crucified."[1] Of Afrahaṭ's twenty-three Homilies nine are controversy against the Jews, evidently still a burning subject.[2] He does not dare attack Mazdæism. Dem. i. 19 contains a curious archaic profession of faith and a statement of Christian law: "This is the faith, that a man believe in God, Lord of all, who made sky, earth, sea and all they contain, who made man in his own image and gave the Law to Moses. He sent of his Spirit to the prophets, and at last he sent his Messiah to the world. A man must believe in the rising of the dead, and in the mystery of baptism. This is the faith of the Church of God." The law is: "Not to observe hours, weeks, new moons, yearly feasts,[3] divination, magic, Chaldæan arts and witchcraft. To keep from fornication, poetry, unlawful science, which is the instrument of the evil one, from the seduction of honeyed words, blasphemy and adultery. Not to bear false witness, not to speak with a double tongue. These are the works of faith built on the firm rock which is Christ, on whom all the building rests."[4] We can agree that the Persian, indeed the East Syrian Church generally, kept these rules faithfully. The dull documents of later ages will convince anyone that she abstained strictly from the seduction of honeyed words. Renan pointed out that the dominating note of Syriac literature is its mediocrity.[5]
Constantine wrote to Shapur II: "I rejoice to hear that all the chief cities of Persia are adorned by the presence of Christians."[6] But that was the end of peace. Shapur II, the long-
- ↑ Dem. xii. 6 (ed. Parisot, col. 518).
- ↑ There were large Jewish communities throughout Persia during all this time. From the 2nd to the 6th centuries, the centre of gravity of Jewry was in Southern Mesopotamia, where the Babylonian Talmud was composed. H. L. Strack: Einleitung in den Talmud (ed. iv., Leipzig, 1908), pp. 67–69; Graetz: Hist. of the Jews (Engl. translation, London, D. Nutt, 1891), ii. pp. 508–536.
- ↑ That is, pagan astrological calculations and feasts.
- ↑ Ed. Parisot, i. 44–45.
- ↑ De philosophia peripatetica ap. Syros (Paris, 1852), p. 3. For Afrahaṭ, see Labourt: op. cit. 28–42; Burkitt: op. cit. 79–95; Duval: Littérature syriaque, 225–229. His homilies are edited by W. Wright: The Homilies of Aphraates (London, 1869; Syriac only); by Dom Parisot in Graffin: Patrologia Syriaca, i. ii. (Paris, 1894–1907; Syr. and Latin); by G. Bert: Aphraates des persischen Weisen Homilien (Leipzig, 1888: Texte u. Unters. iii. 3–4, German only).
- ↑ Vita Const. iv. 13 (P.G. xx. 1161).
