RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESjudgment seat (Gk. bema) before the assembled people of the town.^23
Late Sasanian seal impressions attest a lord of the Magians (M.P.
magoxwatay) at Ctesiphon in Khusraw Shadh Qubadh, at Babil in
Veh-Kavat, and at Nahr al-Malik in Veh-Artakhshatr.24
In addition to supervising the priesthood, the liturgy, the fire cult,
and sacrifices in the districts under them, magopats were also the
bearers of traditions of sacred and secular learning and had important
administrative duties. As representatives of the government, they were
expected to enforce decrees, to act as a check on other local officials,
especially with regard to taxation, to administer religious law for
Magians in matters of personal status, and to use their seals to au-
thenticate documents, ensure proper weights and measures, and certify
commercial transactions. Since the administrative seals used by the
priests belong to the late Sasanian period, it would seem that their
local administrative responsibilities were being increased towards the
end of Sasanian rule.
The overlapping of jurisdictions and authority-a typical Sasanian
mechanism for administrative control-also applied to the priesthood.
Although the religious authority of priests was supported by the state,
this meant that they had to depend on secular officials when it was
necessary to enforce their decisions. This is revealed best in cases of
apostasy from the Magian religion, which was punishable by death.
Although a Magian religious judge could pass a death sentence on a
Magian who committed a mortal sin,2s he had no way of enforcing
such a sentence and had no jurisdiction over non-Magians. The local
governor (M.P. rat) normally dealt with non-Magians and was in a
position to enforce his decisions. Thus, in cases of apostasy, the ju-
risdictions of the magopat and the rat overlapped. This explains why
the apostate St. Shir'in was interrogated jointly by the magopat and
by the rat of Kirkuk in 558, and was condemned to death by a mixed
court composed of a magopat and the rat of Khuzistan at Dastagird
early in 559.^26 It should be noted that this relationship between reli-
gious legal authority and the secular enforcement of religiolls and other
laws was eventually repeated among Muslims in the relative positions
of the qa(!, and the ma~alim court.
23 Hoffmann, Persischer Miirtyrer, p. 73.
24 Bivar, Western Asiatic Seals, p. 39; Frye, "Sassanian Clay Sealings," p. 238, fig.
3; idem, "Die Legenden auf sassanidischen Siegelabdriicken," WZKM 56 (1960),33,
34..
25 J.-P. de Menasce, Le troisieme livre du Denkart (Paris, 1973), p. 184.
26 Devos, "Sainte Sirin," pp. 97, 105.