Constantine and the Christians of Persia

Abstract

The twenty-three Demonstrations of Aphrahat are not likely to be familiar to most students of Roman history or of Constantine. Aphrahat was head of the monastery of Mar Mattai, near modern Mosul, with the rank of bishop and, apparently, the episcopal name Jacob: as a consequence, he was soon confused with the better known Jacob of Nisibis, and independent knowledge of his life and career virtually disappeared. Fortunately, however, twenty-three treatises survived, whose attribution to ‘Aphrahat the Persian sage’ seems beyond doubt. Aphrahat wrote in Syriac and composed works of edification and polemic for a Mesopotamian audience outside the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, he provides crucial evidence not only for the attitude of Persian Christians towards Rome, but also for the military situation on Rome's eastern frontier at the end of the reign of Constantine. It is worth the effort, therefore, to set Aphrahat's fifth Demonstration , which bears the title ‘On wars’ or ‘On battles’, in its precise historical context. The present paper begins by considering the place of this Demonstration in Aphrahat's oeuvre and its exact date (I–III); it then argues that in 337 Constantine was preparing to invade Persia as the self-appointed liberator of the Christians of Persia (IV, VI), that Aphrahat expected him to be successful (V), and that Constantine's actions and the hopes which he excited caused the Persian king to regard his Christian subjects as potential traitors—and hence to embark on a policy of persecution (VII).