Page:Introduction to the Assyrian church.djvu/132



more than twenty years after the important council of Dad-Ishu the history of the Assyrian Church is a void. The patriarch, whose tenure of office was longer than that of almost any other holder of his post, seems to have enjoyed a long period of peaceful rule, as compensation for his stormy experiences at its commencement; and we know nothing of any act of his until his death in 456, and practically nothing of the history of the Church from 424 to 447.

In secular matters Bahram V, after making peace with Rome, was busied for the rest of his life in the guarding of his north-eastern frontier against Turkish inroads; and on his death in 440 (he was drowned in a spring), his son and successor, Yezdegerd II, was similarly occupied for the first portion of his reign. It is true that his King did declare war on the Roman Empire at his accession, but no event of any importance followed, and peace was made very shortly. Broadly, the State and the Christian Church in Persia seem to have had no history between 424 and 447; and the fact that such a gap should be possible in those twenty-three years of the world's history shows how