Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

226 7 Religion: Christianity and Zoroastrianism
churches. 84 However, any attempts to convert Zoroastrians to the Christian
faith were strictly prohibited. Political considerations must have led Xusrō
I to consent to these ‘Christian rights’, which must have been proposed
by Justinian. 85 Demographical reasons had been largely responsible already
for the early deportations of Christian prisoners to the Sasanian Empire
(36). 86 The fact that Xusrō granted these substantial privileges to a religious
minority also reflects a tolerant attitude that can be seen elsewhere (37).
As the agreement applied to the situation within the Persian Empire only,
it was dealt with separately. However, the number of Christians affected
by it must have been considerable. K. Schmidt claims that the passage
represents the first ever international regulation concerning the protection
of religious minorities. 87 This is impressive but may be due to transmission.
In the peace treaty of 422 the Christians in the Persian Empire had been
granted the freedom to practise their religion, and the Zoroastrians in turn
were guaranteed the same privileges in the Byzantine Empire (19).
As a consequence of the Christological controversies within the Church
in the West, the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) prompted
many Nestorian Christians to take refuge in Persia. These were certainly
no longer seen as ‘enemies of the state’ and not persecuted in the way other
Christians had been in the fourth century during the reign of ˇ Sāpūr II
(309–79) (31). On the contrary, they were perceived as opponents of the
Byzantine emperor, who in spite of several attempts had failed to restore the
unity of the Church in the Eastern provinces. In the year 428 the new patriarch
of Constantinople, Nestorius, supposedly pleaded with the emperor
Theodosius, ‘Help me destroy the heretics, and I will help you destroy the
Persians.’ 88
The tensions between the Nestorians and the monophysites, who were
seen as non-loyal subjects of the Sasanian king, could be felt also in Persia.
The Syrian author and anti-Chalcedonian bishop of Constantinople,
John of Ephesus (c. 507–86), to whom among other works we owe a collection
of 58 biographies of contemporary ‘holy men and women’, records
the words of a Nestorian bishop held before the Sasanian king Kavādh I
84 Güterbock 1906: 93–105. 85 Guillaumont 1969–70: 41–66.
86 See also Wiesehöfer 2001: 200–1, who argues that the deportations of numerous Christians by Sāpūr ˇ
I did not take place for religious but rather for economic and demographical reasons and that the
king – although unintentionally – thereby contributed to the spread of Christian ideas and Christian
communities in the Persian Empire.
87 Cf. Schmidt 2002: 131.
88 Socr. HE vii.29.5; see also Greatrex and Lieu 2002: 259 n. 61, ‘How much significance should be
attached to the patriarch’s words is uncertain, however: Socrates at least was critical of his pronouncement
. . . and his tenure of office was short.’