Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

220 7 Religion: Christianity and Zoroastrianism
Constantine urges ˇ Sāpūr to look after the Christians and to become their
protector. It is not certain whether the letter – as transmitted by Eusebius –
is historical or not. The content, however, is characteristic for Constantine’s
view of history and of himself as a Christian emperor. Clearly, Eusebius
wants to depict Constantine’s concern for Christianity as a whole. Such
ambitions, however, which included also the Christians in the Sasanian
Empire, were to find ˇ Sāpūr’s disapproval and to evoke opposition.
The Persian War (7) that broke out during the reign of Constantius II
(337–61) was accompanied by continuing systematic persecutions of the
Christians in Persia. When in 338 after a long unsuccessful siege of Nisibis
ˇSāpūr II had to retreat, persecutions of the Christians began soon after and
lasted for forty years. 58 Numerous acts of martyrs from the period after the
thirty-first year of the reign of ˇ Sāpūr II (= 340/41) have been preserved. 59
The Bishop Mārūtā of Maiperkat was probably the editor of a collection
of Syrian martyr texts. 60 At the beginning of the fifth century he was a
Byzantine ambassador at the Persian court. In the year 410 he presided
over the Synod of Seleucia, which reorganised the Christians in Persia; in
the aftermath many relics from the persecutions of ˇ Sāpūr II’s reign were
taken to Seleucia. 61 The acts of the martyrs confirm that after the death
of Constantine the Great (337), ˇ Sāpūr II began to put pressure on the
Christians and to destroy the churches within his realm of power. 62 The
following martyrology of Simon, the metropolitēs of Seleucia-Ktēsiphōn,
deserves special attention.
Martyrologium of Mar Simon, Acta martyrum et sanctorum,
ed. P. Bedjan ii 135–6
Let us begin, then, with the history of the persecution and killing of those holy
martyrs whose names we have recorded above. In the year 655 of the reign of
Alexander, which is the year 296 after the crucifixion of our Lord, that is the
year 117 of the reign of the Persians, which is the year 31 of ˇ Sāpūr the king, son of
Hormizd (= ad 340/41), ˇ Sāpūr found an opportunity, after the blessed Constantine
emperor of the Romans died, to pick a quarrel with his sons, because they were
young, and [so] he was continually going up to raid the land of the Romans. 63 And
for this reason he was especially stirring up hatred against the servants of God who
were in the territory under his dominion, and he was longing and scheming to find
a pretext for the persecution of the faithful. And he contrived a stratagem to crush
58 On ˇ Sāpūr’s persecutions of the Christians see Schwaigert 1989: 103–75; also Rist 1996: 17–42.
59 Devos 1966: 213–42; Wiessner 1967 and Vivian 1987: 93–103.
60 Braun 1915: xii–xiii.
61 On the synod of 410 see Müller 1969: 227–45.
62 See Braun 1915: 6.
63 On the Roman–Sasanian confrontations during the reign of Constantius II see 7.