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[1]
Life of Mar Aba
is a hagiography, its author is unknown.
1.1.1 Some time later, the chief of the Hephthalites (haftarân [2] chudâ) sent a priest to the King of Kings [3] , and many Christian Hephthalites sent a letter to the Saint (Mar Aba) [4] to ask him to consecrate the priest as a bishop for the whole Hephthalite realm.
After the priest had come before the King, and set forth the business of his mission, [the King] wondered at what he heard, and marvelled at the great power of Christ, that the Christian Hephthalites also considered the Lordly One [Mar Aba] as their chief and regent, and he said to him that he should go and adorn the church as was custom, and should go into his church and house and collect the bishops according to custom, and ordain the man sent by the prince of the Hephthalites.
When the people of the Lord heard this message, and the Saint came out of prison and into the cathedral of his apostolic seat, what joy was like that joy, that the Lordly One had returned to his blessed flock after nine years, which he had spent in combat with lions and panthers [5] for his beloved flock, and returned victorious.
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1.1.2 The following morning the church was adorned with throngs of believers; the Saint ordained the Hephthalite priest as bishop for the land of the Hephthalites, and in the people of the Lord joy grew over the arrangements of divine providence. [6]
[2] Haftarân: The Syriac name for Hephtalites.
[3] The King of Kings: Chosrau Anushirwān: Chosrau I [501-579], most commonly known in Persian as Anushiruwān “the immortal soul”. He was the successor of his father Kavadh I [488-531]. Chosrau I was the twenty-second monarch of Sasanian Persia, and one of its most celebrated monarchies.
[4] Aba I: The patriarch of the Church of the East at Seleucia-Ctesiphon from 540 to 552 CE.
[5] The “lions and panthers” no doubt refers to his battles with the Zoroastrian clergy. — English translator’s note.
[6] In addition to Zoroastrianism, it seems that the Hephthalites were also influenced by Christianity, mainly Nestorianism, and this influence was later than that of Zoroastrianism. According to
Life of Mar Aba
written in Syriac script, in c. 549 CE Mar Aba sent a bishop for all Christians under the dominion of the Hephthalites. Moreover, according to the History of Theophylact Simocatta (V, 10.15)
, there were crosses on the foreheads of the Hephthalites in the army of Bahrām Čōbīn, also known by his epithet Mehrbandak. This is an important clue that early Christianity (Nestorianism) extended to the East.