Ajax (missionary)

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Ajax († after 468) was an Arian missionary who converted the Suebi of the Suebian kingdom to Arianism in 464 (according to other sources 466).

Life

Ajax had the task of the King of the Visigoths , Theodoric II , to convert the Suebi, who were in the middle of the 5th century to a small extent Catholic , but mostly still pagan Suebi, who settled in the province of Gallaecia , to Arian Christianity.

Theodoric's request to Ajax was probably the result of the improvement in relations between the Suebi and Visigoths. The Suebian King Remismund had married a Visigoth princess at the time for political reasons . After this marriage, Theodoric could hope that the entire tribe of the Suebi would adopt Christianity in the Arian form and thereby move closer to the Visigoths, but further to the Roman Empire and its imperial church , which rejected Arianism as heretical . The Ajax mission was particularly successful in the Suebian aristocracy. But it may be that he was not the only Arian missionary among the Suebi of the time. Ajax's exact date of death is unknown.

There has been much speculation about its Homeric name. Hydatius , Bishop of Aquae Flaviae in today's Chaves , spoke in his writings of an Ajax born in Galata. The term Galata could have meant Gaul , but also the Roman province of Galatia in today's Turkey . The obvious option that Gallaecia (Galicia) was meant is considered unlikely. Hydatius described Ajax, who is said to have been a Catholic himself, as "an enemy of the Catholic faith and the dogma of the Holy Trinity " ( hostis catholicae fidei et divinae trinitatis ). In retrospect, Isidore of Seville , who lived about a century after Hydatius, came to the same view of Ajax as the Bishop of Aquae Flaviae.

literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In dogma historiography, the arian controversy refers to the passionate controversy in the 4th century about the doctrines called Arianism according to Arius and the question raised as to whether the Logos incarnated in Jesus Christ is divine, god-like or different from God, namely creature .
  2. ↑ As one of the first Suebi, King Rechiar is said to have adopted the Catholic faith before 448, but was defeated and executed by the Arian Visigoths in 456. His wife and widow was an Arian.
  3. ^ Pius Bonifacius Gams : The Church History of Spain , page 483 . Regensburg 1864
personal data
SURNAME Ajax
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Arian missionary
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century or 5th century
DATE OF DEATH after 468