DĀDĪŠOʿ

 

DĀDĪŠOʿ (Syr. “beloved of Jesus”; Payne Smith, col. 824, s.v.; Pers. “given by Jesus”; Justi, Namenbuch, p. 75, s.v. Dādhyešūʿ), catholicus of the Sasanian “Nestorian” church in 420/21-455/56 c.e. (Labourt, p. 120 n. 3), following the short incumbencies of Maʿna and Farbokt, who were both deposed. The new Sasanian monarch, Bahrām V (r. 420-38), permitted the election of another catholicus as a reward for services rendered by Samuel, bishop of Ṭūs, against barbarian forces at the Khorasan frontier (Assemani, III/1, p. 214). Dādīšoʿ’s appointment was accompa­nied by accusations of simony, usury, and apostasy leveled by a dissident group of bishops, led by Batai of Hormizd-Ardašēr (Synodicon, pp. 287-88). Consequently the catholicus was imprisoned by Bahrām and released only in 422 through the intervention of Em­peror Theodosius II (Maris, p. 31; Bar Hebraeus, III, p. 60). Dādīšoʿ then retired to the monastery of Deir Qabut until 424, when he was restored by thirty-six bishops, convened at Markabta de Tayyaye, probably in the Lakhmid kingdom of Ḥīra (Tisserant, col. 173). According to the Synodicon orientale (pp. 295-96), at this synod, which was known as the synod of Dādīšoʿ, the catholicus declared the autonomy of the Persian church from the Byzantine realms, though the authen­ticity of this source can be called into question (Fiey, pp. 77-80). Elias, bishop of Nisibis, mentioned briefly that Dādīšoʿ’s incumbency, spanning thirty-five years, had coincided with the Nestorian controversy (Eliae Metropolitanae VII, p. 49 [text]); Mari b. Suleiman gave the same information at greater length (Maris I, pp. 32-35). Dādīšoʿ died in 455/56 and was buried at Ḥīra (Maris I, p. 31).

 

Bibliography:

J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana, 4vols., Rome 1719­-28.

Gregory Bar Hebraeus, Gregorii Bar Hebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, ed. J. B. Abbeloos and T. J. Lamy, 3 vols. in 2, Louvain, 1872-77.

Eliae Metropolitanae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum, ed. E. W. Brooks, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Scriptores Syri, Series 3, VII-VIII, Paris 1910-12.

J. M. Fiey, Jalons pour une histoire de l’église en Iraq, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 310, Subsidia 36, Louvain, 1970.

J. Labourt, Le christianisme dans l’empire perse sous la dynastie sassanide (224-632), 2nd ed., Paris, 1904, pp. 119-25.

Maris Amri et Slibae de Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria, ed. E. Gismondi, 2 vols., Rome, 1896-99.

R. Payne Smith, ed., Thesau­rus Syriacus, I, Oxford, 1879.

Synodicon orientale ou receuil de synodes nestoriens, ed. J. B. Chabot, Paris, 1902.

E. Tisserant, “Nestorienne (église) sous les sassanides,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique XI, Paris, 1931, cols. 157-323.

(Erica C. D. Hunter)

Originally Published: December 15, 1993

Last Updated: November 10, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. VI, Fasc. 5, pp. 556-557