherwise diligent and acute, reading the history of our Demetrian mixed with so many ravings, either held it suspect [G. Westphal, Untersuchungen über die Quellen und Glaubwürdigkeit der Patriarchenchroniken des Mârî ibn Sulaimân, 'Amr ibn Matai und Salîba ibn Joḥannân, I. Abschnitt (Kirchhain N.-L., 1901), p. 62 – 63. See what we noted on this passage in Anal. Boll., volume cited, p. 293 – 94.] or rejected it altogether [Bolotov, work cited, , volume cited, p. 91 – 92, note 25; Labourt, work cited, p. 19 – 20.]. Although there were also some who perceived that something true lay hidden even under those fictions [Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, ed. 3 (Leipzig, 1915), p. 129, note 3; G. Bardy, Paul de Samosate, in Spicilegium Lovaniense, fasc. IV (Louvain, 1923), p. 162, note 1.]. But we had to touch on these fables too, which show how the memory of Demetrian was changed as the centuries slipped by, and what appearance the chronographer of Seert would have given it if he himself had been the first to rouse it from oblivion.

[20] A brief survey of the inquiry. Now let us gather in summary what can be obtained from that laborious inquiry. Demetrian ascended the see of Antioch before the middle of the year 253, being then of mature age, since he had a son who in the year 266 or 267 was elected bishop of that most noble church [Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 29; see above, num. 6, p. 385; the same, Chronici canones, at the 261st olympiad, year IV, Fotheringham, p. 303; compare Bardy, Paul de Samosate, p. 217.]. In the year 256, when Antioch was first sacked by Shapur, he fell into the hands of the enemy and was led away captive. For four years, then, he actually held his see, as is reported in the chronography of Nicephorus See above, num. 7, p. 385.. He administered for some time the church of the Greek exiles at Bendosabora, founded by him, and died there, at an uncertain time, before the second devastation of Antioch, which seems more probably to have taken place shortly after the disaster of Valerian [Compare H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, volume I, 1 (Gotha, 1883), p. 820 – 22; Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, p. 32, note 4.]. His death, however, remained unknown for some time to the faithful of Antioch; nor is it surprising that this news did not reach them from so distant a region, through a land especially hostile, while war was blazing, since the fate of the emperor Valerian himself was never heard of in his own realm Nöldeke, ibid., p. 33, note 2.. In the year 260, in the rescript by which Gallienus granted a truce to the churches, after Dionysius (of Alexandria) and Pinnas he greets the bishop Demetrius, who, I rather think, was inscribed in the Latin copy from which Eusebius translated the imperial letter Hist. eccl., VII, 13, Schwartz, p. 666. in place of Demetrian, as happened elsewhere; for it is hardly probable that the bishop of Antioch was not named in the rescript. In this year, then, Paul of Samosata had not yet been elected; who, however, a short time after [Bardy, work cited, p. 168 – 69, judges that Paul of Samosata was elected in the year 260.], when at length it was established that the church was widowed, either received or invaded the see. And when about eight years later the same Paul had to be cast out by military force for his misdeeds, Domnus, the son of Demetrian himself, succeeded in his place, as we have already said. By him, it is to be believed, his father's name was inscribed in the fasti of the church with a pious and reverent mind. About the posthumous glory of St. Demetrian, besides the very few mentions which we have collected, nothing else has been handed down to memory.