On Epistle 50

During the unpleasantnesses of the AD 630s the city Arbela lost a bishop. Ishoʿyahb from Nineveh wrote #50 to respond to their request that this Ishoʿyahb offer himself as a candidate. Philip Scott-Moncrieff "XLVIII" isn't awful here. Although: "Mosul" doesn't exist in the text. I'll attempt more care over this.

Arbela ("Erbil") lies between Nineveh and Kirkuk in its own branch of the Upper Zab, which watershed was remembered as Hidyab - "Adiabene", to us. The Sasanians had arranged all the area to "Garamig ud Nodardashiragan" - one province for them, but still as of AD 605 two provinces for us. After spring AD 637 (AG 948) that Sasanian province no longer existed - it was all just Hidyab and Bet-Garmay, and now no longer Hidyab. To the extent Arbelene Christians now owned a metropole, that would be Kirkuk.

The Mar John here is both qshîsha and archdeacon. Maybe. There's manuscript-multiplicity in the next name, "Teʿi"... says Duval. For Mar John, Duval translated qshîsha "sacerdot" which, for a Vulgate-reading Catholic like him, means priest. Mind you, for us Catholics a priest starts his training as a deacon. And it is the POINT of this letter that Arbela needs more staff, because John is finding hard to do a bishop's duties in addition to these other positions. And Teʿi isn't even consecrated; he's just the "leader of the congregation". Unstated here: maybe they can apply to Tikrit . . .

One assumes that the Arbelenes in their request had CC'ed Mar ... somebody. Maybe Gabriel; maybe the Catholicos Ishoʿyahb II himself, who moved his cathedra to Kirkuk. I'm tempted to assign Symeon's chronicle, penned in "Beth Garmay", to this papal sojourn; although, perhaps not as tempted as Philip Wood.

There was a time when the younger Ishoʿyahb might have taken up their offer. Arbela is, further, closer to the then-metropole or even papacy so - in a Semite's mind - closer to God. Mind you: that is back when pope Ishoʿyahb II himself was considering to boot the lesser Ishoʿyahb out of the whole hierarchy. So the Arbelene letter belongs after bishop Ishoʿyahb had cleaned up his own diocese (as Bcheiry, 93-5 translates and interprets #49).

That reference to temporal greed might refer to the scandal around Nisibis, whose Metropolitan Cyriacos starved the place for his own enrichment. This must have been a disgrace that the Catholicos couldn't ignore.

The younger Ishoʿyahb will end up in exactly Hidyab, before Catholicos Maremmeh AD 646-9 and all through that one's reign. Hidyab by then was a metropole.

Epistle #50, then, belongs after #52, when Ishoʿyahb II has moved into Mar Gabriel's city. Gabriel could have shifted seats to Arbela; but - if #50 is guide - the locals had their own ideas. And Nisibis was in open revolt. This left the Catholicate with the simplest Arbela option just to appoint that other Ishoʿyahb over them.

The Worm of #25, whatever it is, might have knocked Mar Gabriel out of the running. I don't find Gabriel in documents after the late AD 630s. I doubt Gabriel had suddenly become a heretic; this might be the plague of circa AH 16-17, called the Plague Of Emmaus by Syrians.

FIEY 4/16/23: E. L is not here.