Ajax (missionary)
Ajax ( † after 468 ) was an Arian missionary who ( other sources say 466 ) converted the Suevi in 464 to Arianism.
Life
Ajax had the king of the Visigoths, Theodoric II, the task to convert in the middle of the 5th century, to a small extent already Catholic, but still largely pagan Suevi, who settled at that time in the province of Gallaecia to Arian Christianity.
Theodoric suggestion to Ajax was probably the result of the improvement of relations between the Suevi and Visigoths. The King Suebian draw mouth had political reasons at the time geehelicht a Visigoth princess. Theodoric could make hopes after this marriage that the whole tribe of the Suevi accept Christianity in the Arian form and thus the Visigoths closer, on the other hand the Roman Empire and its imperial church, which rejected Arianism as heretical, would also move. The mission of Ajax was especially successful in Suebian nobility. It may be that he was not the only Arian missionary among the Suevi of that time. Ajax exact date of death is unknown.
There was much speculation about his Homeric name. Hydatius, Bishop of Aquae Flaviae in today Chaves, spoke in his writings from an Ajax born in Galata. The term Galata could Gaul, but have been meant in today's Turkey but also the Roman province of Galatia. The obvious option that Gallaecia (Galicia ) was meant, is considered unlikely. Hydatius described Ajax, said to have been a Catholic himself once, as an "enemy of the Catholic Faith and the dogma of the Holy Trinity " ( hostis catholicae fidei et divinae trinitatis ). Looking back, was also Isidore of Seville, who lived a century after Hydatius about to the same conclusion about Ajax as the Bishop of Aquae Flaviae.