PAGANS AND GNOSTICSthe sacraments of the church was basically a reaction to authority. It
served the same purpose among sixth and seventh-century Nestorian
monks as the Messianic movements did among the Jews. They rejected
baptism because it only removed past sins but did nothing about the
demon that was the cause of sin. The Synod of Ezechiel accused the
Me~allyiine in 576 of denying justice, of saying that there was no
reward for good or punishment for evil, and of opposing the Holy
Spirit, the author of the laws.^166 For the Me~allyiine, the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit meant that they were a law unto themselves. The
seriousness of their challenge to church authority lay in the fact that
it was made at the very time that the Nestorians were attempting to
exert church discipline over monks and laity through canon law and
monastic regulations. The Me~allyiine wandered about from place to
place with no possessions, living on alms and refusing any labor be-
cause their occupation was prayer. They attracted women and broke
up marriages. Men and women lived and slept together in the open
or in monasteries and practiced spiritual marriage. The eighth canon
of the Synod of Isho'yahbh I described them in 585 as men who
wandered about without a. monastery, entered cities and towns, and
rejected fasting, prayer, and the sacraments; they were described as
men who went about with their wives in religious garb or as men and
women who lived together in a monastery.1^67
By the last quarter of the sixth century, the Me~allyiine in Iraq were
becoming a problem serious enough to be noticed by Nestorian synods.
They were in Adiabene in 585 and on Mt. Sinjar in 596.1^68 They are
even said to have accompanied Gregory of Kaskar in his missionary
work among the villages of Kaskar and Maysan.^169 Babai the Great
was commissioned by the bishops of Nasibin, Adiabene, and Kirkuk
to inspect the monasteries and to expel the Me~allyiine. He also wrote
a tract against them and called them diabolic sorcerers whose prayer
was a demonic operation and was an association and mixing with
demonsYo Nestorian monks continued to be accused of being Me~
allyiine through the seventh century. For this reason, Aphni-Miiran
was expelled from the monastery of Beth 'Abhe in about 660. When
166 Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 115, 375.
167 Ibid., pp. 144, 406.
168 Ibid., pp. 146,407; Guidi, Chronica Minora I, 1,18; n, 17.
169 Voobus, School of Nisibis, p. 209.
170 Babai Magni, "Liber de Unione," CSCO, Scr. Syri, 34:82, 35:67; Chabot, Sy-
nodicon, p. 629; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," H(2), 532; Thomas of Margha, Gov-
ernors, I, 51-52; H, 91-92.