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166 humblest of the servants" of Acacius, deplores the "human passion" which led to his "unchristian synod" at B. Lapat, and his "unchristian rebellion" against the lawful authority of Babowai. However (standing and immemorial excuse of the Assyrian when his sin has found him out), all this was just because human nature is fallible: and the Devil is the person really responsible—a doctrine which all orientals find very consoling.

Acacius made peace somehow without launching the excommunications which Bar-soma (true Assyrian in this as in all) was sure the judge must pronounce, after hearing the plaintiff's side only; and a little later he had to ask the Bishop of Nisibis to try and bring the Bishop and people of Susa to a sense of their duties to one another and to the patriarch—thus affording Bar-soma the chance of appearing in the one rôle which that versatile hero had never played yet, that of peacemaker. The veteran fighter, magnificently declaring as a preface that he had always been a lover of peace (!), did his best no doubt, but failed. Indeed, one has some sympathy with disputants who failed to recognize the dove of peace in a messenger whose previous career so much more nearly resembled that of a game-cock.

Before long, however, Bar-soma found worthier (his worthiest) work to do. His old school, Edessa, had been suspect by the authorities for thirty years, since Ibas had died and the doctrine of the "one Nature" had been predominant. In 489 Zeno the Emperor ordered its dispersal; telling the bishop, Cyrus, to purge his city of Nestorian venom. Accordingly the great school, the centre of culture for the East, came abruptly to an end; the college by the "spring of Abraham" was destroyed and a church built on the site; and the main channel summarily blocked, through