18 - Aphrahat, Demonstration 17: On the Son

Summary

One of the two most important fourth-century Syriac writers,¹ Aphrahat is known only through the Demonstrations attributed to him, twenty-two short pieces that address various topics. Nothing about his biography is known.² The style of the Demonstrations is instructive but often also polemical; Aphrahat poses a problem or describes someone else’s erroneous understanding of a theological point, and then offers a response supported by abundant biblical citation. In many of the Demonstrations, Aphrahat takes issue with positions he attributes to Jews, and this Demonstration is no different. Though it is not explicitly titled Against the Jews, as other pieces attributed to him are, this Demonstration is written as advice to an imagined Christian friend who seeks to answer several objections supposedly raised by Jews about how Christians speak of Jesus. Whether those objections were voiced in reality or were imagined by Aphrahat, the fact that he frames his work as a response to Jewish claims about scripture suggests that he sees as much intellectual and cultural continuity between Christianity and Judaism as he sees difference.