Gabriel of Shiggar

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Gabriel von Schiggar was a doctor who worked in the Sassanid Empire at the beginning of the 7th century .

Gabriel became the personal physician of the Persian great king Chosrau II , on whom he apparently exercised some influence. He was also a close confidante of Chosrau's favorite Christian wife, Shirin , after he had helped her to have a child from the king. Gabriel was originally a member of the Assyrian Church of the East, which was tolerated and sometimes even promoted by the great Persian kings (often incorrectly referred to as "Nestorians"). But then he was excommunicated on charges of bigamy and converted, more for political than theological reasons, to the so-called “ Jacobite Church ”, which Schirin also turned to.

In the following years Gabriel campaigned eloquently for the "Jacobites" or " Miaphysites ". Gabriel's hometown Shiggar (better known under the name Singara ), located south of Nisibis , was in any case in a more miaphysitic region. The Jacobites quickly gained influence in these years, especially since the "Nestorians" had to do with internal problems, since after 608 no new Catholicos had been appointed by Chosrau . Some sources claim that this is also due to the influence of Shirin and Gabriel. Your greatest competitor at the court was Chosraus "finance minister" Yazdin , a "Nestorian" Christian, but who was eventually executed.

Nevertheless, the “Nestorians” were ultimately able to hold their own (if only with difficulty), especially since Persia sank into chaos after the murder of Chosraus in 628. After the Islamic expansion began in the 630s and the Sassanid Empire collapsed by 651, the number of Christians also decreased over the next few years. The Christian communities in Mesopotamia , previously represented in large numbers, mostly perished in Islamic times.

literature

  • Nina Garsoian: Persia: The Church of the East . In: The History of Christianity . Edited by Luce Pietri u. a., Vol. 3 (431-642). Freiburg i. B. 2005 (special edition, original 2001), pp. 1161–1186, especially pp. 1179f.
  • Vivian Nutton: Ancient Medicine . New York 2004, pp. 301f.
  • Gerrit J. Reinink: Babai the Great's Life of George and the propagation of doctrine in the late Sasanian empire . In: Jan Willem Drijvers and John W. Watt (Eds.), Portraits of Spiritual Authority: Religious Power in Early Christianity, Byzantium and the Christian Orient . Leiden 1999, p. 171ff.