Aphraates or Aphrahat was a Syriac Christian writer of the early fourth century. He lived through the Persian persecutions which followed the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire. His “Demonstrations” are a collection of twenty-three sermons, each expounding an aspect of Christian life or doctrine. They are solid and straightforward, not straying far from biblical sources, and they are valuable not only in themselves but also as a witness to Syriac Christian belief before the outbreak of the Arian heresy. Demonstration 11, which is used in the Office of Readings, is one of a set of four which examine Judaism, perhaps because some members of the Persian Church wanted to incorporate more Jewish elements into Christianity.

Violet is a dark colour, ‘the gloomy cast of the mortified, denoting affliction and melancholy’. Liturgically, it is the colour of Advent and Lent, the seasons of penance and preparation.