On Epistle 26

#26 might be the most important letter in that first set of Isho'yahb letters for when he was "just" bishop of Nineveh-now-Mosul. This is the letter which broke Mount Alfâf (Mar Mattai) and Nineveh from mutual communion.

The summary (of "XXIV", on "Elpap") complains of difficulty in the reading; I shall here attempt to clamber on the shoulders of these giants who have attempted their editions, translations, and summaries before me. The summary interprets that the "Elpap" fraternity has already "ejected" this troublemaker and now must "readmit" him. That is not what I read, where Isho'yahb accuses this monk of separating himself, out of sheer sloth. I doubt the monastery he left was Alfâf. I interpret, further, that the monks are maintaining this guy on the mount but in a separate hermitage.

#26 does not utter the H-Word; but it still reads (albeit shorter) much like George of Resh-'Ayna will read - herein features a scurrilous biography of some rogue cleric. Alfâf used to be in good standing with the Church Of The East; now, Alfâf is sheltering this element - dare I say (per #25) this "worm".

Another H-Word lurks in #26: the hanpé. This translates to pagani or "heathens". They might include the tayyayé but we cannot assume this just yet; the proto-Yazidis are out there, as are the classical polytheists of Harran. Paulicians, Manichaeans, Messalians... all sorts of hillfolk and desert-dwellers.

Later as of #48 (and #43), the bishop - alongside presumably Isho'yahb II in Seleucia - has written-off the whole of Alfâf as just another nest of heresy like Tikrit down-river. Isho'dnah mentions Alfâf #50, only to abuse it. If I read #48 such that that #26's rogue ends up taking over Alfâf, it tempts me to see #25 as this miscreant becoming the Worm - to slither even to Nineveh herself.

#26 doesn't note the schismatic as a heretic, and his biography is not the biography of the defector Sahdona. The rogue might, even in the early AD 630s, remain theologically compatible with the Oriental Church at the time. So might even Alfâf, depending in the year. In an upset to Mar Athanasius' plans the Emperor Heraclius had expelled almost all Athanasius' bishops, all the way to Edessa, off the churches under his sway, more so the monasteries. It may be that Catholicos Isho'yahb II through his arm and namesake in Nineveh thought that Alfâf - which was not as harsh as, say, Sinjar - could be restored to communion through the Monothelete compromise of later Aleppo.

What #26 does note, is that the rogue has an idea, and that this idea be alien to the Mesopotamía. #48 will tell us the now-heresy's nature, to which George will adhere to his dying day: Theopaschism. Maximus future Confessor, over West, had meanwhile anathematised Who was crucified for us from Trisagion, as (George will record) Maximus is writing in several books.

FIEY 4/15/23: E. XXVI is discussed ch. IV, p. 330 in French. Fiey thinks this convent is not Mar Matta, but Mar John-and-Ishosabran.