Aphrahat the Persian Sage

 Aphrahat the Persian Sage

(270-345AD)

Aphrahat liveed and worked in a segment of the early Church that is not often mentioned or studied; that being that portion of the Syriac speaking members of the Church under Persian Zoroastrian rule.  The Roman Empire and the Persian Empire had for many centuries been at odds with eachother. As long as Rome had been a pagan Empire, the Christians of the Persian Empire were more or less tolerated and overlooked.  But with the Roman Emperor Constantine's favoring of the Christian Faith, the Christians of the Persian Empire became suspect and persecuted.

During Aphrahat's lifetime, the Persian Emperor Shapur II called for the systematic persecution of Christians and all non-Zoroastrians, to further promote the State Religion of the Persian Empire, Zoroastrianism and his power as ruler.  Zoroastrianism was itself a monotheistic religion and therefore saw Judaism and Christianity as rival monotheistic faiths.  It is interesting to note that Aphrahat, who clearly debates the Judaism of his time, does not mention Zoroastrianism.  We can only speculate that this may have caused him even greater isolation and even danger of death, if he were to directly attack the State Religion of the Persian Empire.  However, since Syriac Christianity in his day was a religion that engaged the populace of its day, by its witness of faith in the streets of the cities and villages, perhaps his debate with Zoroastrianism was in his daily lived witness and not in his writings.  Also, since Judaism and Christianity had a direct and obvious connection, the mentioning of Judaisim in his work, makes more logical sense.  

Eventually, Sharpur II made defection from the Zoroastrian religion a crime and the sentence for such a crime was capital punisment.  So while the Roman Empire was quickly  becoming a Christian Empire, the Persian Empire began to persecute those who converted to Christianity.  So Zoroastrianism which had been seen for many centuries to be a tolerant religion, became intolerant as its rulers felt threatened by its neighbors.  

Aphrahat's teachings reflect the Syriac Christian closeness to Sacred Scripture. Unlike in the Latin and Greek Christian worlds, that relied heavily on understanding Christian doctrine and Biblical teachings through Hellenistic philosophical systems (Platonic, Neo-Platonic, Stoicism, Aristotelianism), Syriac theology was very biblical and indeed this shaped the Syriac language into becoming what is often understood as the Christian form of the Aramaic language, the language of the Jewish people of Roman Palestine.

Syriac Christianity was in the time of Aphrahat, to borrow from modern terminology, "existential".  The main purpose of studying Scripture was not for intellectual knowledge or "to do theology;" it was to learn how to live the Christian life.  HIs great writing known as the Demonstrations or Expositions, were simply for that purpose, to demonstrate how to live and think as a Christian in the world. To understand how in the Light of Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit; one could find in Sacred Scripture how to be Christ-like.  Sacred Scripture enlightened the Christian by showing them how the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament and how Judaism is fulfilled in Christianity.  

He writes:

"And again the Apostle has commented for us upon this building and upon this foundation; for he said thus — No man can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:11 Again the Apostle said about faith that it is conjoined with hope and love, for he said thus:— These are three which shall abide, faith and hope and love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 And he showed with regard to faith that first it is laid on a sure foundation." - Demonstrations

Jesus is the firm foundation of faith.  In a very real way the thought of Aphrahat is an expostion of Jesus as the Word. How the Word that was present in the Old Testament becomes Flesh in the proclamation of the Christ in the New Testament.

- Rev. David A. Fisher