Aphraates

APHRAATES (Syriac Aphrahat). - He is the earliest great Syriac writer whose works we possess.

Until 1835 his writings, known only in Armenian translation, were falsely attributed to Jacob (James) of Nisibis, and under that attribution they were edited by N. Antonelli, S. Patris nostri Jacobi, episcopi Nisibeni, Sermones, Rome 1756; but in 1835 Cureton discovered in the manuscripts of the British Museum the Syriac original, which attributes them to the "Persian Sage" called Aphrahat or Jacob; probably the name Jacob was taken by Aphrahat when he was baptized or else elected bishop, and the coincidence of names was the cause for which his writings were attributed to Jacob of Nisibis, teacher of the famous Ephrem (v.), both by the Armenian translation and by Gennadius of Marseilles (De scriptor. eccles., 1).

Certainly Aphrahat was a monk and then a bishop, as is evident from many passages of his writings. A late notice assigns as his episcopal residence the famous monastery of Mar Matthew near Mosul, which later became an important center of the Monophysites; this notice encounters certain difficulties, although it has in its favor the appellation of "Persian" given to Aphrahat, which shows that he resided in territory of the Persian empire and not of the Roman empire. No other reliable information about the person of Aphrahat is available: it is possible, however, that he died a martyr in the persecution of Shapur II, shortly after 345.

The writings of Aphrahat, entitled in Syriac Demonstrations, are in reality short treatises on the following subjects: I. On Faith; II. On Charity; III. On Fasting; IV. On Prayer; V. On Wars; VI. On Monks; VII. On Penitents; VIII. On the Resurrection of the Dead; IX. On Humility; X. On Pastors. These first ten Demonstrations were finished being written in the year 337, at the invitation of a friend whose letter has been preserved; however, in 344 Aphrahat finished writing another 12 Demonstrations, thus closing their alphabetical series, since each Demonstration begins in order with a letter of the Syriac alphabet (which has 22 letters). Those of the second group are: XI. On Circumcision; XII. On the Passover; XIII. On the Sabbath; XIV. On Exhortation; XV. On the Distinction of Foods; XVI. On the Peoples (pagans) who took the place of the (Hebrew) people; XVII. On Christ, Who Is the Son of God; XVIII. Against the Jews and concerning virginity and holiness; XIX. Against the Jews, because they say that they must be gathered together; XX. On the Support of the Poor; XXI. On Persecution; XXII. On Death and the Last Times.

The following year, 345, Aphrahat wrote yet another Demonstration entitled On the Grape (with an allusion to Is. 65:8), with which a new alphabetical series of writings seems to begin, but which remained its sole representative.

The importance of Aphrahat is paramount for the Syriac language, great for the history of monasticism and of Christian spirituality in the Mesopotamian regions, lesser for theology. As a Syriac writer, he has a pure language and a syntax that is a genuine example of that Aramaic form which in writers later than him is more or less clouded by Greek influence. For the religious history of his regions Aphrahat, although very sparing of episodes, is a rich witness of liturgical, monastic, and cultural customs; with particular interest he treats of the great persecution that the Christians of his regions suffered from the Persian empire and of the incessant hostilities, doctrinal and political, that they encountered on the part of the Jews, then very powerful in those regions. As a theologian Aphrahat is not constructive, but he is an authoritative witness of the Syriac tradition: his very geographical residence, beyond the Tigris, cut him off almost entirely from the Greek cultural world, and it was the field of the great Arian discussions of the 4th century. Only vaguely does he allude to Gnostic currents, because these, unlike Arianism, had penetrated into the regions beyond the Tigris. The basis of Aphrahat's theology is above all the Bible; some of his Demonstrations are, in substance, nothing other than chains of biblical quotations or allusions. For the rest, Aphrahat's theology follows the tradition of the Syriac Churches. It is typical that there is found also in him - as later in St. Ephrem, Isaac of Nineveh, and other Syriac writers - the doctrine of "spiritual lethargy": according to it, in the baptized man are to be distinguished the animal spirit, or soul, and the celestial spirit, or Holy Spirit; when the baptized person dies, his animal spirit is buried together with the body, and enters into a deep lethargy that will last until the universal Judgment, when it will awaken to receive the reward or the punishment: instead the celestial spirit, at the point of death, returns to the Christ from whom it had come. There are noted also in Aphrahat certain teachings of late Jewish provenance, which are found again in the Midrashim and in other rabbinic writings. Likewise, according to Aphrahat, the world as it was created in six days will thus be consumed in six thousand years: which opinion is found both in Jewish writings and in St. Ephrem.

Giuseppe Ricciotti