Page 105 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

92 THE BLESSING OF JESUS AND THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY
exaggeration, were accepted into the Church in their thousands, and pagans
in their tens of thousands. A synagogue in the centre of Edessa was converted
into the Church of St. Stephen1 and four pagan temples were destroyed.
Dissident Christian sects had multiplied, if we may credit our sources,
for instance the Borborians, who were suspected of shameful practices, and
the Sadduceans, who claimed to have visions. Some, we are told, originated
at Edessa.2 These were the 'Udaye, whose founder was an archdeacon in the
region of Edessa at the time of the Council of Nicaea. He adopted some of the
teachings of Bardaisan, and founded his own church which received ad-
herents in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Arabia, and even among the Scy-
thians and Goths. There were the Mesallians (in Greek, Euchites), who
appeared at the same time, followers of a certain Adelphus of Edessa. He
practised asceticism in Sinai and in Egypt and returned while still a young
man to Edessa to live in constant prayer, privation, and solitude. Adelphus,
relates Philoxenus of Mabbog, 'relied on rules of life . . . but he had no
humility. [He received] hallucinations of devils instead of divine contem-
.
plation . . as if he had no need of labours and physical mortification.' He
taught that the mystic power of prayer could overcome sin and bring man to
perfection. These doctrines represented a threat to the established Church,
for Adelphus and his disciples preyed upon the gullible and ignorant; he
and his sect were beaten, harried into exile, and condemned again and again
by ecclesiastical councils. Less dangerous was the simple poet-monk of
Edessa, Aswana, who, in the first half of the fourth century, composed
hymns that were still sung over two centuries later. Of him Philoxenus
writes that:

Satan deceived him too and brought him out of his cell and set him on the hill called
'Stadium'3 and showed him the shape of a chariot and of horses and said to him, 'God
has sent for you to cause you to depart in a chariot like Elijah.' And in his childishness
he was deceived and went up to stand upon the chariot. The whole phantasm disappeared
under him and he was precipitated down from a great height and died a ridiculous
death.

At the hands of Rabbula all these aberrations received short shrift. Errant
monks were obliged to make their choice between confinement within
monastery walls or exile from the province of Osrhoene, unless they sub-
mitted to the discipline of the Church.
But within the Church the situation had changed since the days of
Ephraim. It was no longer possible for the orthodox to present a uniform
front. The whole body of Christendom was divided by the arguments over
the Natures of Jesus. The Dyophysite party, led by Diodorus of Tarsus,

1 See p. 182 below; plan II. that the heresy of Quq was evolved at Edessa,
2 There is no convincing evidence to indicate as has been asserted. 3 Seep. 164 below.

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