Page 106 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

SECTARIAN STRIFE 93

Theodoret, and their partisans, had achieved approval in high places with
the preferment of Nestorius to the patriarchate of Constantinople in 428.
Nestorius acted with assurance. 'Give me', he exclaimed to Emperor Theo-
dosius II, 'the earth freed of heretics and I shall give you Heaven in return;
help me to fight the heretics, and I shall help you to fight the Persians.' At
first Rabbula appeared to hesitate. Then he revealed himself as a bitter
opponent of Nestorius and threw his authority on the side of the Mono-
physite leader, Cyril of Alexandria. He summoned a Council at Edessa in
431, burnt the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and travelled tirelessly
to councils outside his diocese to press the Monophysite cause.
Rabbula died in 435 or 436. His authority in his province was undisputed,
but his spirit of partisanship was to leave an unhappy legacy of bitterness.
The Dyophysites spoke of him as 'the tyrant of our city who persecuted even
the dead under the guise of religion', referring to his attack on Theodore of
Mopsuestia and his works. The Monophysites declared that not only all the
Christians of Edessa but even pagans and Jews participated in the mourning
at Rabbula's funeral. Like Ephraim, Rabbula had been active not only as
pastor but also as writer; he translated into Syriac at least one of the works
of Cyril of Alexandria, at Cyril's own request. Of his literary work little has
survived, but it is evident that he was a skilled theologian and controversial-
ist. Whether Rabbula himself is to be credited with the ban at Edessa on
Tatian's composite version of the Gospels, the Diatessaron, and with the
insistence upon the use of the Separate Gospels in the liturgy, is open to
question. The Diatessaron may have been largely replaced in official use
before his time, probably by the Old Syriac version rather than by the
Peshitta.

Rabbula's successor in the see of Edessa, Hiba(Ibas), was not unfavourable
to the Nestorian party, an indication of how evenly balanced were the opposing
factions of Monophysites and Dyophysites at this time. Before his appoint-
ment to the bishopric, Hiba had been on the staff of the School of the Per-
sians. He was dubbed 'the Translator', because he was member of a group of
scholars who had translated into Syriac the works of Diodorus and Theodore
of Mopsuestia. To Theodore he was greatly attached, and it was for this
reason in particular that Hiba incurred the hostility of extreme Monophy-
sites: he is said to have been expelled from Edessa by Rabbula in 431. His
celebrated letter to Mari of Beth Ardashir, in which he described the doc-
trinal strife at Edessa, had helped Nestorian doctrines to take root among the
Eastern Christians. Popular passion over religious dogma ran high at Edessa.
It was fanned by personal antagonisms. Hiba was no less high-handed than
his predecessor; but, unlike Rabbula, he was also fond of worldly pleasures.
'The jockey bishop', his enemies called him, and accused him also of the

www.knanayology.org