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Rh Convent of S. Matthew near Mosul. It is certain that he had a seat in a Synod, held 344 in the diocese of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, and that he was selected to draw up the encyclical letter of the Synod. This letter he subsequently published as No. 14 of the Homilies.

Thus Aphraates was one of the foremost leaders of the orthodox Syriac-speaking Church in the second quarter of the 4th century. Some of his fellow-bishops had been to Nicaea, and he himself is writing in the very middle of the great Arian controversy. His words, therefore, cannot fail to shew the temper of his time. Moreover, the plan of his great work is admirably fitted to give us the information we are seeking. We speak of the 'Homilies' of Aphraates, but the volume of discourses which goes by that name is not a collection