Sleep of the Soul and Resurrection of the
Body
Aphrahat’s Anthropology in Context
J. Edward
Walters
Rochester University
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James E. Walters
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv22n2walters
J. Edward Walters
Sleep of the Soul and Resurrection of the
Body: Aphrahat’s Anthropology in Context
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol22/HV22N2Walters.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2019
vol 22
issue 2
pp 433–465
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal
dedicated to the study of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in
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Aphrahat
Persian Sage
Soul sleep
Rabbinic literature
Resurrection
File created by James E. Walters
Abstract
The fourth-century Syriac corpus known
as the Demonstrations, attributed to Aphrahat, the Persian
Sage, provides a unique window into the early development of Christianity among
Syriac-speaking communities. Occasionally these writings attest to beliefs and
practices that were not common among other contemporaneous Christian communities,
such as Aphrahat’s apparent belief in the “sleep of the soul” and the implications
of that belief for his concept of the soul-body relationship and what happens to the
soul and body at the resurrection. Aphrahat addresses this topic in the context of a
polemical argument against an unnamed opponent, which provides the occasion to
consider whom these arguments might be addressed against. The present article seeks
to understand Aphrahat’s views on the body and soul within the broad religious
milieu of the eastern Mediterranean world in Late Antiquity. The article concludes
with an argument for reading and understanding the Demonstrations as a witness to the contested development of Christian
identity in the Syriac-speaking world.
Introduction
Aphrahat, the so-called Persian Sage,
The name “Aphrahat” does not come to be associated
with the “Persian Sage” mentioned as the author of the Demonstrations until relatively late (8th century). Previously, the Persian Sage was either unnamed
(BL Add. 14,619; BL Add. 17,182 [part 1]; letters of George, bishop of
the Arabs) or called Jacob (BL Add. 17,182 [part 2]). But later
tradition accepts the name Aphrahat as the correct identification of the
Persian Sage (Barbahlul, Gregory Bar ʿEbroyo, ʿAbdisho).
is a relatively obscure figure in the history of early Christianity
despite the intriguing historical context of his life and writings.
Aphrahat’s writings survive in the form of
twenty-three
ܬܚܘܝ̈ܬܐ
, which is generally translated “Demonstrations.” Two versions of
the Syriac text have been published: William Wright, ed., The Homilies of Aphraates, the Persian Sage, edited
from Syriac Manuscripts of the fifth and sixth Century in the
British Museum, Vol. 1: The Syriac Text (London: Williams and
Norgate, 1869) [note: this was intended as a two volume set with an
English translation in the second volume, but the second volume was
never completed]; and D. Ioannes Parisot, ed., Aphraatis Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes I-XXII (Patrologia
Syriaca 1.1; Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1894), and D. Ioannes Parisot, ed.,
Aphraatis Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes
XXIII (Patrologia Syriaca 1.2; Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1907),
columns 1-150. In recent years, modern translations of the Demonstrations into French, German, English, and
Italian have appeared: Marie-Joseph Pierre, Aphraate
le Sage Persan. Les Exposés. SC 349, 359 (Paris: Les Éditions
du Cerf, 1988, 1989); Peter Bruns, Aphrahat.
Unterweisungen (FC 5.1-2; Freiburg: Herder, 1991-1992);
Kuriakose Valavanolickal, Aphrahat.
Demonstrations. Mōrān ’Eth’ō 23-24 (Kottayam: St. Ephrem
Ecumenical Research Institute, 2005); Adam Lehto, The
Demonstrations of Aphrahat, the Persian Sage (Gorgias Early
Christian Studies 27; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2010); and Giovanni
Lenzi, Afraate: Le esposizioni, 2 Vols. (Testi
del Vicino Oriente antico; Brescia: Paideia, 2012).
According to colophons found within the Demonstrations, it can be reasonably assumed that he lived somewhere
within the Persian Empire
It is not possible to determine Aphrahat’s precise
location from his writings. Demonstration 14 is addressed to the leaders
of the Church in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, but this does not provide any
concrete information for the author’s locale. The scribe of one late
manuscript (14th century) in the British
Library (BM Orient. 1017) claims that Aphrahat was the bishop of the
monastery of Mar Mattai (located in modern-day northern Iraq, near
Mosul). However, this claim is suspect and certainly anachronistic; cf.
S.P. Brock, “Aphrahat” in Brock, et al, Gorgias
Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Piscataway:
Gorgias Press, 2011), 24-25.
during the early years of the reign of Shapur II.
The precise dates of Aphrahat’s birth and death are
unknown, but dates for the Demonstrations are
provided directly within the work: Demonstrations
1-10 were composed in 336-7 CE, Demonstrations
11-22 in 343-4 CE, and Demonstrations 23 was
written in 345 CE; see Aphrahat, Demonstrations
14.40 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.724.24-I.725.2),
22.25 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.1044.11-20), and
23.69 (Parisot, Aphraatis, II.149.1-10). Although
there is no specific reason to doubt the accuracy of the information
provided in the colophons, it is important to note that I have argued
elsewhere that the Demonstrations is likely not
the work of a single author, but rather an edited corpus. See Walters,
“Reconsidering the Compositional Unity of Aphrahat’s Demonstrations,” in Aaron Michael Butts and Robin Darling
Young, eds., Syriac Christian Culture: Beginnings to
Renaissance (CUA Press, forthcoming).
The religious milieu of early fourth-century Persia featured a
several-century-old state religion in revival (Zoroastrianism) that was
competing not only with well-established religions like Judaism, but also with
native folk religions, the influx of Greek philosophical schools, and various
expressions of Christianity.
For a brief, but excellent overview of the Iranian
religious milieu in which early Syriac Christianity developed, see
Carsten Colpe, “Development of Religious Thought,” in Eshan Yarshater,
ed., The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 3(2): The
Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983), 819-865; for more specifically on the early
history of Christianity in Iran, see J.P. Asmussen, “Christians in
Iran,” in idem., 924-948.
Despite this fascinating context, Aphrahat’s writings have received
surprisingly little attention as a witness to religious diversity in
fourth-century Persia. The little attention scholars have extended to his work
in this regard has been focused mainly on his depiction of Judaism. While
Judaism does feature prominently in several segments of Aphrahat’s Demonstrations, particularly in Demonstrations 11-22, his
writings also offer a unique perspective on the state of Christianity in early
fourth-century Persia.
The present article seeks to offer an example of Aphrahat’s unique expression of
ideas and the way his thought fits within the broader religious milieu of early
Syriac-speaking Christianity, namely his beliefs about the body/soul
relationship and what happens to the body and soul at death and in the
resurrection. In his discussions of these topics, Aphrahat demonstrates both
continuity and discontinuity with other early Christian and Jewish sources, and
his unique perspective is likely the result of the diverse context in which
Persian Christianity developed. In particular, Aphrahat’s bipartite view of
humanity, the idea of the ‘sleep of the soul,’ and an idiosyncratic depiction of
the Holy Spirit’s role in conjunction with the body/soul in life, death, and the
resurrection provide a test case for examining the complex web of ideas that
shape the content of Aphrahat’s writings.
Offering first a brief sketch of Aphrahat’s views on the body and soul
relationship, this article proceeds by comparing Aphrahat’s perspective to the
literature of various contemporaneous religious communities with which he could
have interacted or about whom he may have been aware. The most obvious point of
comparison is, of course, Judaism, but this point merits caution. The literary
remains of Judaism for this time period are the writings of the Rabbis. Most of
these were compiled well after Aphrahat’s time of writing, yet some of them
reflect much earlier traditions. If Aphrahat was not familiar with proper
“Rabbinic” Judaism, as Jacob Neusner has argued,
Early scholarship on this topic argued that
Aphrahat’s writings showed evidence of rabbinic influence. See for
example Salomon Funk, Die haggadischen Elemente in den
Homilien des Aphraates, des persischen Weisen (Vienna: Druck
von Moritz, 1891); and Frank Gavin, Aphraates and the
Jews: A Study of the Controversial Homilies of the Persian Sage in
Their Relation to Jewish Thought (New York: AMS Press, 1966).
Neusner depicted Aphrahat’s writings as reflective of a sort of folk,
non-Rabbinic Judaism; see Jacob Neusner,
Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian-Jewish Argument in Fourth-Century Iran (Leiden:
Brill, 1971; reprint: Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), see particularly
pp. 144-149. Most recently, Eliyahu Lizorkin has argued that Aphrahat
and his community encountered and interacted with “Rabbinic-related,
Para-Rabbinic Jews,” which seems in large part to overlap with Neusner’s
argument; E. Lizorkin, Aphrahat’s Demonstrations: A
Conversation with the Jews of Mesopotamia, CSCO 642 (Leuven:
Peeters, 2012), 158.
then we cannot assume that traditions found in Rabbinic writings would
be consistent with Aphrahat’s depiction of his Jewish interlocutors. Naomi
Koltun-Fromm’s recent treatment of this problem is quite helpful here because
she offers a way of dealing with shared exegetical and hermeneutical traditions
between Rabbinic Judaism and Syriac Christianity that resists the urge to draw
direct, causal relationships between the texts.
Koltun-Fromm’s arguments can be found in a number
of publications: “A Jewish-Christian Conversation in Fourth-Century
Persian Mesopotamia,” Journal of Jewish Studies
47.1 (1996), 45-63, which has been revised, expanded, and re-published
as Naomi Koltun-Fromm, Jewish-Christian Conversation
in Fourth-Century Persian Mesopotamia: A Reconstructed
Conversation (Judaism in Context 12; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias
Press, 2011), and especially
The Hermeneutics of Holiness: Ancient Jewish and Christian Notions of Sexuality and Religious Community (Oxford:
University Press, 2010).
She focuses instead on the way that Aphrahat and the Rabbis each shaped
these received hermeneutical traditions in their own contexts. The question of
whether Aphrahat’s writings on Jews reflect a “real” Jewish opponent or whether
they function as a rhetorical device for Aphrahat’s intended audience remains a
contested issue.
For a recent argument that Aphrahat’s Jewish
opponents represent real interactions with a Jewish community, see
Lizorkin, Aphrahat’s Demonstrations; for my own
argument that Aphrahat employs “imagined Jews” as a rhetorical strategy,
see Walters, “Anti-Jewish Rhetoric and Christian Identity in Aphrahat’s
Demonstrations,” in Aaron Michael Butts and
Simcha Gross, eds., Judaism and Syriac Christianity:
Identities and Intersections (Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming).
Beyond Judaism, however, there are also less obvious points of comparison with
Aphrahat. Indeed, it is quite possible that Aphrahat was also familiar with
other expressions of Christianity within the Syriac-speaking milieu, namely
followers of Marcion, Bardaisan, and Mani. There is significant evidence (both
primary
While very few original Manichaean writings are
preserved in Syriac, Mani himself is traditionally thought to have
written in Syriac or at least in an Aramaic dialect (cf. Eusebius HE 4.30.1; Epiphanius Pan.
IV.36.1), and several Manichaean works in other languages are presumed
to have had Syriac Vorlagen. F.C. Burkitt
gathered some of the surviving fragments of Syriac Manichaean literature
in The Religion of the Manichees (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1925), 111-118. For a more recent treatment
of Manichaeism and Syriac literature, see Erica C.D. Hunter, “Syriac
Sources and Manichaeism: A Four Hundred Year Trajectory,” in Jacob van
den Berg, Annemaré Kotzé, Tobias, Nicklas, and Madeleine Scopello, eds.,
In Search of Truth: Augustine, Manichaeism and
other Gnosticism. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 74
(Leiden: Brill, 2010), 291-300.
and secondary
Ephrem the Syrian explicitly denounces the
followers of these three teachers in two surviving polemical works, one
a prose text (S. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani,
Marcion, and Bardaisan, 2 Vols.,
transcribed and translated by C. W. Mitchell [London: Williams and
Norgate, 1912]), and the other a collection of poetry (Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra Haereses ed. and
tr. Edmund Beck [CSCO 169-170, Scrip. Syr. 76-77; Louvain: Imprimerie
Orientaliste, 1957]). Moreover, Titus of Bostra’s Contra Manichaeos was also translated into Syriac quite early
(Paul de Lagarde, ed., Titi Bostreni contra manichaeos
libri quatuor syriace [London: Williams and Norgate, 1859]),
which suggests the popularity of anti-Manichaean texts in the Syriac
tradition. In his work on Ephrem’s polemical writings, John Reeves
argued that Ephrem was “the most important textual witness to the
earliest forms of Manichaean discourse,” primarily because Ephrem
preserved, in Syriac, what are sure to be citations from Mani’s
followers and Manichaean literature. See John C. Reeves, “Manichaean
Citations from the Prose Refutations of Ephrem,”
in Emerging from Darkness: Studies in the Recovery of
Manichaean Sources, ed. Paul Mirecki and Jason BeDuhn (Nag
Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 43; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 217-288.
) for the prominence of these movements as alternative expressions of
Christianity in the Syriac-speaking world in Aphrahat’s time period. Moreover,
there is evidence from within Aphrahat’s writings that he was aware of such
communities.
Aphrahat, seemingly in passing, mentions teachings
and practices associated with Marcion, Valentinus (perhaps thought of as
the ‘source’ for Bardaisan), and Mani in Dem. 3.9
(Parisot, Aphraatis, I.116.4-17). This passage is
discussed in further detail below.
And although Aphrahat never explicitly directs a polemic against the
teachings of these religious groups, there are particular arguments in the Demonstrations against what he calls “deceptive
teachings,” which seem to suggest a conscious effort to oppose alternative
Christian teachings, including Aphrahat’s treatment of the resurrection. Thus,
it is possible that Aphrahat’s intra-Christian arguments are directed against
one of these heterodox Christian groups. As a result, the present project seeks
to identify points of continuity and discontinuity on the topic of the
resurrection and the body/soul relationship between Aphrahat and these
contemporaneous religious communities.
Sketch of Aphrahat’s Anthropology
Although Aphrahat’s most extensive treatment of the resurrection appears in
Demonstration 8 (“On the Resurrection of the Dead”), he first addressed the
topic in Demonstration 6 (“On the Bnay Qyama”) within the
context of his discussion of Christians receiving the Holy Spirit at baptism.
Aphrahat compares the event of baptism with the creation of humanity, and it is
here that he offers some insight into his views on the body/soul relationship.
The main point of comparison for the two events is the reception of the Holy
Spirit at baptism and the moment in the creation narrative when God breathed
‘the spirit’ into Adam:
ܒܡܘܠܕܐ ܓܝܪ ܩܕܡܝܐ ܡܬܝܠܕܝܢ ܒܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ ܕܡܬܒܪܝܐ ܒܓܘܗ ܕܒܪ
ܐܢܫܐ ܘܠܐ ܡܝܘܬܬܐ ܬܘܒ ܐܝܬܝܗ ܐܝܟ ܕܐܡܪ: ܕܗܘܐ ܐܕܡ ܠܢܦܫ ܚܝܐ. ܘܒܡܘܠܕܐ ܕܬܪ̈ܝܢ
ܕܒܡܥܡܘܕܝܬܐ ܡܩܒܠܝܢ ܪܘܚܐ ܕܩܘܕܫܐ ܡܢ ܒܨܪܐ ܕܐܠܗܘܬܐ: ܘܠܐ ܗܘܐ ܡܝܘܬܬܐ ܬܘܒ
ܐܝܬܝܗ.
Dem. 6.14 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.293.5-11).
For in the first birth, [humans] are born with a
ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ, which is created within a person and
it is not subject to death, as [Scripture] says: ‘The man became a living soul.’
And in the second birth—that is, in baptism—[the baptized] receive the Holy
Spirit from a portion of the divinity, which is also not subject to death.
All translations from Aphrahat are my own, unless
otherwise noted.
In this brief statement, Aphrahat compares the animation of Adam’s body, via
God’s breath (Gen. 2:7), with the Christian’s reception of the Holy Spirit in
baptism.
The creation imagery is made even more explicit in
the broader context of the argument about baptism: “at the moment when
the priests invoke the Spirit, heaven opens and the Spirit descends and
hovers over the water,” Dem. 6.14 (Parisot, Aphraatis,
I.292.25-I.293.1).
Although he does not state it explicitly, the logical conclusion of his
citation of Gen 2:7 in reference to the creation of the ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ is that the breath of God actually became the ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ of humanity.
I have intentionally left the phrase ruḥa naphshanayta untranslated here, but I will
define it in the subsequent discussion.
The link between God’s breath and the ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ
is forged, at least in part, on linguistic principles. Although the Hebrew text
of Gen 2:7 uses נשמה for ‘breath,’ and the Syriac Peshiṭta follows the Hebrew by using
ܢܫܡܬܐ, Aphrahat’s allusions to Gen 2:7 always
employ ܪܘܚܐ for the breath of God.
See for example Dem. 17.6
(Parisot, Aphraatis, I.793.21-24): “[God] has
honored, exalted, and glorified human beings more than all creatures
because he has molded them with his holy hands and he breathed into them
from his spirit (ܘܡܢ ܪܘܚܗ ܢܦܚ ܒܗܘܢ)”; cf.
Dem. 23.58 (Parisot, Aphraatis, II.117.13): “You breathed into us from your spirit
of life (ܘܢܦܚܬ ܒܢ ܡܢ ܪܘܚܟ ܕܚܝܐ).”
It is not clear if Aphrahat used ܪܘܚܐ here
because he inherited it as part of the translation of Gen 2:7, though it is
clear that he is not relying upon the Targum translations of Gen 2:7.
The three main Aramaic Targum translations of
Genesis (Onqelos, Ps.-Jonathan, Neofiti) used נשמתא in Gen 2:7.
It is possible that he creatively and intentionally chose the more
flexible word ܪܘܚܐ, though it is also possible that
he conflated this passage with John 20:22 in which Jesus breathed on the
disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit (ܪܘܚܐ
ܕܩܘܕܫܐ). Whether or not the use of ܪܘܚܐ is
an intentional change to the received wording, however, it is clear that
Aphrahat deliberately established a link between the ‘spirit’/‘breath’ (ܪܘܚܐ) of God and the ܪܘܚܐ
ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ of humanity.
Thus far our discussion has left untranslated the key phrase for parsing
Aphrahat’s view of the body and soul, ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ,
because it is not immediately clear what Aphrahat intended by it. The difficulty
in rendering this phrase correctly is grounded in the fact that Aphrahat used
two words whose layers of meaning overlapped, with ܢܦܫܐ (‘soul/self’) being employed as an adjectival modifier of ܪܘܚܐ (‘spirit’). Most modern translators, agreeing
with Parisot’s Latin translation that accompanies the primary printed text of
Aphrahat’s Demonstrations, render the phrase as
“animal/animate” or “natural” spirit.
Parisot (Aphraatis, I.294)
renders it as “spiritus animalis”; Valavanolikal: “animate spirit” (Aphrahat, Demonstrations I, 152-153); Lehto
translates “natural spirit” (Demonstrations,
192); and Pierre renders it as “esprit animé” (Les
Exposés, I, 401). In his German version,
Peter Bruns breaks from this trend and translates this phrase more
idiomatically as “sinnenhafte Geiste” (a “sensing spirit”); Bruns, Aphrahat: Unterweisungen, I, 205.
It is possible that Aphrahat is adapting Paul’s language from 1 Cor 15
concerning bodies that are ψυχικόν and πνευματικόν,
Indeed, in the broader context, Aphrahat argued
that the ‘natural spirit’ (ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ)
will be swallowed up by the Holy Spirit and will become ‘spiritual’ (ܪܘܚܢܐ). This language matches the Syriac
translation of ψυχικόν and πνευματικόν from 1 Cor 15.
applying the distinction to the soul rather than the body. However, this
would be a rather surprising argument if that’s what Aphrahat intended. The
translation of the phrase as ‘natural/animal spirit’—while not incorrect—does
not necessarily tell us what Aphrahat had in mind when he used the phrase ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ. Indeed, the broader context of this
argument suggests that when Aphrahat employed this phrase, he actually just
meant ‘the soul.’
That this is the case can be demonstrated in two ways: first, Aphrahat
associated this entity with a property that was characteristic of the soul in
ancient philosophical discussions of the body and soul: the capacity for sense
perception. Immediately following the comparison of creation and baptism,
Aphrahat asserted, “When people die, the ܪܘܚܐ
ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ is buried with the body and sensation/perception (ܪܓܫܬܐ) is taken away from it.”
Dem. 6.14 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.293.12-14).
The idea that the soul is the home for the capacity of
sensation/perception (αἴσθησις) in Greek philosophy is at least as old as Aristotle,
Aristotle, De anima I 1.403
(edition: R.D. Hicks, Aristotle, De Anima
[Cambridge: University Press, 1907]); although, Aristotle clearly did
not think that the soul had capacity for sensation apart from the
body.
and it also appears in Stoic thought.
Cf. Ps.-Plutarch, Placita
Philosophorum 4.23 (edition: William W. Goodwin, Plutarch’s Morals [Boston: Little Brown and
Company, 1878]): “For the Stoics, the passions are in the affected parts
[of the body], but the perceptions (αἴσθησις) are in
the ruling part (ἡγεμονικός) [of the soul].”
Galen attributed the capacity for perception to the ἡγεμονικός, the “ruling
part” of the soul,
Galen, De Placitis Hippocrates et
Platonis, II.3.4ff; text and edition: Phillip de Lacy, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum Vol. 4,1,2: Galeni, De
Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,
2005).
although he disagreed with the Stoics concerning its location within the
body. On the topic of body and soul, Galen’s writings were influential for later
writers, both pagan
In particular, Galen was influential for Plotinus
and the neo-Platonic tradition; cf. Teun Tieleman, “Plotinus on the Seat
of the Soul: Reverberations of Galen and Alexander in Enn. IV, 3 [27], 23,” Phronesis 43.4
(1998), 306-325.
and Christian.
Galen was one of the primary sources for the
fourth-century author Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura
hominis.
The specific correlation of sense perception with the soul also appears
in the middle-Platonic, Jewish exegesis of Gen 2:7, as evidenced by the writings
of Philo of Alexandria.
Questions and Answers on Genesis, I.4-5 (edition:
Ralph Marcus, Philo, Supplement I: Questions and
Answers on Genesis [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953],
3-4); cf. On the Creation of the Cosmos, I.18-19
(edition: David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria: On the
Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses, Introduction,
Translation, and Commentary [Leiden: Brill, 2001], 82-86).
Thus, by attributing the concept of ܪܓܫܬܐ
to the ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ, Aphrahat’s writings reflect a
general knowledge of prior and contemporary philosophical concepts of the soul
and its relationship to the body.
Unfortunately, Aphrahat did not expand on this
topic at all, making it virtually impossible to identify any “sources”
he may have known or relied on for his view of the soul. It seems best
to conclude that he was simply reflecting a sort of “common knowledge”
about the properties of the soul.
Beyond the recognition of his association of sense perception with the ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ, it is also clear that Aphrahat used
this term in reference to the soul based on his description of what happens to
this entity at death and then at the resurrection, namely that the ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ would be buried along with the body.
Thus, Aphrahat teaches the concept of the “sleep of the soul.” Although Aphrahat
did not explicitly state that the soul “sleeps,” he did argue that it is buried
(ܡܬܛܡܪܐ)
The meaning of the root word ܛܡܪ is ‘to hide,’ but the passive form
(ethpe’el) that Aphrahat employed here is generally translated as
‘buried’; cf. M. Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon
(Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009), 537.
with the body and that the capacity for sensation is removed from it.
Thus, the soul remains with the body and exists in some kind of unconscious
state.
As Pierre asserts, “Il n’y a plus connaissance ni
discernement,” Éxposes, vol. 1, 184.
Aphrahat expressed his belief in the sleep of the soul even more clearly when he
returned to this topic in Dem. 8 (“On the Resurrection of
the Dead”) and contrasted the “sleep” of the righteous and the wicked in the
time between death and the resurrection. He employed here an analogy of good and
bad servants who are sleeping: the bad servants do not sleep well and do not
wish to arise because they know that their master will punish them when they do
wake up. The good servants, however, sleep soundly, knowing the rewards that
await them. Aphrahat concluded the analogy thus:
ܘܙܕ̈ܝܩܐ ܕܡܟܝܢ ܘܫܢܬܗܘܢ ܒܣܡܐ ܠܗܘܢ ܒܐܝܡܡܐ ܘܒܠܠܝܐ: ܘܟܠܗ ܠܠܝܐ
ܕܢܓܝܪ ܠܐ ܪܓܫܝܢ ܘܐܝܟ ܚܕܐ ܫܥܐ ܚܫܝܒ ܒܥܝܢܝ̈ܗܘܢ. ܗܝܕܝܢ ܒܡܛܪܬܐ ܕܨܦܪܐ ܡܬܬܥܝܪܝܢ
ܘܚܕܝܢ: ܘܥܘ̈ܠܐ ܫܢܬܗܘܢ ܪܡܝܐ ܥܠܝܗܘܢ ܘܕܡܝܢ ܠܓܒܪܐ ܕܪܡܐ ܒܐܫܬܐ ܪܒܬܐ ܘܥܡܝܩܬܐ: ܘܡܬܗܦܟ
ܒܥܪܣܗ ܠܟܐ ܘܠܟܐ ܘܪܗܝܒ ܠܠܝܐ ܟܠܗ ܕܢܓܪ ܠܗ ܥܠܘܗܝ ܘܕܚܠ ܡܢ ܨܦܪܐ ܕܡܚܝܒ ܠܗ ܡܪܗ.
The upright lie down and their sleep is pleasant, throughout
day and night. For they do not perceive the whole night to be long, but
experience it as though it were a single moment. Then, when the morning comes,
they wake up and rejoice. The sleep of the wicked, however, lies heavily upon
them, like a man stricken with a strong, deep fever who tosses and turns on his
bed, and who is disturbed throughout the long night. They fear the morning, when
their master will condemn them (Dem. 8.19).
Parisot, Aphraatis,
I.397.3-14.
Following this passage, Aphrahat re-emphasized the point that, although the sleep
of death may or may not be pleasant, human beings are not conscious during the
period of death before the resurrection. Aphrahat argued that when the
resurrection takes place,
the ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ will be
raised along with the body and, at least for the righteous, will be transformed
with the body into its “spiritual” state:
“The ܪܘܚܐ ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ will be
swallowed up in the heavenly Spirit and the whole person will become spiritual
since the body is in the spirit.”
Dem. 6.14 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.296.26-I.297.2).
Those who are not righteous, however, will not be changed; instead, they
remain in their “natural” (ܢܦܫܢܝܬܐ) condition.
Aphrahat also called this the “created nature of
Adam” (ܟܝܢ ܒܪܝܬܗ ܕܐܕܡ); Dem. 6:18 (Parisot, Aphraatis,
I.309.12).
When the transformed righteous ones are taken away to heaven, the
unrighteous, who are not transformed, remain on Earth and descend to Sheol.
Aphrahat’s distinction between the “righteous and unrighteous” in death and at
the resurrection raises the question of what qualifies a person to be called
“righteous.” In Aphrahat’s estimation, each person must maintain the purity of
the Holy Spirit
When speaking of this Spirit, Aphrahat varied the
terminology he employed. He often used the phrases “Holy Spirit,”
“Spirit of Christ,” “Spirit of God,” and just “Spirit”
interchangeably.
that was received at the moment of baptism. That is, when someone dies
and their soul and body are buried, the portion of the Holy Spirit that dwelled
in that person from the time of baptism returns to its place with Christ and
testifies either for or against the body it inhabited based on whether or not
that person “guarded [it] in holiness.”
Dem. 6.14 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.293.24-I.296.7).
It is this testimony that determines each person’s status in the
resurrection.
This particular argument is intriguing for the perspective it offers regarding
Aphrahat’s view of the body/soul relationship. While Aphrahat believed in a
bipartite human existence (with no distinction between a human ‘soul’ and
‘spirit’), he argued nevertheless that baptized Christians have a tripartite
existence: body, soul, and (Holy) spirit. He even implies that this portion of
the Holy Spirit that returned to be with God maintained some sense of the
individual identity of each person with whom it was associated. This is
presumably how Aphrahat reconciled his understanding of the sleep of the soul
after death with an assumed belief that the righteous would be in the presence
of Christ immediately upon death.
As Aphrahat argued, “The [Holy] Spirit returns to
its natural condition with Christ [i.e. at death], for the apostle also
said, ‘When we depart from the body we will be with our Lord’ (2 Cor
5:8),” Dem. 6.14 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.293.18-21).
Indeed, Aphrahat apparently felt the need to defend his concept of the
sleep of the soul against those who were claiming that people experienced either
reward or punishment immediately upon death: “Those with childish minds say, ‘if
no one has received a reward, why did the apostle say, “When we depart from the
body, we will be with the Lord”?’”
Dem. 8.23 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.404.1-4).
The short discussion provided above offers an overview of Aphrahat’s language
and view of the soul/body relationship and of what will happen to the body and
soul in death and at the resurrection. We may isolate at least three unique
features of Aphrahat’s views: the origin of the soul from the breath of God, the
concept of the sleep of the soul, and the Holy Spirit’s role in the life of the
baptized Christian and in the resurrection. Aphrahat’s distinct perspective
emerges more clearly when juxtaposed with the views on such matters among
contemporary religious communities.
The Breath of God and the Soul of Humanity
Among various religious groups of late antiquity, many different competing
interpretations of the creation narrative circulated. Thus it is not surprising
that the subject of the soul in Gen 2:7, one of the key Scriptural passages for
Aphrahat’s argument, was the subject of multiple interpretive traditions in a
range of other authors and texts. The hermeneutical conclusion that the breath
of God actually became the soul of humanity is at least as old as Philo of
Alexandria, who argued in his work On the Creation that
“the soul originated from the Father and ruler of all, for that which [God]
breathed into [humanity] was nothing other than Divine breath.”
Philo, On the Creation of the
Cosmos, 18.134-135 (Runia, Philo: On the
Creation, 82); elsewhere, this sentiment is even more explicit:
“and [the molded man] obtained a spirit when God breathed life into his
face,” Questions and Answers on Genesis, I.4
(Marcus, Philo: Supplement I, Questions and
Answers, 3-4).
It is also worth noting that Philo explicitly linked this interpretation
of Gen 2:7 with the capacity for sense-perception (αἴσθησις).
The Jewish pseudepigraphical work known as 4 Ezra
This text, along with 5 Ezra and 6 Ezra, is also
known as 2 Esdras. For a detailed discussion of the text and
transmission of this work, see Michael Edward Stone, Fourth Ezra (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 1-8.
also briefly mentions the association between God’s breath and the
animation of Adam’s body. Although the precise date for the composition (most
likely in Hebrew) of 4 Ezra is difficult to discern, it was certainly
circulating in Greek translation by the end of the second century because
Clement of Alexandria cites it explicitly.
Stone, Fourth Ezra, 9.
The presumed original Hebrew text does not survive at all, and the Greek
translation is only partially attested. Thus, the Syriac version
Preserved only in the famous seventh century
Peshiṭta manuscript
Codex Ambrosianus B.21 (also known as 7a1). For a modern edition of the
text, see R. J. Bidawid, “4 Esdras,” in The Old
Testament in Syriac according to the Peshiṭta Version, IV,3: Apocalypse of Baruch, 4 Esdras
(Leiden: Brill, 1973).
represents one of the earliest witnesses to the full text of 4 Ezra. The
text in question is found in 4 Ezra 3:5: “…and it [i.e. the dust/ground] gave to
you Adam, a lifeless [lit. ‘dead’] body” (ܦܓܪܐ
ܡܝܬܐ). And yet, he was the work of your hands, so you breathed into him the
breath of life (ܪܘܚܐ ܕܚ̈ܝܐ), and he came alive (ܘܗܘܐ ܚܝܐ) before you.”
Syriac text from Bidawid, “4 Esdras,” 1;
translation is my own.
A similar sentiment is also found in one Qumran poetic text, 4Q381: “And
by his breath, [God] made them (i.e. Adam and Eve) stand…”
העמידמ וברוחו, 4 Q381, Frag. 1, line 7; “4Q381
(4QNon-Canonical Psalms),” ed. by E. Schuller, in The
Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Part 5: Poetic and Liturgical Texts,
ed. by Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov (Leiden: Brill, 2005),
154-155.
Neither of these Jewish texts explicitly names “the soul,” yet it is
clear that both view God’s breath as the animating force of the otherwise
lifeless body of Adam.
The interpretive tradition that linked the breath of God to the soul of humanity
is also found in later Jewish literary traditions. Two of the Aramaic Targum
translations of Genesis incorporate this interpretation directly into their
wording of Gen 2:7:
Targum Onqelos to Genesis 2:7
ונפח באפוהי נשמתא דחיי והות באדם לרוח ממללא
Aramaic text from Moses Aberbach and Bernard
Grossfeld, Targum Onkelos to Genesis (Hoboken:
Ktav Publishing, 1982), 29.
“And [God] breathed into [the nostrils] of his face the
breath of life, and it became in Adam a spirit uttering speech.”
English translation from Bernard Grossfeld, The Targum Onqelos to Genesis, The Aramaic Bible
6 (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1988), 44.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Genesis 2:7
ונפח בנחירוהי נשמחה דחיי והוות נשמחה בגופא דאדם לרוח ממללא לאנהרוח עינין ולמצתות אודנין
Aramaic text from E.G. Clarke, et al, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and
Concordance (Hoboken: Ktav Publishing House, 1984), 2.
“And [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
and the breath became in the body of Adam a spirit capable of speech, to give
light to the eyes and hearing to the ears.”
English translation from Michael Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis, The Aramaic
Bible 1B (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), 22.
The fact that both Targum Onqelos and Targum Ps.-Jonathan state explicitly that
the breath (נשמתא) of God became the soul of humanity
likely indicates that this was an already well-established interpretive
tradition in Jewish interpretation by the time period roughly contemporary with
Aphrahat (i.e. 4th-5th
century).
There is significant debate concerning the dating
of Targum Onqelos, particularly over the question of the existence of a
‘proto-Onqelos’ known in Palestine, which would then suggest a two-stage
composition for the Targum with the first stage taking place in the
first two centuries of the common era and the second stage taking place
in Babylonia by the end of the fourth century. For a concise summary of
the scholarly question on this matter, see Paul V.M. Flesher and Bruce
Chilton, The Targums: A Critical Introduction
(Leiden: Brill, 2011), 83-87 and 109-129. Other scholars argue for an
even more specific date for the final edit in the third century based
upon the evidence of the masorah, which is dated to the first half of
the third century; see Bernard Grossfeld, The Targum
Onqelos to Genesis, 30-32.
The dating of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (also known as
Targum Yerushalmi) is even more difficult because there are clearly
elements that are post-Islamic (see Flesher and Chilton, The Targums, 88). However, this does not suggest
that the whole Targum was composed after the advent of Islam, as it is
more likely that some passages simply represent a late redaction. While
it appears that Pseudo-Jonathan is reliant upon Onqelos, it is also
apparent from an examination of Targumic citations in the Palestinian
Talmud that both Onqelos an Pseudo-Jonathan were known to Rabbis by the
fifth century at the latest; see Flesher and Chilton, The Targums, 131-150, 157-158. For an even more specific
treatment of the dating of Pseudo-Jonathan, with argues also for a late
fourth-century/early fifth-century date, see Robert Hayward, “Red Heifer
and Golden Calf: Dating Targum Pseudo-Jonathan,” pages 9-32 in Paul V.M.
Flesher, ed., Targum Studies, Vol. 1: Textual and
Contextual Studies in the Pentateuchal Targums (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1992). Other scholars, however, such as Michael Maher,
still accept a later dating of Pseudo-Jonathan and argue that it was
edited into its final form no earlier than the 7th-8th centuries; see Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis, 11-12.
However, as with Aphrahat, it is not immediately clear that this is a
reference to the soul because the Targumim state that the breath of God became a
ממללא רוחא (a “spirit capable of speaking”) and Ps.-Jonathan also adds the
senses of sight and sound. Thus, although it is clear that the Targum
translations relate the capacities of the senses to the רוחא that resulted from
the breath of God, it is necessary to explore the Rabbinic tradition more widely
in order to establish that the soul is the intended subject here.
The midrashic interpretation of Gen 2:7 in Bereshit
Rabbah (BerR), a text generally dated to the
fifth century,
For a discussion of the problems with dating this
text, see H.L. Strack and Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, translated by Markus
Bockmuehl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 279-280.
is informative here for several reasons. First, BerR also explicitly linked the breath of God to the soul of humanity
in the interpretation of the phrase ויפח באפיו (“and [God] breathed into his
nostrils”): “This teaches that [God] set him up as a lifeless mass, reaching
from earth to heaven and then infused a soul (נשמה) into him.”
BerR 14.8; Midrash Rabbah, 2
Vols: Genesis I, Genesis II, trans. by Rab. H. Freedman (New
York: The Soncino Press, 1983), Vol. 1, 116. All English translations of
BerR in the present paper are taken or
adapted from this edition.
This text certainly adds support to Rabbinic evidence for the belief
that the breath of God became the soul of humanity. Yet it also adds a layer of
linguistic difficulty because it employs the term נשמה for soul. That multiple
Hebrew and Aramaic words could be used in Rabbinic literature for the concept of
‘the soul’ is likely a result of the fact that the Hebrew Bible itself employed
a range of words for the soul. Indeed, the editor(s) of BerR was well aware of this issue and addressed it explicitly.
Immediately following the quotation given above, the text of BerR includes a discussion of the five “names” of the soul used in
Scripture: נפש, נשמה, חיא, רוח, and יחידה.
BerR 14.9; Freedman, Midrash
Rabbah, Genesis I, 116. The text of Midrash Rabbah throughout
this essay comes from J. Theodor, Bereschit Rabba, 3
Volumes (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1912-1927).
Each word is then explained by referencing the passages where it appears
in the Hebrew Bible.
The exegetical principle that can be derived from this passage from BerR is as follows: 1) these five words were used
interchangeably for the concept of the human soul, as demonstrated by the
passages mentioned; 2) one of these five words was used to speak of the “breath”
of God; 3) therefore, each of these words could refer either to the breath of
God or to the human soul. If there were any doubt that this was the guiding
principle at work here, it is made explicit just a few lines later in the
context of the discussion of the phrase חיה לנפש האדם ויהי (“And Adam became a
living soul”):
R. Samuel, the son-in-law of R. Hanina, the colleague of the
Rabbis, said: here the נשמה is identified with נפש (Gen 2:7), whereas in another
text the נשמה is equated with רוח (Gen 7:22). How do we know that the statement
of the one text is applicable to that of the other and vice versa? Because חיים
is written in both texts, proving that they are analogous (BerR 14.10).
Freedman, Midrash Rabbah, Genesis
I, 118.
The lexicographical conclusion, and thus the exegetical conclusion of BerR is: רוח = נפש = נשמה, not only because these words
are used interchangeably in various passages of Scripture, but even more so
because each is used in conjunction with חיים.
The Rabbis were not the only ones who preserved a tradition of the breath of God
becoming the soul of humanity. This concept also appeared in various texts from
other early Christian communities. Irenaeus of Lyon, for example, stated that
“the breath of life that came from God” animated Adam and bestowed upon him the
capacity for reason.
Latin: “ea quae fuit a Deo aspiration vitae…et
animal rationabile ostendit,” Irenaeus, Adv.
Haer, 5.1.3; for the Latin text, see Norbert Brox, Irenäus von Lyon, Adversus Haereses—Gegen die
Häresien, Vol. 5, Fontes Christiani (Freiburg: Herder, 2001),
30.
Although Irenaeus did not explicitly mention the soul, it seems clear
from the context of the argument that this is what he had in mind. This view is
also present within writings that were not accepted as authoritative in the
later development of “orthodox” Christianity. The Apocryphon
of John,
This text is sometimes also referred to as The Secret Book according to John (BJn). For synoptic text and translation, see The Apocryphon of John: Synopsis of Nag Hammadi
Codices II,1; III,1; and IV,1 with BG 8502,2, ed. by Michael
Waldstein and Frederick Wisse, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies XXXIII
(Leiden: Brill, 1995), 12-177.
for example, also includes this tradition in its telling of the creation
narrative: “And they said to Yaltabaoth, ‘Blow into his face something of your
spirit (ⲡⲉⲕⲡ̅ⲛ̅ⲁ̅) and his body
will arise.’ And he blew into his face his spirit, which is the power of his
Mother…and the power of the Mother went out of Yaltabaoth into the psychic body
(ⲁⲯⲩⲭⲓⲕⲟⲥ ⲛ̅ⲥⲱⲙⲁ), which
they had fashioned after the image of the one who exists from the beginning. The
body moved and gained strength, and it was luminous.”
Ap. Jn. II.19.22-28; Waldstein and Wisse, Apocryphon of John, 114-115. Moreover, Irenaeus
of Lyon repeated this belief and attributed it to part of the general
“Gnostic” creation myth; see his Adv. Haer.
I.30.6; Norbert Brox, Irenäus von Lyon: Epideixis,
Adversus Haereses—Darlegung der apostolischen Verkündigung, Gegen
die Häresien, Vol. 1, Fontes Christiani (Freiburg: Herder,
1993), 336-338.
Again, although this text does not include an explicit word for “soul,”
it clearly implies that the divine breath that Yaltabaoth blew into the created
body of man was the force that animated the body. Likewise, this sentiment
appears in the texts known as Hypostasis of the Archons
Hyp. Arch. 88.3-5: “And he breathed into his
face; and the man came to have a soul (ⲯⲩⲭⲓⲕⲟⲥ) [and remained] upon the ground many days.”
Bentley Layton, ed., “The Hypostasis of the Archons,” in Nag Hammadi Codex II,2-7, Vol.1, ed. by Bentley
Layton, Nag Hammadi Studies XX (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 238-239. This text
goes on to say, however, that the man only became a “living soul” (ϣⲱⲡⲉ ⲁⲩⲯⲩⲭⲏ) when the
Spirit came and dwelt in the “soul-endowed man” (ⲁⲡⲓⲣⲱⲙⲉ ⲛ̅ⲯⲩⲭⲓⲕⲟⲥ). In
this way, even though this text reflects a shared hermeneutical
tradition with Aphrahat, there are significant differences in the
applications of this hermeneutic because of the varied contexts in which
these texts were produced.
and Trimorphic Protennoia.
Tri. Prot. 45.28-29: “It is I who put the breath
within my own. And I cast into them the eternally holy Spirit…” John D.
Turner, ed., “Trimorphic Protennoia,” in Nag Hammadi
Codices XI, XII, XIII, ed. by Charles W. Hedrick, Nag Hammadi
Studies XXVIII (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 422-423.
All of these texts, as with many Coptic texts in the Nag Hammadi
collection, are quite difficult to date because the original Greek versions have
not survived. It is certain, however, that these texts predate the mid-fourth
century because the codices that contain these texts are dated to the middle of
the fourth century.
The Apocryphon of John was
certainly circulating as early as the second century because, as noted
above in fn. 47, it is one of the major sources of Irenaeus’ polemic
against the gnostics, and he quotes from it extensively.
Thus, even though we cannot date these texts precisely, we can say that
these ideas were circulating in various texts by at least the first half of the
fourth century, which is also the precise date range of Aphrahat’s writings.
Based on the evidence provided by Rabbinic materials, various early Christian
writings, and Aphrahat himself, we can quite confidently conclude that there was
a well-established, yet malleable interpretative tradition of associating the
breath of God in the creation story of Genesis with the origin of the human
soul. It is certainly not necessary to claim that Aphrahat knew of or used any
of these texts as “sources” for his own argument, but this broader literary
context allows us to consider Aphrahat’s ideas as part of a complex interpretive
tradition that spans a large geographic and ideological range.
Sleep of the Soul
While it is relatively easy to adduce potential parallels from other writers that
can be compared fruitfully to Aphrahat’s interpretation of Gen 2:7, it is quite
difficult to contextualize Aphrahat’s argument in favor of the “sleep of the
soul.” This concept is not prevalent in early Christian interpretations of death
and the resurrection, and it is difficult to find points of exegetical
comparison because Aphrahat does not necessarily link the idea of the sleeping
soul to a specific passage of Scripture. While some Jewish writings
Dan. 12:2; cf. 4 Ezra 7:32: “And the earth shall
give back those who are asleep in it, and the dust those who rest in
it.”
do speak of dead bodies “sleeping,” there is very little evidence prior
to Rabbinic interpretation that Jews believed in the “sleep of the soul” with the body as Aphrahat describes it. There is,
however, a fairly strong tradition in both Second Temple and Rabbinic literature
of Jewish belief in “treasuries” where the soul would be kept in a state of rest
until the time of the resurrection.
The concept of “treasuries” for the souls of
righteous people is frequent in 4 Ezra, including
4:35, 41; 7:32, 80, and 95. See also
2 Apoc. Bar. 21:23; Sifre Deut. 33:3.
There is one Rabbinic text that might suggest a belief in the “sleep of the
soul,” but the broader Rabbinic tradition complicates this text and makes it
difficult to conclude that it represents the position of the Rabbis more
generally. The text in question, also from Bereshit
Rabbah, offers an exegesis of Abraham’s death (Gen 25:8) that brings up
the topic of a righteous person’s knowledge of the reward to come before death,
which results in a pleasant experience of death. The specific passage from this
text for the present topic is: “The entire reward of the righteous is kept ready
for them for the hereafter, and the Holy One, blessed be He, shows them while
yet in this world the reward He is to give them in the future; their souls
(נפשם) are then satisfied and they fall asleep (ישינים).”
BerR 62.2; Freedman, Midrash
Rabbah, Genesis II, 549.
It is possible to conclude, based on the language of sleep and the explicit
mention of souls, that this passage represents a belief in the sleep of the
soul. The parashah continues by offering the metaphor of a king who invited his
guests to view the meal they would eat, after which the guests, so satisfied by
what they had seen, fell asleep peacefully.
A parallel passage
in Exodus Rabbah 52.3 (on
Exod. 39:33) repeats the concept of the righteous seeing their reward
before death, and even uses the same passage as a cross reference (Prov.
31:25), but the reference to sleeping souls is entirely absent; S.M.
Lehrman, Midrash Rabbah, Exodus (New York:
Soncino Press, 1983), 575-577.
Then it concludes with the following explanation: “So does God show the
righteous while yet in this world the reward which He is to give them in the
future, and thus they fall asleep with satisfied souls.” While it is tempting to
associate this passage with a doctrine of soul sleep, this is not a necessary
conclusion, given that sleep-terminology is frequently employed as a metaphor
for death in the Hebrew Bible.
Cf. Ps 13:3; 90:5; Dan 12:2; Job 14:10-14; Jer 51:
37-39, 56-67. For extra biblical references to the concept of sleep in
ancient Jewish thought, see Chapter 4 (“Peace, Sleep, and the Just”) in
Joseph S. Park, Conceptions of Afterlife in Jewish
Inscriptions (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 87-121.
Even if this passage did provide clear support for the sleep of the
soul, the broader Rabbinic tradition stands in direct contradiction with this
teaching.
Although there are several texts that could be used to demonstrate this point,
perhaps the clearest statement of the Rabbinic position on what happens to the
soul/body relationship at death appears in the Talmud in tractate Berakoth:
When one wakes he says: ‘My God, the soul that you placed in
me is pure. You fashioned it in me, you breathed it into me, and you preserve it
within me. And one day you will take it from me and then restore it to me in the
time to come. So long as the soul is within me I give thanks unto you, O Lord,
my God, and the God of my fathers, Sovereign of all worlds, Lord of all souls.
Blessed are you, O Lord, who restores souls to dead corpses.’ (bBer 62b)
This passage explicitly states that the soul will be taken from the body
(presumably at death) and that it will be restored in the “time to come.”
Perhaps in order to emphasize that death is the moment at which the separation
takes place, the passage continues by stating that souls are restored to “dead
corpses.” Moreover, in addition to this text, we may also refer to the Rabbinic
distinction between what will happen to the souls of the righteous and the souls
of the wicked, which presupposes that souls will be separated from bodies at
death.
See Talmud tractate Shabbath
(bShab) 152b; The
Babylonian Talmud, Seder Moʿed, I: Shabbath, trans. by I.
Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1938), 778-780; see also the parallel
midrash in Qohelet Rabbah (QohR) 12.1 (par. 6); A. Cohen, Midrash
Rabbah, Ecclesiastes (New York: Soncino Press, 1983),
303-304.
Thus, although there is one Rabbinic text that could be interpreted in
support of the sleep of the soul being an idea known among the Rabbis, the
broader Rabbinic tradition shows that such a view was not widely known or
accepted. Moreover, even if the text from BerR is
representative of an earlier strand of Rabbinic thought that did, in fact,
support belief in the sleep of the soul, it is not necessary to conclude that
Aphrahat was aware of this interpretive tradition because Aphrahat’s
hermeneutical framework for soul sleep has virtually nothing in common with that
of BerR.
The doctrine of the sleep of the soul does not appear to have been prevalent
among early Christian writers, though Tatian and Origen provide limited data to
show that this idea circulated among at least some early Christians. In his Oratio ad Graecos, Tatian argued that some souls
(specifically the souls that are “ignorant of the truth”) “dissolve with the
body” (λύεται μετὰ τοῦ σώματος ), and
that these souls would rise again with the body for eternal punishment.
Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos
13.1 (Molly Whittaker,
Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos
and Fragments, Oxford Early Christian Texts
[Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982], 27). For a more recent edition and
survey of this text along with a German translation, see Jörg
Trelenberg, Tatianos: Oratio
ad Graecos, Rede an die Griechen, Beiträge zur
historischen Theologie 165 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012).
For Tatian, though, there is a distinction between the souls who are
“ignorant of the truth” and those who attain “union” with the divine Spirit; the
souls of the latter are not buried with the body because they are led to heaven
by the Spirit.
Tatian, ad Gr 13.2
(Whittaker, Tatian, 27).
Thus, Tatian’s concept of the sleep of the soul exhibits at least one
major difference from Aphrahat, who teaches that all souls will be buried with
their bodies, but that the righteous souls/bodies would be transformed after the
final judgment. Origen explicitly rejects the idea that the soul remains with
the body after death in the Dialogue with
Heraclides.
For the Greek text and French translation, see Jean
Scherer, Origène: Entretien avec Héraclide,
Sources Chrétiennes 67 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2002). For English
translation, see Robert J. Daly, Treatise on the
Passover. Dialogue with Heraclides and his fellow bishops on the
Father, the Son, and the Soul, Ancient Christian Writers 54
(New York: Paulist Press, 1992).
In this dialogue, Origen addresses those “who say that the soul remains
in the tomb with the body,” and then refutes this claim by referring to a series
of Scripture passages that he interprets as proof of the soul’s immediate
departure from the body at death.
Origen, Dia.Her. 23.8-24.17
(Scherer, Origène, 100-102).
It is likely
On the identity of the opponents in the Dialogue with Heraclides and the possible
association with this reference in Eusebius, see Scherer’s introduction
in Origène, 19-21.
that this dialogue is the basis for Eusebius’ claim that Origen had a
dispute with some Christians in ‘Arabia’ on the topic of the soul at death.
According to Eusebius, this teaching says that “the
human soul dies for a while in this present time, along with our bodies,
at their death, and with them turns to corruption; but that hereafter,
at the time of the resurrection, it will come to life again along with
them.” Eusebius, Ecc.His. 6.39 (Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books 6-10, translated by
J.E.L. Oulton, Loeb Classical Library 265 [Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1932], 90-91).
Beyond these two authors, the doctrine of soul sleep is not common in
early Christian sources.
In his article on the sleep of the soul in the
early Syriac tradition, Frank Gavin attempts to relate Aphrahat’s
teaching to various passages from earlier Christian authors, such as
Irenaeus, but these comparisons are not convincing; F. Gavin, “The Sleep
of the Soul in the Early Syriac Church,” Journal of
the American Oriental Society 40 (1920): 103-120.
However, as Peter Bruns points out, it is possible that Aphrahat is
simply reflecting a view that was present in some biblical and early Jewish
texts.
Bruns lists Isa 26:19, Ps 22:30, Dan 12:2, 2 Esdras
(4 Ezra) 7:32, and the Apocalypse of Baruch 50:2; Bruns, Aphrahat: Unterweisungen, I, 69.
Although there are similarities between Aphrahat’s views on the sleep of
the soul and the ideas found in Tatian and Origen, it is not necessary to
conclude that Aphrahat knew either of these sources or that his arguments should
be equated with the views that Tatian and Origen discuss. However, given
Tatian’s Syrian background and the identification of Origen’s opponents as
Arabian, it is plausible that the idea of soul sleep circulated more widely
among Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Body and Soul in the Resurrection
One of the most significant, yet easily overlooked, aspects of Aphrahat’s
treatment of the resurrection is that it was accompanied by an apparent polemic
against an unnamed opponent who taught a different doctrine of the resurrection.
According to that opponent, there would be a resurrection, yet the body itself
would not be raised. Although Aphrahat does not name this opponent explicitly,
there are two clues that can, perhaps, provide some details about their
identity. First, Aphrahat mentioned explicitly that the alternative teaching on
the resurrection derived from a misinterpretation of the words of Paul in 1 Cor
15.
Dem. 6.18 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.305.22-I.309.20) and 8.23 (I.404.1-19); these
passages are discussed in more detail below. It is of course possible that Aphrahat is dealing with a Jewish
opponent who had read Paul, but this is unlikely for several reasons:
First, specific issues pertaining to Judaism only arise in the second
set of Demonstrations (11-22), not in Demonstrations 1-10. Second, when
Aphrahat is addressing a Jewish opponent in Demonstrations 11-22, he
does so explicitly. There is no discernable reason that he would be coy
about addressing Jews here if in fact they provided the alternative
point of view. Third, the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15 is known to
have been contested among various Christian groups. As a result, the
simplest historical explanation for Aphrahat’s context is a rival
Christian interpretation. In the absence of any explicit or implicit
reference to a Jewish opponent, the simplest explanation here (a
non-Jewish opponent) seems to be the best explanation. Finally, it seems
unlikely that any Jews of Aphrahat’s time period would have disagreed
with Aphrahat on the topic of a bodily resurrection. See, for example,
“Benediction 2” of the prayer of the Eighteen
Benedictions, which expresses the basic belief in the
resurrection; cf. BerR 14.5 (Freedman, Midrash Rabbah, Genesis I, 113-114) and the
extensive apologetic discussion of resurrection beliefs in the
Babylonian Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin (bSanh)
91; The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Nezikin, III:
Sanhedrin, trans. by I. Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1935),
607-614.
As such, it is clear that this opponent takes the words of Paul as
authoritative, which means that they are at least in some way affiliated with
Christianity. The second piece of evidence that Aphrahat provided concerning the
identity of this opponent is the reference to “deceptive teachings, instruments
of the evil one (ܝܘ̈ܠܦܢܐ ܢܟ̈ܝܠܐ ܡܐܢ̈ܘܗܝ ܕܒܝܫܐ).”
This phrase appears in both Demonstrations 6 and 8 within the context of
Aphrahat’s defense of the bodily resurrection, which might suggest that he had a
particular opponent in mind when using this phrase. Thus, it is worth pausing to
consider whether this opponent can be identified more specifically.
Elsewhere in the Demonstrations, Aphrahat used this exact
same phrase (ܝܘ̈ܠܦܢܐ ܢܟ̈ܝܠܐ ܡܐܢ̈ܘܗܝ ܕܒܝܫܐ) and then
explicitly mentioned three teachers that fall under this category:
Observe that the deceptive schools, instruments of the Evil
One, also fast and call to mind their sins, but there is no one to reward them.
Who, indeed, will reward Marcion, who does not
acknowledge our good creator? And who will reward Valentinus for his fasting, he who preaches that there are a number of
creators, and who says that the perfect God cannot be described in words and
that the intellect cannot examine him? And who will give reward to the sons of
darkness, the school of the wicked Mani, who remain in
darkness like serpents and engage in astrology, the teaching of Babylon? Behold,
all of these fast, but their fast is not accepted.
Dem. 3.9 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.116.4-17). Note that the immediate context of
this passage is the apologetic argument that these teachers or
communities all practice fasting, but that their fast is ‘not accepted.’
Thus, Aphrahat depicted the respective teachings as being connected with
ascetic practices that were also part of the life of his own community.
Likewise, Aphrahat’s contemporary, Ephrem, who wrote extensively against
both Marcion and Mani, said of the Manichaeans: “Their works are like
our works as their fast is like our fast, but their faith is not like
our faith”; Mitchell, Prose Refutations,
cxix.
It is also worth noting that Ephrem the Syrian employed a similar phrase, ܝܘ̈ܠܦܢܐ ܜܥ̈ܝܐ (‘erroneous teachings/teachers’), to
describe Marcion, Bardaisan, and Mani.
See, for example, the titles of the five
“discourses” to Hypatius that make up part of Ephrem’s Prose Refutations; see Mitchell, Prose
Refutations, Vol. 1, 1.
Indeed, Marcionite, Bardaisanite, and especially Manichaean communities
are known to have existed in Persia in the fourth and fifth centuries, often in
direct competition with communities that would come to be associated with
orthodox Christianity. It is entirely possible—because of his repetition of this
phrase in the polemical context of his treatment of the resurrection—that
Aphrahat is directing this argument about the against one of these ‘heretical’
communities. However, because Aphrahat does not name a specific opponent, it is
also possible that he was dealing with a misunderstanding among his own
community, which may or may not have originated from one of these groups. The
broader context of Aphrahat’s exposition of this topic demands a more thorough
examination in order to determine whether or not this opponent can be
identified.
Although he is not mentioned by name in Aphrahat’s list of evil teachers, one
possible opponent that Aphrahat may have had in mind is the followers of
Bardaisan. In a recent article, Thomas D. McGlothlin has made a strong case for
identifying various aspects of Bardaisan’s teachings that illuminate Aphrahat’s
argument about the resurrection in Demonstration 8.
Thomas D. McGlothlin, “Contextualizing Aphrahat’s
Demonstration 8: Bardaisan, Origen, and the
Fourth-Century Debate on the Resurrection of the Body,” Le Muséon 127 (3-4): 311-339.
McGlothlin provides a very helpful “profile” of the opponents Aphrahat
seems to describe,
See esp. the summary paragraph on p. 317.
and then seeks to match this profile with depictions of Bardaisan’s
teachings that may have been available in the fourth century, including the Adamantius Dialogue and the polemical writings of Ephrem
the Syrian. The key components of McGlothlin’s profile are that Aphrahat’s
opponents seem to recognize the authority of the Old Testament (because Aphrahat
appeals to arguments from it) and that they affirm the resurrection of the soul
while denying the physical resurrection of the body. Ultimately, McGlothlin
argues that these fourth-century constructions of Bardaisan’s
teachings—especially that of Ephrem—fit well with the opponent Aphrahat seems to
address. McGlothlin’s depiction of Bardaisan’s teachings also fits very well
with Ute Possekel’s reconstruction of Bardaisan’s views on the resurrection,
namely that Bardaisan likely taught the dissolution of the body, temporary death
of the soul, and resurrection of the soul alone.
Ute Possekel, “Bardaisan of Edessa on the
Resurrection: Early Syriac Eschatology in its Religious-Historical
Context,” Oriens Christianus 88 (2004): 1-28. See
also Possekel, “Expectations of the End in Early Syriac Christianity,”
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 11.1
(2011): 63-94.
McGlothlin’s assessment of Aphrahat’s opponent and comparison with Bardaisan’s
teachings is fruitful and certainly provides a plausible scenario. However,
McGlothlin’s only other point of reference in the article is the teachings of
Origen of Alexandria, which were certainly circulating in polemical settings in
the fourth century. McGlothlin goes on to make the case that the kinds of
accusations Origen’s later opponents made against his teachings do not fit as
well with the profile of Aphrahat’s opponents. On this matter, I certainly
agree: if the choice of identifying Aphrahat’s opponent is between the teachings
of Bardaisan and Origen, the former certainly fits better than the latter. But
if we explore options beyond Bardaisan and Origen, there are other plausible
opponents whom Aphrahat may have engaged.
In his initial reference to the opponent’s misinterpretation of Paul, Aphrahat
addressed a specific issue: the interpretation of the “two Adams” in 1 Cor
15:44.
Aphrahat’s citation of this verse reads, “The first
Adam became a living soul, and the second Adam [became] a life-giving
spirit”; Dem. 6.18 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.308.1-2).
Aphrahat’s representation of what he thought was incorrect about this
teaching is brief and vague. He merely claimed: “They say that there are two
Adams.” His subsequent exegetical exposition of Paul’s verse also posited two
Adams: the earthly Adam, created by God in the garden, and the heavenly Adam,
“our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is reasonable to conclude, then, that Aphrahat
intended to prompt his readers to understand that the “two Adams” posited by his
opponents were somehow different from his own interpretation.
McGlothlin argues, using Ephrem’s writings as a
point of comparison, that Bardaisan’s use of Adam-Christ typology from 1
Cor. 15 would have supported only a resurrection of the soul, not the
body; McGlothlin, “Contextualizing Aphrahat’s Demonstration 8,” 324.
It is possible that Aphrahat was referring here to a teaching that maintained
the “double-creation” of Adam, some form of which can be found in both Jewish
and ‘gnostic’ Christian teachings. In BerR, for example,
the midrashic interpretations of Gen 1:27 and 2:7 distinguish between the
androgynous human form referred to in the former passage and the corporeal,
earthly creation formed in the latter.
Cf. BerR 8.1, 14.1, and
14.8; Freedman, Midrash Rabbah, Genesis I, 54-55,
111, and 115-116.
Moreover, Philo also distinguished between the created objects in the
two passages, and his distinction between them is even more pronounced.
On the Creation XII (section
69-70); Runia, Philo of Alexandria: On the
Creation, 64
This idea of a double-creation also appears within some versions of a
gnostic creation narrative. According to Irenaeus’s depiction, the gnostic
creation myth included an initial creation of man followed by the gift of the
divine breath and the subsequent addition of skin/flesh.
Irenaeus, Adv. Haer.
I.5.5-6; for the Greek text, see Norbert Brox, Irenäus
von Lyon: Epideixis, Adversus Haereses—Darlegung der apostolischen
Verkündigung, Gegen die Häresien, Vol. 1, Fontes Christiani
(Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 160.
There is nothing in Irenaeus’ account, however, that links this
interpretation to 1 Cor 15.
Another possibility is that Aphrahat may have been referring here to the
Manichaean distinction between the “Primal Man” and the “second man,” the latter
of which could be interpreted either as the human Adam
See, for example, the Manichaean hymn from Psalmbook 2, 141.1-143.34 (Iain Gardner and
Samuel N.C. Lieu, Manichaean Texts from the Roman
Empire (Cambridge: University Press, 2004), 240-244.), which
refers to the Primal Man and then the second man, Adam.
or as Christ. Indeed, there is evidence within Manichaean sources that
some confusion existed about the distinction between and identity of the two
figures.
The Manichaean “Kephalaion 55,” for instance, opens
with disciples questioning Mani about Adam’s creation in the form of
“the ambassador.” Iain Gardner, The Kephalaia of the
Teacher: The Edited Coptic Manichaean Texts in Translation with
Commentary (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 37; Leiden:
Brill, 1995), 141.
In Augustine’s anti-Manichaean writings, there is a brief passage that
also sheds some light on this discussion. In his debate with Faustus, Augustine
argued:
Your Primal Man is not the first man of the apostle…
[Augustine quotes 1 Cor 15:48-49] … The first man of the earth is Adam, who was
made of dust. The second man from heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ…Why do you
conjure up this fabulous Primal Man of yours, and refuse to acknowledge the
first man of the apostle? … According to Paul, the first man is of the earth,
that is, earthly; but according to Mani, he is not earthly, and he is equipped
with five elements of some unreal, unintelligible kind.
Augustine, Contra Faustum
2.4; Latin text: Saint Augustine, Opera Omnia
CAG, [electronic edition] edited by Cornelius Mayer (Basel:
Schwabe, 1995), part 3, 257.11-29.
Within the broader context of Augustine’s dispute, it
becomes clear that the Manichaean depiction of “two Adams” did not have
anything to do with the earthly Adam. Rather, according to Augustine, the
Manichaeans asserted that Jesus was the son of the Primal Man. As a result,
the “two Adams” of the Manichaeans were not Adam and Christ, but the Primal
Man and Christ. This passage from Augustine provides an important comparison
with Aphrahat because it shows that we have at least one other witness who
explicitly critiques the Manichaean doctrine of the two Adams as a
misinterpretation of 1 Cor 15. This piece of evidence certainly does not
prove that Aphrahat directed his argument against a Manichaean opponent, but
it does show that ideas attributed to Manichaeans in other polemical
literature could plausibly represent the viewpoint that Aphrahat
critiques.
One further element of Aphrahat’s presentation of the body/soul in the resurrection to be considered is his criterion for distinguishing between those who will be transformed at the resurrection into the perfected, heavenly form and those who will remain in their ‘natural state.’ The relevant criterion was whether or not a given person had maintained the Holy Spirit in purity. Aphrahat’s language here sounds remarkably similar to that of the Rabbis.
though of course
Rabbinic sources discuss the importance of maintaining the soul, not the Holy Spirit, in purity. Two different Rabbinic texts, for instance, offer brief parable-like stories that illustrate the importance of maintaining the purity of the soul. In the first case, the example is a king who gives royal garments to his servants, some of whom return them in pristine condition, while others return them soiled.
bShab 152b; Epstein, Shabbath, 778-779.
The second example is the story of a priest who gives a loaf of purified bread to another priest and expects it to be returned in pure condition.
QohR 12.1 (par. 6); Cohen, Midrash Rabbah, Ecclesiastes, 303-304.
The concluding application of the latter parable, implied though not stated in the first, demonstrates the Rabbinic teaching quite well: “
Similarly, the Holy One, blessed be He, said, ‘Behold I am pure, my
habitation is pure, my attendants are pure, and the soul that I gave you is
pure. If you return it to me as I give it to you, well and good; otherwise, I
will burn it in your presence.’”
QohR 12.1; Cohen, Midrash
Rabbah, Ecclesiastes, 303.
This passage shows that within the Rabbinic tradition one can find ideas
that are very similar to Aphrahat’s language concerning maintaining the purity
of the Holy Spirit and one also finds a clear connection of this need for purity
in view of the reward of the afterlife that is to be obtained. Likewise, the
text of 4 Ezra 7:78-99 also gives an extended discussion of the separation of
and distinction between the souls of the righteous and unrighteous, but there is
no indication that the person’s individual soul or spirit plays any role in the
judgment.
There is also a Manichaean text that provides an interesting point of comparison
on this issue. One discussion found in the Manichaean Kephalaia provides a similar eschatological perspective that deals
with the reward and punishment of the time to come. The key passage from this
text that is of interest here provides a description of the “second death” for
the unrighteous:
Now the second death is the death in which the souls of the
sinful men shall die; when [they will] be stripped of the shining light that
illuminates the world. And also, they are separated from the living air, from
which they receive the living breath; and they are deprived of the living soul…
because they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit since every generation of the
world.
Kephalaion 39 (102.13-104.20);
Gardner, Kephalaia,
107-108.
This text explains that some will be punished in the life to come because they
have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Aphrahat explicitly warned his hearers not to
‘grieve’ the Holy Spirit in the context of his discussion of the resurrection;
indeed, according to Aphrahat, the act of grieving the Holy Spirit is precisely
what causes the Spirit to testify against people in the final judgment. We may
also observe another similarity between this passage and Aphrahat’s treatment of
the resurrection: warnings about the second death. In Dem. 8, Aphrahat declared,
“It is right for us, however, to fear the second death, which is full of weeping
and gnashing of teeth, groans, and miseries, and which is situated in the outer
darkness.”
Dem. 8.19 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.396.7-9).
The similarities between this Manichaean material and Aphrahat’s depiction of
the judgment and resurrection are intriguing, but intriguing similarities are
insufficient evidence to argue that Aphrahat was engaging Manichaeans directly.
Moreover, as we have seen, Manichaeans were not the only community with such
intriguing similarities with Aphrahat’s opponent. Thus, we must exercise caution
in making definitive claims about the identity these opponents.
Even if specific arguments that Aphrahat makes about his opponents can be
plausibly mapped onto historical reconstructions of particular teachers, we know
very little about the ways that these teachings were transmitted in the early
Syriac tradition. Likewise, we have very little data for how the communities
that received these teachings would have attached specific ideas to particular
teachers or how they would have identified themselves. It is s entirely
plausible that ideas and concepts we as historians might identify as
“Bardaisanite” or “Manichaean” or “Jewish” may have circulated freely among
people for whom those labels would be artificial and inaccurate. The ideas that,
over time, have come to be regarded as distinctly associated with a particular
thinker or their followers may not have been rigid boundary markers between
distinct religious identities in antiquity, particularly in the early period of
development for Christian communities. The emergence of polemical literature,
such as the anti-heretical writings of Ephrem in the late fourth century,
attests to the construction of communal identity markers, and the attempt to
associate particular heretical ideas with specific teachers plays a significant
role in the formation of boundaries. In this regard, the polemical arguments
that Aphrahat engages regarding the resurrection are not concerned with the
construction of heretical and orthodox beliefs per se; that is, Aphrahat shows
no desire to construct and thereby oppose a specific opponent. However,
Aphrahat’s argument does attempt to construct a logical, cohesive Christian
theology of the soul/body problem, including the implications of that problem
for the doctrine of the resurrection.
Conclusion: Aphrahat’s Anthropology in Context
While many of the texts discussed above shed some light on the various components
of Aphrahat’s depiction of the soul/body relationship, no single text or piece
of information concerning a contemporary religious group suffices to enable the
modern interpreter to explain his unique views. Rabbinic materials, and
particularly the midrashic interpretations of Genesis, illuminate some concepts,
but not others. Likewise, while it is clear that Aphrahat directed part of his
polemic against some contemporary group engaged in the interpretation of
Christian Scripture, the attempt to identify this opponent proves to be quite
difficult.
If we resist the temptation to locate a specific opponent
and instead focus on the broader milieu of religious and philosophical ideas
about the body, the soul, and about what happens at death and the resurrection,
it is possible to view Aphrahat’s arguments as part of a larger conversation.
Aphrahat engaged this conversation with some exegetical and hermeneutical
traditions that were evident in preceding and contemporary religious
communities, but he also provided a unique expression of those traditions based
on the needs of his own community and his interpretation of Scripture. Thus,
even if the context of Aphrahat’s arguments do not provide enough information to
correctly identify his opponent(s), the contours of the polemic do tell us
something about Aphrahat’s own community.
That Aphrahat felt the need to support his views with specific arguments against
alternative exegetical conclusions suggests that his positions were not
necessarily representative of everyone’s views in his immediate community. One
might be tempted to read his works as a straightforward depiction of his local
expression of Christianity, and thus one might equate Aphrahat’s beliefs with
those of his community. However, if we search beneath the surface of Aphrahat’s
certainty about the issues he addressed, we find evidence of a Christian
community whose particular dogmatic identity was not completely secure or
defined. Indeed, perhaps Aphrahat should not be taken as the sole representative
of a particular expression of Christianity that we might call a native ‘Syriac’
or ‘Persian’ Christianity. Rather his writings could serve as a witness to the
diversity of Christian communities in the Persian milieu within which his works
originated. Instead of thinking of separate, distinct religious communities with
already defined beliefs and practices, it might be more productive to think of
multiple Christian communities, lacking precise identity markers that would
distinguish them from one another. In this regard, Aphrahat’s writings might
best be viewed as an attempt to articulate and shape the identity of a
particular expression of Christianity by providing precisely such identity
markers and dogmatic borders.
What I am arguing here for Aphrahat is quite
similar to, and influenced by, Christine Shepardson’s treatment of
Ephrem in her work Anti-Judaism and Christian
Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008).
Aphrahat’s arguments about the body/soul relationship offer a good example of
how his writings might be viewed through this lens. His initial discussion of
the topic of the body/soul and what happens at the resurrection is not an
isolated, independent argument; it appears within the context of the
Demonstration dedicated to the Bnay Qyama, a special
group within Aphrahat’s community of fellow believers who dedicated themselves
to chastity. Aphrahat’s discussion of how human beings receive the breath/spirit
of God at creation and of how Christians receive the Holy Spirit at baptism is
preceded by a survey of holy women and men, examples in the chaste life, who
were able to lead such a life because of the power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover,
Aphrahat’s argument also carried a moral component when he went on to warn his
audience that the Spirit could depart from them at any time, and that the Spirit
would certainly depart from them in the case of sin. To complete this
exposition, he informed his audience how they might retain the Spirit and not
grieve her.
Dem. 6.15-17 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.297.8-I.305.21).
Likewise, although Aphrahat’s further exposition of his views about the
resurrection in Demonstration 8 could have been a response to a specific
opponent or controversy, his ultimate aim was to shape the beliefs of the
members of his community: “Receive what I have explained to you, and believe
that on the day of resurrection your body will rise up in its entirety. You will
receive the reward for your faith from your Lord, and will rejoice and take
delight in all that you have believed.”
Dem. 8.25 (Parisot, Aphraatis, I.405.16-20).
There are multiple beliefs, practices, or traditions originating from various
religious traditions that could have influenced Aphrahat’s ideas: the
bifurcation of a religious community into a small group of ascetic elites and a
larger group whose members were not bound by the same strict ascetic demands was
at the very core of Manichaean belief and practice; the concept of maintaining
the Holy Spirit/Spirit of God in purity as the basis for eternal salvation
appeared both in Rabbinic and in Manichaean thought; the idea of the sleep of
the soul is attested by some early Christian witnesses, but does not seem to
have gained much popularity; the wide ranging interpretive traditions of Gen 2:7
demonstrate the creativity with which various Jewish and Christian authors
opined on the creation of the soul; and various interpretations of 1 Cor 15 and
the subsequent implications for beliefs about the resurrection appear in the
surviving literature of a number of Christian communities, covering virtually
the entire range of expressions of earliest Christianity. However, none of these
prior traditions “explains” or “contextualizes” Aphrahat’s views in isolation
from the others. Yet if we consider the composite picture of these traditions,
it is possible to view Aphrahat’s writings as the attempt to provide some sense
of stability, a concrete expression of belief and practice emerging out of the
inchoate, unorganized state of Christian identity in fourth-century Persia. The
writings attributed to Aphrahat are thus not a representative of “Christianity”
over and against other religious communities; rather, they are a witness to a
stage in the development of Christian identity in Persia when the precise
contours of Christian practice and belief were not well defined.
***
As a postscript, it is worth reflecting on whether or not Aphrahat’s attempt to
define a particular Christian identity was successful. Although we do not have
much direct data for the immediate reception of the Demonstrations, it is noteworthy that the first known Syriac author
who explicitly engages content from the Demonstrations, George, bishop of the Arabs, was not impressed with
the writings of the anonymous Persian Sage.
George does not know the identity of the author of
the Demonstrations, whom he refers to only as the
Persian Sage; George, Bishop of the Arabs, “Letter 4.” As a text and
translation, I have used Jack Tannous’ unpublished edition of George’s
letters.
Writing to his pupil, Yeshuʿ, George argues that the Persian Sage should
not be counted among the “approved teachers” (ܡܠܦ̈ܢܐ ܚܬܝ̈ܬܐ ) because he does
not have “approved teachings” (ܡܠܦܢܘ̈ܬܐ ܚܬܝ̈ܬܐ ). George asserts
further that the Demonstrations contain many
“errors” (ܦܘܕ̈ܐ) and
dissuades Yeshuʿ from reading them further.
George, Bishop of the Arabs, “Letter 4.”
Somewhat ironically, it is precisely Aphrahat’s discussion of the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, touched upon in the argument above, that George
finds most objectionable. This brief episode from the reception history of the
Demonstrations provides further evidence
that the writings of Aphrahat witness to a developmental phase in
Syriac-speaking Christianity, and Aphrahat’s expression of Christian identity
was by no means authoritative.