Early Christian Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Aphrahat the Persian Sage
Bogdan G.
Bucur
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2008
Vol. 11, No. 2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv11n2bucur
Bogdan G. Bucur
Early Christian Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Aphrahat the Persian Sage
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol11/HV11N2Bucur.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute,
vol 11
issue 2
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
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Syriac Studies
Aphrahat
Angelology
Angelomorphic
Asceticism
Pneumatology
Tradition
Exegesis
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This article pursues the intersection of
angelology and Pneumatology in the writings of the so-called
Persian Sage. The first part of the article takes its cue from
the critique of Aphrahat's Pneumatology contained in a
seventh-century letter by George, the monophysite bishop of the
Arabs, and demonstrates that Aphrahat uses a cluster of
biblical verses (Zech 3:9; 4:10; Isa 11:2-3; Matt 18:10) to
support what is best designated as “angelomorphic
Pneumatology.” The second part of the article attempts to
integrate Aphrahat's angelomorphic Pneumatology within the
larger theological framework described by scholars over the
past century, namely in relation to Spirit Christology, and
within a theological framework with a marked binitarian
orientation.
Introduction
[1] In the
conclusion of his article entitled “The Angelic Spirit in
Early Judaism,” John Levison invited the scholarly
community to use his work as “a suitable foundation for
discussion of the angelic spirit” in early
Christianity.
Levison, “The Angelic Spirit in Early
Judaism,” SBLSP 34 (1995): 4-93, at 492. See
also his book The Spirit in First Century Judaism
(AGJU 29; Leiden: Brill, 1997).
A few years later, Charles Gieschen's work on
angelomorphic Christology and Mehrdad Fatehi’s study of
Pauline Pneumatology also included dense but necessarily brief
surveys of early Jewish and Christian examples
“angelomorphic Pneumatology.”
Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology:
Antecedents and Early Evidence (AGJU 42; Leiden: Brill,
1998), 114-19; Fatehi, The Spirit's Relation to the Risen
Lord in Paul (WUNT 128; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2000), 133-37.
The case for
angelomorphic Pneumatology has been argued at length with
respect to the Book of Revelation, the Shepherd of
Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Clement of Alexandria.
Bogdan G. Bucur, “Hierarchy, Prophecy, and
the Angelomorphic Spirit: A Contribution to the Study of the
Book of Revelation's Wirkungsgeschichte,” JBL
127 (2008): 183-204; “The Son of God and the
Angelomorphic Holy Spirit: A Rereading of the
Shepherd's Christology,” ZNW 98 (2007):
120-43; “The Angelic Spirit in Early Christianity:
Justin, the Martyr and Philosopher,” JR 88
(2008): 190-208; “Revisiting Christian Oeyen: ‘The
Other Clement’ on Father, Son, and the Angelomorphic
Spirit,” VC 61 (2007): 381-413. This direction
of research is profoundly indebted to the study of Christian
Oeyen, “Eine frühchristliche Engelpneumatologie bei
Klemens von Alexandrien,” IKZ 55 (1965):
102-120; 56 (1966): 27-47.
In what
follows, I shall pursue the occurrence of angelomorphic
Pneumatology in the writings of Aphrahat the Persian
Sage.
For details on Aphrahat's life and works, see Peter
Bruns, Das Christusbild Aphrahats des Persischen
Weisen (Bonn: Boregässer, 1990), 69-81, and the
introductory studies by Marie-Joseph Pierre, in Aphraate le
Sage Persan: Les Exposés (SC 349; Paris: Cerf,
1988), 33-199, and Bruns, in Aphrahat: Unterweisungen
(FC 5/1; New York; Freiburg: Herder, 1991), 35-71.
[2] This
author is judged to represent “Christianity in its most
semitic form, still largely free from Greek cultural and
theological influences.”
Kuriakose Valavanolickal, Aphrahat:
Demonstrations (Catholic Theological Studies of India 3;
Changanassery: HIRS, 1999), 1.
It is the unanimous judgment of
scholars that Aphrahat is “entirely traditional,”
in the sense that “he transmits the teaching that he
received, lays out testimonia pertaining to each
topic, in order to convince or reassure a reader whose
intelligence functions according to this logic of
faith.”
Pierre, “Introduction,” in Aphraate
Le Sage Persan: Les Exposés, 66. On the difference
between Aphrahat and Ephrem on the issue of
“traditionalism,” see Robert Murray, “Some
Rhetorical Patterns in Early Syriac Literature,” in A
Tribute to Arthur Vööbus (ed. R. H. Fischer;
Chicago: The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 1977),
110. Aphrahat represents an unicum in the history of
Christian dogma, because his “singularly archaic”
Christology is “independent of Nicaea and ... of the
development of Greco-Roman Christology.” See Loofs,
Theophilus, 260; Bruns, Aphrahat:
Unterweisungen, 208-9; Ortiz de Urbina, “Die
Gottheit Christi bei Aphrahat,” OCP 31 (1933):
5, 22. More recently, William L. Petersen argued the same
thesis, even though his views of Aphrahat's Christology are
quite different: Aphrahat is “untouched by the
Hellenistic world and Nicaea,” he represents a
subordinationist Christology, which is the “Christology
confessed by early Syrian Christians, a relic inherited from
primitive Semitic or Judaic Christianity” (“The
Christology of Aphrahat, the Persian Sage: An Excursus on the
17th Demonstration,” VC 46 [1992]: 241, 251).
His Demonstrations are noted for their
“archaism” or “traditionalism,” and
represent, as has been said, a unique treasure-trove of older
exegetical and doctrinal traditions.
Arthur Vööbus, “Methodologisches
zum Studium der Anweisungen Aphrahats,” OrChr 46
(1962): 32.
This is why, even though he
flourished in the fourth century, Aphrahat provides invaluable
insight into earlier Christian doctrines and practices.
[3]
Aphrahat's Pneumatology has not been a neglected topic in
scholarship. The pioneering studies by Friedrich Loofs and
Ignatius Ortiz de Urbina, which to this day remain
indispensable for the study of Aphrahat's Christology, contain
much material of pneumatological relevance.
Loofs, Theophilus 257-99: “Die
trinitarischen und christologischen Anschauungen des
Afraates”; Ortiz de Urbina, “Die Gottheit Christi
bei Aphrahat,” esp. 124-38: “Der göttliche
Geist der in Christus wohnt.” See also Francesco Pericoli
Ridolfini, “Problema trinitario e problema cristologico
nelle ‘Dimostrazioni’ del ‘Sapiente
Persiano,’” SROC 2 (1979): 99-125, esp.
109-10, 120-21.
The above-mentioned
study by Fredrikson on the opposition between the good and the
evil spirits in the Shepherd of Hermas also discusses
Aphrahat's treatment of this topic.
Fredrikson, “L'Esprit Saint et les esprits
mauvais,” esp. 273-75.
Winfrid Cramer's book on
early Syriac Pneumatology dedicates some thirty pages to
Aphrahat, which were hailed as “the most thorough and ...
without doubt the best study on this aspect of Aphrahat's
theology.”
Cramer, Der Geist Gottes und des
Menschen in frühsyricher Theologie (MBT 46;
Münster: Aschendorff, 1979), 59-85; see Robert Murray's
review in JTS n.s. 32 (1981): 260-61.
More recently, in a 2005 doctoral
dissertation, Stephanie K. Skoyles Jarkins makes some valuable
observations on the Sage, including his views on the Holy
Spirit.
Skoyles Jarkins, “Aphrahat the Persian
Sage and the Temple of God: A Study of Early Syriac Theological
Anthropology” (Ph.D. diss., Marquette University, 2005),
174-84.
[4] In what
follows I shall take my cue from a critique of Aphrahat's
Pneumatology contained in a seventh-century letter addressed by
George, the monophysite bishop of the Arabs, to a certain
hieromonk Išo.
Georgii Arabum episcopi epistula,
in Analecta Syriaca (ed. Paul Lagarde; Osnabrück:
Otto Zeller, 1967 [1858]), 108-34. George became bishop of
Akoula in 686 and died in 724. He translated Aristotle's
Organon, composed a treatise “On the Sacraments
of the Church,” wrote scholia on the Scriptures and
Gregory of de Nazianzus, and brought to completion Jacob of
Edessa's Hexaemeron. His long epistle to Išo,
dated 714-718, is part of a rich epistolary activity. See
William Wright, A Short History of Syriac Literature
(Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2001 [1887], 156-59); Anton
Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur mit
Ausschluss der christlich-palästinensischen Texte
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968 [1922]), 257-58.
The third chapter of this epistle bears
the following title: “Third Chapter, concerning that
which the Persian writer also said, that, when people die, the
animal spirit (ܪܘܚܐ
ܢܦܫܢܬܐ =
ὸ πνεῦμα
ὸ ψυχικόν) is
buried in the body, being [lit. “which (= the animal
spirit) is“] unconscious.”
Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca, 117.4-6.
It is, however,
not the sleep of the soul in Syriac tradition that I intend to
discuss, a topic already treated in scholarship.
In fact, “there is hardly any feature
of the teaching of Aphrahat which has occasioned so universal
comment” (Frank Gavin, “The Sleep of the Soul in
the Early Syriac Church,” JAOS 40 [1920]: 104).
See also Pierre, “Introduction,” in Aphraate le
Sage Persan: Les Exposés, 1:191-99; Ridolfini,
“Note sull’antropologia e sul’ escatologia
del ‘Sapiente Persiano,’” SROC 1/1
(1978): 5-17. See also Nicholas Constas, “An Apology for
the Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity: Eustratius Presbyter of
Constantinople, On the State of Souls after Death (CPG
7522),” JECS 10 (2002): 267-85.
I shall rather
expand upon a remark in bishop George's letter, and argue that
Aphrahat offers a valuable witness to the early Christian
phenomenon already discussed in reference to Clement of
Alexandria, namely the exegesis of Zech 3:9, Isa 11:2-3, and
Matt 18:10 in support of an angelomorphic Pneumatology.
Finally, I shall integrate Aphrahat's angelomorphic
Pneumatology within the larger theological framework described
by earlier scholarship, that is, in relation to Spirit
Christology, and within a theological framework of marked
binitarian character.
[5] The
terms “angelomorphic” and
“angelomorphism” require some clarification.
According to Crispin Fletcher-Louis, these terms are to be used
“wherever there are signs that an individual or community
possesses specifically angelic characteristics or status,
though for whom identity cannot be reduce to that of an
angel”
C. Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts: Angels,
Christology and Soteriology (WUNT 2/94; Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 14-15.
The virtue of this definition—and the
reason for my substituting the term “angelomorphic
pneumatology” for Levison’s “angelic
Spirit”—is that it signals the use of angelic
characteristics in descriptions of God or humans,
while not necessarily implying that the latter are angels
stricto sensu: neither “angelomorphic
Christology” nor “angelomorphic Pneumatology”
imply the simple identification of Christ or the Holy Spirit
with angels.
See Jean Daniélou, The Theology
of Jewish Christianity (London: Darton, Longman &
Todd, 19), 118.
Aphrahat's Pneumatology: "Many Aberrations and Very
Crass Statements"
[6]
According to the seventh-century Bishop George of the Arabs,
one should not waste much sleep over the writings of the
“Persian Sage.”
“It befits your Fraternity's wisdom
not to consider or number that man, the Persian writer, among
the approved writers, and [his writings] among the writings
that are approved, so as to wear yourself out with questions
and become clouded over in your mind in order to make sense of
and understand the import of all the words written in the book
of the Demonstrations” (Lagarde, Analecta
Syriaca, 117.18-22).
This otherwise unknown writer
could not have been Ephrem's disciple, because the character
[ܝܘܩܢܐ = εἰκών] of his teaching
is unlike that of Mār Ephrem's.
ܠܐ ܓܪ
ܝܘܩܢܐ
ܕܡܠܦܢܘܬܗ
ܕܡܿܐ
ܠܕܩܕܝܫܐ
ܡܪܝ
ܐܦܪܝܡܼ (Lagarde,
Analecta Syriaca, 111.1-2).
Indeed, Aphrahat
was “not among those who confessed the approved teachings
(ܡ̈ܠܦܢܘܬܐ
ܚܬܝ̈ܬܬܐ) of the
teachers that were approved.”
Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca,
117.24-25.
His writings contain
“many aberrations and very crass
statements.”
ܦܘ̈ܕܐ
ܣܓܝ̈ܠܐܼ
ܘܡ̈ܠܐ
ܕܣܿܓܝ
ܥܼܒ̈ܝܢ (Lagarde,
Analecta Syriaca, 117.27-28).
[7] Clearly,
Bishop George does not think very highly of the Persian Sage.
His addressee, on the other hand, has read the
Demonstrations front to back, and is most likely an
admirer of Aphrahat's. This is why the bishop proceeds with
caution: he concedes that the Persian writer was of a
“sharp nature,” and that he studied (lit.
“ploughed”) the Scriptures with great diligence.
Some of the flaws, such as, for instance, the grave
misunderstanding of Pauline statements in 1 Corinthians 15,
might be due to the fact that Aphrahat did not have access to
correct versions of the Scriptures.
Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca,
118.1-12.
Or perhaps, in his time and
place, he did not have the possibility “to apply himself
(lit. “his heart,” ܕܢܣܼܝܡ
ܠܒܿܠܗ) and conform his
opinions (ܚܘܫܒܵܐ)”
to the teachings of more trustworthy writers.
Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca,
117.26-27. This, of course, does not mean that Aphrahat should
be “excused” for some of his views on grounds that
he represents an earlier stage of theological reflection. Such
an interpretation would reflect the mindset of modern
Patristics more than the mind of patristic authors. It is
rather a rhetorical maneuver on the part of the bishop,
designed to pacify those fond of Aphrahat.
[8] At one
point, however, Bishop George seems to have run out of
sugarcoating, for he bluntly states that Aphrahat's views about
the Holy Spirit are both stupid and blasphemous. Just as the
ideas about the animal spirit are an example of
“crassness and boorish ignorance (ܕܥܒܝܘܬܐ
ܘܠܐ
ܝܠܝܦܘܬܐ
ܩܘܪܝܝܬܐ),”
so also are those statements that seem to equate the Holy
Spirit with the angels:
You see, my brother, the crassness of the conceptions
(ܥܓܘܪܘܬܐ
ܕܡ̈ܠܐ); what sort of
honor they ascribe to the Holy Spirit; how he understands the
angels of the believers, of whom our Lord has said that they
always see the face of his Father. He also holds this opinion
in that which he says towards the end of the
Demonstration On the Resurrection of the
Dead.
Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca, 119.10;
120.2-6.
[9] Bishop
George refers, first, to Dem. 6.15, where, as I shall
show later, Aphrahat uses Matt 18:10 to illustrate the
intercessory activity of the Holy Spirit. The “crassness
of the conceptions” (ܥܓܘܪܘܬܐ
ܕܡ̈ܠܐ) does not refer to
words or expressions but to Aphrahat's notion of the Holy
Spirit as interceding like an angel, and the underlying
exegesis of Matt 18:10.
[10] The
second reference is most likely to Dem. 8.23 (I/404),
a text using the same imagery of the Spirit as intercessor
before the throne of God, albeit without the reference to Matt
18:10. Bishop George's point is that Aphrahat's bothersome
connection between the angels of Matt 18:10 and the Holy Spirit
was not a slip of the pen, due to lack of attention or
doctrinal vigilance, but rather a case of repeated, consistent,
and therefore characteristic “crassness and boorish
ignorance.”
So much for the reception of Aphrahat's Pneumatology by the
guardians of later Orthodoxy. I now move to those passages of
the Sage.
The Seven Operations of the Spirit are Six
[11] The
following passage occurs in Aphrahat's first
Demonstrations:
And concerning this Stone he stated and showed: on this
stone, behold, I open seven eyes [Zech 3:9]. And what
are the seven eyes opened on the stone other than the Spirit
of God that dwelt (ܕܫܪܬ) upon Christ with
seven operations (ܣܘܥܪ̈ܢܝܢ)?
As Isaiah the prophet said, There will rest
(ܬܬܢܝܚ) and
dwell (ܘܬܫܪܐ) upon
him God's Spirit of wisdom and of understanding and of
counsel and of courage, and of knowledge, and of the fear of
the Lord [Isa 11:2-3]. These are the seven eyes that
were opened upon the stone [Zech 3:9], and these are the
seven eyes of the Lord which look upon all the earth
[Zech 4:10].
Aphrahat, Dem. 1.9 [I/20]. The
numbers between square brackets indicate volume and page in
Jean Parisot, ed., Aphraatis Sapientis Persae
Demonstrationes (PS I; Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1894).
[12]
Aphrahat combines Isaiah' seven gifts of the Spirit with
Zechariah's seven eyes on the stone (Zech 3:9), and “the
eyes of the LORD [i.e., his angelic servants], which look upon
all the earth” (Zech 4:10). Isaiah 11:2 is quoted in a
distinctly Syriac form, with an additional verb
(&rā) complementing the single “to
rest” in the Hebrew and Greek.
Aside from Isa 11:2,
šrā is used in the OT, in passages
describing the Spirit's intimate relationship with certain
individuals (Num 11:26; 2 Kgs 2:15; 2 Chr 15:1; 20:14). In the
NT, it is not used in this sense. Šrā as
“indwelling” occurs, however, in the invocations of
the Holy Spirit over baptismal water, the eucharistic elements,
or the baptismal oil, in the Acts of Thomas (chs. 27,
133, 156, 157), and in later patristic quotations from and
allusions to Luke 1:35. After examining the divergence between
the use of aggen cal- in all Syriac
versions of Luke 1:35, and the use of šrā
b- for the same verse in Ephrem and Philoxenus, Sebastian
Brock (“The Lost Old Syriac at Luke 1:35 and the Earliest
Syriac Terms for the Incarnation,” in Gospel
Traditions in the Second Century: Origins, Recensions, Text,
and Transmission [ed. W. Petersen; Notre Dame, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1989], 117-31) concluded that
šrā b- does not reflect the lost Old
Syriac of Luke 1:35 but rather a Jewish Aramaic background to
the oral Syriac kerygma. Columba Stewart
(“Working the Earth of the Heart”: The
Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to AD
431 [Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon,
1991], 212) also thinks that the occurrence of
šrā in later authors, such as Aphrahat or
Ephrem, points to “a common liturgical or catechetical
source.”
Nothing
extraordinary here; except that, on closer examination,
Aphrahat's “seven operations” of the Spirit are
only six: wisdom, understanding, counsel, courage, knowledge,
and fear of the Lord!
Schlütz (Isaias 11:2, 35)
thinks that Aphrahat might have counted “the Spirit of
God” as one of the seven gifts of the Spirit. I find this
very unlikely. First, Aphrahat speaks about two terms: the
Spirit and the seven operations of the Spirit. Second, there is
an obvious parallelism between “the Spirit of God that
abode on Christ with seven operations,” and the
immediately following proof text from Isa 11:2-3:
“The Spirit of God shall rest and dwell upon
him,” followed by the “seven” (in
reality six) gifts of the Spirit. Finally, all patristic
writers who echo this tradition count, without exception,
seven gifts of the Spirit as distinct from “the
Spirit of God.”
[13]
Neither the Hebrew of Isa 11:2-3 (whether MT or the Great
Isaiah Scroll at Qumran), nor the Peshittā, nor the
Syriac quoted by Aphrahat, nor the Targum Jonathan, mention a
seventh “spirit” at Isa 11:3.
Schlütz (Isaias 11:2, 2-11)
provides a detailed treatment of the versions and their
relationship. For Qumran, I have consulted The Dead Sea
Scrolls Bible (ed. M. Abegg Jr., P. Flint, E. Ulrich; San
Francisco, Calif.: Harper, 1999). See also J. F. Stenning, ed.,
The Targum of Isaiah (Oxford: Clarendon, 1949), 41.
While the
messianic interpretation of Isa 11:1-2 is not unknown in
rabbinic Judaism,
See references in Bobichon, Justin
Martyr, 803 n. 4.
the use of this verse to support the
notion of the sevenfold spirit resting on the Messiah
seems absent from both Second Temple apocalyptic writings and
rabbinic literature.
Schlütz, Isaias 11:2, 8. In
1 En. 61.11 the sevenfold angelic praise is said to
rise up “in the spirit of faith, in the spirit of wisdom
and patience, in the spirit of mercy, in the spirit of justice
and peace, and in the spirit of generosity.” Yet, as
Schlütz (Isaias 11:2, 20) notes, this is in no
way connected to Isa. 11:2-3. Moreover, in 1 En. 49.3
the Spirit resting over the coming Messiah is fivefold:
“In him dwells the spirit of wisdom, the spirit which
gives thoughtfulness, the spirit of knowledge and strength, and
the spirit of those who have fallen asleep in
righteousness” (OTP 1.36). The numerous
patristic references to Isaiah 11 and the Holy Spirit adduced
by Schlütz have no counterpart in the rabbinic literature
surveyed by Peter Schäfer, in his work Die Vorstellung
vom Heiligen Geist in der rabbinischen Literatur (Studien
zum Alten und Neuen Testament 28; Munich: Kösel, 1972).
It is noteworthy that the Midrash
Rabbah uses Isa 11:2 in a speculation about the
six spirits on the Messiah.
“Furthermore, in connection with the
offering of Nahshon of the tribe of Judah it is written, And
his offering was one silver dish (Num 7:13); whereas in
connection with all the others it ‘his offering.’
Thus a waw was added to Nahshon, hinting that six
righteous men would come forth from his tribe, each of whom was
blessed with six virtues. [Next, the text enumerates David, the
three youths, Hezekiah, and Daniel, each of which are shown to
have been endowed with six virtues]. Finally, of the royal
Messiah it is written, And the spirit of the Lord shall rest
upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of
counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of
the Lord (Isa 11:2)” (Gen. Rab. 97; English
version from Midrash Rabbah: Genesis [tr. H.
Freedman; London: Soncino, 1983], 2:902. According to Friedert,
this text constitutes an exception, inasmuch as the Rabbis had
ceased to use Isa 11:2.
This is similar
to the Ps.-Philonic homily “On Samson,” which also
enumerates six spirits by referring to the “fear of the
Lord” only once, as πνεῦμα
φόβου
θεοῦ.
“On Samson,” 24.
This seems to be
a Jewish precursor of the idea of seven spirits resting on the
Messiah in Isa 11:2-3, universally disseminated among Christian
writers, which opens up the possibility of combining this text
with Zech 3:9 and 4:10.
For the patristic exegesis of the passage,
see Schlütz, Isaias 11:2, passim. Siegert
(Drei hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten, 2:275)
refers to the homily's use of Isa 11:2 as “eine
jüdische Vorstufe” to the Christian tradition.
It is the very strong Christian tradition about the seven
spirits resting on the Messiah that functions as Aphrahat's
hermeneutical presupposition, allowing him to speak of seven
operations of the Spirit, even though his biblical text only
mentions six.
Something similar occurs in Jerome. The
Vulgate's Isa 11:2-3 follows not the Hebrew but the Greek, and
Jerome's attachment to the tradition of the seven spirits
resting on the Messiah is evident in his commentaries (On
Isaiah 4.11; On Zechariah 1.3; On Job
38.31; 41). For details, see Schlütz, Isaias
11:2, 16.
“The Spirit is not always found with those
that receive it ...”
[14] I
move now to a text that provoked Bishop George's outrage:
Anyone who has preserved the Spirit of Christ in purity: when
it [the Spirit] goes to him [Christ], it [the Spirit] speaks
to him thus: the body to which I went and which put me
on [ܘܠܒܫܢܝ]
in the waters of baptism, has preserved me in
holiness. And the Holy Spirit entreats [ܘܡܚܦܛܐ]
Christ for the resurrection of the body that preserved it in
a pure manner... And anyone who receives the Spirit from the
waters [of baptism] and wearies [ܘܡܥܝܩ] it: it [the
Spirit] departs from that person ... and goes to its nature,
[namely] unto Christ, and accuses that man of having grieved
it ... And, indeed, my beloved, this Spirit, which the
Prophets have received, and which we, too, have received, is
not at all times found with those that receive it; rather it
sometimes goes to him that sent it, and sometimes it goes to
him that received it. Hearken to that which our Lord said,
Do not despise any one of these little ones that believe
in me, for their angels in heaven always gaze on the face of
my Father. Indeed, this Spirit is at all times on the
move [ܐܙܠ̱ܐ
ܒܟܠܙܒܢ], and
stands before God and beholds his face; and it will accuse
before God whomsoever injures the temple in which it
dwells.
Aphrahat, Dem. 6.14-15 [I/293, 296,
297].
[15]
These passages are usually discussed in reference to Aphrahat's
doctrine of “the sleep of the soul” and his
distinction between the “animal spirit”
(ܪܘܚܐ
ܢܦܫܢܬܐ) that
slumbers in the grave with the body and the “holy
spirit” (ܪܘܚܐ
ܕܩܘܕܫܐ)—or
“heavenly spirit” (ܪܘܚܐ
ܫܡܝܢܝܬܐ), or
“spirit of Christ” (ܪܘܚܐ
ܕܡܫܝܚܐ)—which
clothes “the spirituals” (ܪ̈ܘܚܢܐ =
οἱ
πνευμα ικοί)
at baptism and later returns “to its nature, unto
Christ.”
Bishop George is the first to ponder these
questions. He does so in his usual dismissive style: “And
there is also another thing that he said, that, as soon as
people die, the holy spirit, which people receive when they are
baptized, goes to its nature, [namely] to Christ. And that
which goes to the Lord is the Spirit of Christ; since I do not
know what he understands by 'to our Lord' other than Christ.
Now, this is crassness and boorish ignorance” (Lagarde,
Analecta Syriaca, 119.6-10).
[16] One
must not lose sight, however, of the fact that the passage is
part of the Demonstration “On the Sons of the
Covenant,” and that Aphrahat argues here one of the
axioms of his ascetic theory, namely that the Holy Spirit
departs from a sinful person and goes to accuse that person
before the throne of God. According to the Sage, Christians
receive the Spirit at Baptism. If one keeps the Spirit in
purity, the latter will advocate for that person before the
throne of God; if, on the contrary, one indulges in sinful
behavior, the Spirit leaves the house of the soul—which
allows the adversary to break in and occupy it (Dem.
6.17)—and goes to accuse the person before God.
According to Skoyles Jarkins
(“Aphrahat and the Temple,” 183), “[t]he
Spirit may be either, as it were, a defense lawyer or a
prosecuting attorney before the tribunal of the Lord.”
Cf. Pierre, Aphraate le Sage Persan, 402 n. 93:
“L'Esprit saint est à la fois intercesseur et
procureur.”
[17]
Indication that this is an inherited tradition can be found in
the striking similarities with the Shepherd of
Hermas.
According to the Shepherd, the
πνεῦμα
inhabits the believer (Herm. Mand. 10.2.5) and, under
normal circumstances, intercedes on behalf of that
person. Yet, the Shepherd warns that the holy Spirit
is easily grieved and driven away by sadness (Herm.
Mand. 10.1.3; 10.2.1), case in which he will depart
and intercede to God against the person (Herm.
Mand. 10.41.5).
There are, however, no Syriac manuscripts of
the Shepherd, and no references to this work among
Syriac writers.
Leutzsch, Papiasfragmente. Hirt des
Hermas, 120-21. According to Baumstark (Geschichte der
syrischen Literatur, 75-77), the pre-Nicene writers
translated into Syriac starting with the early decades of the
fifth century—that is, decades after Aphrahat—are
Ignatius, Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Aristides, Gregory
Thaumaturgs, Hippolytus, and Eusebius of Caesarea. Meanwhile,
“Hermas, Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria and
Origen are conspicuous by their absence” (Brock,
“The Syriac Background to the World of Theodore of
Tarsus,” in his volume From Ephrem to Romanos
[Aldershot / Brookfield / Singapore / Sydney: Ashgate Variorum,
1999], 37).
Fredrikson raises the hypothesis of a common
source behind both Aphrahat and the Shepherd, a source
whose views of spiritual dualism and divine indwelling would
have been similar to that of the Community Rule at
Qumran.
Fredrikson, “L'Esprit saint et les
esprits mauvais,” 273, 277, 278. Cf. also the older
studies by Pierre Audet (“Affinités
littéraires et doctrinales du Manuel de
Discipline,” RB 59 [1953]: 218-38; 60 [1953]:
41-82), and A. T. Hanson (“Hodayoth vi and viii and
Hermas Herm. Sim. VIII,” StPatr 10
[1970]/TU 107: 105-8). The similarities between Aphrahat's
ascetic theology and the Qumran documents have been further
investigated in Golitzin's ample study entitled
“Recovering the 'Glory of Adam': ‘Divine
Light’ Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the
Christian Ascetical Literature of Fourth-Century
Syro-Mesopotamia,” published in The Dead Sea Scrolls
as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity:
Papers from an International Conference at St. Andrews in
2001 (ed. J. R. Davila; STDJ 46; Leiden: Brill, 2003),
275-308.
We must perhaps consider the idea of a massive
Palestinian-Syriac cluster of ascetic vocabulary and imagery,
passed on by the earliest Christian missionaries to communities
in Syria and Alexandria.
A fresh and compelling view has been
proposed recently by April De Conick, Recovering The
Original Gospel of Thomas: A History of The Gospel And Its
Growth (LNTS 286; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2005), 236-41.
See also Kretschmar, “Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem
Ursprung frühchristlicher Askese,” ZTK
(1961): 27-67; Peter Nagel, Die Motivierung der Askese in
der alten Kirche und der Ursprung des Mönchtums (TU
95; Berlin: Akademie Verlag 1966); Murray, “An
Exhortation to Candidates for Ascetical Vows at Baptism in the
Ancient Syriac Church,” NTS 21 (1974): 59-80;
“The Features of the Earliest Christian
Asceticism,” in Christian Spirituality: Essays in
Honour of E. G. Rupp (ed. P. Brooks; London: SCM, 1975),
65-77.
[18] For
Aphrahat, then, the notion that the Spirit can be present in
the believer, and subsequently leave, being driven away by evil
spirits, was part of a traditional ascetic theory. In the
course of the Messalian controversy this view became highly
controversial. Most significant in this respect is the treatise
On the Inhabitation of the Holy Spirit composed by
Philoxenus of Mabbug (+ 523) with the express aim of showing
that “the Holy Spirit whom, by the grace of God, we have
received from the waters of baptism at the moment when we were
baptized, we did not receive so that he would sometimes remain
with us and some other times abide afar from
us...”
ܠܘ
ܕܒܙܒܢ
ܢܿܟܬܪ
ܠܘܬܢ
ܘܒܙܒܢ
ܕܢܬܿܪܚܩ
ܡܢܢ
ܢܣܿܒܝܢܢ
ܠܗ (Antoine Tanghe, “Memra de
Philoxène de Mabboug sur l'inhabitation du
Saint-Esprit,” Mus 73 [1960], 43).
According to Philoxenus, the Spirit
“does not flee from the soul in which he dwelled at the
moment of sin and return when it would repent, as was the
assertion of one who blurted out stupidly.”
ܐܝܟ
ܡܠܬܐ ܕܗܿܘ
ܕܡܣܼܒܪ
ܗܕܝܘܜܐܝܬ
(Tanghe, “Memra de Philoxène,” 50). The
doctrine attacked here is abundantly illustrated by Aphrahat
and the Liber Graduum. Could the author whose
explanations Philoxenus finds awkward or idiotic (ܗܕܝܘܜܐܝܬ,
derived from ἰδιω εία)
be Aphrahat? The connection with Bishop George's verdict of
“crassness and boorish ignorance” is tempting.
[19] It
is noteworthy, however, that even while he writes to dismantle
the ascetic theories espoused in the Demonstrations,
Philoxenus continues to use the very same imagery and biblical
passages (albeit to opposite ends), thus confirming the
traditional character and widespread appeal of the theology set
forth by the Sage.
Particularly striking is his description of
the “mechanics” of temptation and sin (Tanghe,
“Memra de Philoxène,” 50). When tempted by
sin, the believer's conscience has a choice of accepting or
rejecting the inner admonition coming from the Holy Spirit. If
the admonition is accepted, the believer will refrain from
sinning, and will be filled with light and joy from the Spirit.
In the opposite case, even though the Spirit does not leave,
the house of the soul becomes dim and is filled with smoke and
sadness.
[20] What
seems to have been overlooked is the intimate link between
Aphrahat's notion of the Spirit departing to intercede for or
against the believer, on the one hand, and the angelomorphic
representation of the Holy Spirit, on the other. Indeed,
Aphrahat describes the work of the Holy Spirit in unmistakably
angelic imagery: the Spirit “is always on the
move,” he stands before the divine throne, beholds the
Face of God, entreats Christ on behalf of the worthy ascetics,
accuses the unworthy, etc. It is significant that the action of
carrying prayers from earth to the throne of God is sometimes
ascribed to the archangel Gabriel.
“You who pray should remember that you
are making an offering before God: let not Gabriel who presents
the prayers be ashamed by an offering that has a blemish ... In
such a case ... Gabriel, who presents prayers, does not want to
take it from earth because, on inspection, he has found a
blemish in your offering ... he will say to you: I shall
not bring your unclean offering before the sacred
throne” (Demonstration 4:13; trans. Brock,
in his The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual
Life [Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1987],
17-18, 19).
This is again similar to
the Shepherd (Herm. Sim. 8.2.5), where the
archangel Michael states that, in addition to the inspection of
the believers' good deeds by one of his angelic subordinates,
he will personally test every soul again, at the heavenly altar
(ἐγὼ
αὐ οὺς ἐπὶ
ὸ
θυσιασ ήριον
δοκιμάσω).
Both Aphrahat and the Shepherd deploy the traditional
imagery of angels carrying up the prayer of humans to the
heavenly altar.
See the references to Stuckenbruck and Haas
in an earlier note.
[21] In
the case of Aphrahat, the angelomorphic element is even more
pronounced, given that the Spirit's to-and-fro between earth
and heaven, and his intercession before the divine throne, are
“documented” with an unlikely proof-text, namely
Matt 18:10 (“their angels in heaven always behold the
face of my Father”). In his commentary on the
Diatessaron, Ephrem Syrus interprets “the angels of the
little ones” as a metaphor for the prayers of the
believers, which reach up to the highest heavens. Later Syriac
authors (Jacob of Edessa, Išodad of Merv, Dionysius Bar
Salibi) use Matt 18:10 as a proof-text for the existence of
guardian angels.
Cramer, “Mt 18, 10 in
frühsyrischer Deutung,” OrChr 59 (1975):
130-46.
For Aphrahat, however, the angels of Matt
18:10 illustrate the intercessory activity of the Holy
Spirit.
An Older Exegetical Tradition
Cramer versus Kretschmar
[22]
Scholars disagree on how the data presented above are to be
interpreted. According to Kretschmar, Aphrahat does not
distinguish clearly between the guardian angel, the many
(angelic) spirits, and the one Spirit of God; neither does he
distinguish between “spirit” as impersonal gift and
“spirit” as a personal angel. The Sage's use of
Matt 18:10 would be an instance in which the Spirit is placed
on the same level as the angels: “der Geist [wird] also
mit den Engeln gleichgesetzt.”
Kretschmar,
Trinitätstheologie, 75, 76, 119.
[23]
Cramer reacted sharply, asserting that Kretschmar had
completely misunderstood the relevant texts and misrepresented
Aphrahat's thought by means of infelicitous formulations, which
led to further unwarranted and aberrant conjectures.
“Daß man Aphrahat ...
völlig mißverstehen kann, zeigt Kretschmar...
.” (Cramer, Der Geist Gottes, 81 n. 65); “
Kretschmar ... sieht die Beziehung zwischen ruhā und malakē, formuliert
aber unglücklich... . Daß Kretschmar die Engel,
die—nach seiner Meinung—dem Geist gleichgesetzt
werden, außerdem noch unbegründet als Schutzengel
versteht, führt ihn dann zu abwegigen Kombinationen”
(Cramer, “Mt 18, 10 in frühsyrischer Deutung,”
132 n. 8).
In his
view, the equation between angels and the Spirit is improbable,
because Aphrahat never uses ܪܘܚܐ for angelic entities;
moreover, the Sage does not use Matt 18:10 in a literal sense,
but rather understands “the angels of the little
ones” as a metaphorical expression for the
Spirit.
Cramer, Der Geist Gottes, 60 n. 3;
“Mt 18, 10 in frühsyrischer Deutung,” 132.
[24] I
agree with some elements in Cramer's critique, but disagree
with much of what he affirms. Kretschmar's association with the
guardian angel is indeed textually unfounded, although the
confusion is perhaps understandable.
Aphrahat draws a connection between the
angels of Matt 18:10 and the Holy Spirit, but does not refer to
the guardian angel. This was already noted by Loofs
(Theophilus, 270 n. 3). Other patristic writers use
Matt 18:10 as a proof-text for the existence of guardian
angels—but make no reference to the Spirit (e.g., Basil,
Adv. Eun. 3.1; Cramer's article also refers to later
Syriac authors: Jacob of Edessa, Išodad of Merv,
Dionysius Bar Salibi). Finally, in Valentianian quarters (and
later in certain strands of Islam), the guardian angel seems to
have been identified as the Holy Spirit—but with no
reference to Matt 18:10. See Gilles Quispel, “Das ewige
Ebenbild des Menschen: Zur Begegnung mit dem Selbst in der
Gnosis,” in Gnostic Studies I, esp. 147-57;
Henry Corbin, L'Ange et l'homme (Paris: Albin Michel,
1978), 64-65; L'archange empourpré: quinze
traités et récits mystiques de
Shihâboddîn Yahyâ Sohravardî.
Traduits du persan et de l'arabe, présentés et
annotés par Henry Corbin (Paris: Fayard, 1976),
xviii-xix, 215 n. 9, 224, 258 n. 7.
An earlier
scholar of Aphrahat, Paul Schwen, proceeds with more caution,
writing that the notion of the guardian angel is an occasional
contributor to Aphrahat's “hesitant and
inconsistent” Pneumatology.
Schwen, Afrahat: Seine Person und sein
Verständnis des Christentums (Berlin: Trowitz &
Sohn, 1907), 91: “so daß schließlich die
Vorstellung des Schutzengels hineinspielt.”
It is also true a simple
“Gleichstellung” of the Holy Spirit with the
angels, as in Kretschmar's formulation, does not account for
the complexity of the Sage's thought. More precisely, even
though Dem. 6 uses the angels of Matt 18:10 to
illustrate the intercessory activity of the Holy
Spirit, this is neither the only way in which Aphrahat
interprets Matt 18:10 nor the only image he uses for the Holy
Spirit.
In Dem. 2.20, a loose combination
of Matt 18:3 and Matt 18:10 is used to exhort the readers not
despise the little ones, whose angels in heaven behold the
Father. See Cramer, “Mt 18, 10 in frühsyrischer
Deutung,” 130-31. Aphrahat also views the Spirit as God's
“spouse,” as “mother” of the Son and of
all creation, as “medicine,” and as the
“breath” constituting the divine image imparted to
Adam. For more details, see Cramer, Der Geist Gottes.
[25] I
doubt, however, that Cramer's use of the phrases “literal
sense,” “proper sense,” and
“metaphorical expression” is any more felicitous or
appropriate for describing Aphrahat's exegesis. After all, the
Sage's statements about the Spirit were later deemed scandalous
precisely because of their handling of “the angels of the
believers” in Matt 18:10 and “the sort of honor
they ascribed to the Holy Spirit.” At least in the eyes
of Bishop George, the problem was that Aphrahat interprets the
angels of the little ones quite “properly” and
“literally,” to use Cramer's phrases, as the Holy
Spirit. As for the argument that Aphrahat did not call angels
“spirits,” the widespread occurrence of the
“angelic spirit” (in the Hebrew Bible, the LXX, the
Dead Sea Scrolls, various authors of the Alexandrian diaspora,
and the New Testament), which I have mentioned repeatedly in
this study, suggests the existence of a tradition that the Sage
would have considered authoritative. Whether the
Demonstrations explicitly call angels
“spirits” becomes irrelevant.
[26] It
is interesting that Cramer is ready to speak of
“anthropomorphic traits” in Aphrahat's depiction of
the Spirit's eschatological actions.
Cramer, Der Geist Gottes, 68, 81.
Cf. Ridolfini, “Note sull’antropologia e sul’
escatologia del ‘Sapiente Persiano,’”
SROC 1/1 (1978): 12-13: the Spirit belongs
“ontologically” to God, but manifests itself as a
divine angelic guardian.
The imagery of
the relevant passage (Dem. 6.14 [I/296]), however, is
clearly angelomorphic rather than anthropomorphic: the end-time
ministry of the Spirit includes going before Christ, opening
the graves, clothing the resurrected in glorious garments, and
leading them to the heavenly king.
Pace Bruns (Chistusbild,
188 n. 20), who dismisses the passage as simply “a
literary device” of no theological relevance.
This description is
immediately followed by the reference to “this
Spirit” being constantly on the move between heaven and
earth, and the biblical proof text—Matt 18:10!
[27] I
conclude, agreeing with Kretschmar, that the Sage does provide
a witness to the tradition of angelomorphic Pneumatology.
“Tradition” is the proper term to use, because
Aphrahat is by no means an exception in his time. As I
mentioned earlier, this way of thinking about the Holy Spirit
was still an option in the fourth century.
See the brief summary in Richard Paul
Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene
Revolution (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000), 122-23 and n. 270.
Aphrahat's
contemporary, Eusebius of Caesarea, writes the following:
... the Holy Spirit is also eternally present at the throne
of God, since also “thousands of thousand are present
before him,” according to Daniel (Dan 7:10); he also
was sent, at one time in the form of a dove over the Son of
man, at another time over each of the prophets and apostles.
Therefore he also was said to come forth from the Father. And
why are you amazed? About the devil it was also said,
“and the devil went forth from the Lord” (Job
1:12); and again, a second time, was it said “so the
devil went forth from the Lord” (Job 2:7). And you
would also find about Ahab where the Scripture adds
“and there went forth the evil spirit and stood before
the Lord and said ‘I shall trick him’” (1
Kgs 22:21). But these are adverse spirits, and now is not the
proper time to investigate just how and in what way this was
said.
Eusebius of Caesarea, Eccl. Theol.
3.4.7-8.
[28] The
use of Matt 18:10 as a pneumatological proof-text does not
mean, however, that Aphrahat himself consciously and actively
promoted an angelomorphic Pneumatology. First, the
“angelomorphic Spirit” is one representation of the
Holy Spirit among several others in the
Demonstrations. To paraphrase Bruns' presentation of
Aphrahat's Christology, it could be said that the Sage's
Pneumatology is “open,” inasmuch as the
accumulation of symbols (mother, spouse, medicine, angels of
the face) moves asymptotically towards the inexhaustible
experience of the Spirit, resulting in a multicolored picture
book of pneumatological impressions, rather than a unitary
theology of the Holy Spirit.
Bruns speaks of the “open
character” of Aphrahat's Christology, noting that the
accumulation of symbols (e.g., Dem. 17.2, 11)
“moves asymptotically towards the inexhaustible reality
of Christ,” resulting in “a multicolored picture
book of christological impressions,” rather than a
unitary christological vision. Bruns, Christusbild,
183, 214. See also Vööbus,
“Methodologisches,” 27; Cramer, Der Geist
Gottes, 67.
[29]
Second, it is quite obvious, from the way he writes, that
Aphrahat does not see himself as proposing anything new or
unusual. This is in keeping with the general character of his
theology. It is very likely, therefore, that Aphrahat's use of
Matt 18:10 is one such received tradition.
[30] The
passages from Dem. 6 and Dem. 1, quoted
above, share the same theme (the Holy Spirit), and the same
formal structure (both provide Scriptures proof for the
activity of the Holy Spirit). The connection between Zech 4:10,
Isa 11:1-3, and Matt 18:10 illustrates very well what Pierre
calls a “network of scriptural traditions,” which
Aphrahat inherited from earlier Christian tradition.
Some of these traditions were embodied in a
“series of testimonia that might have circulated
orally and been transmitted independently from the known
biblical text.” As a matter of fact, Aphrahat is
“one of the richest witnesses” to the use of
testimonia, with Dem. 16 furnishing
“the largest collection ever realized by a Father.”
See Pierre, “Introduction,” in Aphraate,
“Les Exposés,” 115, 138, 68. See also
Murray, “Rhetorical Patterns,” 110; Symbols of
Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (2nd
ed.; London/ New York: T&T Clark International, 2004),
289-90; Schlütz, Isaias 11:2, 33-34, 40, 58.
That
this is, indeed, the case, is made clear by the occurrence of
the same cluster of biblical verses and echoes of angelomorphic
Pneumatology in Clement of Alexandria.
Aphrahat and Clement of Alexandria
[31] On
the basis of a tradition ascribed to an older generation of
charismatic teachers, Clement of Alexandria furnishes a
detailed description of the spiritual universe. This
hierarchical worldview, similar to that of 2 Enoch,
Ascension of Isaiah, or the Epistula Apostolorum,
features, in descending order, the Face of God, the seven first
created angels, the archangels, finally the angels.
Excerpta 10.6; 12.1. Cf.
Paed. 1.57; 1.124.4; Strom. 7.10.58. See
Daniélou, “Les traditions secrètes des
Apôtres,” ErJb 31 (1962): 199-215; Oeyen,
Engelpneumatologie; Bucur, “The Other Clement of
Alexandria: Cosmic Hierarchy and Interiorized
Apocalypticism,” VC 60 (2006): 251-68.
For
Clement, it is Christ, the Logos, who is the “Face of
God,” the πρόσωπον of
Matt 18:10, the χαρακ ήρ of
Heb. 1:3, and the εἰκών of Col
1:15.
Strom. 7.10.58; Excerpta
19.4.
As for the “angels ever contemplating
the Face of God“ in Matt 18:10, Clement identifies them
with the “thrones” of Col 1:16, and “the
seven eyes of the Lord” in Zech 3:9, 4:10, and Rev
5:6.
Strom. 5.6.35; Eclogae
57.1; Excerpta 10.
He understands all these passages to be
descriptions of the seven “first-born princes of the
angels” (πρω όγονοι
ἀγγέλων
ἄρχον ες),
elsewhere called the seven πρω όκ ισ οι.
The golden lamp conveys another enigma as a symbol of Christ
... in his casting light, “at sundry times and diverse
manners,” on those who believe in Him and hope and see
by means of the ministry of the protoctists
(διὰ ῆς
ῶν
πρω οκ ίσ ων
διακονίας).
And they say that the seven eyes of the Lord are the seven
spirits resting on the rod that springs from the root of
Jesse.
Strom. 5.6.35.
[32] Of
these celestial beings “first created” Clement says
the following:
Among the seven, there has not been given more to the one and
less to the other; nor is any of them lacking in advancement;
[they] have received perfection from the beginning, at the
first [moment of their] coming into being, from God through
the Son; ... their liturgy is common and undivided.
Excerpta 10.3-4; Excerpta
11.4.
[33]
There can be no doubt that Clement of Alexandria echoes Second
Temple Jewish angelological speculations, and that among the
direct predecessors of his protoctist one should count
the seven spirits of Revelation (Rev 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, 5:6; 8:2),
the “first created ones” (πρῶ οι
κ ισθέν ες)
in the Shepherd of Hermas, possibly also the Marcosian
“seven powers praising the Logos.”
For details, see the articles by Bucur and Oeyen
noted earlier.
[34]
Clement’s seven protoctists, however, also carry
a definite pneumatological content, since they are identified
not only with various types of angels, but also with the
“seven spirits resting on the rod that springs from the
root of Jesse” (Isa 11:2-3, LXX) and “the heptad of
the Spirit.”
Strom. 5.6.35; Paed.
3.12.87.
It appears, in conclusion, that, in
Clement’s interpretation of Matt 18:10, “the face
of God” is a Christological title, while the angels
contemplating the Face occupy a theological area at the
confluence of angelology and pneumatology.
This is the conclusion reached by Bucur,
“Matt. 18:10 in Early Christology and Pneumatology: A
Contribution to the Study of Matthean
Wirkungsgeschichte,” Novum Testamentum
49 (2007): 209-31, at 223.
[35] The
exegesis of Clement of Alexandria and that of Aphrahat offer a
surprising convergence. Both writers use the same cluster of
biblical verses: “the seven eyes of the Lord” (Zech
3:9; 4:10), “the seven gifts of the Spirit” (Isa
11:2-3), and “the angels of the little ones” (Matt
18:10); both echo the tradition about the highest angelic
company; finally, both use angelic imagery to express a
definite pneumatological content. This is one of several
convergences between Aphrahat and earlier writers in the West,
which, as I have stated earlier, cannot be explained by direct
literary connection.
I have already mentioned the resemblance
with the Shepherd of Hermas. Another case refers to
the striking resemblance between the exegesis of Jude 7:4-8 by
Aphrahat (Dem. 7.19-21) and Origen (Hom in
Jud. 9.2). R. H. Connolly (“Aphraates and
Monasticism,” JTS 6 [1905]: 538-39) hypothesized
that the Sage might have read Origen. In response, Loofs
(Theophilus, 258-59) stated that a common source is a
far more likely explanation.
[36]
Gilles Quispel was convinced that behind both Clement and
Aphrahat lies a tradition that goes back to Jewish Christian
missionaries “who brought the new religion to
Mesopotamia,” and were also “the founding fathers
of the church in Alexandria.”
Quispel, “Genius and Spirit,”
160, 1. See also Schlütz, Isaias 11:2, 33-34:
“die Sicherheit der Aussage bei Aphraat [kann] am besten
mit der theologischen Tradition aus denTagen der
palästinensischen Gemeinde erklärt werden.”
Be this as it may, the
angelomorphic Pneumatology detected in the writings of Clement
and Aphrahat represents an echo of older views, which in their
times were still acceptable.
The Larger Theological Framework for Aphrahat's
Angelomorphic Pneumatology
[37] At
this point it is important to inquire about the place of
angelomorphic Pneumatology in the larger theological framework
of the Demonstrations. I am especially interested in
the relationship between angelomorphic Pneumatology, on the one
hand, and other theological phenomena discussed by students of
the Demonstrations, namely Aphrahat's
Geistchristologie and binitarianism.
Some of the major scholars writing about
Aphrahat, such as Schwen and Loofs, have used
“binitarian,” “binitarianism,”
“ditheism,” “binity”
(Zweieinigkeit), and Geistchristologie in
ways that could easily lead to confusion. I ask the reader to
refer to the definitions of these terms that I proposed in the
Introduction.
Difficulties of Aphrahat's Pneumatology
[38] How
does Aphrahat think about God as Trinity? He does not know the
terms tlitāyutā ( ρίας) and
qnomā (ὑπόσ ασις),
and holds a non-philosophical notion of
kyanā.
Bruns, Christusbild, 99, 143; Alois
Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition (2nd, rev.
ed.; tr. J. Bowden; Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox, 1975), 216-17;
Pierre, “Introduction,” 162 n. 58; Ridolfini,
“Problema trinitario e problema cristologico,” 99.
It is rather a soteriological and
history-of-salvation perspective that comes to be expressed in
the various formulas of Aphrahat:
Glory and honor to the Father, and to his Son, and to his
living and holy Spirit, from the mouth of all who glorify him
there above and here below, unto ages of ages, Amen and
Amen!
We know only this much, that God is one, and one his
Christ, and one the Spirit, and one the faith, and one the
baptism.
... the three mighty and glorious names—Father, and
Son, and Holy Spirit—invoked upon your head when you
received the mark of your life ...
Dem. 23.61 [II/128]; 23.60
[II/124]; 23.63 [II/133].
[39]
Aphrahat is undoubtedly familiar with the liturgical usage of
the terms “Father,” “Son,” and
“Holy Spirit.” Occasionally, as noted by Bruns, the
taxis underlying such creedal statements seems to be
Father—Spirit—Christ.
Bruns, Christusbild, 97.
In Dem. 1.19, for
instance, “the faith of the Church” is presented as
follows:
Now, this is the faith: one should believe in God, the Lord
of all, who made heaven and earth and the seas and all that
is in them, and made Adam in his image, and gave the Law to
Moses, and sent [a portion] of his Spirit upon the prophets
[ܫܕܪ ܡܢ
ܪܘܚܗ
ܒܢܒܝ̈ܐ], and,
moreover [ܬܘܒ], sent his Christ
into the world... This is the faith of the Church of
God.
Dem. 1.19 [I/44].
[40] Such
formulaic statements allow only limited insight into the Sage's
theology. It is certain that “trinitarian elements”
are present in Aphrahat's various doxologies.
Bruns, Christusbild, 94.
Yet to say
that Dem. 23.63, for instance, which I have quoted
earlier, offers “an example of Aprahat being obviously
Trinitarian,” is to overlook the fact that such passages
are derived from liturgical practice.
Skoyles Jarkins, “Aphrahat and the
Temple of God,” 118 n. 108.
If these are, in
the words of Schwen, “eben nur Formeln, übernommene
Bruchstücke fremder Anschauung,” they tell us very
little about Aphrahat's theological thought.
Schwen, Afrahat, 91.
[41]
Still formulaic, but more elaborate and personal, is the
following passage in the Letter to an Inquirer.
As for me, I just believe firmly that God is one, who made
the heavens and the earth from the beginning ... and spoke
with Moses on account of his meekness, and himself spoke with
all the prophets, and, moreover [ܬܘܒ], sent his Christ into the
world.
Aphrahat, Letter to an Inquirer 2
[I/4].
It is noteworthy that this passage contains nothing about
the Holy Spirit, and that the similar composition in
Dem. 1.19, quoted earlier, contains merely an oblique
reference to Christ sending from his Spirit into the
prophets.
Loofs, Theophilus, 260 n. 9:
“... ist des Geistes nur in dem Satzteile gedacht.”
Note the parallel that obtains between Letter to an
Inquirer 2 [I/4] and Dem. 1.19 [I/44]:
It is true, on the other hand, that, when
Aphrahat elsewhere treats the “moments” preceding
the sending of the Spirit in the Creed (namely cosmogony,
anthropogony, the giving of the Law, and the inspiration of the
prophets) he usually mentions the Spirit.
Pierre, “Introduction,” 165 n.
70.
The fact remains,
however, that the Creed refers to the Spirit only in its fourth
article, and that this reference does not contain anything
specifically Christian. As Cramer notes, the statement could
just as well have been made by Philo.
Cramer, Der Geist Gottes, 70.
[42] As
early as 1907, Schwen noted that Aphrahat's notion of the
Spirit was hesitant and inconsistent.
Schwen, Afrahat, 90.
Far from being
conceived of as a divine person, on par with the Father and the
Son, Aphrahat's “Holy Spirit” is at times
indistinguishable from the ascended Christ (e.g., Dem.
6.10 [I/281]), at other times simply an impersonal divine
power, similar to the rays of the sun (e.g., Dem. 6.11
[I/284]), and occasionally merged with the notion of the
guardian angel (e.g., Dem. 6.14 [I/296]).
Schwen, Afrahat, 91: “Als
besondere göttliche Person im Sinne des ökumenischen
Konzils von 381, dem Vater und dem Sohne gleichgeordnet, ist er
nicht gedacht.”
For
Bruns also, and even for Ortiz de Urbina, who is a defender of
Aphrahat's fundamental orthodoxy, many passages in the
Demonstrations present the Spirit as an impersonal
divine “grace” or “power.”
Bruns, Christusbild, 188; Ortiz de
Urbina, “Die Gottheit Christi bei Aphrahat,” 137.
“Spirit” and “Spirit of Christ” are
used “interchangeably” (Skoyles Jarkins,
“Aphrahat and the Temple of God,” 117 n. 107). So
also Ridolfini, “Problema trinitario e problema
cristologico,” 109-10, 121.
The
personal elements would only occur in the
“dramatism” of the eschatological scene, the
“saddening” of the spirit, and the
mother-image.
Ortiz de Urbina, “Die Gottheit Christi
bei Aphrahat,” 134-35.
[43] In
several instances (Dem. 6.11 [I/286]; 20.16 [I/919]),
Aphrahat focuses exclusively on “God and his
Christ” so that, according to Loofs, “there is no
place left for the Spirit.”
Loofs, Theophilus, 260. At one
point (Dem. 18.10 [I/839]), however, God is
represented as “divine couple”—God as Father
and the Spirit as Mother. Loofs (Theophilus, 275 n. 6)
explains that “für die erbauliche Verwendung von
Gen. 2, 24, an der ihm hier lag, allein der Geist, weil im
Syrischen ein Femininum, sich eignete, nicht aber 'der Messias'
(Christus).” In fact, as the context shows, Aphrahat's
interest is more than vaguely “edifying”: he is
here thinking of God and his Spirit-consort as genitors of the
transformed ascetics, and is interested in linking the
“spirituals” with their “mother,” the
Spirit. Moreover, he is also bowing to the pressure of an
already traditional reading of Gen 2:24 in the Syriac milieu
(e.g., Acts Thom. 110), which connects Eve and the
Holy Spirit and, implicitly, adopts the taxis
Father-Spirit-Son. Other texts can be adduced from Gos.
Heb., Tatian, and Ps.-Macarius; see Quispel, Makarius,
das Thomasevangelium, und das Lied der Perle (NovTSup 15;
Leiden: Brill, 1967), 9-13; Winkler, “Die Tauf-Hymnen der
Armenier: Ihre Affinität mit Syrischem Gedankengut,”
in Liturgie und Dichtung (2 vols; ed. H. Becker and R.
Kaczynski; Munich: St. Ottilian, 1983), 1:381-420; Susan
Ashbrook Harvey, “Feminine Imagery for the Divine: the
Holy Spirit, the Odes of Solomon, and Early Syriac
Tradition,” SVTQ 37 (1993): 111-40.
Moreover, the
Demonstrations seem to use “Spirit,”
“Spirit of Christ,” and “Christ”
interchangeably. Especially with respect to the inhabitation of
God in the believers, any distinction vanishes.
Skoyles Jarkins (“Aphrahat and the
Temple of God,” 117 n. 107) suggests that this “may
be due to the influence of Pauline texts (e.g., Rom 8:9 in
Dem. 23.47 [II/91.24-25], Dem. 8.5
[I/370.9-10]) upon Aphrahat. This does not explain much about
Aphrahat, but simply moves Pandora's box in the field of
biblical studies, where the issue of Pauline “spirit
Christology” happens to be a fiercely debated issue. For
an introduction to the debate, see Fatehi, Relation,
23-43; Fee, God's Empowering Presence, 831-45.
Cramer noted
that the Sage “almost” identifies Christ and the
Spirit—“almost,” because the use of
“spirit” in trinitarian formulas would prevent full
identification.
Cramer, Der Geist Gottes, 65, 67.
In light of my earlier statements above, I
find Cramer's recourse to formulas unconvincing. At first sight
at least, it is more accurate to conclude with Schwen that the
Sage had no doctrine of the Trinity “in the sense of
later Church dogma,” and that his thought would be better
termed “binitarian” than
“trinitarian.”
Schwen, Afrahat, 91; 92: “Man
darf wohl sagen daß die Anschauung Afrahats nicht
trinitarisch, sondern binitarisch ist: 'Gott und sein Christus'
oder 'Gott und der heilige Geist.'”
[44]
Loofs attempted to place Aphrahat's
“Geistchristologie” and “binitarianism”
in a larger religio-historical perspective. In his
interpretation, “spirit” is, for Aphrahat, simply a
way of referring to the divinity of Christ prior to the
Incarnation. “Spirit” should not, however, be
understood by analogy with the Logos-hypostasis of other
patristic writers, as a second hypostasis alongside the Father,
since, for Aphrahat, the differentiation of the Spirit from the
Father occurred only at the Incarnation. Prior to the
Incarnation, the Spirit represents, by analogy with Power,
Wisdom, or Presence in pre-Christian Jewish thought, a divine
attribute rather than a distinct entity.
Loofs, Theophilus, 273 n. 2, 274,
278.
Aphrahat
distinguishes “Spirit” and “Christ”
only when speaking about the man Jesus, and it is this
historical Jesus Christ that Aphrahat has in mind when he uses
the phrase “God and his Christ.” According to
Loofs, the Sage's perspective switches back and forth between
the preexisting πνεῦμα and the
historical Jesus Christ.
Loofs, Theophilus, 270 n. 3, 274,
275: “vor seinem geistigen Auge steht die einheitliche
Person des geschichtlichen und erhöhten Herrn, aber
Aphrahat sieht in ihr, abwechselnd, hier das πνεῦμα, dort den
Menschen”; Loofs, Theophilus, 277 n. 5:
“In einem Satze kann die Betrachtungsweise wechseln:
Unser Herr (hier: das πνεῦμα) nahm von uns
ein Pfand (die σάρξ,
das Menschsein) und ging (hier der ganze Christus) und lie
ß uns ein Pfand von dem Seinen (den Geist) und wurde
erhöht (das gilt nur vom Menschen in ihm).”
Finally, this formula does not
introduce any alteration of strict monotheism, given that the
reign of the Son is seen as temporary, ultimately to end by
being delivered to the sole God (Dem. 6.12
[I/287]).
Loofs, Theophilus, 280. For
similarities with “dynamic monarchianism,” see
Loofs, Theophilus, 278; Schwen (Afrahat, 83)
notes to a similarity with Paul of Samosata. Contra,
convincingly, Ortiz de Urbina, “Die Gottheit Christi bei
Aphrahat,” 123.
Loofs' conclusions were severely criticized by
Ortiz de Urbina, later also by Vööbus and Bruns, who
all argued that Aphrahat views Christ as pre-existent with the
Father prior to the Incarnation, and that he has a clear
understanding of the distinction between the risen Christ and
the Spirit.
Ortiz de Urbina, “Die Gottheit Christi
bei Aphrahat,” 80-88, 136-37; Vööbus,
“Methodologisches,“ 24-25; Bruns,
Christusbild, 133-44.
[45] The
texts remain, however, ambiguous. One of the passages invoked
by Ortiz de Urbina, Dem. 6.10 [I/281]), is quite
telling. Aphrahat speaks here about the Logos becoming flesh
(quoting John 1:14), then returning bearing “that which
he had not brought with him,” thus raising humanity to
heaven (quoting Eph 2:6), and sending the Spirit in his stead.
This seems to affirm the preexistence of Christ as Logos, as
well as the clear distinction between the ascended Christ and
the Spirit he sends to his disciples. Yet the sending of the
Spirit is documented not with a reference to the paraclete, but
rather with Matt 28:20, a christological text: “when he
went to his Father, he sent to us his Spirit and said to us
I am with you until the end of the
world.”
This recalls Ep. Apos. 17:
“‘Will you really leave us until your coming? Where
will we find a teacher?’ And he answered and said to us,
‘Do you not know that until now I am both here and there
with him who sent me? ... I am wholly in the Father and the
Father in me.’” The long treatment of the relation
between Christ and his disciples after the ascension, even
though heavily indebted to the farewell discourse in the Gospel
of John, diverges from the latter precisely on the problem of
the paraclete. According to Julian Hills (Tradition and
Composition in the Epistula Apostolorum [HDR 24;
Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1990], 123), “[t]he crisis
of the Lord's departure is resolved in the Fourth Gospel by the
coming of the Spirit ... In the Epistula it turns on the
presence of the risen Lord among the disciples ...”
Instead of the paraclete, Ep. Apos. insists on the
perfect unity of Christ with the Father and, implicitly, on
Christ's ubiquity.
[46]
What, then, of the relation between “Christ,”
“the Spirit of Christ,” and “the Holy
Spirit” in Aphrahat? Bruns notes that “the sending
of the Spirit is identical with the presence of Christ,”
and suggests that the Spirit is the medium through which Christ
dwells in the believers, and especially in the
prophets.
Bruns, Unterweisungen, 200 n. 21;
Christusbild, 187.
In other words, Christ dwells in the Spirit,
and the Spirit dwells in the human being—which suggested
Skoyles Jarkins' phrase “matroshki-doll
Christology.”
Skoyles Jarkins, “Aphrahat and the
Temple of God,” 117 n. 196.
More needs to be said, however, about
this indwelling.
The Holy Spirit and the Move from Unity to
Multiplicity
[47] The
difficulties outlined in the previous section never seem to
have existed as such for Aphrahat. The reason is quite simple:
the Sage's point of departure is not metaphysical—God in
Godself, or the “ad intra”; relation of
“divine Persons”—but rather, to use Bruns'
very apt phrase, “die Anrufbarkeit und liturgische
Erfahrbarkeit des einen Gottes in drei Namen.”
Bruns, Christusbild, 156.
For
Aphrahat, then, the “problem” of explaining the
relation between the Father and the Spirit, or between Christ
(whether “preincarnate” or
“post-resurrectional”) and the Spirit simply did
not present itself as such. His statements about the Spirit
come in response to a different set of questions:
Since Christ is one, and one his Father, how is it that
Christ and his Father dwell in the believers?
Now, Christ is seated at the right hand of his Father, and
Christ dwells in human beings ... And though he dwells among
many, he is seated at the right hand of his Father.
Dem. 6.11 [I/284]; 6.10 [I/281].
[48]
Aphrahat's notion of the Spirit will become more easily
understandable if we consider these questions, and inquire
about the role of the Holy Spirit in the multiplicity of
creation and the charismatic life of the Church. Although it is
certainly not a novelty in scholarship, this perspective has so
far not been given enough attention.
Cf. Ortiz de Urbina, “Die Gottheit
Christi bei Aphrahat,” 129 n. 16: “Bei Afrahat
vermehrt sich Christus durch seinen Geist”; Bruns,
Christusbild, 188: “der Heilige Geist hat
vornehmlich die Funktion, die Universalisierung und
individuelle Aneignung der Christusgeschehens zu
garantieren.”
I now return to
Aphrahat:
Our Lord ... left us a pledge of his own (ܪܗܒܘܢܐ
ܡܢ ܕܝܠܗ) when he
ascended... it behooves us also to honor that which is his,
which we have received ... let us honor that which is his,
according to his own nature. If we honor it, we shall go to
him... But if we despise it, he will take away from us that
which he has given us and if we abuse his pledge (ܘܐܢ ܢܟܘܡ
ܥܠ
ܪܗܒܘܢܗ), he will
there take away that which is his, and will deprive us of
that which he has promised us.
Dem. 6.10 [I/279-280]. The root of
ܟܘܡ means “to cover up,
conceal.” Hence, the verb can mean “to appropriate
secretly,” “to defraud,” “to refuse to
return,” “to keep in or suppress until the thing is
spoiled.”
[49] It
is quite evident that “the pledge“ (ܪܗܒܘܢܐ,
ἀρραβών) refers
to the Spirit. There is, first, the allusion to biblical texts
(2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:14); then, also, the obvious parallels
with statements made elsewhere in Dem. 6, where the
same is said in reference to the Holy Spirit.
In the text just quoted, Christ leaves his
pledge upon his ascension, just as in another passage
“when he went to his Father, he sent to us his
Spirit” (Dem. 6.10 [I/282]); the exhortation to
“honor the pledge” finds counterpart in an earlier
exhortation, to “honor the spirit of Christ, that we may
receive grace from him” (Dem. 6.1 [I/241]); the
characterization of the pledge as “that which is of his
[Christ's] own nature” is very similar to the statement
about the Spirit going “to its nature, [namely] unto
Christ” (Dem. 6.14 [I/296]); the
“two-way” discourse on the required attitude
towards the pledge corresponds perfectly to the ascetic theory
of the same Demonstration, which opposes those who
“preserve the Spirit of Christ in purity” and those
who defile the Spirit (Dem. 6.14-15).
[50] To
explain how it is that Christ is divided among believers and
dwells in them without thereby forsaking his unity and dignity,
Aphrahat suggests several comparisons. Just as the one sun is
manifested to a multiplicity of receivers in that “its
power is poured out in the earth”—that is, by means
of the multiplicity of his rays—so also “God and
his Christ, though they are one, yet dwell in human beings, who
are many.”
Dem. 6.11 [I/285].
Excursus: "Wisdom" and "Power" as Pneumatological
Terms
[51]
Towards the end of his comparison between Christ and the sun,
Aphrahat mentions the power of God (ܚܝܠܗ
ܕܐܠܗܐ): “the sun in
heaven is not diminished when it sends out its power upon the
earth. How much greater is the power of God, since it is by the
power of God that the sun itself subsists.”
Dem. 6.11 [I/285].
Bruns is probably right in speaking about the Spirit as
(non-hypostatic) “göttlich-dynamische Kraft”
mediating between the transcendent God and the world.
Bruns, Christusbild, 205.
Earlier, Aphrahat had stated that Christ, even though one,
“is able to [be] above and beneath” and
“dwell in many,” by means of his Father's
wisdom
Dem. 6.10 [I/281].
(ܒܚܟܡܬܗ
ܕܐܒܘܗ̱ܝ). This
prompted Ortiz de Urbina to suggest that Aphrahat may have
equated ܪܘܚܐ
(πνεῦμα)
with ܚܟܡܬܐ
(σοφία),
two words that were feminine in his time.
Ortiz de Urbina, “Die Gottheit
Christi bei Aphrahat,” 128.
[52] I
think that more can be added to this discussion. In
Dem. 10.8, “wisdom” seems to constitute a
divine gift imparted freely to the Christian
“shepherds,” which, therefore, calls for generous
transmission from the clergy to the Christian people. Christ is
“the steward of wisdom.” This coheres well with the
earlier statement in Dem. 6: “And Christ
received the Spirit not by measure, but his Father loved him
and delivered all into his hands, and gave him authority
over all his treasure.”
Dem. 6.12 [I/288].
Moreover, just
as Aphrahat had said earlier (Dem. 6.10-12) about the
Spirit of Christ, “this wisdom is divided among many (
ܐܬܦܠܓܬ
ܠܣܓܝ̈ܐܐ) yet is
in no way diminished, as I have shown to you above: the
prophets received of the spirit of Christ. (ܕܡܢ ܪܘܚܗ
ܕܡܫܝܚܐ
ܩܒܠܘ
ܢܒܝ̈ܐ), yet Christ was in
no way diminished.”
Dem. 10.8 [I/4].
Obviously, the Sage takes
“wisdom“ and “Spirit of Christ” as
synonyms.
[53] In
conclusion, “wisdom” refers to the Spirit
understood as divine power, presence, gift, etc., while Christ
is the treasurer and giver of the Spirit. Aphrahat seems to
have felt a certain tension between this view and that
expressed in 1 Cor 1:24, because he feels compelled to
quotation this verse without however offering any explanation:
“And while he is the steward of the wisdom, again, as the
Apostle said: Christ is the power of God and his
wisdom.”
* * *
[54]
Aphrahat has of course much more to offer than comparisons
drawn from nature. His argumentation from Scripture is
particularly interesting. According to Dem. 14, the
believers are like the fertile ground that accepted the seed
sown by the Lord (Luke 8:15). The seeds are nothing else than
the Spirit of the Lord, poured out over all the flesh (Joel
3:1), but accepted only by a few.
Dem. 14.47 [I/716].
The prophets
“received [a portion] from the Spirit of Christ, each one
of them as he was able to bear.”
ܡܛܠ
ܕܡܢ ܪܘܚܗ
ܕܡܫܝܚܐ
ܩܒܠܘ
ܢܒܝܵܐ ܃
ܐ̱ܢܫ ܐ̱ܢܫ
ܡܢܗܘܢ ܐܝܟ
ܕܡܫܟܚ ܗ̱ܘܐ
ܠܡܫܩܠ (Dem. 6.12
[I/288]).
In the new
dispensation, “[a portion] from the Spirit of Christ
(ܪܘܚܗ ܬܘܒ
ܕܝܠܗ
ܕܡܫܝܚܐ
ܘܡܢ) is again poured forth today upon
all flesh [Joel 3:1].”
Dem. 6.12 [I/288].
As a result, Christ now
overshadows all believers—each of them severally
(ܡܢܬܐ
ܡܢܬܐ).
Dem. 6.10 [I/281].
[55]
Obviously, for Aphrahat the Spirit “multiplies”
Christ, making him available to the prophets and all believers.
The imagery is quite crude, as the Sage seems particularly fond
of “part-to-whole” explanations. Several times he
refers to God sending “[a portion] of his Spirit upon the
prophets”: the prophets received [a portion] from the
Spirit of Christ; John the Baptist, the greatest among
prophets, still received the Spirit “according to
measure” (ܒܟܝܠܬܐ); [a
portion] from the Spirit of Christ is again poured forth today
upon all flesh [Joel 3:1]; Christ overshadows each of the
believers severally; at Baptism, believers receive the Holy
Spirit “from a little portion of the
Godhead.”
Dem. 6.12 [I/288]; 10.8 [I/4];
1.19 [I/44]; 6.13 [I/288]; 6.12 [I/288]; 6.10 [I/281]; 6.14
[I/293].
The insertion of “portion”
in my English rendering of the phrase is justified. In his
footnotes to the German translation of the
Demonstrations, Bruns points to the “exceedingly
materialistic” imagery of expressions such as ܡܢܬܐ
ܡܢܬܐ (“severally,”
“one by one”) for the presence of the Spirit in the
prophets, or ܡܢ ܒܨܪܐ
ܕܐܠܗܘܬܐ
(“a little portion/ particle of the Godhead”), for
the gift of the Spirit received at Baptism.
Bruns, Unterweisungen, 200 n. 22,
205 n. 26. The passages are Dem. 6.10 [I/281] and
Dem. 6.14 [I/293].
[56] The
difference between the Spirit present in the prophets and the
Spirit in the historical Jesus Christ is one of degree:
partially present in the prophets, the Spirit is fully present
in Christ.
So also Ortiz de Urbina, “Die
Gottheit Christi bei Aphrahat,” 127; Bruns,
Christusbild, 140.
In Dem. 6.12 [I/285], the
proof-text for Christ is John 3:34: “it was not by
measure that his Father gave the Spirit unto him.” For
the partial presence of the Spirit in the prophets, on the
other hand, Aphrahat quotes Num 11:17 (God taking “from
the Spirit” of Moses to endow the seventy
elders).
On the “massive presence” of
this verse in rabbinic literature, see Pierre,
Exposés, 395 n. 73.
But he also refers to something that
“the blessed apostle said”: God distributed
from the Spirit of Christ and sent it into the
prophets.
ܕܦܠܓ
ܐܠܗܐ ܡܢ
ܪܩܚܐ
ܕܡܫܝܚܗ
ܘܫܕܪ
ܒܢܒܝ̈ܐ (Dem.
6.12 [I/285]).
[57] Even
though scholarship is not unanimous on this point, I find it
indisputable that Aphrahat is quoting “the blessed
apostle” according to 3 Cor., an apocryphal text
that Aphrahat and Ephrem seem to have regarded as
canonical.
On 3 Cor., see Vahan
Hovhanessian, Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul for
Christian Orthodoxy (Studies in Biblical Literature 18;
New York: Peter Lang, 2000); Loofs, Theophilus,
148-153. Pierre expresses extreme reservation on the issue of
Aphrahat's use of 3 Cor. She notes
(“Introduction,” 139 n. 73) that the Sage may
“perhaps” have known 3 Corinthians, but does not
think that Aphrahat's Creed (Dem. 1.19 [I/44]) echoes
this text. Nowhere in the critical apparatus to the
Demonstrations is there any reference to 3
Cor. On the contrary, Bruns (Christusbild, 187 n.
13) states that Aphrahat is “very obviously”
quoting 3 Cor. 3.10. In Dem. 23 [II/] also,
where Aphrahat again mentions “the Apostle who bears
witness: Jesus Christ was born of the Holy Spirit by Mary of
the house of David,” Pierre believes this to be an echo
of Rom 1:3-4. Yet, 3 Cor. 2.5 offers a closer match:
“Christ Jesus [some mss: Jesus Christ] was born of Mary
of the seed of David by the Holy Spirit.” Cf. Ignatius,
Eph. 18.2: Jesus Christ was “borne by Mary
according to God's providence, namely from (ἐκ) the seed of David, but from the
Holy Spirit.”
The relevant verse (3 Cor. 2.10)
reads as follows: “For he [God] desired to save the house
of Israel. Therefore, distributing from the Spirit of Christ,
he sent it into the prophets” (μερεῖσας
οὖν ἀπὸ οῦ
πνεύμα ος
οῦ Χρισ οῦ
ἔπεμψεν
εἰς οὺς
προφή ας).
Greek text in Hovhanessian, Third
Corinthians, 149.
[58] The
notion of a partial endowment of the prophets with the gifts of
the Spirit, and the comparison of this partial charismatic
endowment with the complete and sovereign possession of the
Spirit by Jesus Christ, are ancient and widespread themes.
Aside from 3 Cor., I have already mentioned its use in
the Ps.-Philonic homily “On Samson” and in Justin
Martyr's Dialog with Trypho. It appears that the
Persian Sage bears witness to the existence of the same
tradition in the early Syriac milieu. If Aphrahat identifies
the “pledge” or the “Spirit” as the
spiritual gifts that the Church received from the ascended
Christ in fulfillment of Joel 3:1 (“I shall pour out my
Spirit on all flesh”), Justin articulates the very same
idea by combining Joel 3:1 with Isa 11:2-3 (the gifts of the
Spirit) and Ps 67/68:19 (the ascension: “He ascended on
high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to the sons of
men”).
Justin, Dial. 87.6.
[59] The
texts I have discussed so far lead to the conclusion that
Aphrahat's Pneumatology can be considered from at least two
vantage-points. On the one hand, the Demonstrations
are passing on received formulas, most of which contain
references to “spirit.” On the other hand, the
meaning of “spirit” in these formulas is given by
reflection on the charismatic endowment of the prophets and the
“pledge” of Christ received at Baptism. In this
light, “spirit” is understood as divine
“operations” (ܣܘܥܪ̈ܢܝܢ)
in the believer, which convey the presence of Christ, with all
that derives from such presence.
[60] In
Aphrahat's thought, the intimate relation between Christ and
the Spirit is likened to the relation between the sun and the
rays of sun, the sower and the seeds, or the treasure-holder
and the riches of the treasure-house. In more abstract terms,
it is the relationship between simple unity and
unity-as-multiplicity, i.e., divine unity become accessible to
the religious experience. For further elucidation of this
aspect, it is necessary to return briefly to the topic of
angelomorphic Pneumatology.
The "Fragmentary" Gift of the Spirit and
Angelomorphic Pneumatology
[61] It
may seem that the angelomorphic Pneumatology discussed in the
first part of this section and the pneumatological conceptions
presented in the second part are not necessarily related. Such
is not the case, however.
[62] In
Dem. 6.10 [I/277-280], Christians are asked not to
despise “the pledge”—i.e., the gift
of the Holy Spirit—received at Baptism. The notion of
“despising” the Spirit is significant here.
Aphrahat returns to it later in the same
Demonstration, also supplying a fitting Scriptural
proof: “the Spirit that the prophets received, and which
we, too, have received” is indicated by something
“that our Lord said, Do not despise any of these
little ones that believe in Me, for their angels in heaven
always gaze on the face of my Father.”
Dem. 6.14-15 [I/292, 297].
[63]
Aphrahat's notion of “fragmentary” Spirit-endowment
and his angelomorphic Pneumatology should be considered
jointly, as in the case of Justin and Clement. As I have shown,
Justin and Clement understand the seven gifts of the spirit in
the Isaiah passage as seven highest angelic powers; Clement
even identified the seven spirits with the “angels”
of Matt 18:10. In Aphrahat this identification is not explicit.
Unlike Justin Martyr, who uses Isa 11:1-3 to contrast the
“partial” outpouring of the Spirit over the
prophets and Christ's “full” and sovereign
possession of the Spirit, Aphrahat only uses the Isaiah verse
to illustrate the latter.
Dem. 1.9 [I/20]: “And
concerning this Stone he stated and showed: on this stone,
behold, I open seven eyes [Zech 3:9]. And what are the
seven eyes opened on the stone other than the Spirit of God
that abode on Christ with seven operations? As Isaiah the
prophet said ... [Isa. 11:2-3].”
In other words, Isa 11:2
serves, in Dem. 1, the same role as John 3:34 in
Dem. 6. Aphrahat does say that the prophets received
only “[a portion] from the Spirit of Christ, each one of
them as he was able to bear”—but he prefers to use
3 Cor. 2.10 rather than Isa 11:2 in support of this
statement. Matthew 18:10 is therefore never connected with Isa
11:2 to affirm the dynamism of divine indwelling, the partial
endowment of prophets and baptized Christians, and the
intercessory activity of the Spirit. In Aphrahat, Matt 18:10 is
instead linked to other texts such as 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph
1:14; 3 Cor. 2.10; Num 11:17; 2 Sam 16:14-23 (the evil
spirit sent to Saul).
[] It is true
that this particular arrangement of the proof-texts is
determined by the necessities of the discourse, and that, in
other contexts, Aphrahat would most likely have furnished a
different “constellation” using the same passages.
As the texts stand, however, the scriptural support for
Aphrahat's doctrine of “partial versus complete”
possession of the Spirit differs slightly from that of Justin
and Clement. By way of consequence, the link between the notion
of “fragmentary Spirit” and angelomorphic
Pneumatology is also less clear than it is in these
authors.
Conclusions
[65] I
noted in the beginning that John Levison documented the
widespread use, in pre- and post-exilic Judaism, of the term
“spirit” as a designation of angelic presence. This
tradition continued, of course, in Christianity, and recent
scholarship has documented its presence in the New Testament,
the Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Clement of
Alexandria. In the first part of this article, I have argued
that Aphrahat witnesses to the existence of angelomorphic
Pneumatology in the early Syriac tradition, which was supported
by an exegesis of biblical texts (Matt 18:10; Zech 3:9; 4:10;
Isa 11:2-3) very similar to that of earlier and unrelated
strands of Christianity. From a historical perspective,
angelomorphic pneumatology was a significant phase in Christian
reflection on the Holy Spirit. Still an option in the fourth
century, and traditional not only for Aphrahat, angelomorphic
pneumatology was bound to be discarded in the wake of the Arian
and Pneumatomachian controversies. The associated use of Matt
18:10 was also discontinued.
Matt 18:10 must have played a role in
Pneumatomachian exegesis, because Basil the Great (On the
Holy Spirit, 38) and Gregory of Nyssa (To
Eustathius, 13) are reacting to it. See Bucur, “Matt
18:10 in Early Christology and Pneumatology.”
[66] The
connection, in Aphrahat's Demonstrations, between the
ascetic doctrine of the indwelling Spirit, on the one hand, and
the angelomorphic representation of the Spirit, on the other,
is also significant from a history-of-ideas perspective. As
mentioned above, the idea that the Spirit would depart from the
sinful person was rejected in the course of the Messalian
controversy. The ascetic doctrine, however, survived in an
altered form, as can be seen in Isaac of Nineveh: if the Holy
Spirit, once received in baptism, does not leave, it is the
guardian angel who is driven away by one's sins, and this
departure leaves the house of the soul open to demonic
influences.
Isaac of Nineveh, Homily 57:
“First a man withdraws his mind from his proper care and
thereafter the spirit of pride approaches him. When he tarries
in pride, the angel of providence, who is near him and stirs in
him care for righteousness, withdraws from him. And when a man
wrongs his angel and the angel departs from him, then the alien
[the devil] draws nigh him, and from henceforth he has no care
whatever for righteousness.” The English translation is
that of Dana Miller (The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac
the Syrian [Boston, Mass.: The Holy Transfiguration
Monastery, 1984], 283). In his homily on Ps. 33:8 (PG 29: 3 B),
a verse that reads “the angel of the Lord will encamp
around those who fear him and will deliver them” (LXX),
Basil writes: “An angel attends to anyone who has
believed unto the Lord, unless we chase him away (ἀποδιώξωμεν)
ourselves by evil deeds. Just as smoke drives away
(φυγαδεύει)
bees, and foul odor repels (ἐξελαύνει)
doves, so also does the ill-smelling and lamentable sin remove
(ἀφίσ ησιν)
the angel who is the guardian of our life.”
In other words, the angelomorphism of the
older Pneumatology was relegated to a “real”
(guardian) angel, while the pneumatological content was
conformed to the conciliar theology of the Spirit and the
sacraments.
[67] In
the second part of the article I have discussed Aphrahat's
treatment of the Spirit in relation to Christ, and concluded
that the blurring of lines between “Christ,”
“Spirit of Christ,” and “Holy Spirit”
is best understood as an attempt to convey the
“multiplication” of Christ in the world in (or
through) the work of the Spirit. In all likelihood, Aphrahat
did not view the angelic imagery and the notion of
“particles of the Spirit” as distinct elements. I
submit that this represents one of the layers of tradition that
Aphrahat has preserved, and which can be identified more
specifically with the primitive stage of trinitarian thought
proposed by Kretschmar, namely “die Trias
Gott-Christus-Engel.”
Kretschmar,
Trinitätstheologie, 213.
This theological complex
is still visible in Aphrahat's Demonstrations, and it
can be verified by recourse to earlier authors, most notably
Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria.
[68] I
have shown how Aphrahat's angelomorphic Pneumatology is an
integral part of his ascetic theory. It is true that that the
angelomorphism of the Spirit is one way (among several others)
of expressing the subordination of Pneumatology to Christology,
which is one of the characteristic features of Aphrahat's
thought.
Bruns, Christusbild, 186, 188,
204. Cf. Cramer (Der Geist Gottes, 65), who speaks of
the “christological anchoring of the doctrine of the
Spirit.”
There is no doubt that Aphrahat is aware of
trinitarian formulas. Nevertheless, in his own reflection of
the Holy Spirit, the Sage is mostly concerned with the Spirit's
“operations” that make possible the experience of
divine indwelling. In agreement with Loofs and Bruns, I
conclude that he speaks of the Holy Spirit not as an
independent hypostasis, but rather as divine power from Christ.
Within this overall binitarian framework of the
Demonstrations, the experience of the Spirit is
expressed by recourse to traditional angelomorphic
language.
[69]
Measuring Aphrahat's angelomorphic Pneumatology against the
standard of later Orthodoxy, Bishop George had good reason to
decry the heretical “aberrations,”
“crassness,” and “boorish ignorance” of
the Demonstrations. Considered from a different
perspective, however, these same writings are the invaluable
“treasure trove” described by Vööbus. It
is therefore imperative to do just what the bishop counseled
against, namely “wear ourselves out with questions and
become clouded over in our minds in order to make sense of and
understand the import of all the words written in the book of
the Demonstrations.”_______
Notes
“he spoke in all the prophets
and sent his Christ into the world”
“he sent from his Spirit upon the prophets
and sent his Christ into the
world.”
_______
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