been held not half a generation ago, the Emperor Constantine has just died, and Athanasius is in exile. The flames of the Arian controversy are consuming the vitals of the Empire. Christianity is divided up into rival camps, each anathematising the other, while according to one authority the public posting system is quite thrown out of gear by the troops of eager bishops hastening from synod to synod[1]. What then has Aphraates to say about the crisis in the Church?
The astonishing answer is—absolutely nothing. Neither Athanasius nor Arius is even mentioned. We hear nothing of Homoousians or Homœousians, Semiarians or Sabellians. Incidentally Aphraates names 'Marcion, who doth not acknowledge our Creator to be good'; he speaks of 'Valentinus, who preacheth that his Creators are many, and that God in His perfection hath not been uttered by the mouth, neither hath the understanding searched Him out'; and he devotes a sentence of contemptuous reprobation to the Babylonian arts of the
- ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus xxi 16, quoted by Gibbon ii 359.
