The Scorpion Bite - A VIth century Sassanid/Roman TL with a possible Christian China
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fi11222
Banned
It seems to me that India is sort of impenetrable to outside religious influence short of outright invasion. Since this TL is chiefly an exploration of an alternate religious evolution, I do not plan to involve india directly at this point. Indian thought will be "represented" by Saivites and Buddhist in Central Asia.
fi11222
Banned
SB 9
Saint Chosroes Chrysorhine
Vardan Mamikonian, already an old man at the battle of Merv in 588, dies in 592 AD. His son, Mamak, ascends the throne without difficulty. In his late forties, and a seasoned military commander in his own right, Mamak has participated in all the campaigns of his father and has been groomed to succeed him for at least a decade. He commands the loyalty of the four Dukes as there is no doubt in anyone's mind that only the prestige of the Mamikonian line can hold the realm together. After a lavish coronation ceremony in Anudagshahr, king Mamak embarks on a tour of the provinces.
Meanwhile, a young monk is just reaching Antioch, after a long trip on foot from Arbela through Mosul, Nisibis, Edessa and Zeugma. Khosrow is now 25. After his arrival in Mar Qardagh monastery in 579, the young former Sassanid prince has soon developed a strong liking for his new religion. The old Abbot, while walking in the gardens of the monastery with Khosrow's mother, now known as "sister Shubkono[1]", often praised his young pupil's quickness of mind and devotion to his studies when the youngster was out of earshot in order to preserve his modesty. When he turned 20, Khosrow began to preach in the churches of Arbela, as was the custom for learned young monks. He soon developed a reputation as a moving orator and his sermons started to draw large crowds. In 590, during Lent, he delivered from the pulpit of the cathedral of Arbela a series of Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans which made such a strong impression that manuscripts of them, composed from notes taken by the audience, were soon in wide circulation. But the young preacher was uneasy with his newfound fame. He felt that his listeners were often more fond of his rhetorical skills than of what he was actually trying to tell them. And he dreaded the sense of pride that he felt sometimes as he saw the glances full of admiration and respect that lingered upon him while he went down the steps from the pulpit. When he confessed these feelings to the Abbot of Mar Qardagh, the old man sighed: "Indeed my son, vanity is indeed a fearful trap". And he advised Khosrow to travel to Antioch and stay there for a few years. "There, he said, you will see that you are not the best preacher in the world as the city is teeming with them". So Khosrow went and he is just arriving now at his destination after two months of travel on dusty roads and under a merciless sun.
In Antioch, Khosrow becomes a member of the junior clergy at the church of Saint Ignatius, the parson of which is an old friend of the Abbot of Mar Qardagh. Here, Khosrow cannot preach as his Greek is not good enough (but he is working on it). He assists in the liturgy at the altar seven times a day and works in the several charitable establishments attached to the parish. He often writes home, to his mother, his two "aunts" and friends in the monastery. In May 593, after 6 months spent in Antioch, this is what he has to say to his friend Antranig[2]:
But God did not want Khosrow to return to Arbela that year. Indeed, he stayed on in Antioch for another decade. At the turn of the VIIth century, his reputation for sainthood was already growing beyond the Syrian metropolis. He would be called "the gentle teacher" or "Chosroes Chrysorhine", Khosrow the golden-nosed.
[1] "Forgiveness" in Syriac. Also the name of a feast in the liturgical calendar.
[2] An Armenian name meaning "first born".
[3] Mark 15:7-15
[4] Both Khosrow and his friend are using Aramaic to communicate with each other, even though their native tongues are different (Armenian and Pahlavi respectively).
[5] Bar Kokhba, leader of the second Jewish-Roman war in 135 AD. His name means "son of a star" in Hebrew.
[6] Matt. 4:8-9
[7] Col. 3:5
[8] Matt. 26:75
[9] Rom. 6:3
[10] Matt. 3:11, Luke 3:16
Saint Chosroes Chrysorhine
Vardan Mamikonian, already an old man at the battle of Merv in 588, dies in 592 AD. His son, Mamak, ascends the throne without difficulty. In his late forties, and a seasoned military commander in his own right, Mamak has participated in all the campaigns of his father and has been groomed to succeed him for at least a decade. He commands the loyalty of the four Dukes as there is no doubt in anyone's mind that only the prestige of the Mamikonian line can hold the realm together. After a lavish coronation ceremony in Anudagshahr, king Mamak embarks on a tour of the provinces.
Meanwhile, a young monk is just reaching Antioch, after a long trip on foot from Arbela through Mosul, Nisibis, Edessa and Zeugma. Khosrow is now 25. After his arrival in Mar Qardagh monastery in 579, the young former Sassanid prince has soon developed a strong liking for his new religion. The old Abbot, while walking in the gardens of the monastery with Khosrow's mother, now known as "sister Shubkono[1]", often praised his young pupil's quickness of mind and devotion to his studies when the youngster was out of earshot in order to preserve his modesty. When he turned 20, Khosrow began to preach in the churches of Arbela, as was the custom for learned young monks. He soon developed a reputation as a moving orator and his sermons started to draw large crowds. In 590, during Lent, he delivered from the pulpit of the cathedral of Arbela a series of Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans which made such a strong impression that manuscripts of them, composed from notes taken by the audience, were soon in wide circulation. But the young preacher was uneasy with his newfound fame. He felt that his listeners were often more fond of his rhetorical skills than of what he was actually trying to tell them. And he dreaded the sense of pride that he felt sometimes as he saw the glances full of admiration and respect that lingered upon him while he went down the steps from the pulpit. When he confessed these feelings to the Abbot of Mar Qardagh, the old man sighed: "Indeed my son, vanity is indeed a fearful trap". And he advised Khosrow to travel to Antioch and stay there for a few years. "There, he said, you will see that you are not the best preacher in the world as the city is teeming with them". So Khosrow went and he is just arriving now at his destination after two months of travel on dusty roads and under a merciless sun.
In Antioch, Khosrow becomes a member of the junior clergy at the church of Saint Ignatius, the parson of which is an old friend of the Abbot of Mar Qardagh. Here, Khosrow cannot preach as his Greek is not good enough (but he is working on it). He assists in the liturgy at the altar seven times a day and works in the several charitable establishments attached to the parish. He often writes home, to his mother, his two "aunts" and friends in the monastery. In May 593, after 6 months spent in Antioch, this is what he has to say to his friend Antranig[2]:
My Dearest brother. It pains me to be away from you and yet I am happy that distance forces me to pour out my soul in writing as the discipline of the pen is so much more rewarding than the easy but often empty chit-chat of the spoken word.
How far the Lord has made me Travel! As a young boy, I played in the luxurious gardens of my father's palace; every need of mine satisfied in an instant. Now, I sleep in a tiny room up in the attic of an old tottering house which leans against the wall of our church like a drunkard. It makes me laugh when I enter it every night, so great is the difference with the expectations of my former life. And yet, the gardens of my youth were no Eden. So full of serpents were they! And so much closer to the True Garden am I right now up in my dingy little room, writing at the flickering light of a near-empty lamp.
I was brought up to consider worldly glory my birthright. And I thought I was fortunate! How deluded was I. How deluded are we all. More than any other city called great today, Antioch has been blessed by the doctrines of Christ. Here apostles dwelled from the earliest time and here is to be found more learned men skilled in theology and hermeneutics than anywhere else. Yet the streets are full of men who call themselves Christian and yet spend their entire lives running after the glory that comes from man. Governors and officials, soldiers, bishops even; they all run after the perishable trinkets of vanity.
Just the other day I was re-reading the passage of Mark about Barabbas[3] and suddenly it struck me. It is actually Barabbas who is the Messiah that the Jews were waiting for. Barabbas had been caught by the Roman army because he fomented an insurrection. Mark clearly says so in verse seven of his fifteenth chapter. But who were the planners of insurrection in the lifetime of our Lord on earth if not the Zealots? So Barabbas was a zealot. But there is more. The name of Barabbas means "son of the Father" as we can still understand very plainly in our language[4]. So Barabbas is not merely a zealot but a zealot leader who thinks he is the Messiah. What else could "son of the Father" mean? And indeed, after Barabbas, several Jews arose in rebellion against Rome who claimed to be the Messiah, the most notorious among them being the so called "son of a star" in the one hundred and thirty fifth year of our Lord[5]. Among Jews, it was thought that, since the Messiah would be from the stem of David, he would be the son of a star; the star of David.
So our Lord Jesus is not only the Messiah, he is the anti-Messiah by comparison to what the Jews thought the Messiah would be. And indeed this "Messiah" that the Jews were waiting for with eagerness was not the Messiah but the Antichrist. They wanted a warlike Messiah, a conquering Messiah, a victorious Messiah. But our Lord turned out to be a defeated Messiah (according to the standards of this world), abandoned of all and crucified like a wretched criminal. No man could have foreseen the blessing that lies hidden in so astonishing an event according to human eyes.
Ardashir's coronation relief at Naqsh-e Rustam
As a child we went every year, with my Father and all his court, to pay our respects at the tombs of the so called Kayanid Kings in Naqsh-e Rustam. And every year my Father would show me the carved relief depicting the coronation of Ardashir by Ahura Mazda and he would tell me: "One day, it will be your turn". As I think of it I weep as I realize how much the Devil can delude us. In this scene, the artist showed Ahura Mazda, (that is, God himself!) giving the crown to Ardashir, the founder of our dynasty. But this crown is not merely a crown. In Persian, it is called "Xhwarrah", which means "glory" and also "light", "glittering" and "shiny". This crown is the very power of the Devil and it is it that he offers to Christ when he tempts him in the desert: "All these (the kingdoms of the world and their glory) I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."[6] What the mercy of God has made me realize now is that every Persian King was in fact a "Messiah" according to the taste of the Jews; that is, an Antichrist. If God had not, in his most loving mercy, made King Vardan cut my nose, I would have become an Antichrist.
This kind of "Messiahs", the blood-stained Messiah claimants of the Jews, our own wretched "Kings of Kings", are the deadliest tools ever devised by the Devil for the damnation of mankind. Of course, every man who declares himself such, is condemned to the lowest pit of Hell. But there is worse. Each time such a figure appears in front of the eyes of men, and indeed each time the very idea that such a figure could appear and would be approved by God is proclaimed, the hearts of men are instantly blackened by the most hideous of sentiments: envy. Everyone thinks "why not me?". And it is a fact that every man in Persia once thought: "I also could obtain Xhwarrah". And every Jew even today no doubt dreams that maybe God has chosen him; maybe the Messiah will be himself. And of course, whenever his neighbor seems to be more fortunate than him, he is seized with panic: "maybe it will be HIM and not ME". And so he hates his neighbor with this most deadly mix of desire and powerless ill-will that is called envy. But what is envy truly? It is idolatry, as Paul reminds us[7]. The first commandment and the last are the same. "You shall not covet" is the same as "You shall have no other gods before me".
Why is covetousness another name for idolatry? Because when we covet the trinket, it is not the trinket that we actually desire but the supposed power that the present owner of the trinket has in our eyes. In the relief of Ardashir, this is most obvious. Ardashir stretches his arm towards the Xhwarrah crown but it is obviously the power of Ahura Mazda that he covets. The very power of God! Indeed, the scene makes this very plain. Ardashir is seated on a horse in the same pose as the god. And he is of the same height as Ahura Mazda; an almost mirror-image of the idol. Above Ardashir's head is another crown of a balloon-like shape, which also represents Xhwarrah. Indeed it is a faithful representation of Ardashir's vanity which balloons and is puffed up as he fancies himself equal with God.
But it is not only Ardashir who fancies himself such. Every man watching the carving is infected by the same idea. How wretched was I when I was watching it and thinking the same! My vanity soared and ballooned within me as I dreamt of heavenly Xhwarrah. But as soon as I snapped out of my reverie my mood soured. I started to look at everyone askance. Were my brothers trying to take my place? Was this or that smiling courtier plotting an attempt on my life? Envy is as much a poison when you suspect it in others as when you feel it within your own soul.
How wretched are we all! Hoping secretly that God would choose us to be the king of the world and yet fearing death for our self as a result and wishing death to others as Cain felt for his brother Abel. This is the punishment in this world for falling into the Devil's trap. And the punishment in the next is far worse. How fortunate am I that my nose was cut! How wonderfully merciful of God to have revealed to us that the role of the man we so eagerly desired to assume is in fact the least enviable of all. The Messiah is a king. He is indeed the only king truly acceptable to God. But he is a defeated king who dies on the cross for the sins of his people. When he realized this, Peter, "the stone", the strongest of the Apostles, was struck as if by lightning and "he wept bitterly"[8]. Was it a surprise for him? After all, he had been with the Master the whole time and heard him prophesy his death over and over. Yet Peter could not bring himself to completely believe these prophesies. In fact, Peter still harbored in the deepest recesses of his heart the hope that Christ would turn out to be victorious; that he would "win" in this world. In truth, something within Peter's soul still clung on to the hope that Christ would turn out to be another Barabbas. And this is why he was truly saved, like all of us are saved, when he was "baptized in Christ's death"[9] that night when the rooster crowed for the third time.
Blessed are we all that He is resurrected! As he died, our last hope of Messiah-hood, and thus the very anchoring point of envy and idolatry, died within us. And as He is resurrected we live. We live but the agent of the devil is dead within us. We still sin, weak creatures that we are, but we are no longer slaves to sin. The covenant we had willingly entered into with the Devil has been burned in the baptism of fire[10]. This covenant, the very act by which we signed our own soul into sinful slavery, was based on the hope of power and glory that the faith we had placed in envy and idolatry nourished within us. But this evil Faith and this evil hope and this evil covenant are all dead. We are born again when Christ was brought back from the dead: born to a new Faith, a new hope and a new covenant, all sustained by the comforting presence of the Spirit.
God willing, I may be able to return to Arbela and be reunited with you next year, as I am due to be part of bishop Anthemius' retinue when he travels to our beloved town on an official visit. My dearest friend Antranig, may you always rest in the loving grace of God and his enlightening spirit. Amen.
How far the Lord has made me Travel! As a young boy, I played in the luxurious gardens of my father's palace; every need of mine satisfied in an instant. Now, I sleep in a tiny room up in the attic of an old tottering house which leans against the wall of our church like a drunkard. It makes me laugh when I enter it every night, so great is the difference with the expectations of my former life. And yet, the gardens of my youth were no Eden. So full of serpents were they! And so much closer to the True Garden am I right now up in my dingy little room, writing at the flickering light of a near-empty lamp.
I was brought up to consider worldly glory my birthright. And I thought I was fortunate! How deluded was I. How deluded are we all. More than any other city called great today, Antioch has been blessed by the doctrines of Christ. Here apostles dwelled from the earliest time and here is to be found more learned men skilled in theology and hermeneutics than anywhere else. Yet the streets are full of men who call themselves Christian and yet spend their entire lives running after the glory that comes from man. Governors and officials, soldiers, bishops even; they all run after the perishable trinkets of vanity.
Just the other day I was re-reading the passage of Mark about Barabbas[3] and suddenly it struck me. It is actually Barabbas who is the Messiah that the Jews were waiting for. Barabbas had been caught by the Roman army because he fomented an insurrection. Mark clearly says so in verse seven of his fifteenth chapter. But who were the planners of insurrection in the lifetime of our Lord on earth if not the Zealots? So Barabbas was a zealot. But there is more. The name of Barabbas means "son of the Father" as we can still understand very plainly in our language[4]. So Barabbas is not merely a zealot but a zealot leader who thinks he is the Messiah. What else could "son of the Father" mean? And indeed, after Barabbas, several Jews arose in rebellion against Rome who claimed to be the Messiah, the most notorious among them being the so called "son of a star" in the one hundred and thirty fifth year of our Lord[5]. Among Jews, it was thought that, since the Messiah would be from the stem of David, he would be the son of a star; the star of David.
So our Lord Jesus is not only the Messiah, he is the anti-Messiah by comparison to what the Jews thought the Messiah would be. And indeed this "Messiah" that the Jews were waiting for with eagerness was not the Messiah but the Antichrist. They wanted a warlike Messiah, a conquering Messiah, a victorious Messiah. But our Lord turned out to be a defeated Messiah (according to the standards of this world), abandoned of all and crucified like a wretched criminal. No man could have foreseen the blessing that lies hidden in so astonishing an event according to human eyes.
Ardashir's coronation relief at Naqsh-e Rustam
As a child we went every year, with my Father and all his court, to pay our respects at the tombs of the so called Kayanid Kings in Naqsh-e Rustam. And every year my Father would show me the carved relief depicting the coronation of Ardashir by Ahura Mazda and he would tell me: "One day, it will be your turn". As I think of it I weep as I realize how much the Devil can delude us. In this scene, the artist showed Ahura Mazda, (that is, God himself!) giving the crown to Ardashir, the founder of our dynasty. But this crown is not merely a crown. In Persian, it is called "Xhwarrah", which means "glory" and also "light", "glittering" and "shiny". This crown is the very power of the Devil and it is it that he offers to Christ when he tempts him in the desert: "All these (the kingdoms of the world and their glory) I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."[6] What the mercy of God has made me realize now is that every Persian King was in fact a "Messiah" according to the taste of the Jews; that is, an Antichrist. If God had not, in his most loving mercy, made King Vardan cut my nose, I would have become an Antichrist.
This kind of "Messiahs", the blood-stained Messiah claimants of the Jews, our own wretched "Kings of Kings", are the deadliest tools ever devised by the Devil for the damnation of mankind. Of course, every man who declares himself such, is condemned to the lowest pit of Hell. But there is worse. Each time such a figure appears in front of the eyes of men, and indeed each time the very idea that such a figure could appear and would be approved by God is proclaimed, the hearts of men are instantly blackened by the most hideous of sentiments: envy. Everyone thinks "why not me?". And it is a fact that every man in Persia once thought: "I also could obtain Xhwarrah". And every Jew even today no doubt dreams that maybe God has chosen him; maybe the Messiah will be himself. And of course, whenever his neighbor seems to be more fortunate than him, he is seized with panic: "maybe it will be HIM and not ME". And so he hates his neighbor with this most deadly mix of desire and powerless ill-will that is called envy. But what is envy truly? It is idolatry, as Paul reminds us[7]. The first commandment and the last are the same. "You shall not covet" is the same as "You shall have no other gods before me".
Why is covetousness another name for idolatry? Because when we covet the trinket, it is not the trinket that we actually desire but the supposed power that the present owner of the trinket has in our eyes. In the relief of Ardashir, this is most obvious. Ardashir stretches his arm towards the Xhwarrah crown but it is obviously the power of Ahura Mazda that he covets. The very power of God! Indeed, the scene makes this very plain. Ardashir is seated on a horse in the same pose as the god. And he is of the same height as Ahura Mazda; an almost mirror-image of the idol. Above Ardashir's head is another crown of a balloon-like shape, which also represents Xhwarrah. Indeed it is a faithful representation of Ardashir's vanity which balloons and is puffed up as he fancies himself equal with God.
But it is not only Ardashir who fancies himself such. Every man watching the carving is infected by the same idea. How wretched was I when I was watching it and thinking the same! My vanity soared and ballooned within me as I dreamt of heavenly Xhwarrah. But as soon as I snapped out of my reverie my mood soured. I started to look at everyone askance. Were my brothers trying to take my place? Was this or that smiling courtier plotting an attempt on my life? Envy is as much a poison when you suspect it in others as when you feel it within your own soul.
How wretched are we all! Hoping secretly that God would choose us to be the king of the world and yet fearing death for our self as a result and wishing death to others as Cain felt for his brother Abel. This is the punishment in this world for falling into the Devil's trap. And the punishment in the next is far worse. How fortunate am I that my nose was cut! How wonderfully merciful of God to have revealed to us that the role of the man we so eagerly desired to assume is in fact the least enviable of all. The Messiah is a king. He is indeed the only king truly acceptable to God. But he is a defeated king who dies on the cross for the sins of his people. When he realized this, Peter, "the stone", the strongest of the Apostles, was struck as if by lightning and "he wept bitterly"[8]. Was it a surprise for him? After all, he had been with the Master the whole time and heard him prophesy his death over and over. Yet Peter could not bring himself to completely believe these prophesies. In fact, Peter still harbored in the deepest recesses of his heart the hope that Christ would turn out to be victorious; that he would "win" in this world. In truth, something within Peter's soul still clung on to the hope that Christ would turn out to be another Barabbas. And this is why he was truly saved, like all of us are saved, when he was "baptized in Christ's death"[9] that night when the rooster crowed for the third time.
Blessed are we all that He is resurrected! As he died, our last hope of Messiah-hood, and thus the very anchoring point of envy and idolatry, died within us. And as He is resurrected we live. We live but the agent of the devil is dead within us. We still sin, weak creatures that we are, but we are no longer slaves to sin. The covenant we had willingly entered into with the Devil has been burned in the baptism of fire[10]. This covenant, the very act by which we signed our own soul into sinful slavery, was based on the hope of power and glory that the faith we had placed in envy and idolatry nourished within us. But this evil Faith and this evil hope and this evil covenant are all dead. We are born again when Christ was brought back from the dead: born to a new Faith, a new hope and a new covenant, all sustained by the comforting presence of the Spirit.
God willing, I may be able to return to Arbela and be reunited with you next year, as I am due to be part of bishop Anthemius' retinue when he travels to our beloved town on an official visit. My dearest friend Antranig, may you always rest in the loving grace of God and his enlightening spirit. Amen.
But God did not want Khosrow to return to Arbela that year. Indeed, he stayed on in Antioch for another decade. At the turn of the VIIth century, his reputation for sainthood was already growing beyond the Syrian metropolis. He would be called "the gentle teacher" or "Chosroes Chrysorhine", Khosrow the golden-nosed.
[1] "Forgiveness" in Syriac. Also the name of a feast in the liturgical calendar.
[2] An Armenian name meaning "first born".
[3] Mark 15:7-15
[4] Both Khosrow and his friend are using Aramaic to communicate with each other, even though their native tongues are different (Armenian and Pahlavi respectively).
[5] Bar Kokhba, leader of the second Jewish-Roman war in 135 AD. His name means "son of a star" in Hebrew.
[6] Matt. 4:8-9
[7] Col. 3:5
[8] Matt. 26:75
[9] Rom. 6:3
[10] Matt. 3:11, Luke 3:16
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fi11222
Banned
Ironic ? Do you realize, young man, that you are talking about a future Father of the Church of the East ?
This sounds like the theories of René Girard about Mimetic Desire. Did you read Deceit, Desire and the Novel ?
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fi11222
Banned
Yes I did. This book is wonderful. It is a masterpiece of litterary criticism and at the same time an incredibly insightful work of psychology and historical theory.
Indeed, the whole idea of the Messiah/Antichrist above is heavily influenced by the ideas of Girard. And of course, the "trinkets" are the "objects" on which the "mediator" sheds his light. Girard's "Mimetic Desire" is, I believe, an extremely insightful interpretation of the psychological processes underlying Christian theology and certainly the best ever attempt at explaining why it has been so successful for the past 2000 years.
This TL rocks!
With all the wealth that they just got, will the ere attempt more reconquests of the west anytime soon?
With all the wealth that they just got, will the ere attempt more reconquests of the west anytime soon?
fi11222
Banned
Nope, it will be something totally out of the ordinary ... Be patient. It will take me 2 or 3 episodes before I can set it in motion.
Will it be good or bad for the ERE, Mesopotamia, remainders of Persia, and the Former Roman West?
Awesome new post! You have a knack for capturing realistic theological dialogue.
As in which of those places will benefit from the whatever you're going to do.
fi11222
Banned
Define "benefit" ....
I am not kidding. When you think of it, it is not as easy as it seems.
Caesar Biden
Banned
Is it something like settling slavs throughout the Empire to make up for population loss?
Great TL. I love Late Antiquity, and you write very well.
