Our Venerable Father Aphraates the Persian, Hermit of Antioch
Life
Aphraates (also rendered Aphrahat) was a fourth-century ascetic of Persian origin who forsook idolatry for Christ and became a noted hermit near Antioch. According to the synaxarion of the Orthodox Church in America, he disavowed his illustrious lineage, left his pagan countrymen, and journeyed first to Edessa and then to Antioch, attracting many by his holy life and preaching the Word of God to them.
His life is known chiefly from the historian Theodoret of Cyrus, who reports having been brought as a boy to the hermit at Antioch and blessed by him. Aphraates is remembered above all for his bold defense of Nicene Orthodoxy against the Arian heresy during the reign of the emperor Valens. He should be distinguished from the Syriac author Aphrahat, called 'the Persian Sage'; the saint commemorated here is the ascetic of Antioch described by Theodoret.
Timeline 2 moments
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4th centuryConversion and ascetic beginningsA Persian of noble lineage, Aphraates believed in Christ, left his pagan countrymen, and settled at Edessa as a hermit before moving to Antioch.
Reign of Valens (364–378)Stand against ArianismHe left his solitude at Antioch to defend Nicene Orthodoxy and withstood the Arian emperor Valens.
Contributions & Legacy
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Ascetic Life
Of Persian birth, Aphraates first settled at Edessa in Mesopotamia, where he immured himself in a small dwelling outside the city walls and gave himself to rigorous asceticism. Sources describe an austere regimen: a diet of bread, to which he added vegetables only in old age and ate only after sunset, sleeping on a mat on the floor and wearing a coarse garment. He later moved to a hermitage beside a monastery near Antioch in Syria, where people gradually came to seek his counsel. Theodoret of Cyrus, who knew him personally, praised his virtue despite his having been, in Theodoret's words, born and bred among the Persians.
Defense of Orthodoxy under Valens
During the reign of the Arian emperor Valens, when the Orthodox were forced to hold their services beside the Orontes River, Aphraates left his solitude to assist the Nicene faithful and openly confronted the emperor. Asked by Valens why he had abandoned his retreat, he is said to have answered with a parable: were a young woman shut away in her chamber to see fire attacking her father's house, what would one have her do but rush out to help? By tradition, when a servant of the emperor who had reviled the hermit was accidentally scalded to death, Valens took the death as a sign and refused the Arians who pressed him to banish Aphraates. Several miracles are also attributed to him, including the healing of a nobleman's horse and the protection of a peasant's fields from locusts through prayer and blessed water.
