RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESin the case of a bishop who, prior to 544, was joined by "Jews and
scoundrels" in his ecclesiastical revolt in Beth Aramaye,149 But contact
with non-Christians was important for conversions, and Christian
saints and ascetics were always the objects of appeals from non-Chris-
tians and sectarians interested in the power of the saint to effect some
benefit or cure. A good example of this is the Magian woman who
came to SabhrIsho' (catholicos, 596-604) when he was .bishop of
Lashom, asking him to pray to God to give her a son. He gave her
some water in which he had washed his hand twice and told her to
drink it. After some misgivings, she did so. When she became pregnant
and gave birth to twin sons, she was converted and baptized along
with the rest of her family. ISO
This kind of contact with non-Nestorians continued without change
into the Islamic period. A pagan who had married the daughter of a
heretic (Monophysite) approached the monk Mar SabhrIsho' (d. 650)
because the marriage was childless. SabhrIsho' gave him some lJenana
(Syr.),l51 and as a result twin boys were born. But, according to the
story, the children were baptized as Monophysites and so they died.152
yol).annan Bar Penkaye was extremely critical of such contacts, and
among the "impurities" which crept into the Nestorian Church during
the reign of Mu'awiya, he included "commerce with the infidels, union
with the perverse, relations with the heretics, and friendship with the
Jews."IS3 The Synod of George I in 676 complained about Christians
who after taking the sacrament went straight from church to Jewish
taverns to drink wine. This was especially deplored since there was
no lack of taverns run by Christians where they could have satisfied
their desire for wine according to their own customs. The same synod
condemned the pagan custom of wrapping the dead in rich and pre-
cious vestments and of making great lamentations out of cowardliness
and despair, describing the "lamentations which the madwomen make
in the houses of the deceased, and the great expenses which one makes
149 Ibid., pp. 77, 329.
150 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," II(2), 478.
151 1:fenanii was an amulet made of earth compacted with water or holy oil.
152 Mingana, Sources syriaques, pp. 228-30. Mar SabhrIsho' was also credited with
curing a Persian woman who was possessed by the Devil. The similarity between these
stories is obvious. They probably belong to a common fund of themes used by the
hagiographers to describe what a saint was supposed to do; but, at the vety least, the
fact that the hagiographers regarded such contacts as possible argues for their occurrence
in real life.
153 Ibid., p. 180.