The catholicos of Seleucia and his Letters
Papa Bar Aggai is considered the first historical bishop of Seleucia. With an anachronism, he is sometimes he is referred to as the first patriarch or catholicos of the church of the East. Actually short and unrelatable is the information about him emerging from the study of ancient sources. According to a well attested tradition, he ruled the church of Seleucia for about 70 years. He died in an uncertain year, during the reign of Shapur II: according to the author of the Liber Turris, he died in 326/327, according to Bar Hebraeus in 335.
In an uncertain year around 315 he is the protagonist of a synod called by some bishops of the diocesis of Persia against him, to question his arrogant and authoritative attitude towards priests, deacons and the other bishops of the region. The oldest source on this synod is represented by the Acts of the Persian martyr Miles, bishop of Šuš, the strongest of Papa’s opponents. According to most sources, Papa is deposed by the synod; but if in the Acts of Miles this synod represents the final moment of Papa’s careed, according to other sources he is later restored thanks to the intervention of the “Western Fathers” who send a letter in support of him, stating that the authority of the bishop of Seleucia cannot be questioned by any other Eastern bishop.
In the Acts of Miles Papa is presented as a negative figure, in his arrogant, authoritarian and even blasphemous attitude. In a relatively short space of time, we can see an evolution of the figure of Mar Papa, from the antagonist of Acts of Miles to being the first catholicos and patriarch of the church of the East, and even a disciple consecrated directly by Mar Mari, the apostle of the East who converted the entire Persian region according to a narrative probably from 6th-century. Nevertheless, all these sources do not omit to recount an episode in which Papa is portrayed in his blasphemous attitude towards a Gospel book, resulting in “divine” punishment.
In this evolution of the figure of Papa, eight pseudo-epigraphic letters that some manuscripts transmit as his epistolary correspondence play an important but mostly underrated role:
- a letter from Eusebius, bishop of Rome, to Papa;
- a letter from Judah Kyriakos, bishop of Jerusalem, to Papa;
- a letter from the Empress Helena to Papa;
- a letter from Papa to the Helena;
- a letter from Ephrem to Papa;
- a letter from Jacob of Nisibis to Papa;
- a letter that Papa addresses to the citizens of Nisibis;
- the Letter of the “Western Fathers” on the illegality of the rebellion of the Eastern bishops against Papa.
The corpus is traded by the same manuscripts containing the Synodicon Orientale, the collection of the synod acts of the councils held in the Church of the East from the 5th to the 8th century.
Selected Bibliography
Braun O. “Der Briefwechsel des Katholikos Papa von Seleucia. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der ostsyrischen Kirche im vierten Jahrhundert.” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 18 [1894]: 163–82, 546–65.
Di Rienzo A. ”Risemantizzare la memoria. Il conflitto tra Papa bar Aggai e Miles di Susa nell’ottica del catholicos di Seleucia.” Cristianesimo nella storia 38:3 [2017]: 637–54
Harrak A. The Acts of Mār Mārī the Apostle. Writings from the Greco-Roman World 11, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005
Harvey S. et al. (eds), Three Persian Martyr Acts. The Acts of Miles, Bishop of Susa, the Priest Abursam, and Deacon Sinai, The Martyrdom of Zebina and his Companions, and The Martyrdom of the Forty Martyrs of Beth Kashkraye, Persian Martyr Acts in Syriac: Text and Translation 9. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2023
Jullien C. and F. Jullien. Les Actes de Mar Mari. L’apôtre de la Mésopotamie. Turnhout: Brepols, 2001
Smith K. ed., The Synod of Dadishoʿ – 424, in Corpus Christianorum Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta: editio critica. V/2. The General Councils of the Eastern Christian Churches: Synods of the Church of the East, eds. A. Melloni, E. A. Ishac. Turnhout: Brepols, 2023, 672–75