Aphrahat’s Christology.

A Contextual Reading

by

Emanuel Fiano

Department of Religion
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Lucas Van Rompay, Supervisor

___________________________
Elizabeth Clark

___________________________
Zlatko Pleše

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of
Religion in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2010
 ABSTRACT

Aphrahat’s Christology. A Contextual Reading

by

Emanuel Fiano

Department of Religion
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Lucas Van Rompay, Supervisor

___________________________
Elizabeth Clark

___________________________
Zlatko Pleše

An abstract of a thesis submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Master of Arts in the Department of
Religion in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2010
 Copyright by
Emanuel Fiano
2010
 ABSTRACT

The present study represents an attempt at reading the views on Christ of fourth-
century Syriac writer Aphrahat, author of 23 Demonstrations, within the context of
coeval developments in Christian thought, especially in Syria. Given the breadth of the
set of questions posed by the topic, these pages are not conceived as an exhaustive
treatment, but rather as a series of incursions into a complicated terrain. The first
chapter shows how scholars studying Aphrahat’s Christology have often worked, more
or less outspokenly, on the basis of confessional and dogmatic assumptions. I will argue
for a change in this regard. The second chapter discusses the Syriac version of the so-
called “Eunomian interpolation” found in Pseudoclementine Recognitions 3.2-11, and
attested in Latin and Syriac. Through a work of contrasting and comparing the two
versions of the text, I will examine the strategies of which the Syriac translator availed
himself to moderate the anti-Nicene peaks of the Greek original. The peculiar
characteristics of this translation need to be understood, I will suggest, as a token of the
livelihood and conflictiveness of Syriac Christianity around the middle of the fourth
century. Against the same backdrop, presenting competing models for understanding
the figure of Christ, I will propose that we read the complex Christological speculation
developed by Aphrahat in his Dem. 17. The third chapter of the study interprets the
seventh paragraph of this Demonstration, recounting the story of the creation of Adam
in a highly unusual manner, as a coherent Christological discourse, rather than a mere
digression. In that section we witness, I will argue, a synthetic integration of Adamitic
Christology with the scheme of the prolatio of the Logos, and a dynamic engagement, on
the part of the Persian Sage, with contemporary theological debates. The study does
not reach overall conclusions about the tenets of Aphrahat’s Christology, rather
presenting itself as an invitation to take this author out of the intellectual isolation in
which he has long been kept by scholars.

iv
CONTENTS

Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv

1. How To Read Aphrahat? ............................................................................................................

1.1 Looking for A Creed ......................................................................................................... 1

1.2 The Dialectics of Orthodoxy ........................................................................................... 3

1.3 “Theologia indolis valde primitivae” ............................................................................ 8

1.4 “Keine systematische Christologie” ............................................................................ 13

1.5 A Dynamic Engagement ................................................................................................ 17

2. Undoing Heresy. The “Eunomian interpolation” in The Syriac Version of

Pseudoclementine Recognitions .....................................................................................................

2.1 The Syriac Recognitions and The “Eunomian Interpolation” ................................... 20

2.2 Translation of The Christological Section (R 3.7.4-3.11.12) ..................................... 22

2.3 The Contents of The Interpolation: The Αὐτοπάτωρ ................................................ 34

2.4 The Religious Context in Edessa .................................................................................. 36

2.5 The Contents of The Interpolation: The Anti-Nicene Views ................................... 39

2.6 Analysis of Selected Passages from The Text ............................................................. 40

2.7 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 49

3. “Older And Prior In Conception to Creatures”. Models of Salvific Mediation in

Aphrahat’s Demonstration 17 ..........................................................................................................

3.1 The Seventeenth Demonstration .................................................................................... 53

3.2 The Withholding of Adam ............................................................................................. 56

3.3 Models of Prolatio ............................................................................................................ 59

3.4 An Eclectic Construct....................................................................................................... 62

3.5 Straddling Two Worlds .................................................................................................. 64

v
 3.6 Adamitic Christologies .................................................................................................. 66

3.7 What Happens to Adam ................................................................................................. 69

3.8 Translating God .............................................................................................................. 71

3.9 With a God Like That, Who Needs a Logos?................................................................ 74

3.10 The Non-creative Logos .............................................................................................. 77

3.11 Conclusion: What Is Aphrahat Doing? ...................................................................... 80

Appendix A: Translation of Aphrahat’s Demonstration 17 ..................................................... 82

Appendix B: Biblical Quotations in Aphrahat’s Demonstration 17 ........................................ 96

Works quoted ............................................................................................................................ 108

vi
 1. HOW TO READ APHRAHAT?

1.1. LOOKING FOR A CREED

Modern scholars1 began longer than one century ago to remark on the atypical

position, in relation to the Council of Nicaea, of the theological views of Aphrahat, the

Persian Sage2. Thus R.H. Connolly wrote as early as 19063: “In date the Homilies of

Aphraates are post-Nicene (A.D. 337-345). But I think their teaching has been shewn to

be quite independent of Nicene language; and any traces of a creed-formula found in

them may safely be set down as ante-Nicene”4. Connolly, whose concern, expressed in

the title of his writing, was for the recovery of an “early Syriac creed”, set out on a

quest, in Aphrahat’s Demonstrations, for “creed-like passages, agreeing in general

character with early creeds known to us—especially Greek creeds—and at the same
1
As an ancient instance of rejection of Aphrahat’s views as heterodox one could quote the outrage of
seventh-century Bishop Georges of the Arabs at the “many aberrations and very crass statements” of the
writings of the Persian Sage—with particular reference to his pneumatology—, presented in BUCUR 2009,
161-163.
2
Little is known about the life and the work of “one of the giants of early Christianity” (PETERSEN 1992,
241), “the self-effacing author of twenty-three acrostically ordered Syriac demonstrations in rhetorical
prose” (BARNES 1999, 304) that Ishoʿ bar Nun (d. 828) called, for the first time in our sources, “Aphrahat”.
The author of the Demonstrations is known in the mss. that transmit them as ḥakkimā parsāyā (= “Persian
sage”) (ms. A); mār Yaʿqub ḥakkimā parsāyā (= “Jacob, Persian sage”) (ms. B); and Yaʿqub ḥasyā d-Mar Mattay
(= “Jacob, bishop of Mar Mattay”) (ms. C). On the question of the name cfr. PIERRE 1988, 33-38 and SCHAFF
et WACE 1898, 154-156. For the Syriac text of the Demonstrations cfr. WRIGHT 1869 and PARISOT 1894. For
English translations of the Demonstrations cfr. WRIGHT 1869; GWYNN 1898 (only Dem. 1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 17, 21, and
23); NEUSNER 1971, 19-119 (only Dem. 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 21); VALAVANOLICKAL 1999. For
authoritative French and German translations cfr. PIERRE 1988 and BRUNS 1991 respectively (for a
comparison of the different translating styles of Pierre and Bruns cfr. CAMPLANI 1990, 473). Lastly, for an
Italian translation of the first ten Demonstrations cfr. PERICOLI RIDOLFINI 2006. Translations of other
Demonstrations have sparsely appeared in articles and books. For an exhaustive introduction to
Aphrahat’s life and writings cfr. PIERRE 1988, 33-199; and BRUNS 1991, I, 35-73. Cfr. now also BROCK 2010.
3
I am obviously not suggesting that Connolly was the first modern scholar to comment on the topic.
4
CONNOLLY 1906, 202.
1
time displaying marked individual peculiarities”. “[I]f we find these peculiarities

reproduced consistently in other Syriac writings and even in formulas of Faith”,

Connolly continued, “there will be a strong prima facie presumption that the passages in

Aphraates contain allusion to an actually existing Symbol” 5.

In that which is, to the best of my knowledge, the latest article published on the

theme of Aphrahat’s Christology, J.E. Walters, while declaring his reliance on Connolly’s

“list of Christological quotes”, informs us that he does “not necessarily agree” with the

scholar’s “search for a proto-Nicene creedal formula in Aphrahat’s writing”6. Although

his methodological suggestion is certainly agreeable, Walters seems to miss here the

point of Connolly’s intention, which was not to scavenge for “proto-Nicene”7 creedal

formulations through the Demonstrations (neither with the confessional goal of proving

the orthodoxy8 of the Persian Sage, nor to more dispassionately determine on what side

of the Nicene ridge he stood), but rather to make a recognition of any sort of creed-like

materials found in the corpus, be they pro- or anti-, ante- or post-Nicene. To be sure,
5
CONNOLLY 1906, 202-203.
6
WALTERS 2010, 112, n. 47. I, in turn, will rely heavily, though “negatively”, on Walters’ essay in the first
part of this introductory chapter. The reason for this resides 1) in the interest of the author’s
argumentation; 2) in a certain, so to speak, representativeness of his position (without, of course,
denying any of his writing’s originality); 3) in the width of the array of issues that this engagement
allows to problematize. I want to express my gratefulness to the author for having sent me a draft of his
article before its publication.
7
Of course, the very adoption of a chronological language, such as that represented by the prefix proto-,
is problematic, as at stake is not the possibility of the retrieval, in the Demonstrations, of a Nicene
Christology ante litteram (as noted, Nicaea predates Aphrahat), but rather of a potentially Nicene Christology.
On this issue cfr. infra.
8
In order to make the reading of these pages smoother, I chose not to put in defensive scare quotes such
problematic words as orthodox/orthodoxy, heterodox/heterodoxy, Nicene, anti-Nicene etc. Hopefully the
reader, grateful for being put in front of a more easily readable text, will return the favor by granting the
writer a quarter of his or her own awareness of the problematic nature of the use of these terms, and of
his or her own knowledge of the multiple historical and theoretical questions that surround them.
2
the risk of anatopism connected to Connolly’s project is apparent; yet, the operation

does not seem per se illegitimate (at worst, it could be fruitless).

Interestingly enough, looking for a proto-Nicene theology in the Demonstrations is

the unconfessed, nay, explicitly denied yet manifest purpose of Walters’ own

enterprise. However, he is not seeking out specific Nicene phrasings9. Rather, it is

orthodox concepts that the author is searching, while availing himself of a curiously

distorting historical-hermeneutical lens. “By ‘orthodox’”, he writes, “we mean […] that

Aphrahat’s Christological statements, while not as developed as the Nicene

formulation, do not preclude any of the Nicene canons”10.

1.2. THE DIALECTICS OF ORTHODOXY

Since the assumptions upon which apologetic readings of the development of the

Christian dogma rely seem to have worked more or less latently in the minds of some of

those who have approached the issue of Aphrahat’s Christology, it appears expedient,

in the introductory lines of this study, to at least set the terms for a reflection on this

topic. Triumphalistic and dogmatic-dialectical narratives describing the unfolding of

9
Cfr. WALTERS 2010, 11: “If Aphrahat is ignorant of the Christological controversies and of the Council of
Nicaea, we must question the extent to which the language of the Nicene Creed is an appropriate litmus test
for the orthodoxy of Aphrahat’s Christology” (italics mine).
10
WALTERS 2010, 112, n. 48. Similarly does PERICOLI RIDOLFINI 1979, 101 express himself. In the conclusion of
Walters’ article we find again: “Aphrahat’s Christology is not un-orthodox, even if it is not as ‘developed’
as the Christological debates of the West—that is, nowhere does Aphrahat’s Christology preclude Nicene
Christology” (WALTERS 2010, 17). Not more convincing, with their appeal to a not better determined
biblical coherence, are the positive statements; e.g. WALTERS 2010, 17: “Positively, […] Aphrahat,
throughout his writings, displays a coherent Christology based on the biblical narrative of Jesus Christ,
who came, lived and suffered death, rose on the third day, and was ultimately exalted to the right hand
of the Father where he waits to judge all humanity”.
3
Christian doctrine in the first centuries of existence of Christianity as a providentially

driven sequence of twists and turns, inevitably culminating in the Chalcedonian

formulation, have long been dominant, at times barely concealed under a coat of

historicism. I am not referring here to forceful efforts to demonstrate the substantial

doctrinal identity of the New Testament as a whole with fourth- and fifth-century

orthodox creeds, but rather to the more refined attempts at distilling a higher logic out

of the meanders of early theological controversies11. These narratives oftentimes

celebrate the orthodox doctrinal formulation as the elaboration most adequately

seizing some of the deepest intuitions and instances found in the earliest Christian

understanding of the person of Jesus. Granted—they admit—, orthodoxy re-reads and

writes anew the original faith given; however, they claim, it never completely upsets it,

rather showing itself more respectful of its spirit than the heresies it fights.

As late as 1975, A. Grillmeier, in the second edition of his monumental and

influential work on the figure of Jesus in the faith of the Church, referred to the

Chalcedonian enterprise in the following fashion: “It had now become necessary to find

the formula which like a hidden entelechy12 had accompanied the wearisome struggles of

centuries to interpret the mysterium Christi. The Fourth Council could only consider that

11
An interesting variation on this theme is the formulation adopted at the end of the instructive survey
of the “long road to Chalcedon” found in MCGUCKIN 2002, 41 (published in Italian). Here, through the
musical metaphor, the author seems to imply that only a theologically oriented intellect could grasp the
euphony represented by fourth- and fifth-century theological debates: “[È] importante rendersi conto
che qui vediamo non solo la struttura della Paradosis cristiana, ma anche più di questo (o forse proprio
per questo), la forma di una melodia che una volta fu cantata con passione per la bellezza della visione
mistica che racchiudeva. I critici che non hanno orecchio musicale dovrebbero essere molto prudenti sia
nel loro rigetto che nella loro interpretazione delle note storiche dello spartito”.
12
Italics mine (unlike the other italics in the quotation).
4
its task as [sic] had been fulfilled if it had stated in clear terms how both the unity and

the distinction in Christ were to be understood. […] The time had now come to make

from them the right choice that would do justice to all claims”13.

It may be noticed that this dialectical approach, whose implicit corollary is the

explanation of the existence of false or partial beliefs—and the sublation of its

negative—by means of the appeal to the higher conquest of the dogma14, underlies also

the thesis, proposed by W. Bauer in his groundbreaking book Orthodoxy and Heresy in

Earliest Christianity15, that heresy precedes orthodoxy. This contention, agreeably

rejected by D. Boyarin as an “absurd formulation” because presupposing that heresy

and orthodoxy “are real entities and not merely the constructions of particular

politically powerful religious parties at particular historical moments”16, relies upon an

essentialist understanding of Christianity as a quid whose kernel is enshrined in a

foundational idea, identified by Bauer with the Pauline kerygma, from time to time

13
GRILLMEIER 1975, 548. Part of this passage cit. in DALEY 2008, 888. DALEY 2008, 889 also quotes from KELLY
1978, and cites the following sentence of Grillmeier as exemplifying “the assumption that Chalcedon’s
formulation is Christianity’s most complete expression of the apostolic faith in the person of Christ, the
norm by which the adequacy of all earlier or later attempts to express who and what Jesus is must
ultimately be judged”: “If we look backwards from the year 451, the definition of the Council doubtless
appears as the culmination of the development that had gone before it” (BACHT et GRILLMEIER 1952, 5).
14
A more popular variant (especially among fourth-century theologians) of this scheme is that which
identifies the dogmatic truth as via media between opposite mistakes. For this attitude, e.g., in Gregory of
Nazianzus cfr. MCGUCKIN 2002, 29. On conceptions of heresy in late antique Christian literature cfr. LE
BOULLUEC 1985.
15
BAUER 1934. For two dated yet still interesting accounts of the Wirkungsgeschichte of Bauer’s thesis cfr.
HARRINGTON 1980 and ROBINSON 1988, with relative bibliographies.
16
BOYARIN 2010, 39. n. 57. In similar yet not superposable terms does KING 2008, 28 express herself:
“[O]rthodoxy and heresy are not essential qualities that groups or ideas possess, but correlative and
mutually reinforcing categories belonging to the dynamics of social-political and intellectual processes
of boundary-setting and identity formation”.
5
incorrectly or correctly (or: less or more faithfully) construed and elaborated upon17.

For Bauer “[o]nly by – to some extent – imitating the ‘heretical’ process of

manipulation and definition does ‘true’ religion survive, undergoing a sea-change as it

identifies itself over against what it is not. Heresy is the necessary precondition for

orthodoxy, yet orthodoxy may be as much a metamorphosis (or pseudomorphosis) of

the foundational religious idea as heresy”18. Interestingly enough, this view bears

resemblance to the heresiological conception undergirding the theory of the syzygies

found in the Pseudoclementine writings. According to this theory, God’s pedagogical

17
For a definitely theological and confessional, yet still suggestive, take on the issue of the relationship
between kerygma and dogma cfr. MOORE 2004-2005. For an interesting thematization of heresy and dogma
in Heideggerian terms cfr. REISER 1975 and 1982.
18
WILLIAMS 1989, 3. It is worth quoting in its entirety, as an example of a maturely aware and speculative
rendition of this dialectical perspective, a passage found in CANTALAMESSA 2006, 47: “Cos’è dunque la
definizione conciliare antica nella sua essenza? È qualcosa di negativo; indica ciò che in un dato contesto
è avvertito dalla Chiesa come non compatibile con la propria comprensione del dato rivelato. […]
Tuttavia, in quanto negazione di una negazione (l’eresia è, appunto, scelta, rottura della globalità del dato e,
quindi, limite di negazione), la definizione dommatica è, di fatto, di una positività al quadrato. Essa rivela
tutto il suo contenuto positivo rispetto alla tradizione, proprio in questo chiudere le false aperture sul
cammino della fede. È una specie di catarsi che opera una chiusa nel fluire della tradizione, che fa fare
alla fede un salto di livello e le permette di continuare il suo corso. Il livello, in cui si realizza il salto, è il
livello di esplicitazione del dato. La definizione dommatica è la negazione di un’esplicitazione spuria del
dato rivelato, negazione però che, assumendo la problematica che ha dato luogo all’eresia e le categorie
razionali con cui essa si è espressa, non si risolve in un ripristino dello status quo, ma determina ogni volta un
equilibrio più avanzato, cioè un progresso nella formulazione della fede” (italics mine). The idea of a retrieval of
the pure original intention of the text is here replaced with that of an advancement in the formulation of
the faith. CANTALAMESSA 2006, 47, n. 83 compares the traditional understanding of the chronological
relationship between orthodoxy and heresy (marked by Tertullian’s opposition of principalitas veritatis
and posteritas mendacitatis found in De praescriptione haereticorum 31) with the “radical” one, which he
attributes to Bauer, allegedly claiming the priority of heresy. This characterization of Bauer’s perspective
should be emended in the light of Williams’s presentation of it presented above. Overall, CANTALAMESSA
2006, 11-51 (“Dal Cristo del Nuovo Testamento al Cristo della Chiesa. Tentativo di interpretazione della
cristologia patristica”) is a greatly remarkable contribution, in which an original profile of the
philosophical logic guiding the early Christian Christological controversies is sketched out by means of a
thoughtful use of categories such as ontologization, de-escatologization, dogmatization, and
formalization. Of particular interest is the section concerning the interpretation of Nicaea and Chalcedon
as moments of de-hellenization (CANTALAMESSA 2006, 40-41).
6
design for humanity would unfold in such a way that the truthful word is always sent

forth to set right a mendacious statement19. This idea does not contradict the

heresiological notion, widely shared by early Christian authors, of the aboriginal

priority of the true doctrine and of its later, base corruption on the part of the heretics:

what we witness is a continuous dynamic of retrieval of the pure intention of the

pristine word of truth through a dialectical removal of the negative, whose existence is

providentially ordained.

Since the days of Grillmeier much has happened in the field of the history of early

Christian thought. Nowadays many are ready to acknowledge that “[t]he Christian

understanding of the identity and role of Jesus is not the content of a proposition,

which emerged slowly but steadily through a centuries-long process of conflict and

debate”, and that “the formula of Chalcedon, its antecedents and its ultimate reception,

is only one strand in a much richer and more complex theological fabric”20. Religions

are less and less often envisioned “as stable entities developing coherently over time,

occasionally shedding unsuccessful ‘mutations’ (heresies) like so many exotic, extinct

religious Neanderthals. This kind of evolutionary view of religions emerged in the

19
SCHOEPS 1949, 161 and 1956, 56-61 argued for a Jewish origin of the theory of the syzygies. SMITH 1965,
178 demolished the evidence with which Schoeps had propped up his thesis. For a reconnaissance of the
heresiological theme in Pseudoclementine Homilies cfr. REED 2008 (part. 298, where very suggestive
conclusions are drawn about the placement of the writing in the late-antique scenario).
20
DALEY 2008, 900. The author continues: “To understand the full range of ancient Christology, we need to
listen more attentively to the whole chorus, and to read individual authors not simply in the light of
Chalcedon, but as Christological sources in their own right”. Analogously PIERRE 1988, 144-145 proposes
to study the creed of the asker and that of Aphrahat “dans leur propre milieu, sans céder à la tentation de
les réduire à des expressions postérieures de la foi, auxquelles nous sommes maintenant accoutumés. En
laissant se déployer leur étrangeté, peut-être parviendrons-nous à entrer au cœur de ce qu’ils
expriment”.
7
nineteenth century, ‘scientifically’ rewriting what were at root colonialist discourses of

theological self-description”21.

1.3. “THEOLOGIA INDOLIS VALDE PRIMITIVAE”

Going back to Walters’ treatment of Aphrahat, it should be noticed that the

question of concern there is not the possibility of the repossession, on the part of the

Christian believer(s), of the theological views of an author predating the time of

definition of the orthodox dogma, and therefore either failing to confess it or

contradicting it22—a problem upon which Christian thinkers, in particular Catholic

ones, have exercised throughout history all their hermeneutical prowess. If that were

the case, interpreters whose preoccupations are akin to Walters’ would need to go out

of their way to show that the Demonstrations are reconcilable with, or at least “do not

preclude”, the dogmatic definitions of Christian councils later than Nicaea as well.

Rather, the problem posed by Aphrahat lies in his postdating the Council of Nicaea,

whose resolutions he does not seem to know. What to make of this ignorance? Of

21
JACOBS 2008, 171. Cfr. also CHIDESTER 2000 (cit. ibidem).
22
For an instance of criticism of the tendency to judge the thought of an author with the wisdom of
hindsight, based on later theological developments, see B.E. Daley’s brief treatment of R.P.C. Hanson’s
and A. Grillmeier’s rejection of Athanasius’s alleged “Logos-sarx” Christology. Hanson and, more
moderately, Grillmeier are culpable of “distort[ing] his [= Athanasius’s] intentions by judging them in
light of fifth-century issues, standards he never intended to meet” (DALEY 2008, 892). It can be noticed
that, prescinding from the overall non-confessional tenor of this contribution of Daley (and, in general,
of his scholarship), the positionality of this judgment of his is at least ambiguous. If, in fact, one could see
it as an attempt at correcting ab extra a logical flaw in Grillmeier’s and Hanson’s reasoning without
embracing this latter, on the other hand it may be construed as internal to a logic where the concern
about the theological adequacy of the thought of an author is still present, and as only excepting about
the fitness of the scale used for this assessment—so that, if Athanasius had lived in the fifth century,
Grillmeier’s and Hanson’s appraisal would be deemed correct.
8
course, I am not concerned with this question from a theological-systematic, or even

theological-historical, point of view. Rather, I am interested in exploring the ways in

which the perception of the difficulties posed by Aphrahat’s non-Nicene23 Christology

has affected scholarly reconstructions of its contents.

One interesting outcome of scholarly engagement with this thorny issue has been

the tendency to qualify Aphrahat’s Christology as either archaic, primitive, or Semitic.

Marie-Joseph Pierre, in the voluminous introduction to her translation of the

Demonstrations, noted that Aphrahat “est entièrement traditionnel, c’est-à-dire qu’il

transmet l’enseignement reçu”24. Ortiz de Urbina wrote in 1965: “A[phraates], scribens

in loco a cultura hellenica remoto, tradit theologiam indolis valde primitivae”25. Claims

of this sort have interacted diversely with the different accounts of the Sage’s theology.

The judgment of archaism is almost coterminous, in Ortiz de Urbina as well as in other

scholars, with that of lacking any Hellenistic influence. Aphrahat, thus, would be

independent from the “Entwicklung der griechisch-römischen Christologie”26 (yet,

oddly enough, this constatation did not prevent Ortiz de Urbina from declaring

23
I do not employ here “non-Nicene” as a synonym of “anti-Nicene”, but rather as a broader category,
including also theological constructions, such as Aphrahat’s, seemingly unconcerned with the kind of
debates that led to the formula of Nicaea and that ensued its promulgation.
24
PIERRE 1988, 66. In more recent years also B.G. Bucur paid tribute to this scholarly tradition, at the
beginning of his thorough and very convincing study on Angelomorphic Pneumatology in Aphrahat:
“[Aphrahat’s] Demonstrations are noted for their ‘archaism’ or ‘traditionalism’, and represent, as has been
said, a unique treasure-trove of older exegetical and doctrinal traditions24. This is why, even though he
flourished in the fourth century, Aphrahat provides invaluable insight into earlier Christian doctrines
and practices” (BUCUR 2009, 159). Similarly, for PIERRE 1988, 145 “[the asker’s and Aphrahat’s creeds in the
Demonstrations] sont en effet de rares et précieux témoins de la foi chrétienne primitive”.
25
ORTIZ DE URBINA 1965, 49.
26
ORTIZ DE URBINA 1933, 140. Cit. in PETERSEN 1992, 241.
9
Aphrahat’s Christology perfectly orthodox). On the other hand, saying non-Hellenized

Christianity or saying Jewish Christianity is, for certain scholarship, one and the same.

For this reason, Aphrahat has often been linked to a speculated Jewish Christian

tradition, constructed as a witness of the primeval Church27. Against “an imposed

dichotomy between so-called ‘Jewish Christianity’ and so-called ‘Gentile Christianity”

has written A.Y. Reed, arguing in favor of an approach which may “aid us in recovering

the complex dynamics of reaction, influence, and interaction with the range of late

antique traditions […]”28.

Petersen, who took Ortiz de Urbina to task for his views on the point of Aphrahat’s

orthodoxy29, did not disapprove of the claim of archaism, or of the definition of

Aphrahat as “ein reiner Semit”30. Rather, throughout his article on Dem. 17 he expressed

27
A (non-scholarly) example of this very traditional view about the ties between Aphrahat and nothing
less than “the Mother Church of Jerusalem” is represented by the words spoken by Pope Benedict XVI
during a General Audience: “Aphraates was from an Ecclesial Community situated on the frontier
between Judaism and Christianity. It was a community strongly linked to the Mother Church of
Jerusalem, and its Bishops were traditionally chosen from among the so-called ‘family’ of James, the
‘brother of the Lord’ […]. They were people linked by blood and by faith to the Church of Jerusalem.
Aphraates’ language was Syriac, therefore a Semitic language like the Hebrew of the Old Testament and
like the Aramaic spoken by Jesus himself. Aphraates’ Ecclesial Community was a community that sought
to remain faithful to the Judeo-Christian tradition, of which it felt it was a daughter. It therefore
maintained a close relationship with the Jewish world and its Sacred Books. Significantly, Aphraates
defines himself as a ‘disciple of the Sacred Scripture’ of the Old and New Testaments (Expositions 22, 26),
which he considers as his only source of inspiration […]” (RATZINGER 2007).
28
REED 2008, 277. Although A.Y. Reed is referring there to another text (the Pseudoclementines), her protest
can be very well applied to scholarly discourse on our case study.
29
For ORTIZ DE URBINA 1965, 49 “[l]icet ignoret concilium Nicaenum, A[phraates] orthodoxe docet
Christum fuisse Deum.”
30
ORTIZ DE URBINA 1933, 5 (cit. in PETERSEN 1992), 241. PETERSEN 1992, 251 wrote: “Aphrahat offers [...] a
glimpse of [...] a relic inherited from primitive Semitic or Judaic Christianity”.
10
the wish that Ortiz de Urbina had been consequent with his Semitic characterization of

Aphrahat by admitting to what Petersen called the Persian Sage’s subordinationism31.

Unlike Petersen, Peter Bruns, certainly not a partisan of the correspondence of

Aphrahat’s beliefs to Nicene orthodoxy, criticized their dismissal on the part of

scholars as archaic and tardy. These characterizations were inspired, in his opinion, by

“dem verengten Blickwinkel der spätern dogmengeschichtlichen Entwicklung des

Christentums im griechischen Sprach- und Kulturraum”32. Camplani considered Bruns’

critique unconvincing, arguing that “arcaismo è spesso usato in senso assolutamente non

negativo per indicare la presenza di fenomeni di vario tipo in testi redatti in aree

geografiche marginali o in circoli e comunità rimasti svincolati dalle correnti culturali

dominanti, che, ad una data epoca, risultano in generale regresso” 33.

But what conception of the path of the unfolding of Christian thought does the usage of the

term archaism bespeak? Is it possible to speak of archaism—a term, of course, bearing

within itself the mark of chronology—without falling into the trap of theological

evolutionism? In order to offer a theoretical framework for addressing this question, a

31
Cfr. PETERSEN 1992, passim.
32
BRUNS 1990, 220.
33
CAMPLANI 1992, 472 (Italics mine). I would like to draw attention to the fact that the allegation of
archaism does not automatically translate into an admission to the non-Nicene nature of Aphrahat’s
theological views. Actually 1) Ortiz de Urbina; 2) Bruns; 3) Camplani; and 4) Walters exhaust the
spectrum of the possible combinations of the takes on these two issues (of course, within a non-nuanced,
binary logic) by respectively 1) calling Aphrahat archaic yet considering him orthodox; 2) rejecting the
label of archaism and denying Aphrahat’s orthodoxy; 3) agreeing on the Persian Sage’s heterodoxy but
considering acceptable the use of the term “archaic”; 4) denying (WALTERS 2010, 12) both Aphrahat’s
archaism and his heterodoxy. It is easy to see how it is possible to use the alleged primitiveness of an
author as a justification for his terminological imprecision, thus affirming his orthodox intentions and
understanding. Of Aphrahat as theologically well-intended speaks CROSS 2005: “[Aphrahat’s] writings
show that […], at least in intention, he was orthodox in his theology” (Cross’s authorship of the entry is
suggested in PETERSEN 1992, 251, n. 9, quoting S. Brock).
11
parallel could be usefully drawn from the debates about the notion of “folkloric relic”

spurred among—mostly Italian—ethnographers and historians of religion by the

publication of the works of E. De Martino. In De Martino’s treatment of popular

religious formations as presented in his Sud e magia the “folkloric relic” is considered a

negative of high culture, a marker of its limits and “difficulties of expansion and

hegemony”34. M. Brelich took a different stand on the “folkloric relic”. For him “the

relic is never inert”. Moreover, “whereas in De Martino the removal of the relic goes

hand in hand with that of the conditions of disenfranchisement of the masses […], in

Brelich we witness the idea of a social and cultural substratum [..] which is able to

organically coexist with the intellectual élite. For De Martino, then, the «relic» exists

(albeit only as an abstracting fiction, as a dialectic antithesis to be superseded), whereas

for Brelich it dissolves, or tends to do so, in the coherence of a global replasmation”35.

Let us now try to mutanda mutare and to wrap up this all too long parenthesis. Over

and against, on one hand, an understanding of a non-Nicene Christology in Nicene

times that36 sees the former as a negative destined to be aufgehoben by a later (and ipso

facto superior) truth; or, on the other hand, an irenic posture construing such

34
RIVERA 1988, 60. For an acute problematization of this knot cfr. the broader context in RIVERA 1988, 59-
64. “Il relitto folklorico-religioso può […] acquistare il suo senso storico o come stimolo documentario che
aiuta a comprendere una civiltà scomparsa di cui esso formava, una volta, elemento organico, ovvero
come stimolo documentario che aiuta a misurare i limiti interni e la interna forza di espansione di una
civiltà attuale in cui è conservato come relitto: al di fuori di queste due possibilità di conquista da parte
del pensiero, il materiale folklorico-religioso resta storiograficamente una sorta di terra di nessuno” (DE
MARTINO 2001, 11-12). On the relationship between folkloric relic and hegemonic culture cfr. also
MONTANARI 1985.
35
MONTANARI 2001, 62-63.
36
Whether enthusiastically (à la Grillmeier) or against their will: ducunt fata volentem, nolentem trahunt.
12
Christology as organically coexisting with, and asymptotically dissolving in, the

dominant theological structures, I will attempt here to envision Aphrahat’s Christology

as an unsublatable intellectual singularity, embedded in a dynamic relationship—one

involving both resistance and assimilation—to the trahentia fata of dogmatic

development.

1.4. “KEINE SYSTEMATISCHE CHRISTOLOGIE”

This brief study is not conceived as a systematic treatent of Aphrahat’s

Christology—and this for two reasons. First, such a study would exceed both the

confines of the genre of the present work and, more importantly, the limits of its

author’s competence. Peter Bruns’ Das Christusbild Aphrahats37, though—after nearly

twenty years—a somewhat dated book, remains a hardly matchable endeavor in this

regard.

The second reason is that, to put it in Bruns’ words, when dealing with Aphrahat

“[d]er Leser darf […] keine systematische Christologie erwarten”38. The explanation for

this fact, however, must not be provided on essentialist grounds—namely, Aphrahat’s

purportedly being a Semite, unable to reason according to Hellenistic categories. As a

matter of fact, Aphrahat did share, as I shall attempt to show, some ideas that can be

considered part of the philosophical koine of the Hellenistic world. Nevertheless, he

does not seem to share the interest in the kind of theological speculation in which all

37
BRUNS 1990. On Bruns’s book cfr. the long and appreciative review of CAMPLANI 1992 as well as that, in
some points critical, of DRIJVERS 1994.
38
BRUNS 1990, 87.
13
the protagonists of the Trinitarian controversy engaged. Rather than being interested

in the definition of the essence of Christ—whether with a more zetetic attitude, like the

earliest Alexandrian Christian thinkers, or, as the theologians partaking in the debates

over the homoousios, with the purpose of the dogmatic identification of the truth—,

Aphrahat nurtures an acute interest in Christ’s manifesting himself to the humankind.

Arguably, this favoring of the oikonomia over the theologia has something to do with

the emphasis on soteriology that a community such as that of the bnay qyāmā, to which

Aphrahat had at least strong ties39, must have displayed. Chapter 3 of this work

represents my attempt to approach Aphrahat’s interest in Christ’s ways of revealing

himself to the world. I will investigate this topic through a series of samplings into

relevant texts revolving around the connection between Adam and Christ40.

Chapter 2 constitutes an aside about the so-called Eunomian interpolation in

Pseudoclementine Recognitions. The presence of this chapter can be understood in the

light of the purpose, expressed in the title of this thesis, of pursuing a contextual

39
For BARNES 1999, 305 Aphrahat “evidently belonged to the qyama”. More caution shows PIERRE 1988, 40.
On the institution of the bnay qyāmā in Aphrahat cfr. BROCK 1973, 10-11; PIERRE 1988, 93-111; and GRIFFITH
1995, 235-236.238. On Aphrahat’s ascetic ideal cfr. BRUNS 1990, 87-92; and LEHTO 2006.
40
I had originally designed to include in this study an exploration of the connections between Aphrahat’s
Christology and the dimension of the ascetic practice preached and taken up by the Persian Sage.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to expand on this topic in the present work. For my development of
the idea of a strong connection between Christological beliefs and asceticism the reading of DAVIS 2008
has been important (for an exposition of the main lines of the author’s way of reading Coptic
Christologies cfr. ibid., v-vii). However, my interest, unlike Davis’s, lies less in the liturgical, ritual, and
visual enactment of the theological belief, and more in the relationship between the latter (in particular,
in the case of Aphrahat, as it relates to the conception of the Spirit) and the community’s peculiar
understanding of salvation. I do hope to be soon able to write an essay showing “wie bedeutsam bei
Aphrahat die Pneumatologie für die anthropologischen und soteriologischen Vorstellung ist” (DRECOLL et
HAUSSCHILD 2004, 189, n. 150).
14
understanding of Aphrahat’s Christological views, by setting them against the backdrop

of the turmoil triggered, within the Church(es) of Syria, by Trinitarian controversies.

The first scholar to argue for a Syriac origin of the Recognitions was, in 1890, J. Langen,

followed by H. Waitz41 (who thought more specifically of Antioch), O. Cullman42, and G.

Strecker43 (who suggested Palestine as an alternate possibility).

Admittedly, justifying with a generic reference to the common backcloth of “Syriac

Christianity” the drawing of historical connections between disparate texts, possibly

penned in far-apart centers, may be imprudent. As L. Van Rompay wrote, “[w]hile

Edessa, the capital of Osrhoene, is often seen as its main centre, the geographical area

of Syriac Christianity in its heyday was quite vast, extending from the hinterland of the

Hellenized city of Antioch in the west to the political heartland of the Persian Sasanids,

around Seleucia-Ctesiphon, in the east”44. Moreover, a definite answer about the place

of composition of the Recognitions—let alone about that of Aphrahat’s Demonstrations45—

is far from being reached.

However, the common geographical origin of one of the manuscripts preserving

Aphrahat’s Demonstrations (B, copied in Edessa in September 474)46 and of the earliest of

41
Cfr. WAITZ 1904, 372. Cit. in JONES 1982, 78.
42
Cfr. CULLMAN 1930, 164. Cit. in JONES 1982, 78.
43
Cfr. STRECKER 1981, 270. Cit. in JONES 1982, 78.
44
VAN ROMPAY 2008, 366.
45
Although of course we know that Aphrahat writes, “ipso teste, sub imperio Saporis II” (ORTIZ DE URBINA
1965, 47).
46
Ms. London, British Library, Add. 17, 182, ff. 1-99. This ms. only contains the first 10 Demonstrations,
whereas the remaining 13 are carried by the ms. attached to it, B (Ms. London, British Library, Add. 17,
182, ff. 100-175), dated AD 510. The other two mss. are A (Ms. London, British Library, Add. 14, 619),
datable in the 6th century and containing all the 23 Demonstrations; and the much later C (Ms. London,
15
the two transmitting the Syriac Pseudoclementines (copied, again in the Blessed City, in

November 411), notwithstanding the chronological gap between them, seems to

indicate that these texts circulated far beyond the walls of the cities where they (or

their translations) had been composed—even across the Sassanid-Roman border. This is

not to suggest that Aphrahat could read the sources of the final redactor of the

Recognitions, or that the latter could have, available in front of him, the Demonstrations

of the Persian Sage, but rather that there is no need to assume cultural segregation

among different Syriac dioceses. Furthermore, if the hypothesis of the Heteroousian

use of the Pseudoclementine novel that will be proposed in Chapter 2 is correct, it

shows that at least by the ’70 of the fourth century the Trinitarian controversy was

lively in Osrhoene47, a region half-way between Antioch, city much involved in post-

British Library, Orient. 1, 017, f. 159r-170r), dated AD 1364 and only containing part of Dem. 23. Fol. 7 of
ms. B, being of a different, ninth-century hand, is identified as B*. Cfr. PIERRE 1988, 11; WRIGHT 1871, 403a-
404a (cit. in VAN ROMPAY 2008, 374).
47
Edessa, one of the most important centers of Osrhoene, was represented at Nicaea (cfr. SEGAL 1970; on
the Eastern representation at Nicaea cfr. also SUTHERLAND WALLACE-HADRILL 1982, 165-166). An Edessene
bishop is in fact known to all the lists of subscribers of the proceedings of the Council of Nicaea. His
name—traditionally rendered by scholars as Aithallaha—is attested in sometimes notably different ways
in the lists. Since, to the best of my knowledge, no effort has been made so far to collect all the different
attestations of Aithallaha’s name together, I will provide here such an inventory (limiting myself to
Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Coptic sources—thus excluding Arabic and Armenian ones). I will include in
brackets the reference to the manuscripts, when needed. Our bishop is known in Latin sources (cfr.
CUNTZ, GELZER et HILGENFELD 1898, 20-21) as Ethilaos Edesenus (ABDEF); Ethlaos Edesenus (C); Aetilas
Edeasenus [sic] (G); Aechilaas Edesenus (H); Aetholus Edisinus (I); Aetilaus Adesenus (KM); Etilaus
Edesenus (L); Eutalius Edesenus (N); Aetilaus Aedessenus (O); Ethilaus Aedesenus (P); Aetholaus Edissae
(Q); Aetholaus Edesenus (R); Aetholaus Aedessae (STU); Aethelus Aedissa [sic] (X); Aetholus Edissa [sic]
(Y); and Anatholius Edissa [sic] (Z). In the Greek list of Theodorus Anagnostes he is known as Ἀειθαλᾶς
Ἐδεσῶν (cfr. ibid., p. 64 [nr. 78]), whereas the Vatican Codex has him as Ἀείφιλος Ἐδέσσης (cfr. ibid., p. 74
[nr. 173]). In the Coptic catalog he is called eqalas H$n edessa (cfr. ibid., 84 [nr. 84 in the Latin
translation]), and in the Syriac list of the Monastery of Scetis (BL, Add. 14258, ff. 18a-25a; cfr. WRIGHT 1870-
1872, II, 1030-33; cit. in CUNTZ, GELZER et HILGENFELD 1898, xxiii) ‫( ܐܝܬܝܠܗܐ ܕܐܘܪܗܝ‬cfr. ibid., 102 [nr. 78])
Surprisingly, in ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha’s Syriac inventory of Nicene bishops (Nomocanon 1, 1, 5; on this list
16
Nicene Christological debates, and Nisibis, the town in north-eastern Mesopotamia

whose bishop Jacob appears as one of the signatories of the canons of Nicaea48, and

where Ephrem began his activity of anti-heretical (including anti-Arian) writer.

1.5. A DYNAMIC ENGAGEMENT

The canons of Nicaea were not officially introduced among the Christians of Persia

until the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon of 41049, when they were ratified on the

initiative of Marutha of Maypherqaṭ50. Walters made the important observation that

“[w]hether or not it can be proven that leaders in the Oriental churches knew of the

cfr. CUNTZ, GELZER et HILGENFELD 1898, xxiv) he is listed as ‫( ܥܒܫܠܡܐ ܕܐܘܪܗܝ‬cfr. ibid., 126 [nr. 78]). Curiously,
the Chronicum Edessenum, which cites both the existence of Aithallaha and the gathering of the Council of
Nicaea, makes no mention of the former’s participation in the Council: “XIII. Im Jahre 635 (324) wurde
der Kirchhof (κοιμητήριον) von Orhâi gebaut, in den Tagen des Bischofs Aitallaha, ein Jahr von der
grossen Synode in Nicaea”; “XIV. Im Jahre 636 (325) wurde Aitallaha Bischof in Orhâi; er baute den
Kirchhof (κοιμητήριον) und die Ostseite der Kirche”; “XV. In dem nachfolgenden Jahre versammelte sich
zu Nicaea die Synode von 318 Bischöfen” (HALLIER 1892, 94-95). A letter about the Nicene faith sent by
Aithallaha to the Persians is preserved only in Armenian translation (THOROSSIAN 1942; German
translation: BRUNS 1993; both cit. in POSSEKEL 1999, 24, n, 89). For a study of its theological outlook cfr.
BRUNS 1992 (cit. ibidem). For a general account of the situation of the city of Edessa in the fourth century
cfr. POSSEKEL 1999, 24-26, besides the classical SEGAL 1970, 110 seq.
48
I will offer here for Jacob of Nisibis the same inventory provided in n. 48 for the Edessene bishop. Jacob
is known to Latin lists (cfr. CUNTZ, GELZER et HILGENFELD 1898, 20-21) as Iacobus Pesthebius (AE); Iacobus
Pertebios [sic] (BD); Iacobus Pestehebios (C); Iacobus Pestebios (F); Iacobus Nibiensis [sic] (GI); Iacobus
Nisibiensis (HLNOPQRSTU); Iacobus Nubiensis [sic!] (K); Iacobus Nisipiensis (M); Iacobus Nisibi (XY); and
Iacobus Nezibi (Z). In Theodorus the Lector’s catalog he is found as Ἰάκωβος Νισίβιος (cfr. ibid., 64 [nr.
79]), whereas he is (excepto errore) absent from the Vatican list (cfr. ibid., 71-75). In the Coptic listing (cfr.
ibid., 84 [nr. 85 in the Latin translation]) he is Iakwbos H$n sirinos (the editor, ibid. 84, n. 2, notes:
“sirinos nomen ex <ni>sibinos corruptum est”. In Syriac he is, as expected, ‫ ܝܥܩܘܒ ܕܢܨܝܒܝܢ‬both in the
list of the Monastery of Nitria (cfr. ibid., 102 [nr. 79]) and in that of ʿAbdishoʿ of Nisibis (cfr. ibid., 126 [nr.
79]).
49
Cfr. ORTIZ DE URBINA 1947, 102. As a proof of the delay with which news got to Syria, Ortiz de Urbina
(ibid.) mentions the fact that in Dem. 19, composed in 344, Aphrahat is not abreast of the solemn
dedication of the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, occurred seven years before.
50
On this council cfr. CHABOT 1902, 259 and GRIBOMONT 1977 (both cit. in WALTERS 2010, 109, n. 18).
17
Council’s decisions before 410 AD, the fact that the Council’s decisions were accepted at

the Synod of Isaac demonstrates that their acceptance was a process that required

some ‘official’ action”51. In my opinion, however, this fact is more likely to represent a

hint to the controversiality of the Nicene creed among the Christians of Persia than to

the symbol’s complete lack of penetration among those communities.

This contentiousness may have been related both to the presence of Christians

taking an anti-Nicene stand on the Trinitarian issues (such as the “Arians” to whose

refutation Ephrem attended since his Nisibene period) and to that of Christians of

different orientations, who were not part of this debate. These Christians may have

been interested in stressing other aspects of the Christian faith—in the case of

Aphrahat, as already mentioned and as we shall see in greater detail in Chapter 3, the

forms of Christ’s manifesting himself to the world.

The question, thus, ceases to be whether Aphrahat knew or knew not the contents

of the symbol of Nicaea (there is no evidence to affirm that he did52), but rather whether

from his failure to adopt the discourse typical of any of the parties of the Trinitarian

controversy it must automatically be concluded that he was speaking from a position of

cultural seclusion, incognizant of the debates going on in Syriac Christianity53. This

assumption appears to me to betray a reliance of some sort on the evolutionistic

understanding of the development of Christian thought denounced before, worried of

51
WALTERS 2010, 109, n. 18.
52
At the same time, of course, the denial of such knowledge reposes on an argumentum e silentio.
53
If an analogy can be drawn (of course mutatis mutandis), the publication of the relatively traditional
novel La nausée in 1938 should not necessarily induce us to believe that J.-P. Sartre had never heard of A.
Breton’s Manifeste du surréalism, published in 1924.
18
granting Aphrahat, an author considered orthodox in modern times, capability of

insight into the triumphant dogmatic logic. Since the presence of such an insight is

hard to prove on textual basis, the last resort is to exculpate the Persian Sage on the

ground of geographical segregation—an equivalent of chronological precedence, to

which in this case it is impossible to appeal. I will try to exit this logic by suggesting to

understand Aphrahat’s adoption of a certain philosophical scheme, found in one of the

texts sampled, as a form of engagement, surely in need of further qualification54, with

this convulsed theological environment, and as a way chosen by the Persian Sage to

explain55 the tradition of faith of which he was an exponent in culturally synthetic

terms.

54
Is this engagement reactive? How does it relate to the characterization of many of the Demonstrations,
and in particular of Dem. 17, as a defense from the attacks of the Jews?
55
I am indebted to Albert McClure for the use of the language of “self-explanation”.
19
 2. UNDOING HERESY. THE “EUNOMIAN INTERPOLATION” IN

THE SYRIAC VERSION OF PSEUDOCLEMENTINE RECOGNITIONS

2.1. THE SYRIAC RECOGNITIONS AND THE “EUNOMIAN INTERPOLATION”

The Syriac version1 of the Pseudoclementine corpus2 contains sections

corresponding to the first three books and part of the fourth book of the Recognitions [=

1
As far as the time of composition of the translation is concerned, JONES 1992, 239 wrote that the
presence of several scribal errors seems to point to a dating considerably earlier than 411. Also LAGARDE
1884, 52, n. ** affirmed that the text appears to have passed under several hands before being copied in
411. JONES 1992, 242 initially suggested that the translation may have been produced in the School of the
Persians, under Qiyore of Edessa, around the year 380. In the light of the conclusions of LANGE 2008 about
fifth-century additions to Ephrem’s Commentarii in Diatessaron, we may need to verify anew the setting of
373 (Ephrem’s death) as terminus ante quem for the final redaction of SR (JONES 1998, 437-438) based on the
quotations contained in Ephrem’s Commentarii (21.5 cites RS 1.41.3 verbatim, and 16.22 seems to
presuppose R 1.54.2). As for the identification of the translator(s), P. de Lagarde (PÖLCHER 1959, 29-30)
cautiously manifested his impression that the Syriac translation of the Homilies [= SH] derived from a
different hand than SR’s. Also FRANKENBERG 1937, viii-ix asserted, with generic references to stylistic and
lexical evidence, that two different Syriac translators must have been at work—one for H (who would
have taken greater freedom with the original Greek) and one for R. Frankenberg’s judgment was
repeated by SCHWARTZ 1932, 153 and IRMSCHER 1965, 535, whereas VÖÖBUS 1950, col. 707 motivated his
persuasion of the existence of two different translators for SH and SR with the respective recurring, for
Gospel’s quotations, to the Vetus Syra and to a textual typology that can be traced back to the Peshitta.
JONES 1992, 241 considered unconvincing Vööbus’s remarks, which had also been rejected by previous
scholars (BLACK 1952 and KERSCHENSTEINER 1970), and instead demonstrated the existence of two different
translators by availing himself of the concordances of the Pseudoclementines realized by STRECKER 1989. In
fact, Jones highlighted the different—and, within each text, almost entirely consistent—rendering of the
verbs depending on δύναμαι (‫ ܫܟܚ‬in Syriac) in SH and SR: while we find an infinitive preceded by a ‫ ܠ‬in
SH, a conjugated verb is employed in SR.
2
The Pseudoclementines are a group of Christian writings pseudo-epigraphically attributed to Clement,
bishop of Rome. In them we read about his journeys with Peter the apostle, their disputations with
Simon Magus, and Clement’s serendipitous reunion with his long-lost family members, according to the
Hellenistic literary topos of the agnitio. The final redaction of the Greek text, whose sources’ origin spans
over three centuries, is generally considered to have occurred in Syria in the fourth century (cfr. UHLHORN
1854, 381–429).
20
R]3, and to almost five books of the Homilies4. The text is attested by two independent

manuscripts, the first of which is the earliest dated Syriac one, completed in Edessa in

November 4115.

R was translated into Latin by Rufinus of Aquileia after 397. St. Jones suggested that

the Syriac version of R [= SR] could be used alongside Rufinus’ translation to

reconstruct the now-lost corresponding sections of the original Greek text [= *GR]6.

Since R 3.2-11 is missing in part of the manuscript tradition, scholarship has come to

identify this section with the dissertations concerning “the unbegotten God and the

begotten” (de ingenito deo genitoque) that Rufinus, in the Prologue to his translation,

affirmed he had preferred to leave out7. This exclusion, justified by Rufinus with his

own failure to understand this section, is probably due to the marked anti-Nicene

nature of its theological exposition, attributed to Peter. The majority of scholars agree

upon the interpolated nature of these chapters, which were later translated into Latin

by a different hand, but their doctrinal character has long been debated. Some,

following the account offered by Rufinus in De adulteratione librorum Origenis, maintain

3
Recognitiones 1-4.1.4.
4
Homiliae 10-12.24; 13-14.12.
5
London, British Library, Add. 12, 150. The Pseudoclementines occupy the first 72 folios. Copied (cfr. fol.
255r) by a certain Jacob, it contains a martyrologium and Syriac translations of Titus of Bostra’s Contra
Manichaeos and of Eusebius of Caesarea’s De theophania, De martyribus Palestinae and Encomium martyrum.
The second Syriac ms. (London, British Library, Add. 14, 609) is dated by WRIGHT 1872, 1089 and
BAUMSTARK 1902, 38 (as well as 1922, 68, n. 4) to the year 587; also [CURETON] 1845, 65 assigns it to the sixth
century. (Other scholars considered it to be as late as the ninth century: so BICKELL 1871, 46; FRANKENBERG
1937, vii; LAGARDE 1861, v).
6
JONES 1995, 46.
7
Prologus, 10-11: “Sunt autem et quaedam in utroque corpore de ingenito deo genitoque disserta et de
aliis nonnullis, quae, ut nihil amplius dicam, excesserunt intelligentiam nostram. Haec ergo ego,
tamquam quae supra vires meas essent, aliis reservare malui quam minus plena proferre”.
21
that the text has a Eunomian origin, whereas others contend that evidence does not

allow for assigning to it more than a simply “Arian” content8.

Over the next pages, I will provide my own translation9 of the Syriac and Latin

versions of the second half of the interpolation, which presents the greatest

Christological interest. Then I will move on to introduce my hypothesis about the

Syriac translation.

2.2. TRANSLATION OF THE CHRISTOLOGICAL SECTION (R 3.7.4-3.11.12)

SYRIAC LATIN
3.7.4. He is, then, the being 3.7.4. That which is unbegotten
that has not come into (ingenitum) must not be
existence (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬, honored with a sole name: He
and it is not by a simple is, indeed, also without
name [only] that He is beginning. Now, this [reality]
honored. For, He is also without beginning and
without beginning. That one unbegotten (ingenitum) is God,
without beginning and that which [reality] by the sole
being that has not come into notion of those who have been
existence (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬, made (facta) is announced
who is God, is glorified by [only], whereas it is [fully]

8
Cfr. JONES 1982, 77 (and more generally, for the question of the “Eunomian interpolation”, 76-79). It
could prove useful to verify the debate about the theological views displayed by this interpolation in the
light of recent scholarly acquisitions about the absence of any significant trait d’union, outside of the
heresiological discourse, between the so-called “Arians” and the Heteroousians (traditionally named
“radical Arians” or “Anomœans”). Lewis Ayres warns against the tendency to read ancient theological
debates through heresiological labels inherent in the texts. These labels, Ayres explains, “enabled early
theologians and ecclesiastical historians to portray theologians to whom they were opposed as distinct
and coherent groups, and they enabled writers to tar enemies with the name of a figure already in
disrepute” (AYRES 2004, 2). On the terminological question of “Arianism” cfr. HANSON 1988, xvii-xviii.
9
Throughout this paper I will be quoting from my translation of the Syriac and the Latin versions of
these chapters, in parallel columns. A translation in a modern language of the Syriac version has never
appeared (for a questionable Greek retroversion cfr. FRANKENBERG 1937; on the general limits of
Frankenberg’s edition and the indispensability of Lagarde’s cfr. JONES 1982, 5, n. 10). The Latin, instead,
has been translated multiple times (for a recent, reliable French translation, see GEOLTRAIN- KAESTLI 2005),
but R 3.2-11 has always been left out of the translation.
22
 those who have come to understood by Him.
existence [scil. the creatures]
(‫)ܗܘܝܐ‬ ̈ only within the limits
of [His] fame [scil. of the
notion they have of Him],
while by Himself He is [fully]
understood.
3.7.5. For, He does not find 3.7.5. [God] will not find,
anything of Himself which indeed, that something of
existed previously, nor Himself has existed previously,
anything that is going to [nor] does He find that
come into existence something of Himself has come
afterwards, so that He would into existence afterwards, since
[purportedly] see Himself in it is the case that He is without
the fact that He is, and that beginning.
He is without beginning10.
3.7.6. For, such is the inquiry 3.7.6. Rather, such is the inquiry
and the investigation [characteristic] of those who
[characteristic] of those who have been made [scil. creatures]
have come into existence (quae facta sunt), because that
[scil. creatures] (‫)ܗܘܝܐ‬.̈ For, which is ineffable [scil. God]
because of this reason, as for (ineffabile) does not have, for
His concealment (‫)ܟܣܝܘܬܐ‬, [His] investigation about
namely the fact that He Himself, a space to foresee what
exists and is not spoken of, He was before He was: indeed,
He has no room for the curiosity about His own
investigation to previously essence is not made second by
inquire into His existence the one who is [scil. by the fact
[lit.: into the fact that He that He is] (non secundatur ab eo
exists]. For, for Him the fact qui est).
that He exists is not
subsequent to the fact that
He inquires into His
existence [lit.: into the fact
that He exists].
3.7.7. Therefore, [God] knows 3.7.7. Therefore, the one who
Himself, and does not does not interrogate Himself on
continue to inquire into His own regard [scil. God] knows
Himself. Himself.
3.7.8. But we said these 3.7.8. But we said indeed these

10
I must here declare, with Frankenberg (FRANKENBERG 1937, 163): “Die Übersetzung ist nicht sicher”. For
this sentence Frankenberg proposes the following Greek retroversion: οὐ γὰρ εὑρήσει ἑαυτοῦ τι μὲν
προυπάρχον, ἄλλο δέ τι μεταγενόμενον τοῦ ὁρᾶν ἑαυτὸν καθ’ ὅ ἔστι καὶ καθ’ ὅ ἄναρχός ἐστιν. He also
reports Schaeder’s translation: οὐ γὰρ εὑρήσει ἑαυτοῦ τι μὲν προυπάρχον∙ τὸ δὲ ἄλλο ὕστερον γενόμενον
<ὁρᾷ ἑαυτὸν> ὁρῶν καθ’ ὅ ἔστι καὶ καθ’ ὅ ἄναρχός ἐστιν.
23
 things even beyond that things even more [extensively]
which is just and than it is opportune: that which
appropriate. For, it is did not come to being
preferable for that being (ingenitum), in fact, loves to be
that has not come into honored only with silence11.
existence (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬
to be honored only in
stillness and silence.
3.7.9. You [pl.] learned then 3.7.9. You [pl.] learned then
without danger from us, in without danger, insofar as we
the measure of our could understand, that this
possibility, that that substance (substantia) [is]
substance (12‫)ܩܢܘܡܐ‬ is without beginning.
without beginning.
3.8.1. Thus, that God who is 3.8.1. The one, then, who did
without beginning begot (‫)ܝܠܕ‬ not begin to be, the afore-
His first-begotten Son ( ‫ܒܪܐ‬ mentioned God, begot (genuit)
‫ )ܒܘܟܪܐ‬before all creatures the first-begotten (primogenitus)
as it behooves God: [while of all the creation as it
remaining] unaltered, behooved God: not altering
unchanged, undivided, not Himself, not converting
flowing and not lacking Himself, not dividing Himself,
anything. not flowing, not extending
anything.
3.8.2. For, you [pl.] 3.8.2. Remember [pl.], indeed,
remember how these that these are the passions of
passions of the body are the bodies, which we avoided to
those that we avoided to attribute also to the soul,
attribute also to the soul, because of the fear that
since we feared that, after immortality might be taken
they would be attributed [to away from it by these
it], its immortality would be attributes.
voided.

11
Seu: “in silence”.
12
‫( ܩܢܘܡܐ‬with the meaning of “substance”, “particular property”, even “person”) is one of the four terms
constituting the technical theological vocabulary used in Ephrem’s Sermones de fide to describe
Trinitarian relations (LANGE 2005, 70-75, 100-103). The other three words are ‫“( ܐܝܬܝܐ‬self-existing
being”), for whose use in our text cfr. infra; ‫“( ܟܝܢܐ‬nature”, “kind of being”), absent from SR 3.7.4-3.11.12;
and ‫“( ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬essence [of the Father]”). In the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron, traditionally
attributed to Ephrem, these three terms, sometimes assuming slightly different meanings, are
accompanied by ‫“( ܒܪ ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬coessential” or even ὁμοούσιος), not found in our text. It must be noticed
how the term ‫ ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬has in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron the twofold sense of “form of
existence” (similar to that of ‫ )ܟܝܢܐ‬and “essence [of the Father]” (ibid., 73), whereas in the Sermones de fide
its meaning is restricted to the latter (ibid., 101). Cfr. infra, n. 72.
24
 3.8.3. God, then, begot (genuit)
that which we13 learned to call
also ‘creation’ (factura). To call
then this very [reality]
‘begetting’ (genitura) and
‘creation’ (factura) and other
such terms allows to consider a
model of begetter (genitor) that
which happens to be shapeless
(sine schemate).
3.8.4. By those, in fact, who
have a difference of shapes
(schemata) it is necessary to
distinguish a generation
(genitura) and a creation
(factura).
3.8.5.a. In the very condition 3.8.5.a. God, therefore, begot
of [His] being ( ‫ܒܗܝ‬ ̇ ̇
‫ܒܗ‬ (genuit) while remaining [the
‫)ܕܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬, therefore, did God same] (manendo), not suffering
beget (‫ )ܝܠܕ‬while being [scil. any division.
remaining the same], and it
is not the case that He
suffered any division.
3.8.5.b. That which is [scil. that
which comes to existence
through this begetting, namely
the Son] is not more honorable
than God and than this
unbegotten [that God is]
(ingenitus/ingenitum), because
[God] is not like the begotten
(genitum).
3.8.6. For, in His willing 3.8.6. In fact, in [His] willing
(‫)ܨܒܐ‬, His power (14‫)ܚܝܐܠ‬ (volens) He did not have [His]
was not found lame toward power lazy for [the carrying out
His will (‫)ܨܒܝܢܐ‬, neither did of] that which He wanted,
His power (‫ )ܚܝܐܠ‬outdo the neither did [His] power exceed
goal of His will (‫)ܨܒܝܢܐ‬, but [His] will (voluntas), but rather,
rather, in agreement, as He according to measure, [a being]

13
Seu: “God, then, begot (genuit), that [scil. the fact that He begot] which we... ”.
14
Frankenberg considers ‫ ܚܝܐܠ‬the translation of ἰσχύς. I suggest to see in it an attempt to render the
Greek ἐνέργεια, a term, along with βουλή (the ‫ ܨܒܝܢܐ‬of SR), on which Eunomius insisted in his Apologiα,
distinguishing both from the essence of the divinity. The perfect conformity of the Son to the intents of
his begetter, instead, was a widespread theme, not confined to the Heteroousian speculation—it is found,
e.g., in Basil of Ancyra (Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion, 73, 19).
25
 wanted (‫)ܨܒܐ‬, thus did He such as He wanted (voluit) did
beget (‫ )ܝܠܕ‬too, while He beget (genuit) too, while
remaining [the same], in the remaining [the same] (manendo)
̇
condition of [His] being ( ‫ܒܗܝ‬ [and] not suffering (patiendo).
‫)ܕܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬ and without
̇
suffering (‫)ܘܐܠ ܗܘܐ ܒܗܝ ܕܚܫ‬.
3.8.7. For, if the bodies, 3.8.7. In fact, if the bodies that
which obey the necessity of serve under the necessity of
thickness, produce the thickness make shadows exist,
existence (‫)ܩܘܝܡܐ‬ of how much more would we
shadows, how much more concede that the only-begotten
will we concede to that (unigenitus / unigenitum) is
power (‫)ܚܝܐܠ‬, [namely to] subsequent (subsequentem) to
the being that has not come the unbegotten power (ingenita
into existence ( ‫ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ‬ virtus), since [God’s] will
‫)ܗܘܐ‬, that that only- precedes (voluntate
begotten (‫ )ܝܚܝܕܐ‬which [is] praecedente)?
from it comes along (‫)ܢܩܝܦ‬
with him?
3.8.8. As, then, the bodies are
pre-known by means of the
shadows, thus, and even more,
is pre-known also the
unbegotten substance [by
means of] the begotten [one],
even if [the latter] received the
fact that it was from the one
who was [scil. the unbegotten
God].
3.8.9. Therefore, then, [the 3.8.9. Therefore [the Son] is
Son] is truthfully [and] indeed appropriately called
rightly called ‘begetting’ ‘begotten’ (genitura), ‘product’
(‫)ܝܠܕܐ‬: because, in his (factura) and ‘creature’
substance (‫)ܩܢܘܡܐ‬, he is not (creatura), because, as for the
Father (‫)ܐܒܐ‬. substance (substantia), he is not
an unbegotten [reality]
(ingenitum).
3.8.10. I remember that 3.8.10. I remember well that
Simon criticized the fact that Simon accused us of blasphemy
we said that Christ is the Son because we would say Christ
of God, and accused us of ‘Son of God’, as though [we
blasphemy15 [saying]: ‘For, were] equating God to men and
you [pl.] equate God to men plants. But you [pl.] hasten to
and plants’. But you [pl.] learn willingly.

15
Seu: “and he said a blasphemy about us” (less likely).
26
 hasten to learn with all
yourselves.
3.9.4. It being the case that the
unbegotten (ingenitus) God is
inviolable by itself, He has
preserved the operation
virginally (virginaliter) by [His]
will (voluntate). That which,
instead, is not unbegotten
(ingenitum) cannot be by itself
virgin (virgo). In fact, it [scil. the
Son] was created (factus est)
induced, so to say, under the
effect of the begetter (genitor)
and creator (factor).
3.9.5.a. Be it, then, known to 3.9.5.a. Be it understood,
you [pl.] that, as it behooved though, how it behooved God to
God, [He] begot (‫ )ܝܠܕ‬His beget (generare) an only-
only-begotten (‫ )ܝܚܝܕܝܐ‬and begotten
first-begotten (‫)ܒܪܐ ܒܘܟܪܐ‬ (unigenitus/unigenitum) and
before all creatures. first-begotten
(primogenitus/primogenitum) of
all the creation,
3.9.5.b. but not as if [He begot
him] from something: this [scil.
being begotten from
something], in fact, is the
serfdom of the animate and
inanimate beings.
3.9.6. For, it is not the case 3.9.6. But He himself did not
that He [scil. God] proceeded beget something of Himself by
to the making of Himself and proceeding to the operation; in
begot Himself. For, He would fact, produced16 within himself,
have not remained He would not remain inviolable
impassible and unharmed if and impassible.
He had done this within
Himself.
3.9.7. For, these things are 3.9.7. These things, [namely] to
impious, [namely] that one suspect of the unbegotten, are,
thinks about that being that instead, full of impiety; truly,
has not come into existence the sons of the impious are in
(‫ )ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬like these danger when, thinking they
things [scil. in such a way]. piously understand, they
For, those impious are in produce a great blasphemy
danger who schemed as towards the unbegotten,

16
Seu: “sacrificed”.
27
 though it were right, and [in deeming Him androgynous. I
reality] blaspheme remember well the one who
immoderately against the admonished us, brethren.
being [that has not come
into existence] (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ‬, [by
saying] that it is
androgynous. I remember
that I admonished you [pl.],
my brethren, about this, too.
3.10.1. God, then, begot (‫)ܝܠܕ‬ 3.10.1. God, then, begot (genuit),
while being [scil. remaining remaining [the same]
the same] (‫)ܒܗܝ ܕܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬, as it (manendo), [His] will preceding
was foresaid. Therefore, [the [the Son’s] (voluntate
Son] has been truthfully praecedente)18, like it was
called ‘only-begotten’ foresaid. Therefore, [the Son] is
(‫—)ܝܚܝܕܝܐ‬his essence truthfully called ‘only-begotten’
17
( ‫ )ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬is in fact from (unigenitus)—he has, in fact,
the being [that has not come from the unbegotten
into existence] (‫—)ܐܝܬܝܐ‬and (ingenitus/ingenitum) the fact
has been truthfully called that he is—and is truthfully
‘Son’ (‫—)ܒܪܐ‬he was in fact called ‘Son’ (filius)—he was born
begotten (‫ )ܐܬܝܠܕ‬by the (natus est), in fact, from the
being that has not come into unborn (innatus/innatum).
existence (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬.
3.10.2. Soothe, then, humbly 3.10.2. Soothe, nevertheless,
and gradually that harmful willingly, slowly, and
shamelessness of those who mitigating, the harmful dispute
dare to distinguish that of those who dare to say that
being [that has not come the uncreated
into existence] (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ‬ (infectus/infectum) differs for the
solely by means of the name sole name from the created
of ‘being’ [that has come into (factus/factum), and to affirm
existence (applied to the that that which was
Son)] (‫)ܗܘܝܐ‬, and, for that distinguished against [scil.
being [that has come into from] the unborn (innatum)
existence, scil. the Son] through the begetting (genite)
(‫)ܗܘܝܐ‬, which distinguishes is, as to the substance
itself with an opposition of (substantia), unbegotten
name, boast around with the (ingenitus/ingenitum).
substance (‫ )ܩܢܘܡܐ‬of the

17
Unlike in §§ 3.10.4 and 3.11.3, where ‫ ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬signifies the uncreated essence of the Father, in this case
the word simply means the “form of existence” of someone (specifically, the Son). For the twofold
meaning of the term in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron (yet not in Ephrem’s Sermones de fide,
where only the sense of “essence [of the Father]” is attested) cfr. supra, n. 67.
18
Seu: “[His] will coming forth”.
28
 being that has not come into
existence (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬.
3.10.3. <And, if> one says so 3.10.3. Since, if one says this,
[scil. that the distinction certainly that which is said is
between the being that has not, while that which is is not
not come into existence and said.
the being that has come into
existence is only a nominal
one, and they share the same
substance], that one [scil.
God] is called [with the name
of] something that He is not
(‫)ܐܠ ܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬, and that [same]
one is not called [with the
name of] something that is
[scil. that is such that has not
come into existence]
(‫)ܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬.
3.10.4. For, [God] is from the 3.10.4. [God] is truly an
essence [that has not come uncreated [reality] (infectum) as
into existence] (19‫ )ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬in to the substance (substantia),
His substance (‫)ܩܢܘܡܐ‬. If, whereas, if He is said [to be] a
instead, He is called ‘being created thing (factum), He is
[that has come into insulted, [being] called that
existence]’ (‫’)ܗܘܝܐ‬, He is which [in reality] He is not
insulted, because He is called (quod non est). On the other
something that He is not ( ‫ܐܠ‬ hand, above all, being it the
‫)ܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬. All the more, since case that God is by Himself
God is rational (‫ )ܡܠܝܐܠ‬from rational and by Himself without
Himself20, and from Himself21 beginning, how would it not be
without beginning, how is impossible—it is even more
not this [scil. calling Him impious [to suppose it
‘begotten’] impious? possible!]—
3.10.5. But, now, it is [not 3.10.5. that that which is by
only impious, but] also itself rational and by itself
impossible that one would unbegotten would not want to
say—being [He] a being [that be conjoined to itself rather
has not come into existence] than stand the order of duality,
(‫ )ܐܝܬܝܐ‬and being rational— [purportedly] considering the
that He, for Himself, does begetting more honorable than
not prefer to be in the unborn perseverance [in
agreement rather than fall the being where there is no

19
Cfr. supra, n. 14.
20
Seu: “by Himself”.
21
Seu: “by Himself”.
29
 into the disorder of duality, begetting]?
since He established that
begetting (‫ )ܝܠܕܐ‬is more
honorable than non-
begetting (‫)ܐܠ ܝܠܝܕܘܬܐ‬.
3.10.6. For, He is not one22, 3.10.6. [He], truly, is not one,
neither did He persuade neither did He order to Himself
Himself and said: ‘Sit at My saying: ‘Sit at My right, until I
right, until I will put your will put your enemies as a stool
enemies as a stool under under your feet’.
your feet’.
3.10.7.a. But neither does He 3.10.7.a. But neither does He
get into contentions within contend against Himself, as if
Himself, so that a part of something of Him would have
Him would remain a being remained unbegotten
[that has not come into (ingenitum), while something
existence] (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ‬, and [a [else of Himself] would have
part] of Him would be led undergone begetting (nativitas),
towards the being [that has
come into existence] (‫)ܗܘܝܐ‬.
3.10.7.b. [as if], indeed, [He] also
knew23 and pre-knew that
something of Himself is going
to be born without a begetting,
while something [else], instead,
is going to be begotten;
3.10.8. not at all failing to know,
evidently, that He was going to
be more honorable than
Himself, [and] that something
[within Himself] would have
certainly ordered, while
something [else within Himself]
would have received the
order—that which, for example,
was said:
3.10.9. ‘Sit at my right’, but also
that which regards the mission,
or that by expressing which He
would have [purportedly]
praised Himself, saying ‘And
God saw that they were good

22
While next paragraph seems to attack the ὁμοούσιος, this one seems to be directed against the
Sabellian ταυτοούσιος.
23
This passage appears rather obscure.
30
 things’, after that those things,
that it is the case that have
been created, were created in
six days by the only-begotten,
seeing [God] His immutable will
[translated into] the
fulfillments of the divine
operation of the only-begotten.
3.11.1. If, therefore, the
unbegotten did not become
Father or creator of Himself, as
we [just] showed [by listing the
contradictions imported by this
option], how, anyway, would
have the one who did not
receive begetting and creation,
not even as a name, created and
begotten something from
Himself?
3.11.2.a. Truly, He [scil. God]
does not have the fact of being
through these things [scil.
through His alleged self-
begetting].
3.11.2.b. It is a big impiety to 3.11.2.b. Now, to say these
say these things about God things about God [scil. that He
[scil. that He begot Himself]. begot Himself] is impious. That
For, this is clear, and all impassible, unborn substance of
those who can understand the unbegotten is, indeed,
even [only] a little confess manifest to those who can see
the substance (‫ )ܩܢܘܡܐ‬of the even [only] a little.
being that has not come into
existence (‫—)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬
that, in the begetting (‫)ܝܠܕܐ‬
that [occurs] from Him, does
not suffer.
3.11.3. And if, indeed, not 3.11.3. If, indeed, not even after
even after the begetting the begetting (nativitas) did the
(‫ )ܝܠܕܐ‬did they rise up substance (substantia) ever rise
against each other ( ‫ܩܡ‬ in contradiction (ad
‫ )ܕܠܘܩܒܠ‬in disagreement, dissensionem surrexit), even
[even] after having [being purportedly] divided
[purportedly] been divided because of this number—and He
in number—for, He is not the is not, in fact, ‘autopator’,
Father of Himself—, how namely father to itself—, how
would that being [that has would not rather like to remain
not come into existence] in the uncreated harmony
31
 (‫ )ܐܝܬܝܐ‬by His substance (innascibilis consensus) that
(‫ )ܩܢܘܡܐ‬not have preferred which was truly unbegotten
to remain in the harmony of (ingenitum) by substance
the essence [that has not (substantia), [once purportedly]
come into existence] divided in a duality (dualitas),
(24‫ )ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬and, by means of instead, by the begetting
begetting (‫)ܝܠܕܐ‬, would have (genitura)?
been counted as a duality
(‫?)ܬܪܝܢܘܬܐ‬
3.11.4. Of this foolishness is 3.11.4. And, truly, of this
mother the ignorance that incongruence is certainly
regards God, while its mother the ignorance about
cooperator and sister is that God; [its] cooperator and sister
carelessness [about] the is, instead, the carelessness
Spirit of Holiness, about the Holy Spirit.
3.11.5. that which is pawn 3.11.5. Now, the Holy Spirit,
and custody of those things pawn of the custody of those
that were given to us by our things that were given to us by
Lord—which [pawn] we the Lord—which [pawn] we
received not many days after received not many days after
his ascension. his ascension—,
3.11.6. That [scil. the Spirit of receives the fact of being from
Holiness] is the seal (‫)ܛܒܥܐ‬ the only-begotten
of the only-begotten (‫)ܝܚܝܕܝܐ‬ (unigenitus/unigenitum), [being]
and the exact resemblance the fullest declaration
(‫ )ܕܡܘܬܐ‬of his power, as well (declaratio) of his [scil. the Son’s]
as the only-begotten and power. 3.11.6. As the only-
first-begotten Son ( ‫ܒܪܐ‬ begotten and first-begotten
‫)ܝܚܝܕܝܐ ܘܒܘܟܪܐ‬, who is (unigenitus et primogenitus) of all
before anything, is the exact things is image (imago) of the
image (‫ )ܨܠܡܐ‬of the immutable25 unbegotten power
unaltered, of the power that (ingenita virtus)—that is, the
is (‫ ) ܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬and has not unique image (imago), that
come into existence ( ‫ܐܠ‬ remains spotless, by being seen
‫)ܗܘܐ‬, and provides with an offers the vision (visio) of the
exclusive and unaltered unbegotten
image (‫ )ܨܠܡܐ‬and a vision (ingenitus/ingenitum) to the
(‫ )ܚܙܬܐ‬of that being that has intelligible and to the sensible
not come into existence [beings]—;
(‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬, making
itself visible to the
intelligible and to the
sensible [beings] as well.

24
Cfr. supra, n. 72.
25
Seu: “immutable image of the…”.
32
 3.11.7. as, [again], someone
who, for example, wants to
show the sun or something else
to those who cannot see it by
themselves—let us assume that
those need to see the sun—,
moderating to the glances that
very necessity, hastens indeed
to show the sun through a
mirror, and does not make the
sun enter the mirror, pulling
[the sun] towards himself,
3.11.8. For, the being that 3.11.8. thus, likewise, the only-
has not come into existence begotten (unigenitus) himself
(‫ )ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬is not but certainly is not unbegotten
the entire power of the (ingenitus), but shows in himself
[very] being (‫ )ܐܝܬܝܐ‬in its all the power of the unbegotten
essence [that has not come (ingenitus/ingenitum), being
into existence] (26‫)ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬ [God] such and so big for
and in its godhood godhood (deitas).
(‫ ;)ܐܠܗܘܬܐ‬and this all shows
how it is [scil. it is such that
has not come into existence]
(‫)ܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬.
3.11.9. And [the Son] seemed 3.11.9. [The Son] was alleged [to
a being that has not come be] unbegotten (ingenitus) by
into existence ( ‫ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ‬ those who did not inquire
‫ )ܗܘܐ‬to those who do not diligently, while, as for [those]
inquire diligently, whereas, by which God’s fear precedes
as for those whose inquiry is the very inquiry, not only do
preceded by God’s fear, not they refuse to say anything like
only do they refrain from this, but they refrain from
saying so, but they refrain thinking [so] as well.
from thinking [so] as well.
3.11.10. Since, then, one is 3.11.10. Since, then, one is the
the being that has not come unbegotten (ingenitus) and one
into existence ( ‫ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ‬ is the begotten (genitus), the
‫)ܗܘܐ‬, and one is that true Holy Spirit (spiritus sanctus)
begetting (‫)ܝܠܕܐ‬, it is cannot be said ‘Son’ (filius) or
impossible that that Spirit of ‘first-begotten’ (primogenitus)—
Holiness (‫ )ܪܘܚܐ ܕܩܘܕܫܐ‬be it was in fact made by a made
called ‘Son’ (‫ )ܒܪܐ‬or ‘first- one (factus est enim per factum)—
begotten’ (‫)ܒܘܟܪܐ‬. It is ; it is, instead, considered below
instead considered, along (subconnumeratur) the Father

26
Cfr. supra, n. 18.
33
 with (‫ )ܥܡ‬the Father (‫)ܐܒܐ‬ (pater) and the Son (filius), as
and the Son (‫)ܒܪܐ‬, as first, perfect sign (signaculum)
adorned, first seal (‫ )ܛܒܥ‬of of the power of the second [scil.
the power of the second [scil. the Son].
the Son].
3.11.11. For, also, the Son 3.11.11. Moreover this one
(‫ )ܒܪܐ‬of the Father (‫)ܐܒܐ‬, himself [the Son], carrying in
His power (‫)ܚܝܐܠ‬, His image (imago), [endowed] with
likeness (‫)ܕܡܘܬܐ‬, and His an equally heavy will (voluntas),
image (‫)ܨܠܡܐ‬, the operation (operatio) of the
representation (‫ )ܨܝܪܐ‬of His unborn perseverance [in the
essence [that has not come being where there is no
into existence] (‫ )ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬in begetting] (innata perserverantia)
equal will (‫)ܨܒܝܢܐ‬, appears of the Father (pater), was justly
justly together with Him considered after the
(‫ )ܥܡܗ‬as a begetting (‫)ܝܠܕܐ‬ unbegotten (post ingenitum)”.
of the essence [that has not
come into existence]
(‫”)ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬.
3.11.12. And, then, he said 3.11.12. Saying, then, many
many things, and other, other things about the Father,
about the Father and the Son the Son, and the Holy Spirit, he
and the Spirit of Holiness, instructed us, not less than to
and he instructed us all. And judge according to the sight,
he did not attribute intimating the understanding
truthfulness, in a matter, to our hearing, so that we all,
from the opinion of the eye while listening, mourned over
to the sense of hearing. Thus how men moved away from
we all, upon listening, truth.
mourned over men—over
how much they erred and
turned away from truth.

2.3. THE CONTENTS OF THE INTERPOLATION: THE AΥΤΟΠΑΤΩΡ

Our interpolator is pursuing a double agenda27. On the one hand, he is advocating,

as we shall see, his anti-Nicene views. On the other hand, he is conducting a battle

27
I will be here making reference to *GR 3.2-11 as a virtual harmonia of LR 3.2-11 and SR 3.2-11.
34
against the αὐτοπάτωρ, viz. the idea of God’s self-begetting28. Throughout this section of

the interpolation29 the author contends that, had God begotten Himself, He could not

have remained impassible, since two contradictory realities—one begetting and one

begotten—would have arisen within Him. Interestingly enough, in one instance (§

3.11.3) the Trinitarian theme and the preoccupation about the divine αὐτοπατορία get

interwoven:

SYRIAC LATIN
3.11.3. And if, indeed, not even 3.11.3. If, indeed, not even
after the begetting (‫ )ܝܠܕܐ‬did after the begetting (nativitas)
they rise up against each other did the substance (substantia)
(‫ )ܩܡ ܕܠܘܩܒܠ‬in disagreement, ever rise in contradiction (ad
[even] after having dissensionem surrexit), even
[purportedly] been divided in [being purportedly] divided
number—for, He is not the because of this number—and
Father of Himself—, how would He is not, in fact, ‘autopator’,
that being [that has not come namely father to itself—, how
into existence] (‫ )ܐܝܬܝܐ‬by His would not rather like to
substance (‫ )ܩܢܘܡܐ‬not have remain in the uncreated
preferred to remain in the harmony (innascibilis
harmony of the essence [that consensus) that which was truly
has not come into existence] unbegotten (ingenitum) by
(‫ )ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬and, by means of substance (substantia),
begetting (‫)ܝܠܕܐ‬, would have [purportedly] divided in a
been counted as a duality duality (dualitas), instead, by
(‫?)ܬܪܝܢܘܬܐ‬ the begetting (genitura)?

Those aware of the risks, inherent in the concept of αὐτοπάτωρ, of sundering the

divine μονάς, and willing to safeguard the integrity of this unit, should refrain from

accepting the Homoousian solution. The ὁμοούσιος, in fact, by predicating an ousia

shared by the Father and the Son, necessarily imports a divisive outcome. God, the

28
This notion is repeatedly defended in the Pseudoclementine Homilies, and the interpolator’s insistence
on its erroneousness must be understood as an intention to correct this view.
29
Cfr. §§ 3.9.6, 3.10.7.a and 3.11.1.
35
reader is told, prefers to remain alone in His substance, and to distinguish the Son’s

substance from His own.

2.4. THE RELIGIOUS CONTEXT IN EDESSA

The paragraph just quoted draws a connection between the αὐτοπάτωρ and the

ὁμοούσιος30. This link might be the result of a rhetorical strategy, aimed at associating

Nicaea with the Gnostic heresy31.

Thanks to the testimony of Emperor Julian, we learn in fact that in the second half

of the fourth century Edessa witnessed a remarkable Valentinian presence. The

“Arians”, reveling in their richness, had laid hands upon the followers of Valentinus,

committing outrageous acts against them:

But the followers of the Arian church [οἱ δὲ τῆς Ἀρειανικῆς ἐκκλησίας], in the
insolence bred by their wealth, have attacked the followers of Valentine [τοῖς ἀπὸ
τοῦ Οὐαλεντίνου] and have committed in Edessa such rash acts as could never
occur in a well-ordered city. Therefore, since by their most admirable law they
are bidden to sell all they have and give to the poor32, that so they may attain
more easily to the kingdom of heavens, in order to help those persons in their
effort I have ordered that all their funds, namely, that belong to the church of
the people of Edessa, be taken over, that they may be given to the soldiers, and
that its property be confiscated to my private purse33.

30
It is interesting to note how the first attestation of both terms is Gnostic. For the first, extra-Trinitarian
attestation of ὁμοούσιος in a Valentinian setting cfr. ORTIZ DE URBINA 1942. For the Aὐτοπάτωρ as the
second figure of the pentad described in the Gnostic Epistle of Eugnostos cfr. TURNER 2001.
31
However, its combination with the presence, in this section, of a polemic against the androgynous
conception of the Godhead (§ 3.9.6) suggests not to dismiss a priori the hypothesis that *GR—with its
multipronged polemical agenda—would have originally contained §§ 3.2-11 as an anti-Gnostic treatise,
subsequently remodeled to serve anti-Nicene purposes. This treatise could have either been one of the
sources utilized by the final redactor of Recognitions, or could have been composed by him.
32
The sarcastic reference is evidently to Lk 18:22.
33
Julian, Epistula ad Hecebolium (Ep. 40). Translation slightly modified from WRIGHT 1923, 127 (italics mine).
36
 Thus, Gnostics at this time were still among the main actors on the lively religious

stage of the “Blessed City”, along with other Christian and non-Christian groups

mentioned by Ephrem in his Hymns against the Heretics: Bardaisanites, Marcionites,

Manichaeans, Arians, Sabellians, Photians, Audians, and Messalians34.

But “Arians”, whose violence Julian condemns, were certainly not the only

contenders in the Trinitarian controversy who brought strife to the life of the towns of

Syria: their Christologically more moderate opponents were no less combative in

disputing the authority over the church of the city. To the best of my knowledge, no

specific study about the prevalence of one or the other Trinitarian party in fourth-

century Edessa or in the cities in close proximity (especially Harran, Mabbog, and

Apamea) has ever been carried out. Yet on the basis of Ephrem’s complaint about the

silence of the “catholic” Christians in front of the loudness of the “Arians”35, we can

assume, with Lange36, that the party sharing the views expressed by Ephrem—described

by Lange as close to the Homoiousian second formula of the Synod in encaeniis of

Antioch (341)37—was a minority in the city. According to the Chronicle of Edessa, in the

34
Ephrem, Hymni contra haereses, 22, 3-4. Ephrem himself mentions the presence of Gnostics (Valentinians
and Quqites). To these groups we must add those representative of local Syrian cults, for which cfr.
DRIJVERS 1980, and possibly of Greco-Roman religion. On the relationship between Bardaisan and
Gnosticism cfr. EHLERS 1970. Cfr. also Bauer’s judgment: “What persisted as Valentinianism in the areas
known to Aphrahat apparently became absorbed in Edessa by the teaching and the community of faith of
Bardaisan (translation slightly modified from BAUER 1996 [1934], 30).
35
Hymni de fide 60:6: “The true [Christians] became silent while the audacious ones talk about publicly”.
Cit. in LANGE 2005, 24, n. 82.
36
LANGE 2005, 24.
37
LANGE 2005, 117-119. For the theological significance of the Antiochene creed of 341 cfr. SIMONETTI 1975,
153-159. The validity of the creed of Antioch 341 was later reaffirmed in the councils of Serdica 343,
Sirmium 351 and Ancyra 358.
37
year of Ephrem’s death the “Catholics”38 had to leave Edessa because of the

persecutions of the “Arians”39—an event that testifies to the religious turmoil in the

city and to the conflicts between anti-Nicene and (vaguely) pro-Nicene groups.

The Roman power had often a decisive role in orienting the destiny of this sort of

“civil war”40. During the incumbency of Emperor Valens (364-378), who favored the

Homœan attempts at promoting a political yet fundamentally anti-Nicene solution to

the Trinitarian conflicts, the “Arians”—more likely Homœans than Heteroousians—are

said to have taken over Edessa41. In 372 the anti-“Arian” Christians of Edessa gathered

at the shrine of St. Thomas, outside the walls of the city, under the guide of bishop

Barsai, defying the Emperor Valens. A massacre was reportedly prevented by the

courage of a woman, and Barsai was exiled42.

According to his Vita, bishop Rabbula, who was appointed in 411, the same year of

the compilation of our first Syriac manuscript, brought back all the “Arians” into

communion with the church. This is evidently an indirect clue to the fact that he must

have still had his share of problems with the anti-Nicene Christians of the city43.

38
It is highly doubtful that this expression “Catholics” need to be identified with Homoousian.
39
Chronicon Edessenum, 31.
40
For a conceptualization of the role of the imperial authority in the solution of Christian controversies,
intended as conflicts between “interpretive communities” cfr. CLARK 2004, 562.
41
Cfr. SEGAL 1970, 90ff..
42
Cfr. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica, 6, 18; Theodoretus, Historia ecclesiastica, 6, 15; Socrates, Historia
ecclesiastica, 6, 17-18.
43
Homœanism and Heteroousianism had a longstanding tradition in Syria. In 357, after the death of
bishop Leontius, the radical Eusebian Eudoxius of Germanicia ascended to the see of Antioch. He called
back from Egypt Aëtius (originally elected deacon by Leontius but then exiled), who brought with him
his disciple Eunomius. Eudoxius, Aëtius and Eunomius were later exiled by decision of the Homoiousian
council of Sirmium of 358, summoned by the Emperor Constantius II. The Homœan reaction was led by
Mark of Arethusa, George of Alexandria, and Acacius of Caesarea, who convoked a council at Sirmium in
38
 In sum, the fresco depicted by the sources confirms Walter Bauer’s observation that

in fourth-century Edessa multiple competing Christian communities existed44.

2.5. THE CONTENTS OF THE INTERPOLATION: THE ANTI-NICENE VIEWS

In SR 3.2-11, an exigency of correction of the anti-Nicene peaks still found in the

corresponding Latin section is evident. The author of SR produced his translation, as

seen, at a time of tense factional struggles among the different Christian groups that

populated Edessa. It is possible to imagine the group of which the Pseudoclementine

corpus was representative as a residual minority on the stage of Edessene Christianity45.

In fact, judging by what happened in the rest of the Christian East, the main battle in

Edessa must have been fought within the Eusebian field, between moderates

(Homoiousians), radicals (Heteroousians), and the Homœan party, which represented a

posture of political compromise.

Assuming that our translator belonged to the milieu sharing the theological views

of the book that he was rendering into Syriac, we must suppose that he would have

359. In Antioch Aëtius enjoyed the favor of the Caesar Constantius Gallus, first cousin of Constantius II,
and reportedly reduced to silence Basil of Ancyra and Eustathius of Sebaste during a dispute. On these
events cfr. SIMONETTI 1975, 229ff., and WILLIAMS 2001, 158-167. Isabella Sandwell, in her Religious Identity in
Late Antiquity, provides an interesting reconstruction of the overall religious situation in fourth-century
Antioch, but her overview of the events of the Trinitarian controversy in the city (SANDWELL 2007, 45-46)
is disappointing.
44
BAUER 1996 [1934], 1-43.
45
On the disappearance of Jewish Christianity in the fourth century cfr. Daniel Boyarin’s Dying for God,
where he writes (BOYARIN 1999, 6): “It was the birth of the hegemonic Catholic Church, however, that
seems finally to have precipitated the consolidation of rabbinic Judaism as Jewish orthodoxy, with all its
rivals, including the so-called Jewish Christianities, apparently largely vanquished”. For a radical denial
of any usefulness to the very category of Jewish Christianity cfr. now BOYARIN 2009.
39
tried to make his translation acceptable to the broadest possible audience. In order to

do so, he would have eliminated from the interpolation the most outspoken theological

and terminological peaks that would have been commonly perceived as “Arian” (or

“Anomœan”46), while also trying to avoid turning the text into an anti-“Arian” treatise.

The common ground he would have sought would have prevented the proponents of

the ὁμοιούσιος from rejecting his translation, but could have still been seen by the

theologians most distant from the Nicene perspective as not directly contradicting

their beliefs. Over the next pages I will produce some evidence, out of the greater

amount available, to support this claim while analyzing our text47.

2.6. ANALYSIS OF SELECT PASSAGES FROM THE TEXT

Several paragraphs into the interpolation (§§ 3.7.2-3), after having discussed

various topics, from the nature of the principalities (rēšānwātā; principia) to God’s self-

46
The term “Anomœan” is first attested in Athanasius, De Synodis, 31. For a contemporary opposition to
its scholarly use, as well as to that of the label “neo-Arians” cfr. AYRES 2004, 145. For evidence of historical
connections between Heteroousians and “Collucianists” cfr. Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica, 3, 15 (cit. in
SIMONETTI 1975, 229). For evidence of knowledge of Arius’ Epistula ad Alexandrum Alexandrinum on the part
of Eunomius cfr. his Apologia, 21 (parallel mentioned in SIMONETTI 1975, 254, n. 3).
47
The analysis here unfolded only stands to reason if the premise is valid that S and L were working on
the same interpolated Greek recensio of the text. At any rate, in the absence of any evidence pointing to
the contrary, I will happily content myself with abiding by Ockham’s razor, deciding that recensiones non
sunt multiplicandae praeter necessitatem. One could theoretically hypothesize that the Syriac translator
rendered the Greek faithfully, whereas the Latin translator interpolated the text with anti-Nicene
statements. Rufinus’ refusal to translate these chapters, however, provides a sound counter-argument. In
addition, the presence, in SR, of the passages attending to the exposition of the divine ἀγεννησία, per se
harmless for the moderate Eusebian front, can be hardly explained without assuming their being aimed,
in the Greek model, at the demonstration, in Eunomian terms, of the ontological chasm subsisting
between the Father and the Son, which we still witness in LR. Schwartz expressed himself in favor of the
hypothesis that LR 3.2-11 contains the original virtually throughout and that the Syriac translator
thoroughly revised (SCHWARTZ 1935, 154).
40
knowledge, Peter detects in his audience an interest in hearing about the “being that

has not come into existence”. Following an apophatic introduction about the danger of

any discourse about God, the doctrinal demonstration begins:

SYRIAC LATIN
3.7.4. He is, then, the being that 3.7.4. That which is unbegotten
has not come into existence (ingenitum) must not be
(‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬, and it is not honored with a sole name: He
by a simple name [only] that he is, indeed, also without
is honored. For, he is also beginning. Now, this [reality]
without beginning. That one without beginning and
without beginning and that unbegotten (ingenitum) is God,
being that has not come into which [reality] by the sole
existence (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬, notion of those who have been
who is God, is glorified by those made (facta) is announced
who have come to existence [only], while it is [fully]
̈ only
[scil. the creatures] (‫)ܗܘܝܐ‬ understood by Him.
within the limits of [His] fame
[scil. of the notion they have of
Him], while by Himself He is
[fully] understood.

In these lines the theological leitmotif of the text, the definition of God as ʾityā d-lā

hwā (“being that has not come into existence”) in SR and as ingenitus (“unbegotten”) in

LR, is already clearly laid down. This definition interacts, in the Syriac text, with a

terminological distinction, repeated throughout this long section, between two

dichotomous ontological dimensions: the one of the “being that has not come into

existence”, marked by the existential particle ʾit and the noun ʾityā, and the one of the

“being that has come into existence”, expressed by SR with the root hwā48. The Syriac

48
The inventive periphrasis that the translator elaborated, while evidently attributing a technical
meaning of somewhat defective being to the verb ‫“( ܗܘܐ‬to come to existence”), if considered in its
isolation does not clarify whether the expression ‫“( ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬that has not come into existence”) is meant
to specify ‫“( ܐܝܬܝܐ‬being”) in a determined sense, so that ‫ ܐܝܬܝܐ‬would convey the meaning of a generic
kind of being, or to express an opposition to it, so that ‫ ܐܝܬܝܐ‬would come to signify the ontological
41
translator may have found this ontological opposition already terminologically marked

in GR, possibly in the form of the verbal couple εἰμί / γίγνομαι49.

Many different expressions correspond, in LR, to the phrase ʾityā d-lā hwā (“being

that has not come into existence”50). The presence of the Greek term ἀγέννητος behind

these Latin occurrences can be hypothesized, and it must be noticed that οὐσία

ἀγέννητος was, according to Basil of Caesarea, the designation employed by Eunomius

of Cyzicus to refer to God51. We may be witnessing here a creative effort, on the part of

the author of SR, to seek out a suitable rendering for this Greek theological term—a task

thus far not undertaken by any other Syriac author.

It can be supposed that our text is part of a broader intellectual endeavor, which

would have taken place in the fourth century, to shape a more technically defined

theological language in Syriac. It can be recalled that Aphrahat refers to God as ʾityā d-

naphšeh (“essence of itself”, “being of Himself”, or “being [owing His existence to]

dimension of fullest being. The doubt is dissipated in the last paragraphs of the section. Here SR, in
correspondence to the Latin ingenitus and infectus, arguably denouncing the presence of ἀγέννητος in the
Greek original, features the bare ‫ܐܝܬܝܐ‬, alternating with ‫ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬, seemingly with the same exact
value. After having familiarized us, through the use of ‫ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬, with the meaning of ‫ܐܝܬܝܐ‬, SR began to
use the word in a more technical sense, to signify a “being that has not come into existence”.
49
Any such proposal, however, seems bound to remain speculative.
50
Sixteen times we find ingenitus (“unbegotten”); once we encounter the term infectum (translatable as
“not come to existence”, if taken to derive from fio); and once innatus (“unborn”). In all eighteen cases, LR
uses only one word. The more articulated quod erat ingenitum (“that which was unbegotten”) and quod
infectum est (“that which has not come to existence”) do occur, but never in correspondence to the
expression ‫ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬.
51
Basil of Caesarea, Adversus Eunomium, PG 29, 517b. It must here be noticed that both Aëtius and
Eunomius consistently made use of ἀγέννητος (as opposed to ἀγένητος) for “unbegotten”.
42
Himself”)52, and that Ephrem polemicized against the Bardaisanian use of the word ʾityā

as expressing any of the four, and later five, cosmological elements. In Ephrem’s

Sermones de fide the term is exclusively used to describe the “self-existing being” of the

Father53.

It is now worth quoting additional paragraphs from the interpolation:

LATIN
SYRIAC
3.8.1. Thus, that God who is 3.8.1. The one, then, who did
without beginning begot (‫)ܝܠܕ‬ not begin to be, the afore-
His first-begotten Son ( ‫ܒܪܐ‬ mentioned God, begot (genuit)
‫ )ܒܘܟܪܐ‬before all creatures as the first-begotten
it behooves God: unaltered, (primogenitus) of all the
unchanged, undivided, not creation as it behooved God:
flowing and not lacking not altering Himself, not
anything. […] converting Himself, not
dividing Himself, not flowing,
not extending anything. […]
3.8.3. God, then, begot (genuit)
that which we54 learned to
call also ‘creation’ (factura).
To call then this very [reality]
‘begetting’ (genitura) and
--- ‘creation’ (factura) and [by]
other such terms allows to
consider a model of begetter
(genitor) that which happens
to be shapeless (sine
schemate).
3.8.4. By those, in fact, who
have a difference of shapes
(schemata) it is necessary to
---
distinguish a generation
(genitura) and a creation
(factura).

52
Aphrahat, Demonstrations, 23, 52: “In you [scil. Christ] we praise the essence of itself [seu: being of
Himself] (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܢܦܫܗ‬, Him who has separated you from His [uncreated] essence (‫ )ܐܝܬܘܬܐ‬and has sent
you to us”.
53
Cfr. Ephrem, Sermones de fide, 1, 115, cit. in LANGE 2005, 100.
54
Seu: “God, then, begot (genuit), that [scil. the fact that He begot] which we... ”.
43
 We read in §§ 3.8.3-4, only found in LR, the blunt identification of creation and

begetting, which was already in Arius’ Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, and was generally

justified based on the account of the creation of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22. The content of

§ 3.8.1 patently originates from the idea, attributed to Arius, that any form of

generation other than creation amounts to an impersonal procession—hence the

reference to the flux55. Nevertheless, this content is certainly still acceptable from a

Homoiousian standpoint: even the partisans of Nicaea rejected the allegations, made by

their opponents, that they forwarded a theological divisionism, and rather they spoke

of a generation occurring without alteration. This is arguably the reason why the

paragraph has been kept in the Syriac, whereas the paragraphs 3.8.3-4, presenting

theologoumena and terminology perceived as overtly “Arian”, have been left out.

We witness the same modus operandi on the part of the author of SR a few lines

later:

SYRIAC LATIN

55
Arius had insisted (Epistula ad Eusebium Nicomediensem, 3) that the Son is not generated by emanation
(προβολή) nor by efflux (ἀπόρροια) from the Father, but rather impassibly, and had attributed (Epistula ad
Alexandrum Alexandrinum, 5) the concept of the προβολή to Valentinus and Mani. Already Origen (De
principiis 1, 2, 6; 4, 4, 1) had rejected the Gnostic use of προβολή as describing a generation of the animal
sort. This opposition represents an element of continuity between Arius and the later, Heteroousian
theologians. According to Hilary of Poitiers (Contra Constantium, 13) Eudoxius, in an Antiochene sermon,
would have denied the real generation of the Son, by describing divine generation in the following,
hyperbolical terms: “Erat deus, quod est. Pater non erat, quia neque ei Filius: nam si filius, necesse est ut
et femina sit, et colloquium, et sermocinatio, et coniunctio coniugalis verbi, et blandimentum, et
postremum ad generandum naturalis machinula”. Eunomius’ insistence on the lack of flux in the
generation of the Son is attested in Eunomius, Apologia, 17 and in Basil of Caesarea, Adversus Eunomium, 3,
2, 52.
44
 3.8.5.b. That which is [scil.
that which comes to
existence through this
begetting, namely the Son] is
not more honorable than God
--- and than this unbegotten
[that God is]
(ingenitus/ingenitum), because
[God] is not like the begotten
(genitum).

God did not suffer any division, and persevered within His being during the

generation of the Son. These notions are, as just seen, reconcilable with a Homoiousian

perspective (and even with a Homoousian one). Thus, the sentence expressing them

has been spared by the pen of the Syriac translator. But § 3.8.5.b contained two

dangerous affirmations. First, the assertion that the Son is not more honorable than God,

which must have sounded perilously close to calling him less honorable than Him—that

is, to an expression of outright subordinationism. Second, and more important, the

statement that God is not like (non es[se] velut) the begotten, which is more radically

anti-Nicene than anything ever written by Eunomius or Aëtius56, and which nobody but

a Heteroousian could have heard untroubled. For these reasons the paragraph does not

show up in SR.

A few lines later we find one more instance of the Syriac translator’s way of

proceeding:

SYRIAC LATIN
3.8.7. For, if the bodies, which 3.8.7. In fact, if the bodies
obey the necessity of thickness, that serve under the

56
These two, in fact, contented themselves with defining the Son ἀνόμοιος to God according to the
substance. The expression found in our text, which, with its omission of this complement of limitation,
appears like an unicum in fourth-century Heteroousian literature, is certainly worth of some attention.
45
 produce the existence of necessity of thickness make
shadows, how much more will shadows exist, how much
we concede to that power more would we concede
(‫)ܚܝܐܠ‬, [namely to] the being that the only-begotten
that has not come into (unigenitus / unigenitum) is
existence (‫)ܐܝܬܝܐ ܕܐܠ ܗܘܐ‬, subsequent (subsequentem)
that that only-begotten (‫)ܝܚܝܕܐ‬ to the unbegotten power
which [is] from it be conjoined (ingenita virtus), since [God’s]
(‫ )ܢܩܝܦ‬to it? will precedes (voluntate
praecedente)?

The affirmation, contained in LR, that the Son is “subsequent” (subsequen[s]) to the

Father does not necessarily express a chronological subordinationism à la Arius or

Eunomius57. Nonetheless, the terminology of subordination that was behind that word

in the Greek model must have sounded to the translator too compromised by

“Arianism” and Heteroousianism, and he decided to neutralize it by means of a skillful

linguistic device. In SR we find, in fact, a verb as ambiguous as ‫ܢܩܦ‬, meaning both “to

accompany” and “to follow”, and accordingly allowing for as wide a range of readings

as the perspectives competing in the Trinitarian controversy.

In the following clause, the mention of the role of God’s will in the begetting of the

Son must have appeared problematic to the Syriac translator. Although the notion of

the deliberate generation of the Son on the part of the Father was a common idea

throughout the II and III centuries58, since Arius’ letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia it was

57
The expression is indeed perfectly reconcilable with a moderate Origenist subordinationism, such as
that of Alexander of Alexandria.
58
It is found, e.g., in Tatian, Oratio ad Græcos, 5, and in Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, 6, 3.
46
heavily characterized in an “Arian” (and, later, Heteroousian) sense59. In addition, the

mention of the priority of God’s will to the generation of the Son60, found in our text,

marks a chronological distinction between the Son and the Father, making the

coeternality of the two impossible61. These two ideas—the involvement of God’s will in

the generation of the Son and its priority to it—must have advised the author of SR to

censor this sentence.

Another instance of such amend-and-suppress strategy is provided in the following

paragraph:

SYRIAC LATIN
3.8.9. Therefore, then, [the Son] 3.8.9. Therefore [the Son] is
is truthfully [and] rightly called indeed appropriately called
[with the term] ‘begetting’ ‘begotten’ (genitura), ‘product’
(‫)ܝܠܕܐ‬: because, in his substance (factura) and ‘creature’
(‫)ܩܢܘܡܐ‬, he is not Father (‫)ܐܒܐ‬. (creatura), because, as for the
substance (substantia), he is not
an unbegotten [reality]
(ingenitum).

Behind the Latin genitura, factura and creatura the Greek series γέννημα, πόιημα and

κτίσμα may be imagined. We can easily understand why our Syriac translator readily

59
In his Epistula ad Eusebium Nicomediensem, 4, Arius insisted, for subordinationist purposes, on
considering the Son begotten by God’s will and counsel (θελήματι καὶ βουλῇ). In Aëtius’ Syntagmation, 5,
we read that “that which was generated was not generated by splitting of essence, but rather He posited
it by [His] authority (ἐξουσίᾳ)”. The expression “by authority” (ἐξουσίᾳ) is repeated two paragraphs
further (ibid., 7).
60
This is, most likely, also the sense of the absolute ablative voluntate praecedente found in LR § 3.10.1,
whose content has been suppressed, for the same reasons, in the parallel Syriac paragraph.
61
Already the Fathers at the Council of Nicaea had rejected the “Arian” position expressed by the
formula ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν, καὶ πρὶν γεννεθῆναι οὐκ ἦν (“there was a time when he [scil. the Son] did not
exist, and before he was created he did not exist”) by anathematizing its proponents.
47
omitted the second and the third terms, so compromised by Heteroousian theology62.

But the strategy deployed here is more refined than one of mere suppression. After

having faithfully rendered γέννημα (“begotten”) with ‫ܝܠܕܐ‬, our translator plays with

the latter’s extensive meaning of “child” and “son”. It is with this signified, rather than

with that of “begotten”, that he artfully builds a correlation. Thus, he writes ‫ܐܒܐ‬

(“Father”) where LR has ingenitum (“unbegotten”), and where the Greek presented, in

all likelihood, ἀγέννητος. The opposition of identities between the Son and the Father

is per se innocuous for the advocates of the ὁμοιούσιος, who—like most Homoousians—

considered the Sabellian υἱοπατορία, the identity of the Father and the Son, a heretical

aberration63. But Basil of Ancyra, the inspirer of Homoiousian theology, had condemned

the Heteroousian use of the terms “begotten” and “unbegotten” because of its failure to

express the relation of mutual interdependence expressed by the couple “Father” and

“Son”64. Thus, this contraposition, especially when explicitly connected to a difference

in the substance (‫)ܩܢܘܡܐ‬, would have sounded suspicious to the proponents of the

similarity of the Father and the Son as to the substance65. Once again, it should be

noticed, the dull rendering of SR, inoffensive for the defenders of the ὁμοιούσιος, can

be lightheartedly agreed upon by Eusebian radicals as well.

62
Cfr. Eunomius, Apologia, 17-18, where the Son is described as κτίσμα. In Apologia, 15 the Son is called
γεννηθεὶς καὶ κτισθείς.
63
The term υἱοπάτωρ appears, as a polemical target, in Arius, Epistula ad Alexandrum Alexandrinum, 7, as
well as in Basil of Caesarea, De ecclesiastica theologia, 1, 1. It is unknown whether Sabellius ever actually
utilized it. The identification of ὁμοούσιος and ταυτοούσιος is found in the Synodal letter of the
Homoiousian council of Ancyra (358).
64
Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion, 73, 14.19.20.
65
The argument that the Father, being unbegotten, cannot be similar according to the substance to the
begotten Son is also found in the writings of Homœan authors. Cfr. SIMONETTI 1975, 267.
48
 One last example of censorship, this time pursued through crude suppression, is

offered by § 3.9.5:

SYRIAC LATIN
3.9.5.a. Be it, then, known to 3.9.5.a. Be it understood,
you [pl.] that, as it behooved though, how it behooved God
God, [He] begot (‫ )ܝܠܕ‬His only- to beget (generare) an only-
begotten (‫ )ܝܚܝܕܝܐ‬and first- begotten
begotten (‫ )ܒܪܐ ܒܘܟܪܐ‬before all (unigenitus/unigenitum) and
creatures. first-begotten (primogenitus /
primogenitum) of all the
creation,
3.9.5.b. but not as if [He begot
him] from something: this [scil.
being begotten from
something], in fact, is the
serfdom of the animate and
inanimate beings.

Here the doctrine of the creatio ex nihilo of the Son, already contained in Arius’ letter

to Eusebius of Nicomedia and contrasted by all theological fronts other than

Homœans66 and Heteroousians, is expurgated in SR.

2.7. CONCLUSION

In the previous pages I outlined a possible reading of SR as the product of a strategy

of theological accommodation, and also of a quest for a common ground between

Heteroousians and Homoiousians on the part of a translator belonging to a different group.

66
It must be noticed how the Homœan party, at least in some of its champions, had found a way to
exculpate itself from the charge of espousing the creatio ex nihilo while still fundamentally upholding it:
according to Hilary of Poitiers (Fragmenta Historica, 10, 3) Valens of Mursa would have explained that
Christ had not been begotten ex nihilo, but rather from God, in the sense in which he had come into
existence by God’s will.
49
However, the backwardness of the research on this interpolation67 allows and requires

that many different proposals be advanced and verified. The interpolation may even

become the key for the formulation of hypotheses about the redaction, circulation, and

transmission of the book that hosts it—even in its original, Greek form.

Scholarship on the Pseudoclementine literature in the last decades has shown a

shift from a source-critical to a redaction-critical approach, which has brought the

focus onto the rationale behind the operation performed by the final, fourth-century

redactor through his use and appropriation of ancient sources of Jewish-Christian and

other origins68. A contextual understanding of this undertaking is needed. Recognitions,

as Nicole Kelley puts it, “was constructed in the midst of an intensely competitive and

diverse religious marketplace”69.

It seems safe to assume that in the fourth century the name of “Christians” was not

yet undisputed property of the community of the “Catholics”, or even of those groups

involved in the Trinitarian discussions. Ephrem, in fact, still bemoans his group being

referred to as “Palutians” (paluṭāye), after bishop Paluṭ, whose figure is shrouded in

legend, and not as “Christians”70. Unless one wishes to apply a retroactive reading on

the reality of the time, all the groups claiming the name of “Christians”—possibly

67
To my knowledge, no specific essay has ever been devoted to it.
68
For a critique of the traditional conception of the Pseudoclementines as a mere repository of early
Christian materials cfr. KELLEY 2005, 318ff., and KELLEY 2006, part. pp. 1-6; for an example of this new
scholarly attitude towards the Pseudoclementine corpus cfr. REED 2003, 203ff. On the Pseudoclementines as
an instance of “recollection, interpretation, re-contextualization, and selective preservation” (REED 2008,
173) of the “past”, and as an at least partly aware historiographic enterprise cfr. REED 2008, part. pp. 208-
216.
69
KELLEY 2005, 344.
70
Ephrem, Hymnes contra Haereses, 22, 5.
50
including the majority of those heretical congregations scorned by Ephrem—must be

considered characters in the picture that we call “Edessene Christianity”.

From this viewpoint, the ongoing warfare between Valentinians and Heteroousians

may be understood as an instance of intra-ecclesial conflict. To be sure, this is not to

say that the distance—measured in “steps away” from communion, or in perceived

obstacles to it— between Ephrem and Heteroousians was the same as between the

latter and Bardaisanites. It is to say, however, that the abovementioned strife between

Valentinians and “Arians” was part of a broader interplay involving many subjects.

This interplay, we must assume, will have affected—and will have been affected by—

other interactions within that same “Christian” context. It is in such a perspective of

interconnectedness, to go back to our text, that it makes sense to frame the questions

respectively posed by the anti-Gnostic themes of the Recognitions; the Jewish-Christian

origin of the novel; its conceivable Heteroousian use; and its Syriac translation, which

is ostensibly amenable, for strategic reasons, to more moderate Trinitarian persuasions.

In this context, the Heteroousian faction—this is, of course, only one of the

possibilities—might have seen in the novel a tool for self-legitimization through the

claim of apostolic authority—on the model of what has been ascertained about the

“Arian” character of the final redaction of the Apostolic Constitutions71. If this hypothesis

71
Cfr. KOPECK 1985. In her essay Reading Practices and Christian Identities, Elizabeth Clark, while testing the
validity and assessing the limits of Stanley Fish’s notion of “interpretive communities” (cfr. FISH 1980,
passim) on the terrain of early Christianity, shows how “Christian authors of the first few centuries CE
attempted to create textual communities by appealing to earlier texts as ‘authoritative’ for their own
later era”; here, she explains, “readers are determinative in establishing the text’s meaning and
authority in a new setting” (CLARK 2004, 557). Although the focus of Clark’s examination passes from the
51
were correct, then the non-“Arian” character of SR, when read in the light of the fact

that beliefs dubbed as “Arian” by their opponents were diffused among the Edessene

elite, should raise more questions about the social circulation of the Recognitions: To

what extent had bilingualism penetrated the lower layers of the Syriac society? What

were the relations between language spoken, social status, and religious allegiance in

the Edessene church?

These and similar questions are material for another study. What I hope to have

shown is that a strategy must have guided the Syriac translator in his work, and that

the pinpointing of this strategy can take us nearer to answering, with regard to the

author of SR, the questions asked by Nicole Kelley about the redactor of its Greek

model: “Where did he live? What social and religious concerns did he have […]? How

did he identify himself, and what forces might have challenged or competed with that

self-identification?”72

practice of quoting the Scriptures to that of citing early Fathers (sections iii and iv, 558-568), the cogency
of her analysis can be extended to the appropriation of apostolic legacies as well.
72
KELLEY 2005, 342.
52
 3. “OLDER AND PRIOR IN CONCEPTION TO CREATURES”.

MODELS OF SALVIFIC MEDIATION IN APHRAHAT’S DEMONSTRATION 17

3.1. THE SEVENTEENTH DEMONSTRATION

In his paper on the Christology of Aphrahat’s 17th Demonstration published in 19921,

W. Petersen denounced scholars’ systematic attempts, pursued through different

strategies, at the posthumous orthodoxization of the theological views of the Persian

1
Cfr. PETERSEN 1992. To be sure, Petersen’s treatment of this Demonstration leaves a lot to be desired. For
him, “[t]aken at face value”, the text’s “Christology is subordinationist” (ibid., 244), a term which, he
explains in a note, “seems more appropriate than ‘adoptionist’ because other passages (e.g., Dem. I.8)
make it clear that Aphrahat regards the Christ as preexistent” (ibid., 259, n. 23). In his view “[t]he
discontinuity between, on the one hand, the subordinationist Christology apparently present in the 17th
Dem. and, on the other hand, Aphrahat’s post-Nicene date and his reputation for orthodoxy, is the
dilemma confounding later Christian scholars” (ibid., 244). The scholar then surveys three different types
of gambits performed in order to elude the question posed by the allegedly subordinationist Christology
displayed by the Demonstration: a) acknowledgment of “Aphrahat’s Semitic world view” but subsequent
incoherent assertion of “his theological orthodoxy” (ibid., 245), with the corollary of the Persian Sage’s
production, in the Demonstration, of an “argumentum ad hominem” against the Jews, not corresponding to
his actual theological views. This ploy can be found, according to Petersen, in ANTONELLI 1756, iii-iv (cit.
ibid., 252, n. 15), ORTIZ DE URBINA 1933, 68 (cit. ibid., 245), and, more mildly, in BRUNS 1990, 124 (cit. ibid., 253,
n. 31); b) denial of “the presence of Semitic elements in Aphrahat’s thought” (ibid., 245) and affirmation
of his orthodoxy—a strategy that he detects in HUDAL 1911, 487; c) completely ignoring the problem—a
behavior that he attributes to PIERRE 1988, t. I, 33-202 (cit. ibid., 253, n. 35). I would here like to remark that
the “ad hominem-argument argument”, one recurrent in literary analysis of ancient texts, would deserve
a more complete and theoretically better framed treatment than reserved to it by Petersen (let alone by
Ortiz de Urbina). As a possible starting point for a discussion cfr. the words of KING 2008, 29-30: “[A]ppeal
to authorship sometimes appears only as a modern strategy whose aim is to freeze a monological reading
of a text as its one true meaning by extracting it from the flow of history. […] Rather, a text’s inscribed
goals and strategies (including its depiction of ‘heretical others’) are better considered as reliable
historical evidence of a particular positionality within a dialogical complex of voices that shift over time
and place. […] [W]hat they [= authors] tell us (i.e., what the evidence is evidence of) cannot be assessed
without understanding each work’s particular discursive goals and strategies, as well as its carefully
constructed theology and social-historical positionality”.
53
Sage2. Petersen identified the forerunner of this approach in Gennadius of Marseilles,

who, in his De viris inlustribus, added to the Latin translation of the alleged original title

of the text (De Christo quod filius Dei sit) the words “et consubstantiali Patri”3.

In this Demonstration Aphrahat laments that the Jews, making use of biblical

testimonies attesting the uniqueness of God, blaspheme against “the people that

[comes] from the peoples”, accusing it of worshiping and divinizing a man [§1]. After

having listed a long series of Christological designations which can be rightly applied to

Jesus, Aphrahat moves on to demonstrate that Jesus is Son of God and God from God. In

the Bible, he explains, Godhood and association with God are predicated of the

righteous, of the men with whom God was well pleased (among whom Moses), and of

the people of Israel [§3-4]. The designation of “son” has been applied to Salomon and,

again, to Israel [§4]. God also has other names (such as ʾAhyah ʾašar ʾahyah4, ʾElšaddai, and

ʾAdonai Ṣbaʾot), which—the implication seems to be—He did not share with humanity

2
Petersen’s thesis is that “Aphrahat’s argument is congruent with earlier subordinationist traditions”
(ibid., 246). “Aphrahat’s mind moved in the ambit of Semitic—specifically Judaic—Christianity”, and “his
Christology was essentially Judaic Christian” (ibid., 250). “Aphrahat's Christology can be called a ‘unicum’
only when viewed from a perspective which presupposes Hellenistic, Nicene theology as normative, and
which casts a blind eye on earlier sources” (ibid., 250-251). “Aphrahat's Christology”, Petersen notes with
an incisive and well-taken stand on dynamics of orthodoxy and heresy, “is an ‘orthodox’—that is,
‘normative’—Judaic-Christian Christology” (ibid., 250). Some words may be spent on Petersen’s
misleading use of the word “subordinationism”, for him a synonym, when it comes to Christologies, of
“Jewish-Christian”. In fact, speaking of subordination as a theological option (as opposed to: as simple
“physiology”) is only possible within a pattern of Logos Christology, that is to say an understanding of
the Son as transcending human creaturaliness—even that of an elect man visited by the spirit. Looking
for cognate Christological patterns for the Pseudo-Clementine doctrine of the True Prophet within the
field of Alexandrian Logos Christology, and then rejecting this parallel only because of as extrinsic a
reason as the different theological vocabulary (“essentially functional, titular” the former;
“quintessentially philosophical” the latter: ibid., 250), reveals a misunderstanding of the gap between the
moving premises of these two theological vectors.
3
RICHARDSON 1896, 61 (cit. in PETERSEN 1992, 242).
4
Ex. 3, 14.
54
[§5]. He did bestow upon humans, however, His names expressing kingship, fatherhood,

sovereignty, and veneration [§5-6]5.

Aphrahat notes then a contradiction between two affirmations made by God: that

creatures dwell in Him and that He dwells among them. In order to solve this riddle,

the Syriac writer engages in a long and seemingly digressive exposition about Adam’s

generation on God’s part. I will now quote from my translation of Dem. 17 found in

“Appendix I”, while further breaking down chapter 7 into paragraphs of varying length

by means of letters.

[7] a And how shall it be understood by you that a prophet said: “Lord, you have
become for us a dwelling place” and another said: “I shall dwell among them
and I shall walk among them”? First He has become for us a dwelling place, and
then He has dwelt and walked among us. And for the wise both [things] are
true and plain. For, David says: “Lord, you have become for us a dwelling place
for all generations, before mounts were conceived, the earth brought forth,
and the universe was constituted”. And you know, my dear, that all the
creatures above and below have been created first, and, at the end of them all,
the human being. b For, when God considered to create the world with all its
adornments, first He conceived and depicted Adam within His mind, and, after
Adam had been conceived in His thought, then He conceived the creatures, as
He said: “Before mounts were conceived and the earth brought forth [its]
generation”. For, the human being is older and prior in conception to
creatures, and in generation creatures are older and prior to Adam. c Adam was
conceived and dwelt in God’s thought. d And, while [Adam] was withheld in His
intellect during the conception, He created with the word of His mouth all the
creatures. e And when He finished and adorned the world, as nothing was
missing in it, then He generated Adam from His thought. f And He molded the
human being with His hands. And Adam saw the world [fully] constituted. g
And He gave him authority over everything He had made, in the way in which
a man having a son for whom he wants to make a wedding would get for him a
woman, would build for him a house, would prepare and adorn everything
necessary for his son, and then would make the wedding and give his son
authority over his house. And after the conception of Adam He generated him

5
For a general overview of the catechetic theme of the divine names in early Christian literature cfr.
DOBSCHÜTZ 1911, 242-246 (where also Aphrahat is dealt with); and BURN 1905, xxxix seq. (both cit. in ORBE
1958, 96, n. 93).
55
 and gave him authority over His whole Creation. h On this regard the prophet
said: “Lord, you have become for us a dwelling place for all generations, before
mounts were conceived, the earth brought forth, and the universe was
constituted. And you are the Lord from eternity until eternity”. Lest anyone
believe that there is another god before or after, He said: “From eternity to
eternity”, like Isaiah said: “I am the first and I am the last”6. i And after God had
generated Adam from within His thought He molded him and insufflated from
His spirit into him, and He gave [him] knowledge of distinction, in order for
him to distinguish good from evil and to know that God had made him. j And,
through the fact that he knew his maker, God was depicted and conceived
within the thought of the human being, and he became a temple for God, his
maker, as it is written: “You are the Lord’s temple”. And He said: “I shall dwell
among them and I shall walk among them”. However, as for the human beings
who do not know their maker, He is not depicted within them, does not dwell
in them, and is not conceived in their thought, but rather they are considered
like a beast before Him, and like the remainder of creatures.

[8] Now, by these things the stubborn will be persuaded of the fact that it is not
strange that we call the Messiah “Son of God”, because, lo, He has conceived all
human beings and has begotten them from His thought. And they will be
admonished that also the name of the divinity is upon him, because He has
imposed it also upon His righteous, in God’s name.

3.2. THE WITHHOLDING OF ADAM

This lengthy and central section of the text, given its content, amplitude, and

seeming repetitiousness, appears at first blush rather gratuitous in the economy of the

Demonstration, and irrelevant to its purpose of proving Christ’s divine sonship. In these

lines, in fact, Christ is never mentioned. Their protagonist is Adam, the tale of whose

begetting is reported in an unusual fashion, namely by splitting it in two distinct

phases. I will try to account for these oddities by pursuing the hypothesis that this

section, far from being only a fanciful retelling of the story of the Creation, is a passage

6
Is 44, 6; Is 48, 12.
56
loaded with Christological content, and that, therefore, Adam’s presence is to be

interpreted as a marker of Adamitic Christology.

In order to try to grant clarity to this section, I will introduce a source to which

Petersen links our Demonstration7: Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew8. For

Petersen, the existence of a shared background between Aphrahat’s Demonstration and

this apologetic work is testified by several commonalities. Among them: a) the common

explicit affirmation that a divine name can be predicated of other beings (human in

Aphrahat, heavenly in Justin) without this making them God; b) the anti-Jewish

confrontational setting, twinned with a harsh rhetoric; c) the explicit rejection of the

idea of the existence of a second God; d) the recourse to listings of Christological titles.

Scholars such as J.C.Th. Otto9 have identified in Justin’s writings, notwithstanding

the absence of the relative technical terminology, the presence of the theological

model of the prolatio of the Logos. This doctrine entails a dialectic between logos

endiathetos (“immanent” Logos [hereafter: LE]) and logos prophorikos (“uttered” Logos

7
PETERSEN 1992, 247.
8
Petersen tries to bind Aphrahat and Justin Martyr together based on an allegedly shared Jewish-
Christian background. In his opinion Justin’s ties to Jewish Christianity are proven by a) his use of
quotations from Jewish Christian gospels; b) his chiliasm; c) his listings of Christological titles, indebted
to Jewish Christian testimonia. As for Aphrahat, Petersen mentions as markers of his Jewish Christianity:
a) his familiarity with rabbinic traditions; b) his drawing his OT quotations from the Peshitta (as opposed
to the Septuagint); c) his recurring to the Diatessaron when quoting the NT; d) his chiliasm; e) his
quartodecimanism; f) his belief that Christ will come back on Pesach; g) his works’ parallels with the
Didache; h) his never calling Jesus tlitâyâ (“third”, with reference to the Trinity), unlike Ephrem will do
shortly later. Much may be said about these arguments. I will content myself with noticing that
Petersen’s ascribing Aphrahat’s use of the Peshitta to his supposed Jewish-Christian tendencies
presupposes a questionable understanding of the dynamics of circulation and fruition of translations of
biblical texts as immediate indicators of (ethnic? religious? theological?) affiliation. For a comparison of
the OT and NT quotations of Dem. 17 and the same passes in the Peshitta cfr. infra, “Appendix II”.
9
Cfr. infra. For references to more scholars agreeing with Otto cfr. ORBE 1958, 570 and n. 27 ad loc.
57
[hereafter: LP]). For Justin too, like for other early Christian theologians, the Logos

would have been in a first time impersonally immanent in God, and only at a later

moment it would have been generated (gennaô) or emanated (proballô) for cosmogonic

purposes.

The hypothesis that Aphrahat is applying in Dem. 17, 7 this scheme to Adam’s birth

can account, in my opinion, for the unusual fashion in which the latter is narrated:

b
For, when God considered to create the world with all its adornments, first He
conceived and depicted Adam within His mind, and, after Adam had been
conceived in His thought, then He conceived the creatures, as He said: “Before
mounts were conceived and the earth brought forth [its] generation”. For, the
human being is older and prior in conception to creatures, and in generation
creatures are older and prior to Adam. c Adam was conceived and dwelt in God’s
thought. d And, while [Adam] was withheld in His intellect during the
conception, He created with the word of His mouth all the creatures. e And
when He finished and adorned the world, as nothing was missing in it, then He
generated Adam from His thought10. (Dem. 17, 7.b-e)

The similarities are striking11. According to Dem. 17, 7 God would have: first,

conceived Adam in His mind [b] and withheld him in there [c]; second, created the

10
In the text follows: “And He molded the human being with His hands”. The duplication of the creation
of Adam (first conceived in God’s thought, then fashioned by God with His hands) shows a Philonian
parallel. In Legum allegoriae 1, 31-32, in fact, Philo presents us with two Adams: 1) the heavenly man
created ad imaginem Dei. He is the spiritual Adam, the Logos, archetype of humanity, God’s dynamis, being
superior to angels; 2) the Adam fashioned from earth, the historic man (cfr. also De opificio mundi 134). On
the creation of Adam in Philo cfr. BOCCACCINI 1982. In Pseudoclementine Homilies (2, 52; 3, 20) Adam is
considered molded by the hands of God (interestingly, in 3, 20 this is said in connection to his possession
of the Spirits). Cfr. also BRUNS 1991, 107: “[For Aphrahat] Adams privilegierte Stellung liegt aber nicht nur
in seiner Präexistenz begründet, sondern geht auch auf Gottes besonderes Schöpfungshandeln zurück,
Im Unterschied zu den anderen Geschöpfen, die sämtlich durch Gottes Wort hervorgebracht wurden, ist
Adam direct aus Gottes Schöpferhänden hervorgegangen und in seinem Bild erschaffen”. For the theme
of God’s hands in early Christianity cfr. BINGHAM 2005; for the prominence of the theme in Irenaeus cfr. DE
ANDIA 1982.
11
The presence of this pattern has also been noted in passing by BRUNS 1990, 106, n. 104, who, however,
did not make much of it: “Sprachlich fehlt bei den Syrern die Distinktion von LE und LP. Sachlich ist sie
58
world [d]; third, generated Adam out of His thought [e]. In Dem. 23, 22 Aphrahat

mentions again, in passing, God’s begetting of Adam. Notwithstanding the incidental

character of this mention, inserted in a lengthy chronology, he once again makes sure

to express a duality in this generation, by writing: “God created and begot Adam”12.

Although the terminology differs from that found in Dem 17, 7 (where the terms used

were “to conceive” and “to beget”13), it is possible to see in this hendiadys an echo of

the same conception expressed by that passage.

3.3. MODELS OF PROLATIO

Let us now go back to Justin Martyr. Scholars have pointed to the following passage

in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew as containing the doctrine of the LE / LP:

But this offspring, truly brought forth by/from the Father (ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς
προβληθέν), before all creatures, was the one who was with the Father (συνῆν
τῷ πατρὶ), and him the Father addresses (τούτῳ […] προσομιλεῖ) [in Gen 1:26]14.

A. Orbe, however, has convincingly argued that the doctrine of the prolatio of the

Logos is absent in Justin, and is only logically presupposed by this passage. The γέννημα

who was with the Father is the sermo prolatus (the LP), not the sermo immanens (the LE), a

klar vorhanden” (cfr. also BECK 1980, 41-46, cit. ibid.). Bruns also writes about Dem. 17, 7 (ibid., 106):
“Aphrahat greift mit seiner scharfen Unterscheidung zwischen gedachter ‘Konzeption’ [beṭinutâ] und
nach außen tretender, schöpfungsmässiger Realisation [ilidutâ] (Zeugung) ein psychologisierendes
Verstehensmodell auf, das bereits von Tatians Logoslehre her bekannt ist”.
12
‫ܐܠܗܐ ܒܪܐ ܘܐܘܠܕ ܐܠܕܡ‬.
13
Respectively, the roots ‫ ܒܛܢ‬and ‫ܝܠܕ‬.
14
Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo 62, 4 (translation mine).
59
figure of which there is no trace in Justin’s writings15. Nevertheless, as Orbe noted, the

very existence of a LP implicitly testifies to the fact that this logos must have at some

point dwelt within the Father, according to a tradition that was to find further

development in later authors16.

The scheme that Aphrahat applies to the begetting of Adam is, in a sense, opposed

to the theological pattern displayed by Justin. If in the apologist we find no LE, and the

LP is granted a cosmogonic role, for Aphrahat this personal entity, to whom he does

15
For Justin, Orbe writes, “antes de Gen 1, 26 existía el Verbo como ministro de Dios. Identificado
prácticamente con la Sabiduría de Prov. 8, 22 ss. había sido emitido (προβληθέν), como fruto, del seno
paterno (ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς […] γέννημα), antes de todas las obras (πρὸ πάντων τῶν ποιημάτων)”. Una vez
emitido, se hallaba con (συνῆν) el Padre, dispuesto a asistirle en la creación del mundo y del hombre. […] Ya
en sus días J. C. Th. Otto [OTTO 1847, 211, n. 10 (cit. ad loc.)] había creído ver en el contraste entre συνεῖναι
(resp. συνῆν) y προβάλλεσθαι (resp. προβληθέν), la clásica oposición entre el Logos ἐνδιάθετος y el
προφορικός. […] A Dios le asistía ab aeterno su propio Verbo inmanente, antes de ninguna obra creada. Y
una vez emitido, el Padre se dirigía a Él como a Verbo prolaticio, engendrado de su seno, al decirle:
Faciamus… Semejante interpretación resulta, a mi juicio, violenta, y sobre todo infundada. El contexto
requiere simplemente la asistencia del Verbo en la creación por contraste con la de los ángeles. Tal Verbo
es el fruto emitido por el Padre antes de todas las obras; como tal podría asistir y asistía al Padre al hacer
el mundo o formar al hombre. A este mismo Verbo se dirige en Gen 1, 26 y 3, 22. Justino dice bien claro
que quien estaba con (συνῆν) el Padre, era el fruto ya emitido (τὸ προβληθὲν γέννημα). Luego el Logos
prolaticio. Nada autoriza a ver en […] συνῆν […] al λόγος ἐνδιάθετος. Una cosa es estar con (συν-εῖναι) y
otra estar en (ἐν-εῖναι). […] En contraste con los ángeles, cooperadores a la obra creadora de Dios, el Santo
presenta al Verbo, como fruto emitido antes de todas las obras, y por tal — una vez emitido — ministro y
auxiliar del Padre para la creación de todas ellas; con quien conversa, como con la Sabiduría personal
bíblica. […] En definitiva, no hay oposición alguna entre la coexistencia (συνῆν) del Hijo con el Padre y su
prolación (προβληθέν). Los dos términos se refieren al mismo Verbo prolaticio, engendrado por el Padre
antes de todas las obras. [… L]a prolación (resp. generación) resulta anterior a la misma coexistencia. En
ninguno de los testimonios menciona el Santo dos estadios, sino simplemente el Verbo prolaticio,
engendrado del Padre” (ORBE 1958, 569-574). SIMONETTI 1993, 75, n. 19, relying on Orbe, expressed himself
similarly. For him the conception of the twofold stage of the relationship between God and Logos,
although less prominent than in the subsequent apologists, is still envisioned by Justin.
16
ORBE 1958, 574: “Pero — nótese bien — precisamente la coexistencia del Verbo así proferido por el
Padre, repetida en contextos sapienciales, testimonia de manera clara aunque implícita que antes de salir
emanado del seno paterno, hubo de existir dentro de él, como Verbo inmanente o como Sophia. S. Justino
sigue en ello una tradición corriente, manifiesta sobra todo después de él, pero que se descubre sin
dificultad entre los gnósticos y aun en S. Ignacio Antioqueno”.
60
attribute a “latency period”, would have not partaken in the Creation of the world,

since it would have been issued forth after this latter had already been accomplished by

God.

Neither does Aphrahat’s articulation of the prolatio completely overlap with the

relationship between LE and LP as configured, long before him, by writers such as

Athenagoras of Athens or Theophilus of Antioch. These authors, in fact, identified the

LE with the divine nous. In their account of the generation of the Logos, thus, the sermo

immanens would have been the father of the sermo prolatus, understood simply as the

exterior manifestation of God’s mind17. Aphrahat, instead, holds firm the distinction

between, on the one hand, God’s intellect (tarʿitâ) [7.d] or thought (maḥšabtâ) [7.c]; and,

on the other, the being conceived within it.

Other models of prolatio have been elaborated throughout the first centuries of

Christian theological reflection—e.g. by Tatian18, Tertullian19, Pseudo-Hippolytus20,

Irenaeus of Lyons21, Origen22, and Basil of Caesarea23. My intention, however, is not to

17
Cfr. ORBE 1958, 151-152. Theophilus also innovated on the traditional model by imagining the emission
of Sophia together and on an equal level with the Logos.
18
It was Tatian who, in his Oratio ad Graecos, clarified the pattern sermo immanens / sermo prolatus by
stating that the Logos was ab aeterno in the Father. He also utilized, along with the terminology of
“procession” and “issuing forth”, marked by the verbs proelthon and propêda, that of “generation”,
expressed by the participle gennetheis (Oratio ad graecos 5, 1-2). On Tatian’s theological teaching cfr. STEUER
1892, part. 54-58 (“Das Verhältnis des Logos zum Vater”), and, in the 20th century, GRANT 1954 and ELZE
1960. For an “apophatic” take on the historical consistency of the figure of Tatian cfr. KOLTUN-FROMM
2008. On the probolê in Tatian cfr. ORBE 1958, 584 seq.
19
On Tertullian’s dealing with the theme of probolê cfr. ORBE 1958, 519-531, part. the pages on Montanism
(524-531).
20
Refutatio omnium haeresium 10, 33, 2. On the prolatio of the Logos in these authors cfr. SIMONETTI 1933,
200-201.
21
Adversus Haereses 2, 12, 5, where the terms are quoted in Greek.
22
Contra Celsum 6, 65.
61
provide an overview of all the existing variations on this theological theme, but rather

to assess the significance of its idiosyncratic adoption on the part of Aphrahat.

3.4. AN ECLECTIC CONSTRUCT

The most important ancient philosophical texts for the reconstruction of the

historico-philosophical parabola of the opposition LE / LP are Philo’s De animalibus; the

third book of Porphyry’s De abstinentia; and a section of the first book of Sextus

Empiricus’ Pyrrhonianae hypotyposeis24. The similarities between these texts have led M.

Chiesa to imagine a common source behind them (shared also by Plutarch in his De

sollertia animalium and Aelianus in his De natura animalium), placed in Carneades’

Academy25. Chiesa’s long and detailed study concludes that, “loin d’être typiquement

stoïcienne, cette distinction est relativemente neutre du point de vue doctrinal”26. The

scholar describes LE and LP as “des notions qui relèvent de la «koinè» conceptuelle de

l’époque, de la «lingua franca» ou du sabir philosophique des érudits de l’époque

hellénistique et romaine. […] Enfin, ces deux notions peuvent être décrites et

interprétées de manière syncrétique ou éclectique”27.

23
Homiliae 16, 3.
24
Cfr. CHIESA 1991, 308
25
Cfr. ibid., 309.
26
Ibid., 311. On the two logoi cfr. also the important studies of MÜHL 1962 (for whom the doctrine can be
traced back to Zeno) and POHLENZ 1965 (who proposes that the couple of concepts originated from the
disputes between Academics and Stoics in the II century B.C.), and, in more recent years, MATELLI 1992
and LABARRIÉRE 1997. Cfr. also the section on the two logoi in HÜLSER 1987, 582-591 (cit. in KAMESAR 2004,
163, n. 1) and the study of CASEY 1923 about the presence of this pattern in Clement of Alexandria.
27
“C’est ainsi que chez Porphyre (DA III, 3, 2) et, encore plus clairement chez Ptolémeée, la relation du
langage proféré au langage interne est considérée à la fois comme une relation «symbolique», à l’instar
62
 This couple of concepts, thus, was common knowledge in the late ancient

Hellenistic world. The eclectic nature of its philosophical usage was matched by the

variety of the theological results that its adoption on the part of Christian thinkers

produced. As we have seen, authors such as Justin Martyr or Theophilus of Antioch

availed themselves of this model in disparate fashions, probably influenced, in turn, by

philosophical sources and traditions handling the opposition between the two logoi in

different ways.

Of particular interest for us is the fact that the couple is found in Nemesius of

Emesa, author of a treatise On the Nature of Man28. This occurrence suggests that the

d’Aristote, et comme une relation d’image à modèle, suivant un aspect de la tradition platonicienne”
(ibid., 312).
28
Nemesius (De natura hominis 14) identifies the LE with the product of the dialogismos, according to a
notion found also in Irenaeus (cfr. ORBE 1958, 370). Nemesius writes: “This, then, is one way of dividing
the power of the soul, viz. according to the division of certain bodily parts. With regard to the rational
element of the soul, there is another division, which is made in a different way, viz. into the so-called
immanent and expressed reason (ὅ […] καλούμενος ἐνδιάθετος λόγος καὶ ὁ προφορικός). Immanent
reason is a motion of the soul which occurs in the speech function without any speaking aloud, which is
why we often go through a whole reasoning process by ourselves in silence and converse in dreams. […]
Expressed reason has its activity in speech and in conversation. There are many organs of speech […]. […
A]ll the muscle that move these parts [mentioned in the omissis] are organs of sound production, and of
speech the mouth: for in this speech is moulded, given shape and as it were, a form […]” (Αὕτη μὲν οὖν
μία διαίρεσις τῆς ψυχικῆς δυνάμεως, ᾗ συνδιαιρεῖται μέρη τινὰ τοῦ σώματος, ἑτέρα δὲ διαίρεσις καθ’
ἕτερον τρόπον τοῦ λογικοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς, ὅ τε καλούμενος ἐνδιάθετος λόγος καὶ ὁ προφορικός. ἔστι δὲ
ἐνδιάθετος μὲν λόγος τὸ κίνημα τῆς ψυχῆς τὸ ἐν τῷ διαλογιστικῷ γινόμενον ἄνευ τινὸς ἐκφωνήσεως,
ὅθεν πολλάκις καὶ σιωπῶντες λόγον ὅλον παρ’ ἑαυτοῖς διεξερχόμεθα καὶ ἐν τοῖς ὀνείροις διαλεγόμεθα.
[…] ὁ δὲ προφορικὸς λόγος ἐν τῇ φωνῇ καὶ ἐν ταῖς διαλέκτοις τὴν ἐνέργειαν ἔχει. ὄργανα δὲ τῆς φωνῆς
πολλά · […]. […] πάντες οἱ κινοῦντες ταῦτα τὰ μόρια μύες τῆς ἐκφωνήσεώς εἰσιν ὄργανα, τῆς δὲ διαλέκτου
τὸ στόμα · ἐν τούτῳ γὰρ διαπλάττεται καὶ σχηματίζεται καὶ οἱονεὶ μορφοῦται ἡ διάλεκτος). Translation
from SHARPLES, R.W. et VAN DER EIJK, PH. 2008. Greek text according to MORANI 1987, 123-124. The
dialogismos is the fifth stage in the sequence of actions necessary to the production of an object extra
mentem described by Irenaeus of Lyons: 1) ennoia; 2) enthymêsis or katalêpsis; 3) sensatio or phronêsis; 4)
consilium or boulêsis; 5) cogitationis examinatio or dialogismos; 6) verbum immanens; 7) verbum emissibile (cfr.
ORBE 1958, 370-371). On the dialogic aspect of thought cfr. CHIESA 1991, 302: “Logos et dianoia, c’est «le
meme et pas le même»: il faut en convenir et ne s’en point fâcher. […] L’identité consiste en ceci que le
63
notion had not ceased to circulate in that Western region of Syria in the second half of

the fourth century. It is therefore plausible that the Persian Sage, although located

further East, may have learnt about this idea from either Christian or non-Christian

sources, found it attractive, and decided to employ it. As R. Murray wrote with

reference to a different Hellenistic construct found in Aphrahat’s writings, “the fact

remains that the theme for these variations was a common Hellenistic topos, both

Greco-Roman and Jewish. Aphrahat treats it in an individual way, but the theme came

to him with the genre of his discourse”29. The hypothesis cannot be ruled out, in fact,

that the so-called “apologists” (among whom Theophilus and Tatian, both with

connections to the East) have been influential on the section on Adam. In favor of this

possibility would stand the circumstance that Aphrahat’s Demonstration shares with

their works the apologetic genre, as well as, in the case of Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho

the Jew, the religious identity of the ostensive addressees.

3.5. STRADDLING TWO WORLDS

Such a reconstruction is not without consequences for the overall construal of the

theological and literary profile of Aphrahat, who, as discussed in the Chapter 1, has

langage et la pensée sont des «dialogues» […]; par conséquent, logos et dianoia sont les mêmes en tant que
«discours». Mais ce discourse se réalise de deux manières différentes, qui correspondent au fait que le
dialogue dans l’âme est silencieux tandis que le dialogue qui coule à travers la bouche est sonore”. On the
book De natura hominis cfr. SHARPLES, R.W. et VAN DER EIJK, PH. 2008, 1-32; and ZONTA 1991 (“Introduction”),
part. 225-229 (“II. The Syriac Version”).
29
MURRAY 1983, 83. Murray was referring here to the theme of the cosmic homonoia, a theme considered
by some scholars of Stoic origin, but found also in Jewish texts such as the Testament of Naphtali, the
Assumption of Moses, and Psalms of Solomon. Cfr. ibid., 82-83.
64
often been read as far removed from Hellenistic culture, and presenting the characters

of “un asceta di non comune erudizione scritturistica ma per nulla iniziato nelle

speculazioni teologiche dei Padri greci”30. As R. Murray wrote, “Aphrahat and other

early Syriac writers are often said to represent a purely Semitic Christianity, reflecting

little or no Hellenistic influence. Today a certain retractatio is called for. […] [T]here is a

danger of a kind of romanticism which neglects the degree to which the entire area

where Syriac literature came to flower had for centuries been penetrated by Hellenistic

cultural influence, in ways not resisted by linguistic barriers”31.

My hope is that, at the end of this survey, we will be able to locate Aphrahat further

away from the image of the “reiner Semit”32 that has been sometimes portrayed in

scholarship, and closer to the “«koinè» conceptuelle de l’époque”. The working

hypothesis33 pursued here is, in sum, that in Dem. 17, 7 we witness the encounter

between a Hellenistic topos (the sermo immanens / sermo prolatus dialectic, whether or

not filtered through the Christological speculations of the apologists) and a likewise

well-established model (so-called Adamitic Christology) that are commonly assumed to

belong to conflicting cultural worlds. This is not to suggest that we should see Aphrahat

as a “hero of the two worlds”, a trailblazer unprecedentedly attempting to bridge the

30
ORTIZ DE URBINA 1947, 87.
31
MURRAY 1983, 79. Murray was one of the very earliest scholars to speak out against this restitution of
the figure of the Persian Sage.
32
ORTIZ DE URBINA 1933, 5.
33
The state of the evidence, and above all of discussion of it, does not allow for calling it more than this.
In fact, neither Adamitic Christology nor the LE / LP relationship are areas on which scholars’ inquiry
into Aphrahat’s theological views have tended to linger. As a result, often the presence of neither in the
Demonstrations is acknowledged. My hope is that connecting these two elements to one another will help
unearthing the presence of both in the Aphrahatian corpus.
65
breach between two otherwise monolithic entities called Syriac(-speaking) and Greek(-

speaking) Christianities. My proposal is, rather, to read him as a figure engaging in

unexceptional dynamics of cultural interaction, in which the boundaries between

belonging and borrowing become blurred; and as an occasion for carrying on the work,

begun by some scholars, of questioning the reifying picture of Semitic/Syriac and

Hellenistic/Greek Christianities as airtight compartments, completely sealed off from

each other.

3.6. ADAMITIC CHRISTOLOGIES

The argument for the presence of a vein of Adamitic Christology in Aphrahat’s

thought finds substantial support in the solid link drawn by Petersen between the

Persian Sage and the Pseudoclementine corpus. The scholar pinpointed a parallel for

the contents of this Demonstration in Recognitions 11.41.3-42.1. This parallel in his

opinion is proven by: a) the closeness of the date of composition of the two texts; b)

their common geographical provenance; c) the shared point at issue, namely the

rightness of applying the designation of “God” to Jesus; d) the constant reference to the

OT; e) the proclamation of the honorific value of the appellative of “God”; f) the

affirmation of a distinction between the supreme God and those who, like Moses and

Jesus, only bear His name.

66
 Now, the literary hero of the Pseudoclementine Homilies, the True Prophet, is, as

known, Adam34. Upon him God bestowed the spirit of knowledge, appointing him as the

guide of humanity. Adam, at once protoplast and last of the soteriologic figures by

whose means God periodically visits the history of Israel, is humankind’s archon and

redeemer:

When God had made the world, as Lord of the universe, He appointed chiefs
over the several creatures […]. He set, therefore, an angel as chief over the
angels, a spirit over the spirits […] a man over men, who is Christ Jesus”35.

His “honour is to bear rule and lordship over all things, in air, earth, and waters”36.

The world has been created for him (not through him), and his sovereignty over it is the

mark of his Christhood:

For, on account of this one also God made the world, and by Him the world is
filled; whence also He is everywhere near to them who seek Him, though He be
sought in the remotest ends of the earth37.

Thus, to the evidence for the parallel piled up by Petersen I may add the insistence,

common to Pseudoclementines and Aphrahat, on God’s appointing Adam in power over

34
On Adamitic Christology from Paul to Irenaeus cfr. GAGLIARDI 2002, 106-478 (where no section is devoted
to the Pseudoclementines!). For Adamitic Christology in the Pseudoclementines cfr. DRIJVERS 1990; TEEPLE 1993
(with F.St. Jone’s introduction to the book); and VAHEDI 2007. Elements of interest for the study of
Adamitic Christology can be found passim in ANDERSON 2001 (otherwise more of a fascinating reading on
ancient and less ancient Jewish and Christian imagery on Adam and Eve). Discussing the relationship
between Adam and Christ in Aphrahat, BRUNS 1990, 106-107 draws parallels with the Kerygmata Petrou and
the Cave of Treasures.
35
Rec. 1, 45 (“Deus cum fecisset mundum, tamquam universitatis dominus singulis quibusque creaturis
principer statuit […] statuit ergo angelis angelus principem et spiritibus spiritum […] hominibus
hominem, qui est Christus Jesus”).
36
Hom. 3, 20.
37
Rec. 8, 62 (“Propter hunc enim deus etiam mundum fecit et ab ipso mundus repletur, unde et
quaerentubus se adest ubique, etiamsi in ultimis terrae finibus quaeratur”).
67
everything He had made, and the spousal characterization of the liaison between Adam

and the world. In Aphrahat we read in fact:

And He gave him authority over everything He had made, in the way in which a
man having a son for whom he wants to make a wedding would get for him a
woman, would build for him a house, would prepare and adorn everything
necessary for his son, and then would make the wedding and give his son
authority over his house. And after the conception of Adam He generated him
and gave him authority over His whole Creation. (Dem. 17, 7.g)

Analogously, in the Pseudoclementine corpus we find passages such as the

following38:

On account of His Son God created the world39 […]. […] His Son [is] set apart in a
certain place of the world, which is without sin; in which there are already
some, who are there being prepared, as I said, as a bride adorned for the coming
of the bridegroom40.

Although bridal Christology in the Pseudoclementines is always projected

eschatologically41, whereas in Dem. 17, 7 we see it employed protologically, it should be

borne in mind that at the very core of Adamitic Christology is the identification of

earliest and latter times. More than the ultimateness of the visitation, predicable of

38
Elements of spousal Christology appear more frequently in the Homilies (Epistola Clementis 4.7; Hom. 3,
27-28.72; Hom. 8, 22; Hom. 12, 33; Hom. 13, 16) than in the Recognitions (Rec. 4, 35; Rec. 9, 3). The obligated
reference for spousal imagery in the NT is, of course, Mt 22 (and, less relevantly, Mt 25 ǁ Lk 20).
39
I modified here Schaff’s translation, which read: “God by His Son created the world” (per, as known, can
express both means and cause).
40
Rec. 9, 3 (the entire passage reads: “Deus per filium suum creavit mundum […]. verum usque ad
nuptiarum tempus, quod est praesentia speculi venturi, statuit virtutem quondam, quae ex his qui in hoc
mundo nascuntur, eligat et custodiat meliores ac servet filio suo sequestratos in loco quodam mundi qui
extra peccatum est, in quo iam sunt aliquanti, qui ibi velut sponsa, ut dixi, decora ad sponsi praesentia
praeparantur”).
41
Sometimes, like in the case of Rec. 9, 3, in the Pseudoclementines the creation of the world appears in the
same context in which a reference to Christ as eschatological bridegroom is made, yet no connection is
made explicit.
68
Christ’s mission but obviously not of Adam’s, there counts the shared intercessory42

function, in both cases demanding the same “bridal” response on the part of the world.

As a proof to this stands the fact that Aphrahat himself, in Dem. 6, develops motives of

spousal Christology in the context of urging the bnay qyāmā (“members of the pact”)

not to be found unprepared by the imminent eschaton43:

“Let us watch the time of the glorious Bridegroom [ḥatnā], so that we may enter
with him his bridal chamber [gnoneh]. […] “Let us cast and send away from us
any filthiness, so that we may wear the garments of the wedding [naḥtē d-
meštutā)”44.

3.7. WHAT HAPPENS TO ADAM

I hope to have convincingly shown that Aphrahat shared one of the multifarious

traditions that—to a lesser or greater degree and in different forms—tended to reverse,

or at least neutralize, the direction of the traditional typological vector uniting Adam

and Christ45. This reversal or neutralization, with its import of potential identification

of the two heads of the line, brought about a trend of relativization of the differences

between an entire array of Jewish and Christian figures of mediation. This process must

have been facilitated by the existence of a fluid cultural koinê, presenting a pervasive

42
I use the term “intercession” (and similar words) throughout this paper not with the meaning of
“entreaty”, but rather in its etymological sense of “going between”—i.e., as a synonym of “mediation”
(and similar words).
43
On bridal imagery in Aphrahat cfr. now BURLESON 2010, 38 seq.; 54 seq.; 74 seq.
44
Dem. 6, 1; cit. in BURLESON 2010, 40-41 (translation mine).
45
For the Adam-Christ parallel in Pauline Christology the foundational texts are Rom 5:12-21; 1 Cor 15:21-
22; 1 Cor 15:45-49. In the NT cfr. also Mk 1:13. On the origin of Paul’s doctrine of the two Adams cfr.
HULTGREN 2003, who makes a case for Palestinian rabbinical influences against the commonly maintained
Philonian origin.
69
recurrence of competing philosophical models and schemes of thought across

intellectual schools and religious groups.

Among these patterns of thought there must have been an acutely functional

outlook on the interactions between the spheres of divinity and humanity. Its bearers

were less interested in quibbling over ontological issues concerning the personal

subsistence of God’s envoy, and more inclined to gradually erode the differences

between beings absolving the very same function of proceeding from God towards the

world.

In this context, even the designation of Christ must be understood as less

hypostatically enclosed than generally assumed when speaking of fourth-century

Christologies. As P. Bruns wrote, in Aphrahat “[b]emerkenswert ist die funktionale

Sicht Christi: Christus erscheint […] als das Medium, durch das die Gerechten Zugang zu

Gott erhalten. Der Messiasbegriff wirkt sehr jüdisch: Christus, der Gesalbte, ist hier

nicht bloßer Eigenname, sondern bezeichnet seine Funktion”46.

In sum, under the apparently flat textual surface of Dem. 17, which scholars have

often attempted to either square with Nicene orthodoxy or label as “Jewish-Christian”,

Aphrahat47 is conducting a complex speculation on the convergence of various

modalities of conceptualization (and relative personification) of soteriologic mediation.

However, in this Demonstration we also witness, as already mentioned, the labor towards

46
BRUNS 1991, 101.
47
In this paper I refer to Aphrahat’s authorial intentionality out of simplicity. I am, however, aware that
he may have had behind and around himself an ongoing tradition of theological elaboration and literary
production, his relationship to which is destined to remain for most part obscure.
70
a synthetic integration of this plexus of traditions with a model found on the other side

of the functional/ontological48 ridge: the LE / LP dialectic.

3.8. TRANSLATING GOD

Philo of Alexandria provides extensive testimony, in his writings, to the use of the

sermo immanens / sermo prolatus scheme. As A. Kamesar noticed, even though Philo finds

the couple of logoi represented by a diversity of biblical images, “it is the two brothers,

Moses and Aaron, that most often symbolize them”49 in his works. Since for Philo God

did not speak to Moses, but rather within him50, the service of Aaron (LP) was required

to convey to the people the contents of the revelation that God had non-verbally

disclosed to Moses (LE)51.

48
This opposition is admittedly an artificial one, which demands, in turn, to be deconstructed. I will leave
the job for somebody else. However, I will say, to my defense, that I consider its heuristic employment
(temporarily) legitimate only on an ideal level—the level on which each individual can freely subscribe to
an idea regardless of her or his ethnic, religious, or linguistic heritage. If theoretical models can be
schematically opposed for sake of convenience, portions of humanity certainly cannot.
49
KAMESAR 2004, 164.
50
Cfr. AMIR 1983 (cit. in KAMESAR 2004, 164, n. 3)
51
Cfr. De migratione Abrahami 76–81 and Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat 38–40 (both cit. in KAMESAR 2004,
164). Kamesar persuasively shows throughout his paper that such an allegorical interpretation “may
have been ultimately inspired by a similar interpretation of another set of brothers, Otus and Ephialtes,
preserved in the D-scholium on Iliad 5.385” (ibid., 180). In addition to these occurrences of the doctrine of
the two logoi applied to Moses and Aaron, one may quote the instances in which Philo refers to Moses’s\
being considered worthy of being called “God” in Ex 7, 1: cfr. Vita Mosis 1, 158; De Somniis 1, 189; De
Mutatione nominum 128-129; Quaestiones et solutions in Exodus 2, 29 and 2, 40; De posteritate Caini 27-28; De
Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 8-10. For Philo, God “appointed [Moses] to be god, and decreed that the whole
bodily realm and its leader, the mind, should be his subjects and slaves” (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 9, 1).
71
 Significantly, the couple Moses / Aaron appears in the outset of the probative

section of Dem. 17 as the only example produced by Aphrahat of the bestowal of the

name of the godhood upon a human being. The passage reads:

[3] For, the honorable name of the godhood has been imposed also upon the
righteous human beings, and they have been worth of being called by it. And
the human beings with whom God pleased He called “My children” and “My
friends”. Moses, His friend and His beloved, when He chose him and made him
head, teacher, and priest for his people, He called “God”. For, he said to him: “I
gave you to Pharaoh [as] a god”52. And He gave him His priest [as] a prophet53.
“And Aaron”, [he said], “your brother, shall speak for you with Pharaoh54. And
you shall be for him a god, and he shall be for you an interpreter”55. Not only for
Pharaoh, who was an iniquitous one, did He make Moses a god, but also for
Aaron, the holy priest, did He make Moses a god.

While such a parallel is of course no evidence that Aphrahat had access to Philo’s

works, its existence, if—as I am inclined to believe—not the fruit of mere coincidence,

would betoken a lesser degree of extraneousness of Aphrahat to the philosophical,

exegetical, and theological traditions of the Hellenistic world than has often been

depicted in scholarship56.

In the passage just quoted Aphrahat is introducing the topic of the relationship

between LE and LP by staging their most eminent personification, the couple of

brothers Moses and Aaron. By doing so in the context of proving the legitimacy of the

52
Ex. 7, 1
53
Cfr. Ex. 7, 1
54
Ex 7, 2.
55
Ex 7, 1.
56
It is also interesting to notice that Aphrahat seems to attest the “Jewish-Christian” tradition of an
Aaronic Messiah: John the Baptist would have been a descendant of Aaron, and would have spiritually
transmitted the priesthood to Jesus at the moment of the latter’s baptism. Cfr. KOFSKY and RUZER 2007,
366.
72
use of the name of the godhood for beings other than God, Aphrahat creates a

connection between prolatio of the Logos and theological-onomastic speculations which

is most valuable for our understanding of the Christological stake of this Demonstration.

In his treatment of the philosophy of the divine name underpinning the

Valentinian Gospel of Truth, A. Orbe wrote: “La idea de hipostasiar el Nombre divino

tiene sin duda resonancias hebreas. Pero en el Evangelium Veritatis se halla orquestrada

dentro de una concepción enteramente griega: la del doble estadio del Logos

(ἐνδιάθετος y προφορικός). Basta en efecto traducir el ὄνομα por λόγος y denominar

ἐνδιάθετος al Nombre Invisible o Inefable, interior al Padre; προφορικός al Nombre

hecho visible en el Hijo”57.

The name is that which, by being spoken, reveals what is hidden, functioning as a

mediator or an interpreter of God’s inner thought. By virtue of its function, Orbe

explains, it is called by the Stoics diangelos, kêryx, but also, what is most interesting for

us, hermêneys, interpres mentis, interpres animi. “Ἐνδιάθετος und προφορικός sind ofenbar

als Komplementärbegriffe konzipiert. Προφορικός ist eindeutig, ὁ λόγος ὃς προφέρεται,

der Dolmetsch des inneren Logos, aus dem er wie aus einer Quelle fliesst”58.

It can be surmised that the awareness of a tradition that characterized the LP as an

interpreter59 stands behind the choice to utilize the Philonian allegorical reading of

Moses and Aaron as the two logoi, where the latter is called “interpreter” (targemānā).

57
ORBE 1958, 89.
58
POHLENZ 1939, 193 (cit. in ORBE 1958, 90, n. 82). Italics mine.
59
Of course we need not imagine Aphrahat’s dependence on the Gospel of Truth to justify his use of this
concept, which may have had wide circulation.
73
This piece of exegesis, in fact, was able to express the connection, probably easily

gathered or already presupposed by fourth-century readers, between the LE / LP

Christology found in Dem. 17, 7 and the onomastic argument developed throughout the

Demonstration. A confirmation of the centrality of this motif in Aphrahat’s discussion

comes from the circumstance that

The part of the Exodus quotation in which Aaron is called an “interpreter” is not

found in the Peshitta, in the Masoretic text, or in the Septuagint60. It is found, instead,

in the Targum Onkelos61. It is plausible that Aphrahat may have found his lectio,

attributing to Aaron the role of the translator, in Onkelos, and may have considered it

the right interpretation of the verse. This could be a proof to the fact that the Syriac

writer attributed to it some specific significance.

3.9. WITH A GOD LIKE THAT, WHO NEEDS A LOGOS?

This sort of meditation on the existence of a hidden, unspoken name versus an

uttered one, which allows knowledge of the former, is found in other authors. Thus

writes Justin Martyr:

To the Father of all, who is unbegotten, there is no name given. For, by

whatever name He be called, He has as elder the one who has given the name.
But the [words] “Father”, “God”, “Creator”, “Lord”, and “Master” are not names

60
The quotation as found in Aphrahat reads as follows: ‫“( ܘܐܢ̄ܬ ܬܗܘܐ ܠܗ ܐܠܠܗ ܘܗܘ ܢܗܘܐ ܠܟ ܬܪܓܡܢܐ‬And
̈
you shall be for him a god, and he shall be for you an interpreter”). The Peshitta reads: ‫ܘܠܒܢܝ ܐܝܣܪܝܠ ܢܫܕܪ‬
‫“( ܡܢ ܐܪܥܗ‬And he will let go the children of Israel from his land”), after: ‫ܘܐܗܪܘܢ ܐܚܘܟ ܢܐܡܪ ܠܦܪܥܘܢ‬
(“And Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh”).
61
There we read: ‫“( מניתך רב לפרעה ואהרן אחוך יהי מתורגמנך‬I put you as a great one [rav] for Pharaoh, and
Aaron, your brother, shall be your interpreter”).
74
 [ὀνόματα], but rather appellatives [προσρήσεις] [derived] from [His] good deeds
and functions62. […] Also the designation [προσαγόρευμα] “God” is not a name
[ὄνομα], but rather the opinion, rooted within the nature of human beings, of
an unspeakable thing.

Interestingly, the apologist seems to conceive of onoma as God’s ineffable essence,

shrouded in silence and darkness, and to consider terms such as theos (!) mere

appellatives (prosrêseis), produced by the humans’ fallacious intellect. This posture, far

from representing an apophatic contradiction of the onomastic constructions seen thus

far, appears to be a token of a deep-rooted conviction of the possibility, and necessity,

of God’s revelation, and of that revelation coinciding with His name. If God’s own

essence est structuré comme un langage, if a name is His most intimate secret, God can but

act linguistically—by communicating, revealing himself, sending forth a mediator. In a

sense, the more the onoma is absorbed back into the remote sphere of the godhead, thus

enlarging the distance between God and humanity, the more urgent becomes the

logical necessity for a mediator—and one, as if were, with a strong personality, such as

Justin’s subsistent Logos63.

Conversely, a God, like Aphrahat’s, who bestows upon the human beings His own

names (indicating kingship, godhood, fatherhood, sovereignty, veneration [Dem. 17, 5-

6]); who reveals to Moses His most arcane idionyms (ʾAhyah ʾašar ʾahyah, ʾElšaddai, and

ʾAdonai Ṣbaʾot [Dem. 17, 5]); and in whose existence the believers can have part as long as

62
Apologia Secunda, 6: Ὄνομα δὲ τῷ πάντων πατρὶ θετόν, ἀγεννήτῳ ὄντι, οὐκ ἔστιν· ᾧ γὰρ ἂν καὶ ὀνόματι
προσαγορεύηται, πρεσβύτερον ἔχει τὸν θέμενον τὸ ὄνομα. τὸ δὲ πατὴρ καὶ θεὸς καὶ κτίστης καὶ κύριος καὶ
δεσπότης οὐκ ὀνόματά ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ἐκ τῶν εὐποιϊῶν καὶ τῶν ἔργων προσρήσεις. […] καὶ τὸ θεὸς οὐκ ὄνομά
ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ πράγματος δυσεξηγήτου ἔμφυτος τῇ φύσει τῶν ἀνθρώπων δόξα (text according to Migné;
transl. mine).
63
On Justin’s Logos Christology cfr. SIMONETTI 1993, 73-82.
75
they abide by certain conducts—such a God will emit a mediator whose substantiality is

hardly anything more than a bare idea of divine inessentiality, the result of God’s being

availabile to human knowledge. Hence can we explain the accrual, upon this God’s

quasi-unsubstantial envoy, of many of the categories of salvific mediation that the

coeval religious thought had been elaborating.

I will now produce some examples of this dynamic of potentially endless

proliferation of identifications. As A. Lehto has remarked, Aphrahat held the belief that

“an unwritten law of righteousness predated Sinai, continued to be operative under the

written law, and was now clarified in Christ’s teaching and call”64. The Persian Sage

shared with the Liber graduum the persuasion that “that uprightness which Moses and

the prophets gave is the same which was established for Adam after he had

transgressed against the first commandment”65.

It is now expedient to recall Moses’ central role in the theological narrative of the

Pseudoclementines. For Ch. Gieschen, the main core of the True-Prophet Christology of

this corpus is what he dubs the “Prophet-like-Moses” tradition of Deuteronomy 18, 15,

that has Moses declare: “The God your Lord will raise up for you a prophet like me from

among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet”66. Since the True Prophet’s

64
LEHTO 2006, 180, n. 77.
65
Liber Graduum, transl. KITCHEN 2004, cit. ibid. On the Book of Steps in relation to Aphrahat cfr. KOWALSKI
1989; JUHL 1996; BETTIOLO 1998; BETTIOLO 2001; TANNOUS [unknown date].
66
Cfr. GIESCHEN 1998, 201. In general, Gieschen’s book, part. 152-183, is a stunning source of documentation
about the connection between onomastic and angelomorphic traditions (for which the reference point
remains DANIÉLOU 1958, 147-163). Cfr. also the section on the Pseudoclementines (201-213) in Gieschen’s
work.
76
teaching concerns the Law, his person and his message are seen as congruent with

those of the prophet Moses.

These examples, showing a thick net of Scriptures-grounded connections between

angelomorphic, Christ-like, and onomastic categories of salvific intercession, confirm

the point that was being made earlier. Dem. 17, dominated by the leitmotif of God’s

bestowing His names and titles upon humans, revolves around the theme of the name

as a theological category, understood as a two-faced Janus67—open to revelation but

also ready to be identified, as in the Gospel of Truth and in Justin Martyr, with the arcane

and innermost thought of God.

The name of the Godhead, which in the Gospel of Truth we have seen equated to the

LE, is of course connatural to Her existence. For this reason it is—at least insofar as it is

thought of by the Godhead—“physiologically” coeternal to Her and pre-existent to the

Creation—without, however, enjoying any real, personal subsistence. This is indeed

identical to that preexistence of Adam that Peter Bruns called “eine gedachte, keine

reale”68.

3.10. THE NON-CREATIVE LOGOS

In the writings of fourth-century Logos theologians the use of the scheme sermo

immanens / sermo prolatus was indissolubly bound to the theologoumenon of Christ’s

67
This may provide the logical key, if one were to be sought, to the solution of the contradiction
represented by Moses’ double role: type of God when in couple with Aaron; type of Adam and of the True
Prophet in the Pseudoclementine tradition that we have seen. Of course, this is not to say that we should
expect full congruence from a web of connections spanning several centuries, lands, and communities.
68
BRUNS 1991, 134.
77
cosmogonic function and, subsequently, of the chronological priority of his begetting

to the Creation of the world. Not quite so in Aphrahat. In his case, as seen, the

acknowledgment of the priority of Adam’s conception to the creation of the world allows

the Syriac author to subscribe to the Pseudoclementine doctrine of the eternal

destination of the world to the preexistent verus propheta without having to adhere to

the faith given of the creativity of the Son.

However, although I consider it impossible, based on these considerations, to

attribute to Aphrahat’s Christ a creative role, I disagree with Kofsky and Ruzer’s

conviction69 that the Persian Sage explicitly rejects the idea of Christ’s participation in

the creation in Dem. 17, 8. In fact, where Kofsky and Ruzer translate:

Now if they worship and honour with the name of worship evil men, those who
in their iniquity even deny the name of God, but they do not worship them as
their maker, as though they worshipped them alone, and so do not sin, how
much the more is it appropriate for us to worship and honour Jesus who turned
our stubborn minds from all our worship of vain error and taught us to
worship, serve, and work for one God, our father and our maker70

I would suggest instead to read:

For, if they worship and honor the iniquitous ones for the sake of worship, and
those who in their iniquity deny even the name of God—honoring them not as
their maker, [but] for their own sake only—there are no sins (involved). As for

69
Cfr. KOFSKY et RUZER 2007, 356.
70
Kofsky and Ruzer’s construal of the sentence, allowed by the convenient yet ungranted addition of two
conjunctions and an adverb (“but” [in “but they do not worship them”]; and “and so” [in “and so do not
sin”]), could not be savaged even by making ‫ ܠܗܘܢ ܐܝܟ ܕܠܥܒܘܕܗܘܢ ܐܠ ܢܣܓܕܘܢ‬the main clause. This, in
fact, would force us to adopt—if we wanted to refrain from making emendations—either of two
̈
nonsensical solutions: 1) considering ‫ܚܛܗܝܢ‬ ‫ ܠܝܬ‬a self-standing close; 2) reading: “Now if they worship
and honour with the name of worship the evil men, those who in their iniquity even deny the name of
God, they do not worship them as their maker, as though only they were sinless” (a sentence of which I
cannot make any sense).
78
 us, how necessary is it for us to venerate and honor Jesus, who has turned our
stubborn minds away from all the venerations of vain error, and has taught us to
venerate and worship and serve the only God, our father and our maker!71

The distinction between admitting an outright refusal of the creativity of Christ on

the part of Aphrahat and simply denying that he ever upheld this theologoumenon,

albeit a nuanced one, is worth being expounded. Imagining the Persian Sage engaged in

a discussion on the cosmogonic office of the Son—if only to deny it—would be

tantamount to situate his theological subjectivity within the frame of reference of

Logos Christology. One could then conclude that his views partially overlap with this

model, whereas depart from it when they tardily refuse to grant the Logos a

cosmogonic function72.

71
The Syriac (without punctuation marks) reads as follows: ‫ܘܐܢ ܓܝܪ ܠ̈ܪܫܝܥܐ ܣܓܕܝܢ ܘܡܝܩܪܝܢ ܒܫܡܐ ܕܣܓܕܬܐ‬
‫ܘܐܝܠܝܢ ܕܒܪܫܝܥܘܬܗܘܢ ܘܐܦ ܒܫܡ ܐܠܗܐ ܟܦܪܝܢ ܠܗܘܢ ܐܝܟ ܕܠܥܒܘܕܗܘܢ ܐܠ ܢܣܓܕܘܢ ܐܝܟ ܕܠܗܘܢ ܒܠܚܘܕܝܗܘܢ ܠܝܬ‬
̈
‫ܚܛܗܝܢ‬. I have not been able to consult a manuscript to check the punctuation marks. There are very
many possible ways of reading this sentences—nearly as many as the combinations of the following
alternatives: 1) considering ‫ ܘܐܝܠܝܢ‬a subject / considering it an object (the omission of the repetition of
the ‫ ܠ‬is in fact conceivable); 2) reading a break before ‫ܠܗܘܢ‬, thus making ‫ ܠܗܘܢ‬the object of ‫ ܢܣܓܕܘܢ‬/
reading a break after ‫ ܠܗܘܢ‬, thus making ‫ ܠܗܘܢ‬a so-called dativus ethicus depending on ‫ ;ܟܦܪܝܢ‬3)
translating the first ‫ ܐܝܟ ܕ‬as “so that” / translating it as “as though”; 4) translating the second ‫ ܐܝܟ ܕ‬as
̈
“so that” / translating it as “as though”; 5) translating ‫ܚܛܗܝܢ‬ ‫ ܠܗܘܢ ܒܠܚܘܕܝܗܘܢ ܠܝܬ‬as “only they do not
have sins” / reading a break after ‫ܒܠܚܘܕܝܗܘܢ‬, thus making ‫ܚܛܗܝܢ‬̈ ‫ ܠܝܬ‬the main clause and apodosis of the
̈
conditional sentence; 6) reading a period after ‫ ܚܛܗܝܢ‬/ not reading it. It appears that the solution I
adopted is the only combination to be both syntactically and logically satisfying (the logic of which I am
talking being, of course, an internal logic, and not one of correspondence to an already assumed theology
of Aphrahat’s).
72
KOFSKY et RUZER 2007, 357 write: “We therefore venture the hypothesis that while the doctrine of the
logos as God’s thought and emanated speech constituted a natural back-ground of Aphrahat’s thinking,
for him the distinct quasi-hypostatic reality of the Christ-Logos is generated only in the context of
Christ’s revelatory and soteriological mission. Such a concept seems to leave no room for the traditional
role of the hypostatic logos as a medium of creation. This outlook emphasizes the ontological uniqueness
and unity of God the creator through a subordinationist concept of the relationship between the Christ-
Logos and the Father”. For them, although Dem. 17 “is presented as refuting a somewhat general
accusation by the author’s Jewish opponents”, “[i]ts thrust […] may be directed against a more pointed
79
 3.11. CONCLUSION: WHAT IS APHRAHAT DOING?

In my opinion, rather, Aphrahat, though aware of the speculations of the partizans

of Logos Christology, propounds a competing paradigm, more concerned with

recognizing God’s unique word of revelation in the historical variety of its facies than

with pinning down in ontological terms the nature of the relationship between the

Father and this word. Aphrahat advocated for his model at a time in which we find

many of his coreligionists embarked on a controversy drawing upon categories and

theological assumptions far removed from those that he cherished. In order to make

himself intelligible to these interlocutors he will have pursued an effort of cultural re-

elaboration, by making a synthetic use of elements coming to him from different

directions, including (with the adoption of the scheme of the prolatio) that from which

Logos Christology itself had come.

In this process Aphrahat’s theological reasoning reveals a striking permeability to

elements stemming from the religious worlds surrounding him, and a certain ability to

make them interact felicitously. Readers rarely get the impression of an undigested

product. At most, rather, they get that of a work not interested in the dogmatic

systematization of theological doctrine. Given this open, unsystematic character of

Aphrahat’s theology, recognized by P. Bruns73, it is admissible to imagine that

sometimes an element may have made its way into the Sage’s writings in the quasi-

criticism, attested among pagan writers of the third and fourth centuries, against the Christian belief in
the divine messiah as the creator of the world” (ibid., 367).
73
Cfr. BRUNS 1991, 213 seq.
80
unintended form of a quote, an association of ideas, or the reminiscence of an

exegetical given assimilated long ago.

Nailing down the motivations and circumstances of the undertaking outlined in this

study is not among my aims. I will limit myself to the obvious consideration that

several approaches to the question can be imagined. More or less emphasis can be

placed, for example, on the pressure exerted on the Syriac theologian by contemporary

doctrinal and political developments. What is the relationship between, on the one

hand, Aphrahat’s creative effort of decoding and recoding for his Logos-minded

interlocutors his own community’s Christological perspectives; and, on the other, the

growing influence, within the Christian arena, of the parties combating in the post-

Nicene hermeneutical wars? What did Aphrahat know of the wholehearted espousal of

Christianity on the part of Roman emperors, and of their determining role in

summoning councils and bolstering this or that Trinitarian party? And in what

fashions, at a time of persecutions such as that in which Dem. 17 was penned, would the

shaping of Aphrahat’s religious conscience and theological personality have been

affected by Constantine’s aegis reportedly having been set upon the Christian denizens

of the Sassanid empire?74

74
On Aphrahat and the situation of the Christians of Persia cfr. BARNES 1985 (part. the—dated—discussion
of Constantine’s letter to Shapur II on 131 seq.); LANE 1999; MORRISON 2004. More in general, on the
historical-religious conditions of the Persian Church in the fourth century cfr. BLUM 1980; BROCK 1982;
and, now, MOSIG-WALBUG 2007. The historical circumstances of the persecutions have sometimes become
important to the evaluation of the significance of the content of the Demonstrations. Cfr., e.g., BECKER 2002,
where the coupling of anti-Jewish rhetoric and exhortation to the care of the poor in Dem. 20 is
understood in the context of Shapur II’s religious persecutions, which spared the Jews.
81
 APPENDIX A: TRANSLATION OF APHRAHAT’S DEMONSTRATION 17

Demonstration about the Messiah—that he is the son of God.

[1] Response against the Jews, who blaspheme the people that [comes] from the

peoples—for thus do they say: “You venerate and worship a begotten man and a

crucified human being, and you call ‘God’ a man. And, whilst God does not have a son,

you say about this crucified Jesus: ‘He is the son of God’”. And they adduce an

argument: that God said: “I am God and there is none else beside me”1. And He said

again: “Do not venerate another god2”. “Therefore”, [they say], “you stand against God,

and you call ‘God’ a human being”.

[2] As for these things, my dear, within the limits of my faculty and of my

insufficiency I will persuade you about them that, even if we concede to them that he is

a human being, and we have honored him and have called him3 ‘God’ and ‘Lord’, not

strangely have we called him [so], and we have not imposed upon him a strange name,

one that they did not use. Rather, it is true for us that our Lord Jesus is God, the Son of

God, the King, the Son of the King, Light from light, the Creator, the Counselor, the

Teacher, the Way, the Savior, the Shepherd, the Gatherer, the Gate, the Pearl, and the

1
Dt 32, 39.
2
Ex 34, 14.
3
Aphrahat may here be playing on the similarity between the words yaqqarnāy[hy], “we have honored
him”, and qraynāy[hy], “we have called him”.
82
Lamp. And he has been called by many names. We will now neglect all of them, and we

will persuade [you], with regard to him, that the one who has come from God is the son

of God and God.

[3] For, the honorable name of the godhood has been imposed also upon the

righteous human beings, and they have been worthy of being called by it. And the

human beings with whom God pleased He called “My children” and “My friends”.

Moses, His friend and His beloved, when He chose him and made him head, teacher,

and priest for his people, He called “God”. For, he said to him: “I gave you to Pharaoh

[as] a god”4. And He gave him His priest [as] a prophet5. “And Aaron”, [he said], “your

brother, shall speak for you with Pharaoh6. And you shall be for him a god, and he shall

be for you an interpreter”7. Not only for Pharaoh, who was an evil one, did He make

Moses a god, but also for Aaron, the holy priest, did He make Moses a god.

[4] Listen, again, about the fact that we have called him “Son of God”. And they say:

“Whilst God does not have a son, you make this crucified Jesus a firstborn son for God”.

He called Israel [itself] “My son, My firstborn”, when He sent [a message] to Pharaoh

through Moses, and He said to him: “Israel is My Son, My firstborn. I have said to you:

‘Let My Son go, and he shall worship me. And if you do not want to let him go, lo, I shall

4
Ex. 7, 1
5
Cfr. Ex. 7, 1
6
Ex 7, 2.
7
Ex 7, 1.
83
kill your son, your firstborn’”8. And also through the prophet did He testify to this, and

He reproached them and said to the people: “I have called My people out of Egypt. As I

have called them, thus have they left, venerated Baal, and apposed incenses to the

statues”9. And Isaiah said about them: “I have brought up and reared children, and they

have rebelled against me”10. And it is written again: “You are children of the Lord your

God”11. And about Solomon He said: “He shall be as a son for Me, and I shall be as a

Father for him”12. We too have called “Son of God” this Messiah, through whom we

have come to know God, as He called Israel “My son, My firstborn”, and as He said

about Solomon: “He shall be as a son for Me”. And we called him “God”, as He called

Moses by His [own] name. And also David has said about them [= the children of Israel]:

“I have said: ‘You are all gods and children of the most High’”13. And, as they did not

correct themselves, He therefore said about them: “You shall die like human beings,

and you shall fall like one of the princes”14.

[5] For, the name of the divinity has been given as a great honor in the world, and

God has imposed it upon whomever with whom He has been pleased. However, God’s

names are numerous and honorable, as He presented His names to Moses and said to

him: “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of

8
Ex 4, 22-23.
9
Hos 11, 1-2.
10
Is 1, 2.
11
Dt 14, 1.
12
2Sam 7, 14; 1Chr 22, 10.
13
Ps 82 (81), 6
14
Ps 82 (81), 7.
84
Jacob15. This”, [He said], “is My name eternally, and this is My memorial from

generation to generation”16. And He called His [own] name ʾAhyah ʾašar ʾahyah17, ʾIlšadai,

and ʾAdonai Ṣbaʾot18. God has been called by these names. And although the name of the

godhood is great and excellent, He did not refrain from giving it also to His righteous.

And although He is a great King, he generously imposed the great and honorable name

of kingship upon the human beings, who are His molding.

[6] For, God called Nebuchadnezzar, the iniquitous king, “King of kings” through

the mouth of His prophet. For, Jeremiah said: “As for every people and kingdom that

shall not bend its neck to the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of kings, My servant, I shall

rage at that people with famine, sword, and pestilence”19. And although He is a great

King, He did not refrain from giving the name of kingship to the human beings. And,

although He is a great God, He did not refrain from giving the name of godhood to the

children of flesh. And, although fatherhood is all His20, He called the human beings also

“Fathers”. For, He said to the congregation: “In place of your fathers shall be your

children21”. And, although sovereignty is His, He gave to the human beings power over

one another. And, although veneration is His, He conceded honor in the world22, so that

15
Ex 3, 6.
16
Ex 3, 15.
17
Ex 3, 14.
18
Jer 32, 18
19
Jer 27, 8.
20
Cfr. Eph 3, 15.
21
Ps 45 (44), 16.
22
I imagined a break after the word segdtā instead of after l(ʾ)iqārā, and read yahbeh instead of yahbāh.
85
through it they might honor one another. For, even if a human being should honor the

sinners, the iniquitous ones, and the deniers of His grace, he is not reproached by God.

And about veneration He ordered to His people: “You shall not venerate the sun, nor

the moon, nor all the hosts of the heaven; nor shall you desire to venerate all the

creatures which are on earth”23. And consider the grace and the mercy of the

benevolent one, our maker, who did not refrain from giving to the human beings the

name of the godhood, the name of veneration, the name of kingship and the name of

sovereignty. Since He is Father of the creatures that are on the face of earth, He

honored, exalted and praised the human beings more than all His creatures, because

He molded them with His holy hands, insufflated from His spirit into them, and became

a dwelling place for them from of old. And He resides among them and walks among

them. For, He said through the prophet: “I shall dwell among them and I shall walk

among them”24. And, again, also Jeremiah the prophet said: “You are the Lord’s temple,

if you amend your ways and your actions”25. And David had said before: “Lord, you have

become for us a dwelling place for all generations, before mounts were conceived, the

earth brought forth, and the universe was constituted. And you are God from eternity

until eternity”.

[7] And how shall it be understood by you that a prophet said: “Lord, you have

become for us a dwelling place” and another said: “I shall dwell among them and I shall

23
Dt 4, 7.
24
Lev 27, 12; 2 Cor 6, 16.
25
Jer 7, 4-5.
86
walk among them”? First He has become for us a dwelling place, and then He has dwelt

and walked among us. And for the wise both [things] are true and plain. For, David says:

“Lord, you have become for us a dwelling place for all generations, before mounts were

conceived, the earth brought forth, and the universe was constituted”. And you know,

my dear, that all the creatures above and below have been created first, and, at the end

of them all, the human being. For, when God considered to create the world with all its

adornments, first He conceived and depicted Adam within His mind, and, after Adam

had been conceived in His thought, then He conceived the creatures, as He said:

“Before mounts were conceived and the earth brought forth [its] generation”. For, the

human being is older and prior in conception to creatures, and in generation creatures

are older and prior to Adam. Adam was conceived and dwelt in God’s thought. And,

while [Adam] was withheld in His intellect at the conception, He created with the word

of His mouth all the creatures. And when He finished and adorned the world, as

nothing was missing in it, then He generated Adam from His thought. And He molded

the human being with His hands. And Adam saw the world [fully] constituted. And He

gave him authority over everything He had made, in the way in which a man having a

son for whom he wants to make a wedding would get for him a woman, would build for

him a house, would prepare and adorn everything necessary for his son, and then

would make the wedding and give his son authority over his house. And after the

conception of Adam He generated him and gave him authority over His whole

Creation. On this regard the prophet said: “Lord, you have become for us a dwelling

place for all generations, before mounts were conceived, the earth brought forth, and
87
the universe was constituted. And you are the Lord from eternity until eternity”. Lest

anyone believe that there is another god before or after, He said: “From eternity to

eternity”, as Isaiah said: “I am the first and I am the last”26. And after God generated

Adam from within His thought He molded him and He insufflated from His spirit into

him, and He gave [him] knowledge of distinction, in order for him to distinguish good

from evil and to know that God had made him. And, through the fact that he knew his

maker, God was depicted and conceived within the thought of the human being, and he

became a temple for God, his maker, as it is written: “You are the Lord’s temple”. And

He said: “I shall dwell among them and I shall walk among them”. However, as for the

human beings who do not know their maker, He is not depicted within them, does not

dwell in them, and is not conceived in their thought, but rather they are considered as

a beast before Him, and as the remainder of creatures.

[8] Now, by these things the stubborn will be persuaded of the fact that it is not strange

that we call the Messiah “Son of God”, because, lo, He has conceived all human beings

and has begotten them from His thought. And they will be admonished that also the

name of the divinity is upon him, because He has imposed the name of God also upon

His righteous. And, as for the fact that we venerate Jesus, through whom we have come

to know God, let them be ashamed, because they bend, venerate, and honor also before

the iniquitous powerful who [come] from impure peoples, and [for them] there is no

reproach whatsoever. For, this honor of veneration God has given to the children of

26
Is 44, 6; Is 48, 12.
88
Adam in order for them to honor one another, and especially [to honor] those who are

more superior and worthy. For, if they worship and honor the iniquitous ones for the

sake of worship, and those who in their iniquity deny even the name of God—honoring

them not as their maker, [but] for their own sake only—there are no sins (involved).

As for us, how necessary is it for us to venerate and honor Jesus, who has turned

our stubborn minds away from all the venerations of vain error, and has taught us to

venerate and worship and serve the only God, our father and our maker! And they will

acknowledge that the kings of the world call themselves “Gods” by the name of the

great God, and are unbelievers and compel to unbelieving, and people pray and

venerate before them, and worship and honor them like statues and idols, without the

Law ever reproaching them, and there is no sin [in such a conduct], as also Daniel

venerated Nebuchadnezzar, an unbeliever and one who compelled to unbelieving, and

was not reproached; and Joseph venerated Pharaoh, and it is not written that that has

been for him a sin. But, as for us, it is clear to us that Jesus is God, Son of God, and

through Him we have come to know his Father, and have steered away from all

[fallacious] venerations. Therefore we do not have [how] to reward him who has borne

these things for our sake. But through veneration we shall tribute to him honor, in

exchange for his anguish, which was for our sake.

[9] Now, it is expedient for us to demonstrate that this Jesus is preannounced

previously in the prophets, and has been called “Son of God”. David said: “You are My

89
son, and today I have begotten you”27. And he said again: “In the splendors of the

holiness from the womb from of old I have begotten you as a child”28. And Isaiah said:

“A child has been born for us, and a son has been given to us. And his sovereignty was

upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called: Wonder, Counselor, Mighty God of the

ages, and Prince of peace. The vastness of his sovereignty and his peace do not have an

end”29. Therefore pray tell, wise teacher of Israel: who is the one who is born, and

whose name is called: Child, Son, Marvel, Counselor, Mighty God of the worlds, and

Prince of peace, [and] the vastness of whose sovereignty and whose peace [Isaiah] said

to have no end? For, if we have called30 the Messiah “Son of God” [it is because] David

taught us [to do so]. And we have learnt from Isaiah to call him “God”. “Sovereignty has

been laid upon his shoulder” for he carried his cross and came out of Jerusalem. And,

again, Isaiah said that a child is born: “Lo, a virgin shall conceive and give birth. And his

name shall be called: ‘Ammanuʾel, namely ‘our God is with us’”31.

[10] And should you say that the Messiah has not yet come, for your

contentiousness I will concede to you even that. For, when he will come, it is written,

“Peoples shall wait for him”32. Now, I have heard from the peoples that Christ will

come. And before he had come I already believed in him, and through him I venerate

27
Ps 2, 7.
28
Ps 101 (109), 3.
29
Is 9, 6-7.
30
I read here qrayn instead of qārēn.
31
Is 7, 14; Mt 1, 23.
32
Gen 49, 10.
90
the God of Israel. When he comes will he perhaps blame me because I believed in him

before he came? But, foul!, the prophets do not allow you to say that the Messiah has

not yet come. Daniel confutes you and says: “After sixty two weeks the Messiah shall

come and shall be killed. And in his coming the city of holiness shall be destroyed, and

its end shall be with a flood. And until the fulfillment of the thing that have been

decided it shall remain in desolation”33. For, you hope and wait that, at the coming of

the Messiah, Israel will be gathered in it from all the lands, and Jerusalem will be built

and populated. But Daniel testifies that when the Messiah will come and will be killed

Jerusalem will be destroyed, and it will remain in desolation until the fulfillment of the

things that have been decided for eternity. And about the passion of the Messiah David

said: “They pierced my hands and my feet, and all my bones cried out. And they looked

and gazed upon me, and they split my clothes among them, and on my garment they

cast the lots34”. And Isaiah said: “Lo, My servant shall be known, revealed, and exalted,

so that many shall be astonished on his account. As for that one, his appearance shall

be more devastated than [that] of a human being, and his aspect more than [that] of

human beings”35. And he said: “He shall purify many peoples, and the kings shall be

astonished on his account”36. And he said in that [same] passage: “He shall come forth

like a child, and like a root from arid land”37. And he said at the end of the passage: “ He

shall be killed on account of our sins, shall be humiliated on account of our iniquity.

33
Dan 9, 23-27.
34
Sal 22 (21), 17-19.
35
Is 52, 13-14.
36
Is 52, 15.
37
Is 52, 2.
91
The instruction of our fulfillment is entrusted to him, and we shall be healed in his

wounds”38. In what wounds were the human beings healed? David was not killed, for he

died in a good oldness, and was buried [in] Bethlehem39. And should they say [that the

wounds are spoken] of Saul—Saul died in fact on the mounts of Gilboa in the battle of

the Philistines40—, and should they say that they pierced his hands and his feet when

they hanged his body on the wall of Betshean41, [we will confute them, ] for [that

expression] is not fulfilled in Saul: when Saul’s limbs were pierced his bones did not

feel his suffering, because he was dead. And after Saul died they hanged his and his

sons’ body to the wall of Betshean. And when David said: “They pierced my hands and

my feet, and all my bones cried out”, he said, after [that] passages: “God, remain on my

side, and deliver my soul from the sword”42. For, Christ was delivered from the sword

and came out of the She‘ol and lived [again] and rose after three days, and God

remained to his aid. But Saul, [instead], invoked the Lord and He did not answer hum.

And he consulted the prophets and no response was given to him43, and he hid and

consulted the necromancers, and he learnt. And he was defeated before the Philistines,

and he killed himself with his sword when he saw that the battle had defeated him. And

David said in that passage: “I shall announce Your name to my brethren, and I shall

38
Is 53, 5.
39
1 Kgs 2, 10.
40
1 Sam 31, 4
41
Cfr. 1 Sam 31, 10.
42
Sal 22 (21), 17-18.
43
1 Sam 28, 6 seq.
92
praise You amidst the congregation44”. How could these things be fulfilled in Saul? And

David said again: “You did not allow Your holy one to see destruction45”. But, rather, all

these things have been fulfilled in Christ, when he came to them and they did not

receive him46, they judged him impiously with a testimony of falsehood, he was hung

on the wood by their hands, “they pierced his hands and his feet” with the nails that

they secured in him, and “all his bones cried out”. And on that very day a great portent

happened, namely that light was obscured at midday, as Zachariah had prophesied,

saying: “The day shall be known to the Lord. Neither day nor night, and at the time of

evening there shall be light”47. Now, what is the day which was distinguished with a

portent, which [was] neither day nor night, and [on which] at eve there was light? But

it is the day [on] which they crucified him! For, lo, there came darkness at midday, and

at eve there came light. And he said again: “[On] that day there shall be cold and

freeze”48, as you know that on that day on [which] they crucified him it was cold, and

they made for themselves a fire to warm themselves up, when Simon came and stayed

by them. And he said again: “A spear shall rise upon the shepherd and upon my sheep,

my beloved, and it shall hit the shepherd, and the sheep of his flock shall be scattered.

And I shall turn My hand against the pastors49”. And David said again about his passion:

44
Sal 22 (21), 23.
45
Sal 16 (15), 10.
46
Jn 1, 11.
47
Zac 14, 7.
48
Zac 14, 6
49
Zac 13, 7.
93
“They put into my food gall, and for my thirst they gave me to drink vinegar”50. He said

again in the same passage: “And they persecuted the one whom you make live again,

and they added onto the pain of the killed51”. For, they added onto him many things

that were not even written about him—those curses and abuses that not even the

Scripture can disclose, because their acts of temerity were odious. But the Lord wanted

to humiliate him and cause him pain52. And he was killed on account of our iniquities,

and he humbled himself on account of our sins53, and he was made in himself sin54.

[11] We venerate that mercy, and we kneel in front of the greatness of his Father,

who has turned our veneration towards him. We call him “God”, like Moses,

“Firstborn” and “Son” like Israel, “Jesus” like Joshua son of Nun, “Priest” like Aaron,

“King” like David, “Great prophet” like all the prophets, “Shepherd” like the shepherds

who tended to Israel and led it. And he called us “Children”, as he said: “Extraneous

children shall listen to me”55, and he made us brothers to him, as he said: “I shall

proclaim your name to my brethren”56. And we were made friends to him, as he said to

his disciples: “I called you ‘Friends’”57, as his Father called Abraham “My friend”58. And

50
Ps 69 (68), 22.
51
Ps. 69 (68) , 27.
52
Is 53, 10.
53
Is 53, 5.
54
2Cor, 5.
55
Ps 18 (17), 45.
56
Ps 22 (21), 23.
57
Jn 15, 15.
58
Is 61, 8.
94
he said to us: “I am the Good Shepherd59, the Gate60, the Way61, the Vine62, the Sower63,

the Bridegroom64, the Pearl65, the Lamp66, the Light67, the King68, God69, the Enlivener70,

and the Savior71”. And he has been called by many [other] names.

[12] I wrote you this short argumentation, my dear, so that you may refute the Jews

about the fact that they say that God does not have a Son, and about the fact that we

call him “God”, because he is God and King and Firstborn of all creatures. The

demonstration about the Messiah, the Son of God, has finished.

59
Jn 10, 11.
60
Jn 10, 7.
61
Jn 14, 6.
62
Jn 15, 1.
63
Mt 13, 37.
64
Mt 9, 15.
65
Mt 13, 46.
66
Jn 5, 35.
67
Jn 1, 9.
68
Mt 2, 2; 21, 5; 27, 11.
69
Jn 1, 1.
70
Jn 5, 21.
71
Lk 2, 11.
95
 APPENDIX B: BIBLICAL QUOTATIONS IN APHRAHAT’S DEMONSTRATION 17

INTRODUCTION TO THE LIST

The question of the version(s) of the OT and the NT read by Aphrahat is a

recurrent one in scholarship. The reconstruction of the text used by the Persian Sage in

his scriptural quotations is relevant both to Peshitta studies and to the attempts at

pinpointing Aphrahat’s cultural and intellectual background based on the particular

version of the Bible he used1. The issue of the origin of the quotations is particularly

important for a Demonstration like the seventeenth, for which the question has been

raised of the connection between the nature of the quotations and the Jewish identity

of the ostensive addressees of the text. In this “Appendix” I have simply proceeded to

lay out a comparison between each biblical quotation recognized by Parisot in his

edition of Demonstration 17 (PARISOT 1907)2 and its correspondent in the Peshitta, by

underlining all the words which are at variance. In cases of parallels between multiple

loci in the Scriptures, two different kinds of underlining have been adopted. The aim is

to provide a tool for further research on this Demonstration. It must be noticed that I

only referred to the basic text of the Leiden edition of the Peshitta, without mentioning

the variants contained in the critical apparatus. All the quotations appearing in the text

1
For research on Aphrahat and the Peshitta cfr. VÖÖBUS 1950; KALLARAKKAL 1973; BAARDA 1975;
OWENS 1983; TAYLOR 1994; LUND 2007; KOSTER 2008; OWENS 2008.
2
The list contains—with few exceptions—exclusively the quotations identified and notated by
Parisot (who skipped, for example, the whole catalogue of Christological appellatives in § 2, several of
which are then repeated in §11).
96
have been compared with the respectively available Targumim and with the Masoretic

Text. Reference to these has been made only in the cases in which it could have

accounted for a lectio different from the Peshitta. In most of the cases when the

Targumic text would have accounted for less than half of the variants found in a verse I

chose to make no reference to it, out of the assumption that, had the author been

influenced by the Targum in that passage, he would have made use of more lectiones

carried by that verse3. The quotations are listed according to the books of the Bible

from which they are drawn (in the order given by the Jerusalem Bible). References to

the text of the Demonstration are given in the form [paragraph (column, line)].

3
E.g. in 39 cfr. Targ. Jon.: ‫כין יבדר עממין סגיאין עלוהי ישתקון מלכין‬. While the use of the future may have
derived to Aphrahat from this verse, the closeness to the Peshitta and the distance from the Targum on
the order of the words in the second colon of the verse, along with the choice of the verb which is put in
the future in the Demonstration, makes the chances for this dependence very low. For this reason the
verse is not reported.
97
 LIST OF QUOTATIONS

GENESIS

1‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (805, 8) ≈ Pesh. Gen. XLIX, 10

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ̈

‫ܥܡܡܐ ܢܣܒܪܘܢ ܒܗ‬
(805, 8)
Pesh. Gen. XLIX, 10 ̈
‫ܥܡܡܐ‬ ‫ܠܗ ܢܣܟܘܢ‬

EXODUS

2‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 5 (792, 7) ≈ Pesh. Ex. III, 6

̈
‫ܐܒܗܝܟܘܢ ܐܠܗܗ ܕܐܒܪܗܡ ܐܠܗܗ ܕܝܣܚܩ ܐܠܗܗ‬ ‫ܐܢܐ ܐܠܗܐ ܕ‬ ̄ ‫ܐܢܐ‬
Aphr. Dem. XVII, 5
(792, 7) ‫ܕܝܥܩܘܒ‬
̄
‫ܐܢܐ ܐܢܐ ܐܠܗܗ ܕܐܒܘܟ܃ ܐܠܗܗ ܕܐܒܪܗܡ܃ ܐܠܗܗ ܕܝܣܚܩ܃ ܐܠܗܗ‬
Pesh. Ex. III, 6
‫ܕܝܥܩܘܒ‬

3‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 5 (792, 11) ≈ Pesh. Ex. III, 14

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 5 ‫ܐܗܝܗ ܐܫܪ ܐܗܝܗ‬

(792, 11)
Pesh. Ex. III, 14 ‫ܐܗܝܗ ܐܫܪ ܐܗܝܐ‬

(Cfr‫ ܂‬Targ‫ ܂‬Onk.:

(‫אהיה אשר אהיה‬

4‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 5 (792, 10) = Pesh. Ex. III, 15

5‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 (789, 7) ≈ Pesh. Ex. IV, 22-23

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 ‫ܒܪܝ ܒܘܟܪܝ ܐܝܣܪܝܠ܂ ܐܡܪܬ ܠܟ ܕܫܕܪ ܠܒܪܝ ܘܢܦܠܚܢܝ܃ ܘܐܐܠ ܨܒܝܬ ܠܡܫܕܪܘ܃‬
‫ܐܢܐ ܠܒܪܟ ܒܘܟܪܟ‬̄ ‫ܗܐ ܩܜܠ‬
(789, 7)
̄
‫ܒܪܝ ܒܘܟܪܝ ܝܣܪܝܠ܂ ܐܡܪܬ ܠܟ ܕܬܫܕܪ ܠܒܪܝ ܘܢܦܠܚܢܝ܂ ܘܐܢ ܐܠ ܨܒܐ ܐܢܬ‬
Pesh. Ex. IV, 22-23
‫ܐܢܐ ܠܒܪܟ ܒܘܟܪܟ‬ ̄ ‫ܠܡܫܕܪܘ ܠܒܪܝ ܗܐ ܩܜܠ‬

6‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 5 (792, 12) = Pesh. Es‫ ܂‬VI, 34

7‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 3 (788, 19) = Pesh. Ex. VII, 1

8‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 3 (788, 20) ≈ Pesh. Ex. VII, 1-2

4
The editor failed to identify the quotation of ‫ܐܝܠܫܕܝ‬.
98
‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 3‬‬ ‫ܘܐܗܪܘܢ ܐܚܘܟ ܢܡܠܠ ܠܟ ܥܡ ܦܪܥܘܢ܃ ܘܐܢ̄ܬ ܬܗܘܐ ܠܗ ܐܠܠܗ ܘܗܘ‬
‫)‪(788, 20‬‬ ‫ܢܗܘܐ ܠܟ ܬܪܓܡܢܐ‬
‫‪Pesh. Ex. VII, 1-2‬‬ ‫ܘܐܗܪܘܢ ܐܚܘܟ ܢܗܘܐ ܢܒܝܟ܂ ]܂܂܂[ ܘܐܗܪܘܢ ܐܚܘܟ ܢܐܡܪ ܠܦܪܥܘܢ‬

‫‪ Onk.:‬܂‪ Targ‬܂‪(Cfr‬‬
‫מניתך רב לפרעה ואהרן אחוך יהי מתורגמנך(‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 1 (785, 10) = Pesh. Ex. XXXIV, 14‬܂‪9‬‬

‫‪LEVITICUS‬‬

‫= )‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6 (793, 26) = Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7 (796, 10) = Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7 (800, 10‬܂‪10‬‬
‫‪ VI, 16 ≈ Pesh. Lev. XXVI, 11-12‬܂‪Pesh. 2 Cor‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6‬‬ ‫ܐܥܡܪ ܒܗܘܢ ܘܐܗܠܟ ܒܗܘܢ‬

‫‪(793, 26) = Aphr.‬‬
‫‪Dem. XVII, 7 (796,‬‬
‫‪10) = Aphr. Dem. VII‬‬
‫‪(800, 10) = Pesh. 2‬‬
‫‪ VI, 16‬܂‪Cor‬‬
‫‪Pesh. Lev. XXVI, 11-‬‬ ‫ܘܐܬܠ ܡܫܟܢܝ ܒܝܢܬܟܘܢ ]܂܂܂[ ܘܐܗܠܟ ܒܝܢܬܟܘܢ‬
‫‪12‬‬

‫‪DEUTERONOMY‬‬

‫]?[ ‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6 (793, 13) ≈ Pesh. Deut. IV, 19‬܂‪11‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6‬‬ ‫ܚܝܠܘܬܐ ܕܫܡܝܐ܃ ܘܐܦ ܐܠ ܠܟܠ‬ ‫ܕܐܠ ܬܣܓܘܕ ܠܫܡܫܐ ܘܐܠ ܠܣܗܪܐ ܘܠܟܠ ̈‬
‫)‪(793, 13‬‬ ‫ܒ̈ܪܝܢ ܕܥܠ ܐܪܥܐ ܬܬܪܓܪܓܘܢ ܠܡܣܓܕ‬
‫‪Pesh. Deut. IV, 17,‬‬ ‫̈‬
‫ܕܡܘܬܐ ܕܟܠ ܒܥܝܪܐ ܕܐܝܬ ܒܐܪܥܐ ]܂܂܂[ ܕܐܠ ܬܪܝܡܘܢ ܥܝܢܝܟܘܢ܃ ܠܫܡܝܐ܃ ܘܬܚܙܘܢ‬
‫‪19‬‬ ‫ܚܝܠܘܬܐ ܕܫܡܝܐ܂ ܘܬܛܥܘܢ ܘܬܣܓܕܘܢ ܠܗܘܢ‬ ‫̈‬
‫ܘܟܘܟܒܐ܃ ܘܟܠܗܘܢ ̈‬ ‫ܫܡܫܐ܃ ܘܣܗܪܐ܃‬
‫ܘܬܦܠܚܘܢ ܐܢܘܢ‬

‫‪ Onk.:‬܂‪ Targ‬܂‪(Cfr‬‬
‫ודלמא תזקוף עינך לשמיא ותחזי ית שמשא וית סיהרא וית כוכביא כל חילי שמיא ותטעי ותסגוד להון ותפלחינין(‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 (789, 17) = Pesh. Deut. XIV, 1‬܂‪12‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 1 (785, 9) ≈ Pesh. Deut. XXXII, 39‬܂‪13‬‬

‫ܐܚܪܝܢ ܠܒܪ ܡܢܝ‬‫ܐܢܐ ܐܠܗܐ ܘܠܝܬ ̄‬ ‫ܕܐܢܐ ̄‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 1‬‬
‫)‪(785, 9‬‬ ‫‪That I am God and there is no other [god] besides me‬‬
‫ܐܢܐ܃ ܘܠܝܬ ܐܠܗ ܠܒܪ ܡܢܝ‬ ‫ܕܐܢܐ ̄‬
‫‪Pesh. Deut. XXXII,‬‬
‫‪39‬‬ ‫‪That I am I and there is no god besides me‬‬

‫‪99‬‬
1 SAMUEL

14‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (809, 1) ≈ Pesh. 1 Sam. XXVIII, 6

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ‫ܥܢܝܗܝ‬

̱ ‫ܫܐܘܠ ܩܪܐ ܠܡܪܝܐ ܘܐܠ‬
(809, 11)
Pesh. 1 Sam. XXVIII, ‫ܥܢܝܗܝ‬
̱ ‫ܫܐܠ ܒܡܪܝܐ ܘܐܠ‬
6

15‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (808, 23) ≈ Pesh. 1 Sam. XXXI, 10

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ‫ܩܒܥܘ ܦܓܪܗ ܒܫܘܪܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܝܫܢ‬

(808, 23)
Pesh. 1 Sam. XXXI, ‫ܓܘܫܡܗ ܩܒܥܘ ܒܫܘܪܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܝܫܢ‬
10

(Cfr‫ ܂‬Targ‫ ܂‬Jon.:

(‫וית גופיה צלבו ]![ בשורא דבית שן‬

16‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (809, 2) ≈ Pesh. 1 Sam. XXXI, 125

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ̄ ‫ܕܒ‬

‫ܢܘܗܝ ܥܠ ܫܘܪܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܝܫܢ‬ ̈ ‫ܬܠܘ ܦܓܪܐ ܕܝܠܗ ܘ‬
(809, 2)
Pesh. 1 Sam. XXXI, ‫ܢܣܒܘ ܦܓܪܗ ܕܫܐܘܠ܃ ܘܦܓ̈ܪܐ ܕ ̈ܒܢܘܗܝ ܡܢ ܫܘܪܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܝܫܢ‬
12

2 SAMUEL

17‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 (789, 18) ≈ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 (789, 23) ≈ Pesh. 2 Sam. VII, 14 = Pesh. Heb‫܂‬
I, 5 ≈ Pesh. 1 Chr‫ ܂‬XXII, 10

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 ‫ܗܘ ܢܗܘܐ ܠܝ ܠܒܪܐ ܘܐܢܐ ܐܗܘܐ ܠܗ ܐܠܒܐ‬

(789, 18)
Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 ‫ܒܪܐ ܢܗܘܐ ܠܝ‬
(789, 23)
Pesh. 2 Sam. VII, 14 ‫ܐܢܐ ܐܗܘܐ ܠܗ ܐܠܒܐ܃ ܘܗܘ ܢܗܘܐ ܠܝ ܠܒܪܐ‬
= Pesh. Heb‫ ܂‬I, 5
Pesh. 1 Chr‫ ܂‬XXII, 10 ‫ܗܘ ܢܗܘܐ ܠܝ ܐܝܟ ܒܪܐ܂ ܘܐܢܐ ܐܗܘܐ ܠܗ ܐܝܟ ܐܒܐ‬

CHRONICLES

18‫ ܂‬See 17

5
The editor failed to identify this quotation.
100
PSALMS

19‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 9 (804, 10) = Pesh. Ps. II, 7 [?]

20‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (809, 20) ≈ Pesh. Ps. XVI, 10

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ‫ܐܠ ܝ ̄ܗܒܬ ܠܚܣܝܟ ܠܡܚܙܐ ܚܒܐܠ‬

(809, 20)
Pesh. Ps. XVI, 10 ‫ܐܠ ܝ ̄ܗܒܬ ܠܚܣܝܟ ܕܢܚܙܐ ܚܒܐܠ‬

21‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 15) ≈ Pesh. Ps. XVIII, 45

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 ̈

‫ܒܢܝܐ ܢܘܟ̈ܪܝܐ ܢܫܡܥܘܢܢܝ‬
(813, 15)
Pesh. Ps. XVIII, 45 ̈
‫ܒܢܝܐ ܢܘܟ̈ܪܝܐ ܢܬܟܠܘܢ‬

(Cfr‫ ܂‬Targ‫ ܂‬Ps.:

(‫לשמע אודן ישתמעון לי בני עממיא נוכראי יכדבון קדמיי‬

22‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (808, 1) = Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (809, 4) = Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (809, 25)
[with alteration of the suffix pronoun] = Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (809, 26) [with alteration of the
suffix pronoun] = Pesh. Ps. XXII, 17-19

23‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (809, 17) = Aphr. Dem. XXII, XI (813, 17) ≈ Pesh. Ps. XXII, 22

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ‫ܐܣܒܪ ܫܡܟ ܐܠܚ ̈ܝ܃ ܘܒܓܘܗ ܕܥܕܬܐ ܐܫܒܚܟ‬
(809, 17) = Aphr.
Dem. XXII, XI (813,
17)
Pesh. Ps. XXII, 22 ‫ܐܣܒܪ ܫܡܟ ܐܠܚ ̈ܝ܃ ܘܒܓܘ ܟܢܘܫܬܐ ܐܫܒܚܟ‬

24‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6 (793, 4) = Pesh. Ps. XLV, 17

25‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (812, 19) ≈ Pesh. Ps. LXIX, 21

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ̄

‫ܝܗܒܘ ܒܡܐܟܘܠܬܝ ܡܪ̈ܪܐ ܘܠܨܗܝܝ ܚܐܠ ܐܫܩܝܘܢܝ‬
(812, 19)
Pesh. Ps. LXIX, 21 ̄
‫ܝܗܒܘ ܡܐܟܘܠܬܝ ܡܪ̈ܪܐ܃ ܘܠܨܗܝܝ ܚܐܠ ܐܫܩܝܘܢܝ‬

(Cfr‫ ܂‬Targ‫ ܂‬Ps.:

(‫ויהבו בסעודתי מרירת רישי חורמני ולצחותי אשקיין יתי חלא‬

26‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (812, 22) = Pesh. Ps. LXIX, 26

101
‫]?[ ‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7 (800, 15) ≈ Pesh. Ps. LXXIII, 22‬܂‪27‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7‬‬ ‫̄‬

‫ܩܕܡܘܗܝ‬ ‫ܐܝܟ ܒܥܝܪܐ ܚܫܝܒܝܢ‬
‫)‪(800, 15‬‬
‫‪Pesh. Ps. LXXIII, 21‬‬ ‫ܒܥܝܪܐ ̄ܗܘܝܬ ܥܡܟ‬

‫‪ Ps.:‬܂‪ Targ‬܂‪(Cfr‬‬
‫היך בעירי איתחשבית גבך(‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 (789, 25) ≈ Pesh. Ps. LXXXII, 6‬܂‪28‬‬

‫̈‬ ‫̈‬
‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4‬‬ ‫ܘܒܢܘܗܝ ܕܡܪܝܡܐ ܟܠܟܘܢ‬ ‫ܐܢܐ ܐܡܪܬ ܕܐܠܗܐ ܐܢ̄ܬܘܢ‬
‫)‪(789, 25‬‬
‫̈‬
‫ܘܒܢܘܗܝ ܕܡܪܝܡܐ ܟܠܟܘܢ‬ ‫ܐܠܗܝܢ ܐܢ̄ܬܘܢ܃‬
‫̈‬ ‫ܐܢܐ ܐܡܪܬ ܕ‬
‫‪Pesh. Ps. LXXXII, 6‬‬

‫‪ Ps.:‬܂‪ Targ‬܂‪(Cfr‬‬
‫אנא אמרית היך כמלאכיא ]![ אתון חשיבין והיך אנגלי ]![ מרומא כולכון(‬
‫ܢܝ ̄‬
‫ܐܢܫܐ ‪ instead of‬ܒܢ ̈ܝܢܫܐ ‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 (792, 1) = Pesh. Ps. LXXXII, 7 [with variant‬܂‪29‬‬ ‫]ܒ ̈‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6 (796, 3) = Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7 (796, 9) = Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7 (796, 15) = Aphr.‬܂‪30‬‬
‫‪Dem. XVII, 7 (797, 26) ≈ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7 (796, 25) ≈ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7 (797, 19) ≈ Pesh. Ps.‬‬
‫‪XC, 1-2‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6‬‬ ‫ܡܪܝܐ ܒܝܬ ܡܥܡܪܐ ܗܘܝܬ ܠܢ ܠܕܪܕܪܝܢ ܥܕܐܠ ܢܬܒܛܢܘܢ ܛܘ̈ܪܐ ܘܥܕܐܠ ܬܚܒܠ‬
‫‪(796, 3) = Aphr. Dem.‬‬ ‫ܐܪܥܐ ܘܥܕܐܠ ܬܬܩܢ ܬܒܝܠ܃ ܘܡܢ ܥܠܡ ܥܕܡܐ ܠܥܠܡ ܐܢ̄ܬ ̄ܗܘ ܐܠܗܐ‬
‫= )‪XVII, 7 (796, 9‬‬
‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7‬‬
‫‪(796, 15) = Aphr.‬‬
‫‪Dem. XVII, 7 (797,‬‬
‫)‪26‬‬
‫‪6‬‬
‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7‬‬ ‫ܥܕܐܠ ܢܬܒܛܢܘܢ ܛܘ̈ܪܐ ܘܥܕܐܠ ܬܚܒܠ ܐܪܥܐ ܝܠܝܕܘܬܐ‬
‫)‪(796, 25‬‬
‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7‬‬ ‫ܡܪܝܐ ܒܝܬ ܡܥܡܪܐ ܗܘܝܬ ܠܢ ܠܕܪܕܪܝܢ ܥܕܐܠ ܢܬܒܛܢܘܢ ܛܘ̈ܪܐ ܘܥܕܐܠ ܬܚܒܠ‬
‫)‪(797, 19‬‬ ‫ܐܪܥܐ ܘܥܕܐܠ ܬܬܩܢ ܬܒܝܠ܃ ܘܡܢ ܥܠܡ ܥܕܡܐ ܠܥܠܡ ܐܢ̄ܬ ̄ܗܘ ܡܪܝܐ‬
‫‪Pesh. Ps. XC, 1-2‬‬ ‫ܡܪܝܐ ܒܝܬ ܡܥܡܪܐ ܗܘܝܬ ܠܢ ܠܕܪܕܪܝܢ܂ ܥܕܐܠ ܢܬܒܛܢܘܢ ܛܘ̈ܪܐ܃ ܘܥܕܐܠ ܬܚܒܠ‬
‫ܐܪܥܐ܃ ܘܥܕܐܠ ܬܬܩܢ ܬܒܝܠ܃ ܡܢ ܥܠܡ ܥܕܡܐ ܠܥܠܡ ܐܢ̄ܬܘ ܐܠܗܐ‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 9 (804, 11) = Pesh. Ps. CX, 3‬܂‪31‬‬

‫‪ISAIAH‬‬

‫‪6‬‬
‫‪ may be an addition of the author, not conceived as part of the quotation; in that case, the lectio‬ܝܠܝܕܘܬܐ‬
‫‪would be congruent with all the others.‬‬
‫‪102‬‬
‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 (789, 15) = Pesh. Is. I, 1-2‬܂‪32‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 9 (805, 3) ≈ Pesh. Is. VII, 14 ≈ Pesh. Mt. I, 23‬܂‪33‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 9‬‬ ‫̄‬

‫ܕܐܝܬܘܗܝ ܐܠܗܢ‬ ‫ܗܐ ܒܬܘܠܬܐ ܬܒܛܢ ܘܬܐܠܕ܃ ܘܢܬܩܪܐ ܫܡܗ ܥܡܢܘܐܝܠ‬
‫)‪(805, 3‬‬ ‫ܥܡܢ‬
‫‪Pesh. Is. VII, 14‬‬ ‫̇‬ ‫̇‬
‫ܗܐ ܒܬܘܠܬܐ ܒܛܢܐ ܘܝܠܕܐ ܒܪܐ܃ ܘܢܬܩܪܐ܃ ܫܡܗ ܥܡܢܘܐܝܠ‬
‫‪Pesh. Mt. I, 23‬‬ ‫ܗܐ ܒܬܘܠܬܐ ܬܒܛܢ ܘܬܐܠܕ ܒܪܐ܂ ܘܢܩܪܘܢ ܫܡܗ ܥܡܢܘܐܝܠ܂ ܕܡܬܬܪܓܡ‬
‫ܥܡܢ ܐܠܗܢ‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 9 (804, 13) ≈ Aphr. Dem. XII, IX (804, 26) ≈ Pesh. Is. IX, 6-7‬܂‪34‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 9‬‬ ‫ܝܠܕܐ ܐܬܝܠܕ ܠܢ ܘܒܪܐ ܐܬܝܗܒ ܠܢ܃ ܘܗܘܐ ܫܘܠܛܢܗ ܥܠ ܟܬܦܗ܃ ܘܢܬܩܪܐ‬
‫̈‬
‫)‪(804, 13‬‬ ‫ܫܡܗ ܕܘܡܪܐ ܘܡܠܘܟܐ ܘܐܠܗܐ ܓܢ̄ܒܪܐ ܕܥܠܡܐ ܘܫܠܝܛܐ ܕܫܠܡܐ܃ ܠܡܣܓܝܘ‬
‫ܫܘܠܛܬܢܗ ܘܠܫܠܡܗ ܠܝܬ ܣܟܐ‬
‫‪Aphr. Dem. XII, IX‬‬ ‫ܐܬܝܗܒ ܫܘܠܛܢܗ ܥܠ ܟܬܦܗ‬
‫)‪(804, 26‬‬
‫‪Pesh. Is. IX, 6-7‬‬ ‫ܝܠܕܐ ܐܬܝܠܕ ܠܢ܃ ܘܒܪܐ ܐܬܝܗܒ ܠܢ܂ ܘܗܘܐ ܫܘܠܛܢܗ ܥܠ ܟܬܦܗ܂ ܘܐܬܩܪܝ‬
‫̈‬
‫ܫܡܗ ܕܘܡܪܐ ܘܡܠܘܟܐ܃ ܐܠܗܐ ܓܢ̄ܒܪܐ ܕܥܠܡܐ܃ ܫܠܝܛܐ ܕܫܠܡܐ܂ ܠܡܣܓܝܘ‬
‫ܫܘܠܛܬܢܗ܂ ܘܠܫܠܡܗ ܠܝܬ ܣܟܐ‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 20) = Pesh. Is. XLI, 8‬܂‪35‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 7 (800, 1) = Pesh. Is. XLIV, 6 = Pesh. Is. XLVIII, 12‬܂‪36‬‬

‫‪ See 36‬܂‪37‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (808, 5) ≈ Pesh. Is. LII, 13-14‬܂‪38‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10‬‬ ‫̈‬

‫ܣܓܝܐܐ܂‬ ‫̄‬
‫ܥܠܘܗܝ‬ ‫ܗܐ ܡܬܝܕܥ ܥܒܕܝ ܘܡܬܓܐܠ ܘܡܬܬܪܝܡ ܐܝܟ ܕܢܬܡܗܘܢ‬
‫)‪(808, 5‬‬ ‫ܗܢܐ ܡܚܒܠ ܚܙܘܗ ܡܢ ܕܓܒܪܐ ܘܩܘܒ ̱ܠܠܗ ܡܢ ܕ ̈‬
‫ܒܢܝܢܫܐ‬
‫‪Pesh. Is. LII, 13-14‬‬ ‫ܗܐ ܡܣܬܟܠ ܥܒܕܝ ܘܡܬܬܪܝܡ܃ ܘܡܫܬܩܠ܃ ܘܡܬܥܐܠ ܛܒ܂ ܐܝܟ ܕܢܬ ̄ܡܗܘܢ‬
‫̄‬
‫ܥܠܘܗܝ ܣܓ ̈ܝܐܐ܂ ܗܟܢܐ ܡܚܒܠ ܚܙܘܗ ܡܢ ܕܓܒܪܐ ܘܩܘܒܠܠܗ ܡܢ ܕܒܢ ̈ܝܢܫܐ‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (808, 9) ≈ Pesh. Is. LII, 15‬܂‪39‬‬

‫̄‬ ‫̈‬
‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10‬‬ ‫ܥܠܘܗܝ‬ ‫ܢܕܟܐ ܥ ̄ܡܡܐ ܣܓ ̈ܝܐܐ܃ ܘܡܠܟܐ ܢܬܡܗܘܢ‬
‫)‪(808, 9‬‬
‫̈‬
‫‪Pesh. Is. LII, 15‬‬ ‫ܡܕܟܐ ܥ ̄ܡܡܐ ܣܓ ̈ܝܐܐ܃ ܘܥܠܘܗܝ ܢܐܚܕܘܢ ܡܠܟܐ ܦܘܡܗܘܢ‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (808, 11) = Pesh. Is. LIII, 2‬܂‪40‬‬

‫)‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (808, 14) = Pesh. Is. LIII, 5 ≈ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (813, 3‬܂‪41‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10‬‬ ‫ܚܛܗܝܢ ܡܬܡܟܟ ܡܛܠ ܥܘܠܢ܃ ܡܪܕܘܬܐ ܕܫܠܡܢ ܥܠܘ ̄ܗܝ‬
‫̈‬ ‫ܗܘ ܡܬܩܛܠ ܡܛܠ‬
‫‪(808, 14) = Pesh. Is.‬‬ ‫ܘܒܫܘܡܬܗ ܢܬܐܣܐ‬
‫‪103‬‬
‫‪LIII, 5‬‬
‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10‬‬ ‫̈‬
‫ܚܛܗܝܢ‬ ‫ܗܘ ܐܬܩܛܠ ܡܛܠ ܥܘܠܢ܃ ܘܐܬܡܟܟ ܡܛܠ‬
‫)‪(813, 3‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (813, 2) = Pesh. Is. LIII, 10‬܂‪42‬‬

‫‪JEREMIAH‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6 (796, 1) = Pesh. Jer. VII, 5‬܂‪43‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6 (792, 21) ≈ Pesh. Jer. XXVII, 8‬܂‪44‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6‬‬ ‫̈‬

‫ܡܠܟܐ ܥܒܕܝ܃‬ ‫ܟܠ ܥܡܐ ܘܡܠܟܘܬܐ ܕܐܠ ܢܥܠ ܨܘܪܗ ܒܢܝܪܗ ܕܢܒܘܟܕܢܨܪ ܡܠܟ‬
‫)‪(792, 21‬‬ ‫ܒܟܦܢܐ ܘܒܚܪܒܐ ܘܒܡܘܬܢܐ ܐܦܩܘܕ ܥܠ ܥܡܐ ܗܘ‬
‫ܥܡܐ ܘܡܠܟܘܬܐ ܕܠ ̄‬
‫ܢܦܠܚܘܢܗ ܠܢܒܘܟܕܢܨܪ ܡܠܟܐ ܕܒܒܠ܃ ܘܡܢ ܕܐܠ ܢܥܠ ܨܘܪܗ‬
‫‪Pesh. Jer. XXVII, 8‬‬
‫ܒܢܝܪܗ ܕܢܡܠܟܐ ܕܒܒܠ܃ ܒܚܪܒܐ ܘܒܟܦܢܐ ܘܒܡܘܬܢܐ ܐܦܩܘܕ ܥܠ ܥܡܐ ̇‬
‫ܗܘ‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 5 (792, 12) ≈ Pesh. Jer. XXXII, 18‬܂‪45‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 5‬‬ ‫ܐܕܘܢܝ ܨܒܐܘܬ‬

‫)‪(792, 12‬‬
‫‪Pesh. Jer. XXXII, 18‬‬ ‫ܡܪܝܐ ܚܝܠܬܢܐ‬

‫‪ Jon.:‬܂‪ Targ‬܂‪(Cfr‬‬

‫יוי צבאוֹת(‬

‫‪DANIEL‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (805, 16) ≈ Pesh. Dan. IX, 26-27‬܂‪46‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10‬‬ ‫ܡܢ ܒܬܪ ܫ ̈ܒܘܥܐ ܫܬܝܢ ܘܬ̈ܪܝܢ ܢܐܬܐ ܡܫܝܚܐ ܘܢܬܩܛܠ܃ ܘܒܡܐܬܝܬܗ ܩܪܝܬܐ‬
‫̈‬
‫ܕܦܤܝܩܬܐ ܬܬܢܝܚ‬ ‫̇‬
‫ܘܐܚܪܝܬܗ ܒܓܪܘܦܝܐ܃ ܘܥܕܡܐ ܠܓܡܘܪܝܐ‬ ‫ܕܩܘܕܫܐ ܬܬܚܒܠ܃‬
‫)‪(805, 16‬‬
‫ܥܠ ܚܒܐܠ‬
‫‪Pesh. Dan. IX, 26-27‬‬ ‫ܘܒܬܪ ܫ ̈ܒܘܥܐ ܫܬܝܢ ܘܬ̈ܪܝܢ ܢܬܩܛܠ ܡܫܝܚܐ ܘܐܠ ܐܝܬ ̇‬
‫ܠܗ܃ ܘܩܪܝܬܐ ܕܩܘܕܫܐ‬
‫ܬܬܚܒܠ ܥܡ ܡܠܟܐ ܕܐܬܐ܃ ܘܚܪܬܗ ܒܓܪܘܦܝܐ܃ ܘܥܕܡܐ ܠܚܪܬܐ ܕܩܪܒܐ‬
‫̈‬
‫ܕܦܣܝܩܬܐ ܕܚܒܐܠ‬

‫‪HOSEA‬‬

‫‪ Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4 (789, 12) ≈ Pesh. Hos. XI, 1-2‬܂‪47‬‬

‫‪Aphr. Dem. XVII, 4‬‬ ‫ܡܢ ܡܨܪܝܢ ܩܪܝܬܗ ܒܪܝ܂ ܐܝܟ ܕܩܪܝܬ ܐܢܘܢ ܗܟܢܐ ܐܙܠܘ ܘܣܓܕܘ ܠܒܥܐܠ‬
‫̈‬
‫)‪(789, 12‬‬ ‫ܘܠܓܠܝܦܐ ܣܡܘ ܒ ̈ܤܡܐ‬
‫‪Pesh. Hos. XI, 1-2‬‬ ‫ܡܢ ܡܨܪܝܢ ܩܪܝܬܗ ܒܪܝ܂ ܐܝܟ ܕܩܪܘ ܐܢܘܢ ܗܟܢܐ ܐܙܠܘ ܡܢ ܩܕܡܝ܃ ܠܒܥܐܠ‬
‫ܕܒܚܘ܃ ܘܠܓܠ ̈ܝܦܐ ܣܡܘ ܒ ̈ܤܡܐ‬

‫‪104‬‬
ZECHARIA

48‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (812, 15) ≈ Pesh. Mt XXVI, 31 ≈ Pesh. Mk XIV, 27 ≈ Pesh. Zech. XIII, 7

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ‫ܪܘܡܚܐ ܬܩܘܡ ܥܠ ܪܥܝܐ ܘܥܠ ܥ̈ܪܒܐ ̈ܪܚܡܝ ܘܬܡܚܐ ܠܪܥܝܐ ܘܢܬܒܕܪܘܢ‬
̈
(812, 15) ‫ܐܡ̈ܪܐ ܕܥܢܗ܃ ܘܐܗܦܟ ܐܝܕܝ ܥܠ ܥܠܢܐ‬
Pesh. Zech. XIII, 7 ̈ ‫ܪܚܡܝ ]܂܂܂[ ܡܚܝ ܠܪܥܝܐ ܘܬܬܒܕܪ‬
‫[܃‬sic] ‫ܥܢܗ‬ ̇ ‫ܣܝܦܐ ܐܬܬܥܝܪ ܥܠ ܪܥܝܐ ܕܝܠܝ܃ ܘܥܠ ܓܒܪܐ‬
̈
‫ܥܠܠܢܐ‬ ‫ܘܐܗܦܟ ܐܝܕܝ ܥܠ‬
Pesh. Mt XXVI, 31 ̈
‫ܐܡܚܐ ܠܪܥܝܐ܂ ܘܢܬܒܕܪܘܢ ܥܪܒܐ ܕܥܢܗ‬
̈
‫ܐܡܪܘ ̄ܗܝ‬ ‫ܐܡܚܐ ܠܪܥܝܐ ܘܢܬܒܕܪܘܢ‬
Pesh. Mk XIV, 27

49‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (812, 11) ≈ Pesh. Zech. XIV, 6

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ‫ܗܘ ܝܘܡܐ ܢܗܘܐ ܥܪܝܐ ܘܓܠܝܕܐ‬

(812, 11)
̇ ‫ܒܗ ܒܝܘܡܐ‬
‫ܗܘ܃ ܐܠ ܢܗܘܐ ܢܘܗܪܐ܃ ܐܐܠ ܥܪܝܐ ܘܓܠܝܕܐ‬
Pesh. Zech. XIV, 6

50‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (812, 3) ≈ Pesh. Zech. XIV, 7

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ‫ܝܘܡܐ ܢܬܝܕܥ ܠܡܪܝܐ܃ ܐܠ ܐܝܡܡܐ ܘܐܠ ܠܠܝܐ‬

(812, 3)
Pesh. Zech. XIV, 7 ‫ܝܘܡܐ ܗܘ̇ ܢܬܝܕܥ ܠܡܪܝܐ܃ ܐܠ ܠܠܝܐ ܘܐܠ ܐܝܡܡܐ‬

(Cfr‫ ܂‬MT:

(‫והיה יום־אחד הוא יודע ליהוה לא־יום ולא־לילה‬

MATTHEW

51‫ ܂‬See 33

52‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 23) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Mt. II, 2 = Pesh. Mt. XXI, 5 [with a suffix pronoun] = Pesh.
Mt. XXVII, 11 [?]

53‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 22) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Mt. IX, 15

54‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 22) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Mt. XIII, 37

55‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 22) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Mt. XIII, 46

56‫ ܂‬See 52
105
57‫ ܂‬See 48

58‫ ܂‬See 52

MARK

59‫ ܂‬See 48

LUKE

60‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 24) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Lk. II, 11

JOHN

61‫ ܂‬1‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 23) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Jn. I, 1

62‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 23) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Jn. I, 9 = Pesh. Jn. VIII, 12 [twice (once with a suffix
pronoun)]

63‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (809, 22) = Pesh. Jn I, 11

64‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 23) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Jn. V, 35

65‫ ܂‬See 62

66‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Jn. X, 7 [with a suffix pronoun]

67‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Jn. X, 11

68‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] = Pesh. Jn. XIV, 6

69‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 22) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] ≈ Pesh. Jn. XV, 1

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 ‫ܟܪܡܐ‬

(813, 22)
Pesh. Jn. XV, 1 ‫ܓܦܬܐ ܕܫܪܪܐ‬

106
70‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (813, 19) = Pesh. Jn. XV, 15

71‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 24) [in the context of the listing of Christological appellatives in
Dem. XVII, 11 (813, 21-24)] ≈ Pesh. Jn. V, 21

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 11 ‫ܡܚܝܢܐ‬

(813, 24)
Pesh. Jn. V, 21 ‫ܡܚܐ‬

ROMANS

72‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 8 (801, 4) ≈ Pesh. Rom. XII, 10

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 8 ‫ܢܝܩܪܘܢ ܒܗ ܚܕ ܠܚܕ‬

(801, 4)
Pesh. Rom. XII, 10 ‫ܗܘܝܬܘܢ ܡܩܕܡܝܢ ܡܝܩܪܝܢ ܚܕ ܠܚܕ‬

1 CORINTHIANS

73‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 3 (800, 9) = Pesh. 1 Cor. III, 16

2 CORINTHIANS

74‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 (813, 5) ≈ Pesh. 2 Cor. V, 21

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 10 ‫ܐܬܬܣܝܡ ܚܛܗܐ ܒܢܦܫܗ‬

(813, 5)
Pesh. 2 Cor. V, 21 ‫ܚܛܝܬܐ ܥܒܕܗ‬

75‫ ܂‬See 10

EPHESIANS

76‫ ܂‬Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6 (793, 1) ≈ Pesh. Eph. III, 15

Aphr. Dem. XVII, 6 ‫ܘܟܕ ܕܝܠܗ ̄ܗܝ ܟܠܗ ܐܒܗܘܬܐ‬

(793, 1)
Pesh. Eph. III, 15 ‫ܗܘ ܕܡܢܗ ܡܫܬܡܗܐ ܟܠ ܐܒܗܘܬܐ‬

HEBREWS

77‫ ܂‬See 17

107
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