Page:Introduction to the Assyrian church.djvu/123

Rh fire-temple of Seleucia, which stood close to a Christian church, was burnt by Christians. A bishop of the name of Abda was arrested, both as being a prominent Christian, and as being suspected of this insult to the State religion; and these facts show that persecution was already drifting beyond the lines of Yezdegerd's original permission. As a matter of fact, it was not Abda who had been guilty of this act of incendiarism; it was an over-zealous Qasha of the name of Hashu, who at once accused himself when he heard of the arrest of the bishop, and boldly justified his action; "it was no shrine of God that we destroyed." When told to hold his tongue, and let the accused speak for himself, he persisted in statements that were, under the circumstances, insults to the State faith, and provocative of persecution. "Fire is no god, it is but a creature given to us for our use." Admitting the burning of the temple, he absolutely refused to admit that it was even a questionable act. Abda, however, seems to have been regarded as responsible; and it was he, not the zealot, who, according to Theodoret, was ordered to rebuild the temple, and was executed on his refusal. With these two martyrdoms, and the feeling which the acts precedent to them would certainly call out (viz. that the Christians were making attacks on "the religion"), a definite persecution of Christians, as distinct from a "disciplining of converts," may be said to have begun.

About this time, too, any chance of the