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appreciate the significance of the Homilies of Aphraates we must first consider their date and the personality of the writer. About the date there is fortunately no doubt. Of the twenty-two Homilies the first ten were composed 337, and the remaining twelve  344: the additional Homily On the Cluster is dated  345. Thus they appeared in the stormy years between the death of Constantine and the second return of S. Athanasius from exile. The author, Aphraates (or more accurately Afrahaṭ), obtained from his countrymen the name of the Persian Sage. He was a monk, and must also have been a bishop. Dr William Wright conjectures that he was bishop of the