RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESentirely cut off, and the effectiveness of the Talmudic barriers created
by the rabbis for Jews must be qualified by the fact that as late as the
670s Jews were still selling wine to Christians (most probably at
Mada'in). The exclusiveness of the Nestorian identity was also broken
down by the way continuing conversions meant constant contact with
the members of other religions who brought their backgrounds with
them. In this connection it is important to note the survival of pagan
marriage and burial customs among the Nestorians.MONOPHYSITES
Although the majority of Christians in seventh-century Iraq were
Nestorians, Monophysites were also present. They were important not
only for providing a foil against which the Nestorian community ac-
quired its identity, but also because by the seventh century they came
to form a community of their own as part of the Jacobite Church of
Syria. Monophysites have tended to be identified with Syrians in the
Sasanian empire and to be regarded as representing an intrusive "west-
ern" element there. Most such assumptions have followed Labourt's
suggestion that the number of Monophysites in Iraq was increased by
the Byzantine captives deported to Iraq by Khusraw Aniishirvan.^156
The most extreme assertions of a "western" Greek or Syrian origin
and cultural identity of Monophysites in Iraq have been made by Piey,
who makes several assumptions: that the Roman captives who were
settled at 'Ukbara by Shapiir I in the third century left Syrian influences
there; that there were "probably" clergy among them that "caused"
the later presence there of west Syrian Christians; and that they and
"Greek" exiles from Byzantine Syria in the late fourth century "prob-
ably" were resistant to Nestorianism in the late fifth century.157
Such assertions appear to be as unfounded as they are misleading.
In reality, the Monophysite population in Sasanian Iraq was created
in three ways: by the arrival of Monophysite monks who were driven
as refugees across the Byzantine border in the late fifth and sixth
centuries (as were the first Nestorians); by a schism among native
Christians in the church in the Sasanian empire in reaction to Nestorian
tendencies; and by the conversion of non-Christians in Iraq by Mon-
156 Labourt, Christianisme, p. 199. This, in turn, goes back to Bar Hebraeus (Asse-
mani, BD, I1, 410).
157 Fiey, Assyrie chretienne, I1, 822-23; III, 127-28.