Chapter 36

THEIR PERSECUTIONS.

This ancient church of the Assyrians which began with the apostles, has been praised in all the eastern and western churches for its zeal in spreading the gospel, but at no time in its history has it been free from persecution. Like the burning bush of old, this church has been burning with persecution, but has not been consumed. The ten plagues of Egypt have been here repeated several times. It has passed through the agony of blood, but with a spirit of submission to the will of God who rules over all the changes of a nation for the good of His own kingdom. Severe persecutions began in A.D. 325. When Constantine convened the Nicean council of the 100 delegates from the eastern church, mostly from Assyria, only eleven of them were free from mutilation in some form. At the time the Sassanites dynasty ruled over Assyria. Their patriarch was St. Shumon, son of a painter. No other Assyrian patriarch was equal to him in piety, integrity, and his heroic spirit of martyrdom. He was patriarch from 330 to 362 A.D. In that period the king of Persia was second shafoor of the fire-worshipers. The fire-worshipers believed in two creative powers, Hurmizd and Ahramon. Every good thing as virtue, success, long years, praise, truth, purity, were created by Hurmizd; while wickedness, hate, war, disaster, etc., issued from Ahramon, their creator. Shafoor worshiped clean creatures of Hurmizd, such as sun, moon, and fire. Christianity was strong then, some of the royal family being Christians. The Christians were antagonized by the fire-worshipers because they rejected the sun and moon and de-defiled fire. Other objections were that the Christians taught that God had become incarnate and come to earth; and also that they preferred poverty to wealth and did not marry, thus diminishing the strength of the nation. The emperor issued an edict that those who would not worship the sun and the moon should pay a large sum of money. The patriarch answered that "while God is the creator of the sun we can not substitute the created for the creator. Concerning a fine we have no money to pay your lord the sum required, as our Lord commanded us not to lay up our treasures on earth." Then the king commanded that all Christians be put to death by terrible torture, except the patriarch. Him he would spare to the last, that he might be moved by the torture of others and worship the sun. But St. Shumon meantime was urging the Christians to stand firm in the faith. The king requested that the patriarch and two chief bishops be brought before him. It had been a custom to prostrate himself before the king as a token of honor, but on this occasion he wished to avoid any show of worshiping a creature and did not prostrate himself before the ruler. The king asked him to worship the sun. St. Shumon replied: "If I refuse to worship the king how can you expect me to worship the sun, a creature without life." Being unable to make him worship the sun the king put him in jail for the night. Next morning the patriarch was taken before the king again. On his way he met a steward of the king who was a Christian but had been worshiping the sun to please the king. St. Shumon rebuked the steward for being faithless. The steward was touched by this rebuke and, going before the king, confessed that he was a Christian and must therefore be beheaded. But he requested that a herald be sent through the streets to proclaim that he had been a faithful subject to his ruler, and that he must die because he was a Christian. This was granted.

In company with one hundred bishops and priests St. Shumon was brought before the king. Again he was told that he could save the life of himself and his people by worshiping the sun. St. Shumon replied, "We have one God and Jesus Christ our Savior as the object of our worship. Our Lord teaches us to be faithful to kings and to pray for them, but we are forbidden to worship any creature." Then the king commanded that all of them be beheaded next day. The night in a dungeon was spent in prayer and song and words of advice from St. Shumon in love and tears of sorrow. The patriarch consoled his followers by referring to the fact that St. Paul and apostles spent many nights in prison. He said, "The prison is heaven because the presence of our Lord is with us. This is our last night on earth; to-morrow we will be crowned." Taking the New Testament in his hand he preached to his condemned disciples of the suffering and death of Christ and then administered the Lord's supper. At the close of his prayer he thanked Christ that they were worthy to be His martyrs, and further prayed, "Watch with me, O Lord, help our infirmity, The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Thanks be to God that we are to become martyrs on the same day of the week as did Christ." In the morning he, with his 100 followers stood before the king. The bishops were first beheaded, and St. Shumon spoke to each one as follows: "My son, close your eyes, and after one minute you will be with Christ." St. Shumon had asked to be beheaded first that he might not see the death of his beloved followers, but he was not heard. At last came his turn with two chief bishops. When he alone was left he sang a song of thanks to God that out of 100 martyrs, not one had denied the faith. His song was as follows: "Praised be Thy power our God; let the kingdom of our Savior be victorious. Thou quickener of life, thou hast prepared a crown for Thy martyrs." Then he was beheaded with an axe.

Another severe persecution was in the 14th century by Tamerlane. In 1848 two Kurdish dukes Baddirkhunback and Nurullaback and their armies came whirling down from the Kurdish mountains and in one month massacred 25,000 Assyrians. The spirit of martyrdom still lives in this people, as was shown in 1893, when two men and a girl were killed as martyrs. No doubt there are to-day singing praises before the throne of God, hundreds of martyrs from this nation.