SAPOR II, King of Persia. - Of the Sassanid dynasty (310-79), of which he is the best-known member. Son of Hormizd II, he is known in history for his religious fanaticism, inherited from his predecessors, who, of priestly origin, always dreamed of establishing Mazdeism as the official religion of the State.
But S. surpassed them all in the ferocious repressions against any infiltration of foreign religions, especially Christianity. For him the religious unity of Persia, or Iran, also carried a political meaning, for which reason he sought to force the Christians, suspected of sympathies for the Roman Empire, the hereditary enemy of the Sassanids, to embrace the official religion. At Seleucia he had Bishop Simeon Bar Sabba hanged together with about a hundred members of the clergy. Besides the clergy, S. also vented his fury against the monasteries. The see of Seleucia remained vacant for twenty years. After the vain military attempts of Constantius II and of Julian, in 363 Jovian had to come to terms with S., abandoning into Persian hands Nisibis and Armenia, in which S. hastened to establish Zoroastrianism.
Bibliography5 worksTh. Noeldeke, Tabari. Gesch. der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sassaniden, Leiden 1879; E. Tisserant, L'Eglise Nestorienne, in DThC, XI, 16
BIBL.: Th. Noeldeke, Tabari. Gesch. der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sassaniden, Leiden 1879; E. Tisserant, L'Eglise Nestorienne, in DThC, XI, 163-69; H. Delchaye, Les versions grecques des actes de martyrs persans sous Sapor II, in Patrol. Orient., II, Paris 1905, pp. 403-560; J. Labourt, Le christianisme dans l'Empire Perse, sous la dynastie sassanide (224-632), Paris 1904; O. Braun, Ausgewählte Akten persis. Märtyrer (Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, 22), Munich 1915.
Roncaglia, Martiniano. “Sapore II, né di persia.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. X, coll. 1896–1897. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953. https://azioneromana.com/article/sapore-ii-ne-di-persia.
MLA
Roncaglia, Martiniano. “Sapore II, né di persia.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. X, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953, coll. 1896–1897. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/sapore-ii-ne-di-persia.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec10_sapore_ii_ne_di_persia,
author = {Roncaglia, Martiniano},
title = {Sapore II, né di persia},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {X},
pages = {1896--1897},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1953},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/sapore-ii-ne-di-persia}
}
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