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44 attention to the absence of the Greek influence in Aphraates. The Persian Sage lived outside the Roman Empire and was educated in a culture but little touched by Greek philosophy. He did not feel that necessity for logical subordination, for the due relation of the parts to the whole, which the Greeks were the first of mankind to strive after.

And dare we say that he and his Church were altogether to be pitied? It is unlikely that the human intellect can form a logical system of the Universe: a logical Creed or 'Weltanschauung' by its very nature betrays its human parentage and temporary value. With a most imperfect knowledge of the constitution of the world we live in, by an uncritical use of Scripture, at a time when every art and every science was decaying, the Greeks attempted in a form of words to define the Indefinable. They succeeded for a while in obtaining the allegiance of the Oriental Church, the time of their victory being approximately the reigns of the heathen Julian and the Arian Valens. Under stress of persecution the Christians closed their