A Passionate Patriarch at a Turning Point: Isho-yahbh II and His Letters of Rebuke and Ambiguity

Seventh-Century Context

It is difficult to underestimate the degree of transition and religious ferment and varied responses to it in the early to mid-seventh century. As a new prophetic voice emerged in Arabia, monks in monastic cells as well as large concentrations of indigenous Church of the East believers were spread throughout West Asia including in the Arabian Peninsula. Their presence had been noted by Arabs in the years before Islam began and would be written about as it developed, creating a new form of literature for Muslims, called the books of diyarat. ¹

Irfan Shahid, in a three-volume series on the historical relationship between the Arabs and Byzantines, has also written extensively on these monasteries of the West and East Syrians and Melkite communities up to the seventh century, including the impact on Arabs both before and after the coming of Islam. ² The first two volumes place in context the role of Christian monastic communities in the pre-Islam period, with the last on the beginnings of Islam in the sixth and seventh centuries. The extensive spread of these monasteries in West Asia indicated how the Church had grown in the period up to the mid-seventh century.

In this third volume, Shahid notes Arab writers who wrote about monasteries and lived around the Mesopotamian city of Mosul, including two brothers named Abu Uthman and Abu Baker. They were poets and were “interested mainly in poetry on monasteries in the Islamic period and related matters. Their work titled Kitab al-Diyarat has not survived but portions are quoted in later works on the subject.” ³ Another poet who wrote on the monasteries, al- Sari al-Raffa, was from the Aleppo area. His work, also titled Kite al-Diyarat, has not survived. Only the Kitab al-Diyarat by the 10th-century writer al-Shabushti is extant, and none of the earlier works. ⁴

The strength of Christian monasticism in West Asia during the seventh century period was part of a Church that had also spread widely to the East. In 635 CE, just three years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, a group of Persian Christian monks led by Alopen arrived in the T’ang Empire capital of Chang’an (modern Xian) to begin their work there. It is probable that they were formed and sent from one of the numerous Church of the East monasteries in Northern Mesopotamia (now Northern Iraq). According to tradition and several travelers’ accounts, the Church had already been in the Malabar area of Southern India for centuries already, perhaps even back to the Apostle Thomas in the mid-first century. ⁵

The Church of the East in the mid-seventh century was widespread in West Asia, and growing as well to the East. It had a developed structure with an established leadership, culminating in the role of the Patriarch. Under him were a select number of Metropolitans, often with each Metropolitan having under him up to 12 bishops. It is difficult to imagine that any of these leaders could have expected what was to emerge from the Arabian deserts after the year 632, and how it would affect and change their Church forever after.

This article focuses on a leader of the Church who began his role as Patriarch in the year 649, served only 10 years until his death, and left a fascinating series of letters that open a window to his passions, leading to rebukes and concerns while framed in a context of increasing ambiguity. Through reading his letters, we gain important insights into a crucial period of religious change and the responses of this leader to it. ⁶

This man was Patriarch Isho-yahbh III of the Church of the East. He was an important transitional figure in this period of change. He had been formed in the monastic education and culture of his church and came to his role of leadership just 17 years after the death of Prophet Muhammed. As seen in his letters described in this article, he was aware of the growing influence of the new faith of Islam and how many Christians were moving over to it in the last years of his life. In his letters, the sense of ambiguity and questions that many had about the nature of this faith would also be apparent. He does not evidence in his letters a hatred of the new faith or of Arabs generally that had initially adopted it, but rather a kind of bewilderment that was not unusual at the time.

Yet in light of this difficult context, the Patriarch would not stop challenging and rebuking his adherents to the very end of his life, while keeping the far-flung members of the Church in India and China also in his pastoral vision and concern. He was somehow able to balance both the near and far contexts of his time without losing a focus on either of them. Not an easy task, especially when the vast distances and difficulties of communication are considered—and also when the province of the Church in the Arabian Gulf and part of Persia was in rebellion, as we will consider later in this article.

Isho-yahbh III

Isho-yahbh III came from the Mesopotamian province of Adiabene, his birth year not clearly established. He was the son of a wealthy Persian Christian named Bastomagh. It is interesting to wonder if his father was a first generation convert from the Zoroastrian faith, and if so what influences that may have had on his thinking about converts to Islam. Isho-yahbh became a disciple of Rabban Jacob, the founder of Beit Abhe, an influential East Syrian monastery. In the early part of the seventh century he then studied at the School of Nisibis, perhaps the foremost educational establishment for the Church for several centuries. Isho-yahbh then became the Bishop of Nineveh, rising next to be the Metropolitan of Adiabene itself, before becoming Patriarch of the whole Church of the East in 649 CE. He had the best pedigree possible for a Church leader, and was well-prepared for a career at the highest levels. But could any preparation be adequate for what he would face in his lifetime?

As he rose in the leadership ranks, he continued to have fond feelings for Beit Abhe for the whole of his life, addressing two letters to the monastery when he was the Bishop of Mosul. The monastery of Beit Abhe was important not only for its educational accomplishments, but also as a sending center for the mission spread to the East. It was perhaps from this very monastery that the group led by Alopen left for China in the same years that Isho-yahbh was connected so intimately to it. Later in this article, the future Patriarch’s letters to his leaders to the East are discussed. It is possible that his heart and concern for the believers to the East may have been formed in his early years connected to Beit Abhe, where he would have heard the stories and reports of those who had left for the East.

Isho-yahbh III was in fact so closely tied to Beit Abhe that Budge writes: “The history of the advancement of Isho-yahbh is practically the history of the progress of Beit Abhe.” ⁷ The first of his letters looked at in this article is a lengthy address dealing with his support for an unpopular abbot and other ecclesial affairs. It is included here to show his commitment even in the earlier stage of his career to the monastic principles of virtue in leadership. It must be noted, however, that Isho-yahbh was throughout his life a polemicist, with his greatest venom reserved not for the new faith of Islam, but particularly for the West Syrians (not unusual during this period and for the next three centuries). There was no love lost from their side either. When he was Metropolitan, according to West Syrian historian Bar Hebraeus, he hindered them from building a church in Mosul by generously giving out bribes.

The future Patriarch writes:

To the brethren in his monastery concerning the appointment of a Head, to the dear and beloved God-loving brethren, Simon, John, Kam-Isho, Bar-Denha, Daniel, Beraz-Sorin, Bar-Non, Isho-zekha, Aphni-Maran, and to all the holy brethren who are in the Monastery of Beit Abhe, individually and collectively, Isho-yahbh your brother in the Lord. Peace. ⁸

Isho-yahbh in his letters consistently blends the role of pastor with the role of rebuker, perhaps not different roles at all. We can see above the warm tone of his mentioning of these specific names that were part of the monastery of Beit Abhe.

In another section, Isho-yahbh in his attestation of Mar John the elder affirms the importance of the teaching going on in the monastery. He writes:

Take heed, then, O beloved brethren, to your God-loving brother Mar John the elder—to the testing of whose virtues a period but little short of seventy years hath been given, of these he hath passed [the last] thirty in leading blamelessly the life of a solitary, and the other years before these he hath passed in leading the perfect life of an instructor in the schools—and to yourselves, but especially to the old and honourable man who is in your midst, He was a receiver of instruction and a teacher who was associated with our blessed father, and now, by the command of our father, he hath been crowned over all these things with the crown of headship. ⁹

Isho-yahbh had been deeply formed in the Church monastic education, and as the above letter attests, he had a deep appreciation for the “perfect life of an instructor in the schools.” He would carry for the rest of his life a concern for a life of scholarship, formed from a foundation of virtue and discipline as taught in the monastic system. When the pressures of a new faith and growing apostasy were becoming overwhelming around him, he turned again to the commitments of integrity and the need for purification of heart that had formed him in the monastery of Beit Abhe and the School of Nisibis.

The Passion of the Patriarch Against the Growing Apostasy

Isho-yahbh was fated to be the Patriarch as Islam began to spread more strongly into the very areas of Mesopotamia that were the homelands of the Church. It was not sudden, and happened over generations, but he would have seen the initial advances and the initial apostasy.

In another letter written to Shem’on, a Metropolitan of the Church, the Patriarch comments on what is happening in areas of Oman and Kerman. The passion of the Christian leader for the growing apostasy can be clearly seen:

Where are your sons, O father forsaken? Where are your sanctuaries, O priest cast out? Where is the vast population of Mazon? [Oman]? They have not been compelled by sword, or fire or torments, but merely seized with a desire for the half of their possessions! Mad! – for apostasy has straightway swallowed them up, and they are destroyed for ever, while two … only, so-called priests, have escaped from the flame of impiety and have been brought to nought. Alas! Alas! From so many thousands of men called Christians, not one least offering is made to God as fitting sacrifice for our true Faith! Where, too, are the sanctuaries of Kerman, and of all Fars? ¹⁰

The Patriarch uses very strong words in this letter, even to the point of calling them “Mad!” His letter brings out the passionate struggle the Patriarch was feeling as he saw “so many thousands of men called Christians” going into apostasy. Isho-yahbh sees the motive for them leaving the faith not as being outward compulsions of violence, but as being economic. In fact there is no mention, at least in these letters, of forced conversion to the new faith or any methods of compulsion. Rather, the emphasis in this and the other letters discussed in this article is on the Christian believers and even more on their inadequate and at times corrupt leaders.

It is an interesting question that cannot be answered by the evidence whether the more rapid growth of Islam in the Persian Gulf compared to in Mesopotamia was due to the schism of the Church in the mid-seventh century. Did it leave the Christians of the Fars province more vulnerable to apostasy compared to the stronger area of Northern Mesopotamia which would convert at a much slower rate, by separating them from important resources coming from the homelands?

A sense of helplessness in the Christian leader comes through in this letter and perhaps contributes to a sense of an unpredictable future. One wonders what it would have been like to have been an overall leader of the Church in this period, or any period when rampant apostasy was taking place. Though it is a completely different context to the seventh century, is there any similarity to mainline denominations in the West today that are experiencing huge drops in Church attendance and membership? How do the leaders feel about this? What can they do to stem the flow? It must require great passion to keep going and not give up themselves. That is what Isho-yahbh had to do: keep going and offer by his very survival a form of hope.

The Ambiguity of the Patriarch Towards the New Faith of Islam

Later in the same letter, however, the Patriarch takes a different tone with a greater sense of ambiguity about the new faith and its leaders and their involvement in areas where churches and monasteries exist:

Nevertheless those very Arabs, to whom God has granted the rule of the lands at this time, lo! They are in our part of the country, as you know; but they not only refrain from attacking our religion. They even commend our Faith, honour the priests and saints of our God, and confer benefits on churches and monasteries!

Why then, have your people of Mazon given up their faith because of them? And that when the Arabs, as the people of Mazon themselves admit, did not compel them to give up their religion, but ordered them to give up merely half of their possessions in order to keep their Faith! But they have forsaken the Faith which brings eternal benefit, to keep half of the possessions of this transient age. A Faith, which all peoples have purchased and purchase still be shedding their life-blood, and by which they obtain the inheritance of eternal life, your people of Mazon would not purchase for half of their possessions. ¹¹

The above sections in the same letter show a degree of ambiguity in how the Patriarch views the new faith and how the Christians are responding to it. Isho-yahbh starts this section by affirming that “God has granted the rule of our lands at this time” to the Arab Muslims. He then writes that “they even commend our Faith, honour the priests and saints of our God, and confer benefits on churches and monasteries!” This is written in the first generation of Muslim rule when the churches and monasteries were strong institutions in many areas and the relationship between the two faiths was unpredictable and uneasy.

Whether the Patriarch or the many Christians in these areas expected the rule of Islam to continue indefinitely into the future is unknown. His comments in this letter do relate the leaving of the Christian faith “which brings eternal benefit” to a holding onto possessions in this life. The Patriarch’s own commitment to an ascetic life and not focusing on material gain may shape his response to those becoming Muslims.

But Isho-yahbh’s ambiguity about the new faith and its implications for the Christians would not stop him from being willing to rebuke his own priests and adherents. In his letter 14, written when Patriarch, he writes a strong rebuke to Shem’on, the Metropolitan in the city of Rev-Ardeshir and the principle city in the province of Fars. The context of this letter and Isho-yahbh’s relationship with this province must be noted. In 647–648, after the death of Patriarch Maremmeh, the Mesopotamian Church favored Isho-yahbh to become the Patriarch. But the Metropolitan of Fars (part of modern Iran), Shem’on, resisted and opposed him. The new Patriarch never could heal this divide, yet continued to write to the leaders of the area of Persia and the Gulf, including Shem’on.

Shem’on’s offenses are not clear from the letter, though with the context of schism considered the Patriarch’s tone becomes clearer. Perhaps with this division in mind from the center of the Church, Isho-yahbh reminds him of consequences for the people of India connected to his leadership:

Along with this, my God-loving brother, remember this as well: if our predecessors had closed the door of the gift of the Lord [i.e. Episcopal ordination] in the face of your need, in the way you have closed the door of Episcopal ordination in the face of the many peoples in India, depriving them of the gift of God for the sake of advantages that are subject to corruption and which feed the body’s lusts, then maybe you would realize in what desperation the present general state of affairs has now reached.

But insofar as the gift of God has traveled, and does travel, by canonical paths, by way of good transmitters, see how the world has been filled with bishops, priests and faithful—like the stars in the sky, being increased day by day. Whereas in your region, from the time when you grabbed for yourselves rebellion against the ecclesiastical canons, the priestly transmission has been cut off from the people of India, and it has sat in darkness, deprived of the light of divine teaching which comes through true bishops.

This does not apply just to India, which stretches from the edge of the boundaries of the kingdom of Persia as far as the place called QLH, ¹² a land of 1200 parasangs but it also applies to your own region, Fars. You will have an opportunity to realize the loss and misfortune that arises from disobedience such as this on that fearsome day when repentance is of no use to those who proffer it.

Look carefully at all this, our brother, and consider well the danger in which we are standing—I am not going to say “you”, for you personally are free from the compulsion of secular servitude, and you possess as well, so people say, a mind that loves virtue. Strive with all your strength to put aright the past and the recent harmful events which have occurred in your midst and at your hands—events which have been harmful for a long time to ecclesiastical law. Consider whence sin took its commencement—in the corruption of the canons; and how this was transmitted to the present state of weak faith and lax way of life. It is from that point, and to that point, that the eager course of your setting affairs to right should run, accompanied by labours induced by the fear of God. ¹³

Though this is a lengthy section of the letter included here, it shows clearly the Patriarch’s concerns that the people of India and farther East not be cut off from “priestly transmission” due to the sins and transgressions of the leaders. This also seems to be a clear attempt to rebuke and challenge Shem’on into repenting of his lack of submission to Isho-yahbh. He tries to show him the consequences of his decision and how it will only harm the believers farther East in India, which at that time was under the Metropolitan of Fars.

This in fact is a parallel context to what the Church was facing in West Asia. In the West there was a growing danger of the new faith of Islam, while in the near East there was the continued pressures of the Zoroastrian faith in Persia. In both contexts, the key for Isho-yahbh seems to be how the Church will respond, and he intends to do everything he can to help in the purification of hearts, as well as having a commitment to unity across the Church in Asia. Unfortunately, that unity and coming together was never to be, particularly with the West and East Syrian branches of the Church, and the growing Muslim faith would take full advantage of that.

Pastoral Concern of the Patriarch for Those Far from Mesopotamia

The above passages of Isho-yahbh’s letter reveal a pastoral concern for “the many peoples of India” as part of his rebuke of Shem’on. It is not clear if “the many peoples” refers to a great number that were part of the Church of the East in India or the population overall. His pastoral concern does indicate the connection that the Patriarch felt with India and his desire that the “gift of God” would “not be deprived them.” Again we see that his concern for what was happening in his homeland and the surrounding areas with the growing apostasy did not eliminate his concern for those far from Mesopotamia.

He was also concerned that the “priestly transmission” had been “cut off” through the Church leader in the region (the Metropolitan) exercising neglect or corruption as well as rejecting the Patriarch himself. Isho-yahbh, writing from a context where his own homeland is facing great spiritual challenge, says that India “has sat in darkness, deprived of the light of divine teaching which comes through true bishops.” It is not clear if this is a reference to India perhaps ordaining its own Bishops and that these were not seen as “true bishops” by Baghdad. It does indicate, however, that at this time of history there were links between Baghdad and India, though mediated through the province of Fars. Connections back to Baghdad, however strained and even broken to some degree, did help to sustain and strengthen the monastic witness and activities of the Church across Asia continuing into the early Abbasid period.

This letter also brings out an aspect of the internal structures of the Church of the East in this period of its long history as Islam grew in the homelands. Edward Sachau wrote the following: “The Church of this period was not a monolithic entity as was generally understood but had several streams and subdivisions.” ¹⁴ As noted earlier, as part of an ongoing struggle of the Rev-Ardeshir province for greater authority and influence, the struggle would result in Fars going its own way from the middle of the sixth century until Timothy restored them in 790 CE and also separated India, making it a Metropolitan itself in the last part of the eighth century. These letters attest to the ecclesial links between Baghdad, the Persian provinces, and India in the seventh and eighth centuries, however strained and fragile. Isho-yahbh lived in a time when those relations were at one of their weakest points, and it seemed beyond his power to fix them in the mid-seventh century.

Another of Isho-yahbh III’s letters, to the monks of Qatar, attests to these ecclesial connections with the East and also highlights the difficulties of communications over long distances:

Lo there are more than twenty bishops and two metropolitans in the East, who have received in the past, and receive in the present, Episcopal ordination from the Church of God [i.e. the Patriarch], and none of them have come to us for many years, nor did we ask them to come, but we know that in spite of the long distance that separates them from us they fulfill the obligations of their episcopacy in strict conformity with the Church of God, while the rights of their Episcopal jurisdiction are duly received from us. We write to them and they write to us. ¹⁵

In this letter, the areas of the “East” are not identified; the Patriarch only comments on the “long distance that separates them from us” but that they still “fulfill the obligations.” They also “continue to receive Episcopal ordination from the Church of God” despite these distances and lack of contact. In thinking of these distances and lack of ability to communicate but through letters that could take months or years, one must appreciate the true challenge that Isho-yahbh faced. On the one hand, he is seeking to stem the tide of apostasy near to him. On the other, he is trying to exert pastoral authority across parts of the Church that do not recognize his leadership, while understanding that there are believers farther East in India and China that do desire connection.

As seen in Isho-yahbh’s letters to Fars and his recognition of the connections to India, the “East” may refer to India or also to China, which had received a Church of the East monastic mission in 635, just 15 years before Isho-yahbh became Patriarch in 649 CE and just over 20 years before he died.

Conclusion

Isho-yahbh III’s leadership, both earlier as Bishop and then as Patriarch, spanned a time of critical transition for the Church in West Asia and farther East. His letters reveal a leader trying to get to grips with the changing context around him. He reacts by focusing perhaps on the place he was right to focus on: his own Church and its leaders. The Patriarch lashes out in rebuke at these Bishops, as well as the Christians turning to Islam around him.

It is hard not to sense a feeling of mounting helplessness in these letters, of the confusion and ambiguity regarding this new faith and the nature of its future threat to Christianity. Isho-yahbh, however, does not wilt under the pressure, but continues to challenge and rebuke all the way to his death. He also finds the time and energy to continue to focus on the spreading Church in the farther East of India and China. In reading these letters addressed to the Metropolitans and Bishops in these far-flung regions, one can almost wonder if the contexts can be connected at all.

A theory that has been held by some scholars is that the Church spread to the East so widely because of the challenge facing it with the growing power of Islam. But in these letters we do not find that, at least in the mid-seventh century. Rather, we find the Patriarch concerned with an already growing presence East, and the need to see the Christian believers there taken care of and nurtured. The Church was not spreading East because of the danger posed in West Asia; it had already spread East, and would continue to do so over the next six centuries.

It is intriguing to wonder, and these fascinating letters give us some degree of insight, how Isho-yahbh felt regarding the future of his Church and the world. Did he imagine the new faith born in Arabia as a passing phenomenon, one that would wither away if only the Christians would repent and truly live lives not addicted to riches? His rebukes about a clinging to greed seem to indicate that he indeed thought that a purification of the Church in West Asia would at least have some degree of impact on the spread of the faith of Islam.

As seen in his letter above, Isho-yahbh does affirm that “God has granted the rule of our lands at this time” to the Arab Muslims. He saves his rebukes for his own leaders, and not for the new faith. In fact, again as already noted, Isho-yahbh writes that “they even commend our Faith, honour the priests and saints of our God, and confer benefits on churches and monasteries!” The overall tone of his remarks about Islam is not negative, again making one wonder whether perhaps a change of heart from Christians would mean a change of God’s purposes related to Muslims.

What comes through perhaps most strongly in these letters is the passion of the Patriarch, whether in the rebukes of his own leaders and Church adherents, or in his pastoral concern for those farther East. It was a passion lived out in a time of great transition and ambiguity, where the future was filled with uncertainty of outcomes, much like the context still today in West Asia and in many parts of the world.