RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESChristian since the fourth or early fifth century, and the city was a
bishopric by 410, but the ruling Banii Lakhm dynasty remained pagan
down to the end of the sixth century. Abraham of Kaskar had con-
verted pagans at Hira in the early sixth century, but Monophysites
began to arrive at Hira during the persecutions in the reign of Justin.
They were patronized at Hira by the local notable al-J:Iajjaj ibn Qays.
At the beginning of the seventh century the Jacobite bishop of the
Arabs, a man named John (ca. 600-620), had his see first at 'Aqola,
then at Balad, and then at Hira.^167 The control of the church and
community of 'Ibadis at Hira revolved around the conversion of the
ruling family to Christianity as with Constantine. The Monophysites
had gotten an early start in the mid-sixth century with the marriage
of the Ghassani princess, Hind, to the Lakhmi ruler. Her son, 'Amr
ibn al-Mundhir (554-69) was a Monophysite, but his successors re-
mained pagan. At the end of the century, the two sisters of an-Nu'man
ibn al-Mundhir, Hind and Mary, were Christians, probably Nesto-
rians, although he remained a pagan. In 593, an-Nu'man was con-
verted to Nestorian Christianity and baptized by the bishop of Hira,
Shem'iin, with his entire household and the leaders of his army (a la
Clovis?). He is said to have expelled the Jacobites from the "rest of
his provinces" after his conversion. Shortly afterwards, he seems to
have had second thoughts and suffered a relapse. He was "misled"
by Jacobites, possessed by a demon, and cured by the Nestorian cath-
olicos SabhrishO' in about 596. The 'Ibadi community of Nestorian
Arabs survived the end of the Banii Lakhm and Sasanian dynasties
and maintained a distinctive identity within the Nestorian Church well
into the Islamic period.^168
The second major consequence of the conflict between the two sects
was a general sharpening of the distinctions between them and the
real division of the Eastern church into a Nestorian majority and
Monophysite minority in Iraq. This division was assisted by the way
in which the Monophysites' attraction to the Greek sciences and phi-
losophy made them the natural allies of the aristocratic medical party
within the Nestorian Church. The crucial period for the mutual sep-
aration of the two sects in Iraq was in the early seventh century, when
mixed congregations and monasteries were purged by both sides. The
167 Chabot, Chronique de Denys de Tell-Mahre (Paris, 1895), p. 4; Labourt, Chris-
tianisme, pp. 206-7; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," Il(1), 133, 143-44.
168 Chabot, Synodicon, p. 456; Guidi, Chronica Minora I, I, 17; II, 16; Labourt,
Christianisme, pp. 206;-7; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," II(2), 468-69, 478-81.