Theodotus of Âmid

Why not wade back into the early-Islamic Jazira - here's a book on Theodotus of Amida. Unfortunately by Gorgias so you'll be paying through the large hooked nose; but this work seems better than, say, Michael Jackson Bonner's work over there. Because it's Hoyland and Palmer.

Palmer is an expert in west-Syrian text but didn't include this in The Seventh Century - on account it's not a chronicle, and might not be entirely west-Syrian (I'll get to this). Hoyland meanwhile gave this one a ringing endorsement in his own, some-years-later, Seeing Islam. That's my source for what follows, since I don't own their latest take.

Theodotus was a seminomadic saint of the region which had endured so much violence in the AG 950s / AD 640s. By his time the violence was over, and the victorious Arabs dealt with the region largely through Christian subordinates. These were a diverse set of Christian: the Vita comes through Joseph presbyter himself ordained by Jacobites. Their pope Julian had in fact ordained Theodotus as bishop of hometown Âmid around 1000 / 690, but Theodotus (like James of Edessa AD 684-8) didn't much appreciate so worldly an honour, so retired to Qenneshre to be a monk.

I am somewhat-interested in Theodotus' career before Julian (999/687); the 990s/680s had descended into war again this time between the Umayyads and... well, everybody. Part of Theodotus' ambit was Nisibin. Nisibin belonged to those whom Joseph will call The Heretics. In Joseph's time, also Julian's time: Jacobites applied the term mainly to the Nestorians (who returned the favour of course). But Theodotus went to the house of the heretics... just as freely as with the orthodox. Theodotus even got arrested for Melkite ("Roman") sympathies. Pseudo-Methodius was similarly culturally Monophysite and uninterested in picking sectarian fights with fellow Christians.

Joseph reports that Theodotus wrote many letters in "the land"; going as far as to "Beth-Hesne" which "house of fortresses" is marked as Roman territory. The disciples of James of Edessa owned such a collection of James' letters; I assume Joseph owned a similar collection from Theodotus, using them to compile his Vita. But, like the Ninevene Christians, the latter letter-collection hasn't survived the Turks and the Daesh.

The reasons the Jacobite hierarchy wanted to claim Theodotus are because he was known as holy by everyone, and because he, um, mostly lived there. I wonder if Theodotus' relative tolerance spurred bishop George's anathema against itinerants like him.