Introduction to This Volume
How this book is arranged
This is the twenty-first volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth century. This volume holds Aphrahat, Hilary of Poitiers and the Writers of the Mid-Fourth Century, from the period about AD 337 – 367.
Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section numbers.
The translations
The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation. In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released. All the works in this volume are printed in older public-domain translations.
In this volume
Aphrahat, called the Persian Sage, wrote in Syriac within the Persian empire in the middle of the fourth century. His Demonstrations are among the earliest Syriac Christian writings.
Serapion was bishop of Thmuis in Egypt and a friend of Athanasius and of Antony. His prayer-book is one of the oldest collections of church prayers.
Eunomius was an Arian bishop of Cyzicus. His First Apology, written about AD 360, sets out his own teaching on the Son, and it was answered at length by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa.
Eusebius of Emesa was bishop of Emesa in Syria in the middle of the fourth century and a pupil of Eusebius of Caesarea.
Hilary was bishop of Poitiers from about AD 350 and was exiled to Phrygia from AD 356 to 360 for opposing the Arian emperor. His On the Trinity, written largely in exile, was the first full Latin answer to Arianism.
Aphrahat’s Demonstrations are twenty-three short treatises, the first twenty-two of them arranged by the letters of the Syriac alphabet. Hilary’s On the Trinity is in twelve books, and his book On the Councils was addressed to the bishops of Gaul and Britain in AD 358.
Dates and authorship
Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is uncertain.