AFFARTODOCETI
Name composed of two Greek words: ἀφθασμός (“incorruptible”) and θάνα-ταχία (“doceti” [v.]), used to designate the partisans of the Monophysite Julian, bishop of Halicarnassus, on account of their doctrine regarding the incorruptibility of the body of Jesus Christ before His resurrection. They are also called Gaiantites or Gainites, from the name of their first bishop Gaianas, consecrated at Alexandria in 536; Julianists, from the name of their principal theologian and true founder; Fantasists, since Catholics attributed to these sectaries the Docetic error. The Latins translated the word *a.* with “incorrupticolae.”
Having various Greek Fathers taught that Adam, before sin, possessed an impassible, incorruptible body, exempt from the deficiencies of animal life, Julian and his disciples attributed an identical state to the humanity of Our Lord from the very first moment of His conception. According to them, by nature and as a permanent condition, the body of the incarnate Word was impassible before the resurrection as it was after; by a pure miracle, which was frequently renewed during His mortal life, Jesus freely subjected His impassible flesh to infirmities that are not reprehensible—such as hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue, even death itself—thus derogating from the laws that governed II. Christ truly suffered and truly died, but by miracle.
This thesis was strongly opposed by Severus of Antioch, who upheld the true doctrine, teaching that the Word assumed a passible and mortal body, such as that of Adam after his fall. The controversy, which arose around 510, when the two acephalous Monophysites were in Constantinople, reached its peak between 518 and 520, a period during which the two antagonists waged a literary battle against each other in a series of more or less lengthy writings. Of Julian’s works only a few fragments remain, while those of Severus have been preserved in Syriac translation.
The dispute resulted in dividing the anti-Chalcedonians into two equal factions. As early as 536, Julian’s party organized itself into a separate Church with its own hierarchy, of which Gaianas was the first bishop, and it persisted in Egypt until about the beginning of the 9th century, seeking to spread into Asia Minor and India. It exercised a visible influence on certain Armenian theologians. There were also Catholics who upheld this doctrine, and the Emperor Justinian I, on the eve of his death in 564, sought to impose it upon the entire Byzantine Church by decree.
From a theological standpoint, Affartodocetism seems to occupy a middle ground between the verbal Monophysitism of Severus and the gross Monophysitism of Eutyches; various formulae of Julian bring him close indeed to the latter.
AGABUS (“Ἀγαθός, from the Hebrew הַגָּבִי “locust,” a name found in Ezra 2:45 and Neh. 7:48 and in the Lachish ostraca”)
Prophet of the Church of Jerusalem, who appears in two episodes connected with the ministry of St. Paul. Visiting, it seems, in 41, with other “prophets,” the young community of Antioch, which Saul and Barnabas were evangelizing, Agabus predicted “by the Spirit,” through symbolic action, the great famine that later occurred under Claudius; Barnabas and Saul then brought aid to the “brethren” in Judea (Acts 11:27-30).
The reign of Claudius was plagued by successive famines in various provinces, including Rome, in the winter of 55-56 (Tacitus, *Annales*, XII, 43). Suetonius (*Claud.*, 18) and Eusebius (*Chronicon arm.*, ed. Schöne, II, p. 252) mention a famine that afflicted Judea and Greece in the 4th year of Claudius (45). Flavius Josephus relates that Queen Helena of Adiabene sent Egyptian grain to Jerusalem, where “the great famine” took many victims over three or four years, after the arrival of the procurator (45-47) Tiberius Alexander (Ant. Jud., XX, 2, 5; 5, 2).
At Caesarea, it seems, in 58, Agabus foretold to Paul “by the Spirit” his imprisonment in Jerusalem, through symbolic action (a close parallel in John 21:18) followed by explanation, according to the usage of the prophets of the Old Testament (cf. Ezek. 3:25 and 4:8); but he did not deter him from his journey (Acts 21:10-14). The indefinite τίς (Acts 21:10) leads some to distinguish two Agabuses. The double instance of Agabus shows that the gift of prophecy, though not essential, manifested itself occasionally in this manner.
Nothing further is known of Agabus’ life. Traditions (*Chronicon Paschale*) include him among the Seventy-two Disciples and say he was a martyr at Antioch. The Latins (from the 9th century) commemorate him among the saints on February 13, the Byzantines on March 8.