Jews and Others
he had continued to eat with the same Jew and had even brought him into
the church. But he had then been driven out by a Christian mob and had
appealed for protection to the commander (dux)ofthepraetoriumthere, who
called out his troops, leading to the death and injury of many Christians. This
was one of the causes of complaint brought against various bishops who were
thought to be followers of Nestorius.^36 On the other hand, the sixth-century
Chronicle of Edessa, also in Syriac, claims both that Rabbula, as soon as he was
elected bishop of Edessa in , had built a church on the site of a former
synagogue, and that this had been by imperial command.^37 The brief entry
in theChronicledoes not make clear whether the synagogue had still been in
use up to the point when the church was built. An independent source, the
SyriacLifeof Rabbula, probably of the fifth century, and not later than the
sixth, claims that the bishop converted ‘‘thousands’’ of Jews and heretics, and
destroyed the churches of the latter.^38 We need not accept that there were
literally thousands of Jews to convert, but all the evidence supports the con-
ception of Osrhoene in this period as the scene of much variation and conflict
both within Christianity and as between Christians and other groups.
If we could have confidence in the historicity of the picture offered by
the SyriacLifeof the famous archimandrite (in effect, abbot of a monas-
tery), Bar Sauma, also partially edited by F. Nau—and perhaps, following
E. Honigmann, dating from about..–—we would gain an even
more powerful impression than from other sources both of Christian anxiety
and of violent communal conflict.^39 Looking back to the period around
.., the author envisages a world which seems extremely strange in
the light of the majority of our evidence: a Near East (Palestine, Phoenicia,
. For the Syriacacta, see J. P. G. Flemming,Akten der Ephesinischen Synodevom Jahre
(Abh. d. Kön. Ges. derWiss. zu Göttingen, Phil.-hist. Kl., N.F. XV, ). For this episode, see
pp. –. The text had been translated into English by S. W. F. Perry,The Second Synod of
Ephesus(), –.
. For theChronicle, see L. Hallier,Untersuchungen über die Edessenische Chronik(Texte u.
UntersuchungenIX, ), para. LI (text and German translation); also I. Guidi, ed.,CSCO,
Scriptores SyriIII. (), –.
. For theLifeof Rabbula, see the extracts published and translated by F. Nau inRev.
Hist.Relig. (): , and the fine analysis by G. W. Bowersock, ‘‘The Syriac Life of Rab-
bula and Syrian Hellenism,’’ in T. Hägg and Ph. Rousseau, eds.,GreekBiographyandPanegyric
in Late Antiquity(), .
.SeetheextractseditedbyF.NauinRev. Or. Chr. (): and ; ():
and , alsoRev. Ét. Juives (): . For a discussion, in essence sceptical, of the
authenticity of theLifeas a source for events in the Theodosian period, see E. Honigmann,
Le couvent de Barsauma et le Patriarchat jacobite d’Antioche et de Syrie(), chap. .