ON THE NAME AND PERSON OF APHRAHAT. XVII

"For his doctrine does not exhibit a similarity to the doctrine of the holy master Ephrem."

Concerning the year in which he departed from life, just as with the time of his birth, we can affirm nothing for certain. Nevertheless, if we consider his supreme knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, the strength and firmness of his doctrine, or his ecclesiastical rank, and even the esteem he seems to have obtained, as they are manifested to us from the entire character of the Demonstrations, it may be conjectured that Aphrahat, when he wrote, was a man already of mature age, especially if he flourished while the Pope was still alive, as Barhebraeus believed; thus, he was born in the last part of the third century, and died while the forty-year persecution (340-379) was still raging, but not before the year 345, in which he composed his last Demonstration. That he was harassed and removed by the very persecutor against whom he had written, no certain monuments have yet allowed us to infer. We find the name of Aphrahat, at any rate, in a very ancient Syriac martyrology, older than the year 412 of our era, in which, after the nomenclature of the twelve months, there are added as if in a second part: original Syriac: "Names of the confessors who were killed in the East: Abba the first confessor, Dali the second confessor, Bulha, Hazath, Aphraat, Menophilus, from the first; Miles the bishop, and Abursam, and Sinai, the first confessors."¹. "Names of the confessors who were killed in the East: Abba the first confessor, Dali the second confessor, Bulha, Hazath, Aphraat, Menophilus, among the first; Miles the bishop, and Abursam, and Sinai, the first confessors²." There follow the bishops of Persia, Simeon Barsabae, Barbashemin, Shaddust, and others with presbyters and deacons, who confessed the faith in these regions. Whether we should identify the Persian Sage himself, who in the last of his Sermons seems so eagerly to desire martyrdom, or some namesake of his, enumerated among these ancient martyrs of the persecution of Shapur, cannot be defined; although it may be said that another, somewhat older than ours, is signified here, as he is placed before Miles the bishop, who, with the priest Abrosimus and the deacon Sinai, we know was crowned with martyrdom near the beginning, that is, in the first or second year of the persecution (340 or 341). Our Aphrahat, however, did not die before the year 345, in which he was writing his last Demonstration.

5. But to return to more certain matters, we shall recognize him from his own writings (although some have recently attempted to call this condition of our author into doubt) as a coenobite, and also as being numbered among the clergy. He confesses himself not once to be a monk, when, namely, writing to the monks, his "brothers" (Demonstr. VI, 6, 20. Cf. X, 9), he admonishes them, as if he himself were educated in the monastic life, and instructs them with the precepts of discipline (Demonstr. VI, 8, seqq.), adding these words: "The counsel that I give to myself and to you is fitting and equitable and decorous, most beloved monks, who do not take wives" (Demonstr. VI, 4). Likewise, at the beginning of Demonstration XVIII, he begins a discourse on a matter which he confesses should by no means be passed over in silence: "namely, concerning the sacred pact or concerning virginity and chastity in which we persist." "We freely keep this lot... not by force or the necessity of any command, nor constrained in it by any law" (Ibid. 12), but bound by a purpose or voluntary vow, which he shows in Demonstration VI, 4, if not in express words, at least by the very deed and tacitly, as is pronounced by modern subdeacons. And in another place, speaking of monks, he shows himself inserted into their number again: "I wrote all these things to you, dearest one, because in our age men are found who devote themselves to a solitary life and religious chastity. Furthermore, we wage battle against the adversary, and he contends with us, so that he may reduce us to the [secular] state from which we have freely departed." (Demonstr. VII, 25.)

¹ Lagarde, Analecta syriaca, p. 111, ll. 1 et 2.
² Ioh. Bapt. de Rossi et Ludov. Duchesne, Martyrologium Hieronymianum (Acta Sanctorum, Novembris t. II) pp. [LXIII] et [LXIV] et W. Wright, An ancient syrian Martyrology : Journal of sacred literature, 1866, vol. VIII (New Series), pp. 430 et 431. The ancient document of this menology contains on its final leaves the Syriac codex of the British Museum add. 12,150, the oldest of all that bear a certain date.