RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESof Nasibin, who had been sent there by the exegete Abraham of Beth
Rabban expressly to establish a school for the children of Adiabene
in order to implant faith in their minds and to defend them against
the aggression of the heretics and the Me~allyane.lo6 The suspension
of the school of Nasibin in about 540 during a period of Magian
persecution had the effect of scattering its students all over Iraq. This
led to the founding of schools at Mada'in,107 Hira,108 Kaskar, Maysan,
and in villages in Adiabene and Beth Garme where the doctrinal con-
tent of the hymns and responses served as an effective means of spread-
ing the theology of Theodore at the popular leve1.^109
Thus, the ascendancy of Wnana of Adiabene at the school of N asibin
in the 580s was particularly threatening because he had hundreds of
students and changed the wording in the hymns and litanies to cor-
respond to his own doctrine. A second series of regulations was prom-
ulgated for the school under l:Ienana's direction in 590 by Simeon, the
metropolitan of Nasibin.llo After l:Ienana's complete victory over his
opponents at the school in about 594, the students who opposed him,
led by Babai the Great, seceded and founded their own schools. Some
went to the monastery of Abraham of Kaskar on Mt. Izla while others
joined Mark, the bishop of Balad, and convened in a new school he
had built near that city.111 Gregory of Kaskar had already founded a
school with three hundred students at Kaskar; after he was forced to
leave the see of Nasibin, he founded a monastery with another school
at Bazza dhe Nahrawatha.l12 Other schools were founded in the Sawad
at about the same time.113
106 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," Il(l), 187; Mingana, Sources syriaques, p. 156;
Voobus, History of Asceticism, I, 322-23. Both Mar Dadhisho', who succeeded Abra-
ham of Kaskar at Mt. Izla, and Sabhrisho', the future catholicos, were educated at the
school in Irbil (Chabot, "Chastete," pp. 15, 24, 239, 246).
107 Chabot, "Chastete," pp. 33, 35, 253, 254; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," Il(l),
158, 165, 167; Viiiibus, School of Nisibis, pp. 156, 170, 175-76; idem, Syriac and
Arabic Documents, pp. 187-88.
108 Chabot, "Chastett!," pp. 11, 236; Guidi, Chronica Minora I, I, 31; Il, 26; Scher,
"Histoire nestorienne," II(l), 171; Viiiibus, School of Nisibis, pp. 157-58.
109 Chabot, "Chastete," pp. 22, 244; Fiey, "Balad et le Beth 'Arabaye irakien,"
L'Orient Syrien 9 (1964), 194-95; Hoffmann, Persischer Martyrer, pp. 97-98; Labourt,
Christianisme, p. 259; Voiibus, School of Nisibis, pp. 157-58.
110 Guidi, Chronica Minora I, I, 18; Il, 17; Labourt, Christianisme, p. 294; Pigulev-
skaja, Villes, p. 246; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," Il(2), 506, 511.
111 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," II(2), 511-12.
112 Chabot, "Chastete," pp. 35, 254; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," II(2), 507-8;
Viiiibus, School of Nisibis, p. 204.
113 George of Izla (Mihramgushnasp) is said to have founded a school at Babil, and
Mar Theodore of Kaskar, who received his monastic habit from Babai of Nasibin (an
aristocratic Persian convert, not to be confused with either Babai the Great or Babai