CHRISTIANStheir name did not mean that they were followers of Nestorius but
that he would have agreed with them.^102
THE FORMATION OF THE NESTORIAN COMMUNITY:
SCHOOLS
The "Nestorian" identity became permanent because its doctrine
was institutionalized in the liturgy and in the teaching of the schools.
The organization and spread of schools among the Nestorians in the
sixth and seventh centuries was one of the most powerful forces shap-
ing the separate group nature of the Eastern church. This was mainly
because the schools themselves imparted the doctrine and exegesis of
Theodore of Mopsuestia to those trained for leadership and to the
ordinary faithful. This began in the fifth century when the works of
Theodore were translated into Syriac for use in the School of the
Persians at Edessa. When this school was closed in 489 by the By-
zantine emperor Zeno, its members in dispersion carried Theodore's
exegesis across the border to Nasibin, where the school was recon-
stituted under the patronage of Bar Sawma.^103 The new school at
Nasibin was provided with regulations of 496 which were renewed
in the reign of Khusraw Aniishirvan (531-78).104 At the head of the
faculty was the interpreter, commentator, or exegete (Syr. mepashqanii;
Ar. mufassir) assisted by a reader or lecturer (Syr. maqreyanii), and a
mehageyanii (Syr.) who gave elementary instruction in reading. The
curriculum included church doctrine and the Greek sciences and took
three years to complete. The study of theology involved the transcrip-
tion and explanation of scripture, the liturgy, hymns, responses, and
the commentaries of Theodore. Science meant mainly the study of
logic and of medicine at the hospital (N.P. b"imiiristiin) attached to the
school.^1 0S
From Nasibin this educational tradition spread out over Sasanian
Iraq. The earliest offshoot was founded in about 521 at Irbil by Paul
102 Assemani, Ba, III(2), 76; S. Brock, "An Early Syriac Life of Maximus the Con-
fessor," AB 91 (1973),311,317-18; Budge, Rabban Hormizd, I, 57;11, 85; Chabot,
Synodicon, pp. 608, 632. The Nestorian designation was also used by Shahdost in the
mid-seventh century; see L. Abramowski and A. Goodman, A Nestorian Collection of
Christological Texts (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 3, 31.
103 Assemani, Ba, III(2), 80; Labourt, Christianisme, p. 291; Ortiz de Urbina, Pa-
trologia Syriaca, pp. 107-8; Viiiibus, School of Nisibis, pp. 14, 32.
104 Labourt, Christianisme, p. 294; Pigulevskaja, Villes, pp. 245-46.
105 Chabot, "Chastete," pp. 9, 234; Labourt, Christianisme, p. 297; Pigulevskaja,
Villes, p. 248; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(1), 157, 194-95; 11(2); 531; Viiiibus,
School of Nisibis, pp. 100-1,283..