ABSTRACT
It had a hierarchy as strongly organised as that of its neighbour across the Roman frontier. Provinces corresponded to the great territorial divisions of the Persian Empire, and dioceses to the administrative and judicial districts. Without counting the patriarchal diocese, there were five metropolitan sees in 410: Beit Lapat, Nisibis, Perat, Arbela and Karka of Beit Slokh:2 to which were added, between 550-600, Rew-Ardashir for Persia proper and Merw for Khorasan. 3 By 630 these five provinces probably included not less than a hundred dioceses.4 First among these was the see of SeleuciaCtesiphon.5 Its bishop adopted the title of Catholicus in order to mark his independence of all foreign jurisdiction; and in 424 declared his Church independent of the Western Fathers.6 By the title Patriarch, he proclaimed himself the equal of the Bishops of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch.1 Moreover, he was the supreme authority within his own communion. Next to him in rank stood the bishop of Kaskar;8 who administered the patriarchate sede vacante and summoned the electoral college to proceed to the choice of a successor.9 The metropolitan was the regional delegate of the Catholicus. The bishops, of whom there was but one in each town/a were masters each in his own diocese. To the precision with which the relations of patriarch, metropolitan and bishop were thus regulated, the Church of the East owes both its persistence and its prestige.ll Synodical government also contributed to its vigour :12 and so, too, did the ownership and administration of all ecclesiastical property by the
The (( N estorians" 419 bishop. 13 Such property was considerable: for the bishop's cathedral was usually surrounded by schools, library and hospita1.14 The episcopate also had absolute control of the monastic order.15 It was of the crenobitic or Pachomian type; and had been reinvigorated by the reforms of Abraham of Kaskar/6 491-tS86, which, by the era of the Moslem conquest, had taken root in some sixty monasteries.17 To their numbers and vitality, the Church of the East owed much of its power to resist for so long the assaults of Islam, as well as to maintain its dogmatic tradition against the Monophysites.18
