Zahn and others have
shown that he--mainly at least--used the _Diatessaron_. Finally, he
bears important contemporary witness to the sufferings of the Christian
church in Persia under Sapor (Shapur) II. as well as the moral evils
which had infected the church, to the sympathy of Persian Christians
with the cause of the Roman empire, to the condition of early monastic
institutions, to the practice of the Syriac church in regard to Easter,
&c.

Editions by W. Wright (London, 1869), and J. Parisot (with Latin
translation, Paris, 1894); the ancient Armenian version of 19 homilies
edited, translated into Latin, and annotated by Antonelli (Rome,
1756). Besides translations of particular homilies by G. Bickell and
E.W. Budge, the whole have been translated by G. Bert (Leipzig, 1888).
Cf. also C.J.F. Sasse, _Proleg, in Aphr. Sapientis Persae sermones
homileticos_ (Leipzig, 1879); J. Forget, _De Vita et Scriptis
Aphraatis_ (Louvain, 1882); F.C. Burkitt, _Early Eastern Christianity_
(London, 1904); J. Labourt, _Le Christianisme dans l'empire perse_
(Paris, 1904); J. Zahn, _Forschungen_ I.; "Aphraates and the
Diatessaron," vol. ii. pp. 180-186 of Burkitt's _Evangelion
Da-Mepharreshe_ (Cambridge, 1904); articles on "Aphraates and
Monasticism," by R.H. Connolly and Burkitt in _Journal of Theological
Studies_ (1905) pp. 522-539; (1906) pp. 10-15. (N. M.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Hom. 1-22 begin with the letters of the Syriac alphabet in
succession. Their present order in the Syriac MSS. is therefore
right. The ancient Armenian version, published by Antonelli in 1756,
has only 19 of the homilies, and those in a somewhat different order.

APHRODITE,[1] the Greek goddess of love and beauty, counterpart of the
Roman Venus. Although her myth and cult were essentially Semitic, she
soon became Hellenized and was admitted to a place among the deities of
Olympus. Some mythologists hold that there already existed in the Greek
system an earlier goddess of love, of similar attributes, who was
absorbed by the Asiatic importation; and one writer (A. Enmann) goes so
far as to deny the oriental origin of Aphrodite altogether. It is
therefore necessary first to examine the nature and characteristics of
her Eastern prototype, and then to see how far they reappear in the
Greek Aphrodite.

Among the Semitic peoples (with the notable exception of the Hebrews) a
supreme female deity was worshipped under d