School of Nisibis - Exile To Edessa

Exile To Edessa

The Persians gained Nisibis soon after, in 363, and the school was moved westward to a preexisting school located in Edessa, Mesopotamia, where it was known as the 'school of the Persians'(Eskuli d-Forsoye/Eskuli d-Parsaye in Edessan Aramaic/Syriac). There, under the leadership of Ephrem the Syrian, it gained fame well beyond the borders of the Syriac speaking world.

Meanwhile in Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia had taken over the school of Diodorus, and his writings soon became the foundation of Syriac theology. Even during his lifetime they were translated into Syriac and gradually replaced the work of Ephrem. One of his most famous students was Nestorius, who became Patriarch of Constantinople, but for the doctrine he was preaching, ran afoul of Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril sought to brand Nestorius as a heretic, and at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, had Nestorius formally censured. The resulting conflict led to the Nestorian Schism, which separated the Church of the East from the Western Byzantine form of Christianity. The opponents of Nestorius attacked his Theodore's school of Diodorus as well, and the Syrians answered by giving protection to the followers of Nestorius. In the year 489 the Byzantine emperor Zeno ordered the school closed for its Nestorian tendencies, and it returned to Nisibis.