RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESAmong those attracted to the Jacobites was Al;udemmeh, the son
of Nestorians of Balad in Beth 'Arbhaye. In 559 Christophorus, ca-
tholicos of the Armenian Church, consecrated him bishop of Beth
'Arbhaye at the same time that Jacob Baradaeus consecrated him
metropolitan of the Orient.^162 Under the leadership of Al;udemmeh,
the Monophysites began to expand by conversion. He converted a
large number of Magians at Takrit^163 and evangelized the pastoral
Arabs in the region between Takrit, Mt. Sinjar, Balad, and Nasibin
(Beth 'Arbhaye), where he is said to have destroyed their temples and
idols. Because of this, the Arabs at first refused to allow him to enter
their encampments until he healed the demon-possessed daughter of
one of the chiefs. Thereafter he was admitted to their camps where
he instructed them, established a priest and a deacon in each tribe,
and consecrated altars. His Arab converts are said to have taken up
fasting and the ascetic life with such enthusiasm that they began Lent
an entire week before everyone else. Their alms became an important
source of income and were used to maintain the Monophysite monks
on Mt. Sinjar and at Mar Matta. Al;udemmeh was also credited with
the conversion of the Arabs of 'Aqola (Kufa), the Tanukh to the west
'of the Euphrates between Hira and Anbar, and the Tu'aye, a general
term for pastoral Arabs that must have included the tribes of Bakr,
'Ijl, Namir, and Taghlib. To detach his Arab converts from the church
of St. Sergius at Rusafa, to whose cult they were especially devoted,
he built a new church of St. Sergius at 'Ainqenoye near Balad. Here
the liturgy was performed continually, night and day. Continual fast-
ing, vigils, and charity to the poor and strangers took place.^164
By the time of Al;udemmeh's death in 575, the Jacobites had begun
to imitate the Nestorians by establishing their own schools to teach
Monophysite doctrine imbedded in the liturgy. The earliest village
schools are said to have been at Beth Qoqa in Adiabene and at Shurzak
opposite Balad in Beth Nuhadhra. The monasteries served both as
centers of Monophysite scholarship and as schools. In the Mono-
physite enclave being created near the confluence of the Greater Zab
and the Tigris, the monastery of Mar Samuel with its school and forty
monks stood on a height overlooking the Tigris near Shurzaq, across
the river from the monastery of St. Sergius near Balad. Nearby was
162 Nau, "Agoudemmeh," pp. 10, 19-20.
163 Ibid., pp. 11, 33-34.
164 Ibid., pp. 7, 11,23,25-31. Oates (Studies, pp. 106-17) identifies the church and
monastery of St. Sergius with the ruins at Qasr Serij.