Being Nicean without Nicaea: Aphrahat’s Trinitarian Theology
One of the Assyrian Church of the East’s early fathers is Aphrahat the Persian Sage (Assyrian: ܐܦܪܗܛ ܚܟܝܡܐ, c. 280–345 C.E.), who authored a collection of remarkable works in Syriac literature, known as the 23 Demonstrations, which were written between 337 and 345. Having been composed in the Persian Empire, they are free of Greco-Roman influence, so there is great interest in them for studying the development of Eastern doctrinal thought. These writings have a huge significance in the history of fourth-century East Syriac theology because, within their contents, we can trace the history of Roman-Persian relations, the characteristics of Syriac Christianity, the origins of monasticism, and other matters. The framework of our research, however, is limited to Aphrahat’s trinitarian concepts. Nevertheless, Aphrahat wrote little about Triadology, but he fully accepted it as it was imagined by the Universal Church. Aphrahat says: “O thou that swear by thy head, also with hypocrisy, if thou call the three mighty and glorious names upon thy head, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and if thou hast received the mark of life, in a word, if thou hast been baptized, then swear not by the head.” The Church of Aphrahat, the Assyrian Church of the East, developed independently of the Byzantine Ecumene. For example, the canons of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea were first mentioned at the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, convened by catholicos Mar Isaac in 410 C.E. In Aphrahat’s writings, therefore, we do not observe principal statements from the Nicene Council, where the Persian Sage calls Christ God, but his advocacy was directed against the Jews, not against the Arians, and we can thus see, that his theology was not contrary to the statements of Nicaea. In our paper, we shall try to tie the Nicene Council’s statements with Aphrahat’s trinitarian theology and demonstrate that, even if he had not participated in that Council, his theology is orthodox according to it.