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52 turn back from the contest becometh a laughingstock."

This is a strange exhortation, strange at least, to us Westerns. Perhaps it was not so much Constantine's fault as the fault of his spiritual advisers that his famous baptism was so long delayed. But indeed this deliberate reservation of baptism for the spiritual aristocracy of Christendom shews us that we are dealing with a view of the sacraments quite other than the Catholic view. Those who are not yet baptised may nevertheless, according to Aphraates, belong to the Society of God, and if they do not volunteer for the sacramental life they are not blamed.

I need scarcely remind you that Aphraates is not alone in holding this theory of the sacraments. It was the theory of the Marcionites, and we shall see that it was enforced with even greater rigour by the unorthodox party in the Syriac-speaking Church. Something like it also reappears in the Paulicians