Demonstrations

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.16 · 1.17–2.12 · 2.13–3.4 · 3.6–4.5 · 4.6–4.18 · 5.1–5.15 · 5.16–5.25 · 6.1–6.5 · 6.6–6.13 · 6.14–7.8 · 7.9–7.27 · 8.1–8.16 · 8.17–8.25 · 9.1–9.14 · 10.1–11.3 · 11.4–12.1 · 12.2–12.13 · 13.1–14.1 · 14.2–14.14 · 14.16–14.25 · 14.27–14.37 · 14.38–14.44 · 14.45–14.50 · 15.1–15.9 · 16.1–16.8 · 17.1–17.12 · 18.1–19.2 · 19.3–19.10 · 19.11–20.15 · 20.16–21.8 · 21.9–21.22 · 21.23–22.13 · 22.14–22.26

1. 1.1
2. 1.2
3. 1.3
4. 1.4
5. 1.5
6. 1.6
7. 1.7
8. 1.8
9. 1.9
10. 1.10
11. 1.11
12. 1.12
13. 1.13
14. 1.14
15. 1.15
16. 1.16
17. 1.17
18. 1.18
19. 1.19
20. 1.20
21. 2.1Aphrahat opens his demonstration on love with Christ's saying that the law and the prophets hang on the two great commandments.
22. 2.2Had love been kept, no law would have been needed; the righteous before Moses kept the law's righteousness without it.
23. 2.3The law was added because of transgression, as a tutor until the promised seed, Christ, came, 430 years after the promise to Abraham.
24. 2.4The 430 years of Exod 12:40 are counted from God's word to Abraham, whose faith already carried the coming servitude; the law could not annul the earlier promise.
25. 2.5The promise waited 1,794 years for Christ's coming, which ended the law's observances while fulfilling the law and the prophets.
26. 2.6The promised covenant, sealed by Christ's death, ended the sacrifices and observances of the law, which God had already rejected through the psalms and prophets.
27. 2.7Christ took up the whole law into the two commandments, so that not a letter of it is lost and love is its true keeping.
28. 2.8The thirty extra years in Egypt were a punishment for rejecting Moses and a forbearance toward the Amorites; God freely lengthens and shortens the times he announces.
29. 2.10God foreknew the true length of the times but announced longer or shorter ones to give room for repentance, as Ezekiel and Jeremiah show.
30. 2.11Aphrahat links this demonstration to the first, on faith: faith makes firm the love that flows from the two commandments.
31. 2.12Christ commanded his disciples to love one another, to love even enemies, and to forgive again and again.
32. 2.13Christ's 'seventy times seven' mirrors God's 490 years of forbearance toward Jerusalem after the exile, which ended when innocent blood was shed.
33. 2.14A thousand years are as a day to God; the world will last six thousand years, followed by God's sabbath rest.
34. 2.15The Lord's Prayer, the command to be reconciled before offering, and the parable of the unforgiving servant all require forgiveness.
35. 2.16Paul's hymn to love shows that every gift, even faith and martyrdom, profits nothing without love, which binds the building of faith together.
36. 2.17Moses and David showed perfect love: Moses offered himself for the people, and David spared and mourned his enemy Saul.
37. 2.18Elisha fed his enemies and Jeremiah prayed for his persecutors; one who hates a brother tears himself from Christ's body.
38. 2.19Christ first perfected love in himself, becoming poor and dying for us, and in his love gave the Beatitudes and called us salt and light.
39. 2.20Christ's healings, teaching, and parables all flowed from his love; Aphrahat urges his reader to share it by keeping the two commandments.
40. 3.1Fasting is a precious armour and takes many forms beyond abstaining from food; one who vows such abstinences and breaks one sins gravely.
41. 3.2The righteous from Abel to Joseph fasted purely; fasting without purity of heart is not accepted, and the mouth that receives Christ's Body and Blood must not speak filth.
42. 3.3Moses' two forty-day fasts and Elijah's forty-day fast brought them the revelation of God.
43. 3.4Jezebel's fast, proclaimed to murder Naboth under cover of the law, was impious; she and Ahab paid with their blood where Naboth's was shed.
44. 3.6The men of Jezreel shared Jezebel's guilt and were punished; by contrast the Ninevites' fast pleased God because they turned from their evil ways.
45. 3.8As Isaiah says, abstaining from wickedness is a better fast than bodily affliction; it makes one shine and flourish, unlike the hypocrites' display.
46. 3.9The fasting of Marcionites, Valentinians, and Manichaeans earns no reward, since they deny the true Maker.
47. 3.10The fast of Mordecai and Esther turned Haman's plot back on him; Haman, an Amalekite of Agag's line, sought revenge on Saul's descendant Mordecai.
48. 3.12Mordecai rightly refused to honour Haman, lest he incur the wrath that fell on Saul for sparing Agag.
49. 3.13Amalek fought Israel to escape the servitude Isaac foretold for Esau's line; the sons of Rachel, from Joshua to Mordecai, destroyed Amalek's memory.
50. 3.14Daniel's three-week fast was heard; Gabriel, who presents prayers, and Michael, Israel's prince who fought for Israel throughout its history, came to his aid.
51. 3.15Daniel fasted so that the captivity foretold by Jeremiah would end at seventy years; his fast prevailed and brought the people back.
52. 3.16Christ, greater than every angel, fasted for us and defeated the adversary, and commands us to fast and watch so as to reach his rest.
53. 4.1Pure prayer, in silence and cleanness of heart, has done great things throughout the history of God's people.
54. 4.2Abel's offering was accepted for his purity of heart, shown by fire from heaven consuming it; Cain's deceit came out in his murder of his brother.
55. 4.3Fire from heaven marked accepted sacrifices, from Manoah and Abraham to the Tabernacle, Solomon, and Elijah, and destroyed those who offered wrongly.
56. 4.4The prayers of Abraham and Isaac brought victory, children, and the promise of blessing for the nations.
57. 4.5Jacob's vision at Bethel prefigured Christ as the gate of heaven, the cross as the ladder, and the anointed nations as the anointed stone.
58. 4.6Jacob's vision, his crossing of the Jordan with a staff, the stone on the well, and his two companies are read as mysteries of Christ, baptism, and the church of Jews and Gentiles.
59. 4.7Moses' prayer brought the plagues, the Red Sea crossing, manna, water from the rock, and victories; Joshua's prayer divided the Jordan and stopped the sun.
60. 4.8Hannah, Samuel, David, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Jonah, the three young men, and Daniel all prevailed through prayer.
61. 4.10Christ's command to pray in secret with the door shut means praying in the heart with the mouth closed, since God knows the heart's will.
62. 4.11Christ's presence with 'two or three' is explained as the person, Christ dwelling in him, and God in Christ, so that one who prays alone is not alone.
63. 4.12Moses, Elijah, Jonah, and Elisha, though alone in prayer, were heard because God was with them.
64. 4.13Prayer is a sacrifice presented to God by an angel, who will not carry up the prayer of one who asks forgiveness but does not forgive.
65. 4.14Works that give God rest, like relieving the weary and needy, are themselves prayer; one should not put off a needed act of mercy for the hour of prayer.
66. 4.16Prayer joined to good works, forgiveness, and sincerity is powerful; doing God's will does not excuse neglecting prayer.
67. 4.17Prayer takes three forms, supplication, thanksgiving, and praise, to be used according to one's circumstances, as David did.
68. 4.18Prayer is the true sacrifice and must be without blemish; Isaiah shows that blood-stained hands make sacrifices and prayers unacceptable.
69. 5.1
70. 5.2
71. 5.3
72. 5.4
73. 5.5
74. 5.6
75. 5.7
76. 5.8
77. 5.9
78. 5.10
79. 5.11
80. 5.12
81. 5.13
82. 5.14
83. 5.15
84. 5.16
85. 5.17
86. 5.18
87. 5.19
88. 5.20
89. 5.21
90. 5.22
91. 5.23
92. 5.24
93. 5.25
94. 6.1
95. 6.2
96. 6.3
97. 6.4
98. 6.5
99. 6.6
100. 6.7
101. 6.8
102. 6.9
103. 6.10
104. 6.11
105. 6.12
106. 6.13
107. 6.14
108. 6.15
109. 6.16
110. 6.17
111. 6.18
112. 6.19
113. 6.20
114. 7.1Christ alone is sinless; he took up sin and nailed it to the cross, but its sting still wounds many until the end.
115. 7.2Repentance is the medicine for those wounded in the spiritual contest; the church's physicians must apply it, since God does not reject penitents.
116. 7.3One struck by Satan should confess and seek repentance rather than hide the wound, which otherwise festers beyond healing.
117. 7.4Those who administer penance must give it freely and keep confessed sins confidential, so as not to expose the church to its enemies.
118. 7.5Those who hide their wounds cannot be blamed on the physicians; returning to battle unhealed, they perish in disgrace.
119. 7.6One healed by repentance must guard against falling again, for a second wound on the scar heals hardly.
120. 7.7Those armed by Christ must learn spiritual warfare and watch against the invisible adversary, turning to God who sees him.
121. 7.8God offered repentance to Adam, Cain, and Noah's generation; their refusal to confess brought death and judgment.
122. 7.9God received the repentant Ninevites and called Israel through Jeremiah to repent, even setting aside the law on taking back a remarried wife.
123. 7.10Ezekiel and Jeremiah show that God warns the righteous and offers hope to sinners who turn; those who hold the keys must open the doors to penitents gently.
124. 7.12Penitents should not deny themselves the remedy of confession; the father of the prodigal son received him with joy and no reproach.
125. 7.13Christ came to call sinners to repentance; heaven rejoices over one penitent, and Christ died for sinners.
126. 7.14God forgave David when he confessed, and forgave Israel at Moses' intercession.
127. 7.15Aaron, David, and Peter confessed their sins and were received; Peter, after denying Christ, wept and was made the Church's rock.
128. 7.16Penitents should not, like Adam and Cain, hide or deny their sin, but humble themselves as Abraham and David did.
129. 7.17The assurance of repentance must not make anyone careless; it is better not to sin than to be healed, for the scars of sin remain.
130. 7.18The clergy must proclaim, as in Deuteronomy's law of war, that the fearful and those bound to vineyard, bride, or house should withdraw, for battle suits the solitaries.
131. 7.19Gideon's testing of his army at the water prefigured baptism and the choosing of the few solitaries for the spiritual battle.
132. 7.20Before baptism, those intending to vow virginity and holiness must be warned: whoever wants marriage should marry before baptism, and whoever loves possessions should withdraw.
133. 7.21After baptism the brave are separated from the fearful, as Gideon's men who lapped like dogs, a figure of the faithful who guard their Lord, meditate on the law, and receive his Body.
134. 7.22The sluggish drinkers at Gideon's water prefigure those who fall; the fallen must not withdraw from the struggle in fear.
135. 7.23Assurance of pardon must not encourage sin, but the fallen should confess with lasting sorrow, as the prodigal, the sinful woman, and Zacchaeus did.
136. 7.24The members of the body suffer and rejoice together; those who cause others to stumble or rejoice at their fall will be judged.
137. 7.25Some ascetics who fall refuse to confess, and some clergy refuse repentance to those who do; Aphrahat urges the clergy to grant it and leave the final separation to the Lord.
138. 7.26Shepherds of the church must care for the weak and sick of the flock, unlike the worthless shepherd of Zechariah, and watchmen must warn the people.
139. 7.27Repentance is open while grace lasts in this world, but the time is near when justice will reign and repentance will no longer be found.
140. 8.1
141. 8.2
142. 8.3
143. 8.4
144. 8.5
145. 8.6
146. 8.7
147. 8.8
148. 8.9
149. 8.10
150. 8.11
151. 8.12
152. 8.13
153. 8.14
154. 8.15
155. 8.16
156. 8.17
157. 8.18
158. 8.19
159. 8.20
160. 8.21
161. 8.22
162. 8.23
163. 8.24
164. 8.25
165. 9.1Humility rescues and bears much fruit, as Scripture testifies of Noah, Moses, and the meek.
166. 9.2A portrait of the humble: gentle, cheerful, chaste, loving, averse to strife, meditating on the law, and winning over even the proud.
167. 9.3Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Hezekiah, Mordecai, and Daniel overcame their enemies by humility.
168. 9.4The humble are free of envy and pride, put on Christ, build on the Rock, live as strangers in the world, and are sons of the Most High, as Mary's song shows.
169. 9.6Christ, born to angelic praise, taught humility; glory belongs to God alone, and humans should keep to their humble condition and let God exalt them.
170. 9.7Pride and humility cannot coexist; the rich man and Lazarus, and the Pharisee and the tax collector, show that God exalts the humble, whom the wicked always envy.
171. 9.8Envy brings ruin: from the serpent, Cain, and Esau to Pharaoh, Korah, Saul, Ahab, Jezebel, and Haman, the envious were punished and the humble exalted.
172. 9.9Envy houses the evil spirit as in Saul, while Christ dwells in the humble; the reader is urged to love humility, chastity, and patience and to shun anger.
173. 9.10Anger must be stifled before it reaches the tongue, for Christ dwells in the believer; as a tree by its fruit, a person is known by his speech.
174. 9.13The humble keep their standing and are loved; Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job were exalted for their humility.
175. 9.14Adam exalted himself and was humbled; Christ humbled himself and was exalted; the lover of God should remain in humility, whose fruits reach God's presence.
176. 10.1
177. 10.2
178. 10.3
179. 10.4
180. 10.5
181. 10.6
182. 10.7
183. 10.8
184. 10.9
185. 11.1Abraham was made father of many nations; the prophets called unfaithful Israel Sodom and Gomorrah, so physical descent and circumcision do not make one Abraham's heir.
186. 11.2Circumcision is a seal following faith and profits only with obedience; it did not save Jeroboam or Manasseh.
187. 11.3God gave different commands in different generations; Enoch, Noah, and Abraham were accepted for their faith, not circumcision, and the uncircumcised Melchizedek blessed Abraham.
188. 11.4Circumcision was given late in Abraham's life, just before Isaac's birth, as a mark to keep his descendants apart from the nations; others also practised it as a custom.
189. 11.5Many idolatrous peoples were circumcised; Jeremiah sets Judah among them, showing that without circumcision of heart physical circumcision does not save.
190. 11.6Circumcision was a mark distinguishing Abraham's seed among the nations, which is why Israel was not circumcised in the wilderness; Joshua's 'second' circumcision presupposes a first, of the heart.
191. 11.7The circumcised generation died in the wilderness for unbelief, while the uncircumcised who believed entered the land.
192. 11.8The Egyptians learned circumcision from Israel and Joseph; Pharaoh's daughter knew Moses was Hebrew not by circumcision but by where she found him.
193. 11.9Aphrahat maps where the descendants of Abraham's other sons lived around Israel and recounts Edom's and Moab's refusals of passage and the laws that followed.
194. 11.10The circumcised neighbours of Israel were idolaters; without faith circumcision profits nothing, but the believer circumcised in heart is Abraham's son.
195. 11.11God gave a succession of covenants; the new covenant replaces fleshly circumcision with circumcision of the heart in baptism, and Joshua's deeds prefigure those of Jesus.
196. 12.1Aphrahat recounts God's instructions to Moses for the first Passover.
197. 12.2The Passover could be kept only at Jerusalem; scattered Israel cannot lawfully keep it, as the prophets foretold, and God has provoked them through the believing nations.
198. 12.4Jeremiah's 'painted bird' is the church gathered from many nations; the prophets show God turning to the nations when Israel would not listen.
199. 12.5Christ is the true Passover lamb, without blemish and sinless like a child.
200. 12.6Christ ate the Passover with his disciples and gave his Body and Blood; Aphrahat counts his three days and nights among the dead from the Supper and sets out the Christian Pascha as the fulfilment of Israel's.
201. 12.9Each Passover rule is a mystery fulfilled in the church: one house is the church, outsiders are heretics, the unbroken bone is Christ's, and the circumcised slave is the baptized penitent who receives the Eucharist.
202. 12.10On Passover night Christ washed his disciples' feet, revealing the baptism of his passion, which, unlike John's baptism, forgives sins; then he gave them his Body and Blood.
203. 12.11Aphrahat argues against the Jews' keeping of the Passover and restoration of the ark, citing Jeremiah's new covenant and God's promise to Abraham of many nations.
204. 12.12Aphrahat explains how to date the Christian Pascha and counts the days of the Passion: Supper and trial on the fourteenth, burial on the fifteenth, resurrection on the sixteenth.
205. 12.13The yearly feast requires fasting, prayer, praise, psalms, baptism, and blessings, but more important is a clean heart and right living every day.
206. 13.1Aphrahat introduces the sabbath commandment and his reply to Jewish pride in keeping it.
207. 13.2The sabbath was given for rest, not for justification: beasts keep it too, yet they gain no righteousness and are not bound by the law's moral commands.
208. 13.3Only labouring humans and beasts rest on the sabbath; the rest of creation works on, so the sabbath is for rest, not righteousness.
209. 13.4If the sabbath brought righteousness it would have been given to Adam; but Adam received labour only after his sin, and so had no need of a sabbath.
210. 13.5Noah was justified not by the sabbath but by keeping himself pure in a corrupt generation: he stayed unmarried until God spoke to him at five hundred, lest his children mingle with Cain's line.
211. 13.6By the ages in Genesis, Noah fathered Shem at 502, unlike his ancestors who had sons much younger, showing he married only after God spoke to him.
212. 13.7Noah married late so that his children would not join Cain's line, and kept his sons unmarried until just before the flood; his integrity, not the sabbath or circumcision, made him the father of a new world.
213. 13.8Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were justified by faith and uprightness, not by the sabbath.
214. 13.9The sabbath was decreed for the rest of servants, strangers, and animals, out of God's care for all his creatures, as many Scriptures show.
215. 13.10God's 'rest' on the seventh day does not mean he was tired, for he creates by his word without labour; the expression, like his 'repenting', is accommodated speech.
216. 13.12Joshua fought on the sabbath, the Maccabees chose to fight on it, and the priests worked on it in the temple without sin, so the Jews boast in vain of keeping it.
217. 13.13The sabbath pleasing to God is giving rest to the weary and keeping one's hands from evil; Christians keep God's sabbath by doing his will and look to the eternal sabbath rest.
218. 14.1The demonstration opens as a synodal letter from bishops, presbyters, deacons, and people to the church in Seleucia-Ctesiphon and elsewhere.
219. 14.2The writers lament the sins that have brought calamity in their days and recall the prophets' calls to return to God.
220. 14.3Leaders in the church have become greedy usurers and corrupt judges, favouring the rich and despising the poor, so that the prophets' indictments fit their day.
221. 14.4The church's sufferings mirror its own sins: plunder, hatred, mockery, and oppression have come back upon it.
222. 14.5God himself enters into judgment with his people and explains his judgments, as with Sodom, Ezekiel, Jonah, and the vineyard of Isaiah, rather than condemning without hearing.
223. 14.6Even in judgment God spared the innocent: Noah, Lot, Israel's firstborn, and those marked in Ezekiel's vision.
224. 14.7Some leaders now condemn without trial, punishing whole communities, including infants, the poor, and the members of the covenant.
225. 14.8The writers rebuke a leader who, unwelcome in his own region, sought support from distant rulers and brought chains on his people, contrasting him with a new king who wins favour by gifts and releases.
226. 14.9A parable of a steward who imprisons his fellow servants without trial and is deposed by the king warns leaders that they will be judged as they judge.
227. 14.10A catalogue of the proud brought low, from Adam, Cain, and Ham to Pharaoh, Goliath, Absalom, Haman, and Judas.
228. 14.11God has made peace through wise people, including women such as the woman of Tekoa, the wise woman of Abel, Deborah, Jael, and Rebecca, and above all through Christ, who reconciled the world to the Father.
229. 14.12As the serpent seduced Eve and was cursed, so seducers and troublemakers have arisen in the church, full of the serpent's venom.
230. 14.13Envy and strife ruined a long line of biblical figures from Cain to Haman, and finally scattered Israel.
231. 14.14A hymn to love, the great commandment, which covers sins and overcomes all evils; then a prayer to God, who patiently spares the wicked for the sake of the righteous who stand in the breach.
232. 14.16The church needs leaders who stand in the breach; a long series of Gospel images urges physicians, watchmen, stewards, shepherds, and all the faithful to vigilance.
233. 14.17The clergy are called to humble themselves and not to despise God's ministry, lest they be rejected from the priesthood.
234. 14.18Priests who despised God's ministry were punished: Nadab and Abihu by fire, and Eli's sons, whom their father rebuked only weakly.
235. 14.19Christ's command to cut off a stumbling eye or hand, and Moses' law against kin who entice to idolatry, teach that God must be loved above even the dearest.
236. 14.20Disrespect for God's ministry brought punishment, as with Eli's sons and Uzzah, who carried the ark on a cart against the law, while even Philistines and Obed-edom honoured the ark and were blessed.
237. 14.21The church's present humiliation is the result of its leaders' contempt for God's ministry.
238. 14.22Desire led Adam to sin though all paradise was his; the righteous will rest in paradise and the land of life when this earth and firmament pass away.
239. 14.23Desire and greed ruined Adam, Esau, Pharaoh, Achan, Eli's sons, Saul, Ahab, Gehazi, Judas, and Ananias.
240. 14.24Greed is never satisfied, as kings and rich men show, while the poor are content with little; happy is the one whom desire has not mastered.
241. 14.25Church leaders prize rank in ordination and titles over the fear of God and good works; Aphrahat confronts a domineering leader whose life contradicts his teaching, citing Ezekiel's shepherds and Christ's woes.
242. 14.27Office does not guarantee God's favour, as Eli, Esau, and Saul show; leaders who justify harsh rule by appeal to Jehu's anointing misread Scripture.
243. 14.28Leaders who claim to be chosen from the womb are reminded that Aaron did not exalt himself and Moses repeatedly refused office.
244. 14.29God does not choose by stature, beauty, eloquence, or learning, but looks on the heart and chooses the lowly.
245. 14.30The brothers are urged to pursue peace, since good and evil cannot be joined, and peacemakers will be called sons of God.
246. 14.31Christ, who owed nothing to death, died to reconcile rebels, conquered Sheol, and was exalted as Lord; peacemakers share his reward, while strife makes prayer and alms worthless.
247. 14.33Throughout history God has raised the lowly and younger over the proud and elder, including women to whom he gave prophecy and judgment.
248. 14.34God's works in creation surpass all understanding; true wisdom is hidden from the world but given to those who seek it, making the wise man a temple of God whose mind contemplates the heavenly throne.
249. 14.36All creation obeys God's command, as the sea, the flood, the plagues, the sun at Gibeon, the stars, beasts, birds, and fish show; only humans disobey.
250. 14.37Unlike the rest of creation, people transgress; a long catalogue denounces troublemakers in the church as greedy, deceitful, and divisive enemies of Christ.
251. 14.38In contrast, the faithful sons of peace are praised in a series of Gospel images as builders, farmers, stewards, apostles, and children of the Church.
252. 14.39Christ is the Chief Shepherd and, in a series of Gospel images, the pearl, the treasure, the fountain, the true vine, the bridegroom, the ladder, and the judge; the only fitting return is thanksgiving and love.
253. 14.40Satan works through every kind of desire; a long list traces the ruin of biblical figures to particular desires, from Adam to Judas.
254. 14.41Satan snares people by sweet allurements and hates reconciliation, but the wise recognize and flee his traps.
255. 14.42The writers count their readers as fellow counsellors, recalling that the wise accept good counsel, as Moses did Jethro's, while Adam, Cain, Pharaoh, and Rehoboam refused it to their ruin.
256. 14.43Envy and strife divide families and destroy peoples; the evil one plants them in the heart, chokes the good seed, makes prayer hollow, and lures the quarrelsome like a bird into a snare; only pursuing peace heals.
257. 14.44Leaders entrusted with the power to bind and loose have become jailers, excommunicating those who offend them while freeing those who flatter them, instead of following Christ's way of correction and forgiveness.
258. 14.45The letter's call to peace may be rejected, but so were Moses, the prophets, Christ, and Paul, whose words nonetheless bore lasting fruit.
259. 14.46The parable of the sower: only the seed that falls on good, ploughed ground bears fruit.
260. 14.47The writers, though sinners, offer teaching drawn from Scripture; those who reject it harm only themselves, as many Gospel images warn.
261. 14.48Each person speaks from the treasure of his own heart; as Christ taught, a tree is known by its fruit.
262. 14.49Good and evil are mixed in this world until the final separation; the readers, sons of peace, are urged to love peace and share the peacemakers' blessing.
263. 14.50The letter is dated February of the Seleucid year 655 (AD 344) and ends with a blessing on those who love peace.
264. 15.1Food cannot defile, as Christ taught against the Pharisees: it passes through the body, while evil thoughts from the heart are what defile.
265. 15.2Paul teaches that God's creatures are good and sanctified by the word of God and prayer, so scruples about Gentile food are a weak conscience.
266. 15.3No food laws were given to Adam, Noah, or the patriarchs; God distinguished foods for Israel only to wean them from the Egyptian worship of cattle.
267. 15.4Israel worshipped Egyptian gods, as the golden calf shows; God's food laws and sacrifices of sheep and bulls were meant to break their reverence for the animals Egypt worshipped.
268. 15.5Samson ate honey from a lion's carcass and drank water from a donkey's jawbone, and ravens fed Elijah, all unclean by the law, without defilement.
269. 15.6God never needed sacrifices; he gave them, and the purity laws, as 'statutes that were not good' after the golden calf, to restrain Israel; the prophets show that he requires justice and mercy, and Christ has lifted that heavy yoke.
270. 15.9Aphrahat closes his three demonstrations on circumcision, sabbath, and food laws, the chief boasts of the Jews of his day.
271. 16.1The patriarchs and prophets foretold that the nations would be called to God's inheritance; Christ fulfilled Isaiah's vision by bringing them peace and true worship.
272. 16.2When Israel refused Jeremiah's call, God turned to the nations; the 'painted bird' of Jer 12:9 is the church gathered from all tongues.
273. 16.3The prophets called unfaithful Israel and Judah Sodom, the fornicating and adulterous wife, and a burned vine, while the name Jacob and pure offerings pass to the faithful people of the nations.
274. 16.4Israel was once written in God's book but was blotted out for its sins, while the nations are now counted; Moses declined to found a new nation because that glory belonged to the Son of God.
275. 16.5Though Israel was called God's son, the prophets foretold the calling of the nations and a famine of the word for Israel.
276. 16.6Gentiles such as Jethro, the Gibeonites, Rahab, Obed-edom, Ebed-melech, Ruth, and Uriah were accepted even under the old covenant; Christ is a covenant to Israel and a light to the nations, whose turning from idols provokes Israel.
277. 16.8Aphrahat answers Jewish claims to be Abraham's children with John the Baptist, Christ, and Paul's olive tree, warning Gentile believers too against boasting.
278. 17.1
279. 17.2
280. 17.3
281. 17.4
282. 17.5
283. 17.6
284. 17.7
285. 17.8
286. 17.9
287. 17.10
288. 17.11
289. 17.12
290. 18.1Aphrahat introduces his defence of the Christian covenant of virginity against Jewish critics who cite God's blessings of fruitfulness.
291. 18.2The blessing of fruitfulness did not save the generation of the flood, Sodom, the wilderness generation, or the Canaanites; only the righteous seed was preserved.
292. 18.3One righteous person who does God's will outweighs multitudes of sinners, as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses show.
293. 18.4Moses lived in continence from the time God spoke with him, just as Israel had to abstain from women for three days before God spoke at Sinai.
294. 18.5If Israel needed three days' abstinence to hear God once, Moses, who spoke with God constantly, could not have lived in marriage; those who keep holiness always are dearer still to God.
295. 18.6The law's requirement that priests marry only virgins, Israel's abstinence at Sinai, and Moses' forty years of continence show the excellence of virginity; many children born brought only harm.
296. 18.7Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, and Jeremiah lived in chastity, and Ezekiel's wife was taken from him as a mercy; the Jewish explanation of Jeremiah's celibacy is rejected.
297. 18.8Marriage, established by God, is very good, but as among God's good creatures some are better than others, virginity is more excellent.
298. 18.9Examples from the earth before rain to Adam, the sons of Seth, Samson, David, Amnon, and Solomon show beauty in virginity and ruin through sexual desire.
299. 18.10Aphrahat reads Gen 2:24 spiritually: a man who marries leaves God his Father and the Holy Spirit his mother, as his heart turns to the world.
300. 18.11As husband and wife become one flesh, so the unmarried man remains one spirit and mind with God his Father.
301. 18.12Aphrahat wrote in response to a Jew's taunt that the celibate are unclean; virginity, freely chosen, bears the angels' likeness, and once lost cannot be regained.
302. 19.1God brought Israel out of Egypt and back from Babylon, but many chose to stay in Babylon, as they would have stayed in Egypt had they not been driven out.
303. 19.2Against the hope that Israel will be gathered again, Aphrahat argues that God's promises are conditional on obedience, as Jeremiah shows.
304. 19.3Moses and the prophets, especially Hosea, Jeremiah, and Micah, repeatedly condemned Israel and announced its rejection.
305. 19.4The false prophets' covered lips are the sign of leprosy, like the leprosy that struck King Uzziah for usurping the priesthood.
306. 19.5The prophets show that Israel never accepted correction and was rejected, likened to the Ethiopians and Philistines and to a ruined vine, while the law went out from Zion to the nations.
307. 19.6God delivered Israel twice, from Egypt and from Babylon; the restoration prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah were fulfilled in the return under Zerubbabel, not in a future gathering.
308. 19.7Isaiah's 'second time' shows that Israel's deliverances are two, from Egypt and Babylon, with no third to come.
309. 19.8Daniel, knowing Jeremiah's prophecy of seventy years against the false prophets' promise of two, prayed his great confession for the return from Babylon.
310. 19.9Gabriel answers Daniel's prayer with the prophecy of the seventy weeks, ending in the coming and killing of the Christ and the desolation of Jerusalem.
311. 19.10Gabriel's word meant first the return from Babylon, then, because Daniel was beloved, what would happen to the people at the end of days, the seventy weeks.
312. 19.11Aphrahat interprets the seventy weeks: forty-nine years of rebuilding (Zechariah's lampstand with forty-nine spouts) and 434 years to Christ's death, after which Jerusalem's desolation is final.
313. 19.12This instruction is meant to equip the reader to answer Jewish arguments, though Scripture shows they will not be persuaded.
314. 19.13Aphrahat dates Daniel's visions to the reigns of Darius the Mede and Cyrus, fulfilling Daniel's reading of the writing on the wall, and concludes that Jerusalem's later desolation is permanent.
315. 20.1Giving to the needy from one's own labour is the rest and the fast that God loves.
316. 20.2The law of Moses provided for the poor, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow through gleanings and the sabbatical year.
317. 20.3The law requires the hired worker's wages to be paid the same day, lest he be cheated.
318. 20.4David cared for the poor and blessed those who consider the needy; Scripture teaches that giving to the poor is lending to God.
319. 20.5In the parable of the last judgment, Christ blesses those who served him in the poor and condemns those who did not.
320. 20.6The parable of the rich fool warns those who store up treasure for themselves and are not rich toward God.
321. 20.7In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man is Israel, enriched by God's gifts, and the dogs who lick Lazarus's sores are the nations who receive Christ's Body.
322. 20.9The deaths of the rich man and Lazarus are told; the rich man is the people and the poor man is the Savior, who became poor for us.
323. 20.10The death of the rich man is Israel's end and the giving of a new name, Christians; the poor man borne by angels is Christ, whom angels served from his birth to his resurrection.
324. 20.12Abraham's bosom is the kingdom of heaven; the great abyss means no repentance after death, and Israel's refusal of Moses and the risen Jesus is foreshadowed.
325. 20.13Almsgiving atones for sins, while oppression of the poor brings judgment.
326. 20.14Isaiah's promise of water and trees for the thirsty poor is read of the nations receiving the Scriptures, with priests and the covenant as the evergreen trees.
327. 20.15Job's friends accused him of neglecting the poor, but Job answered that he had cared for the blind, lame, naked, orphan, and widow.
328. 20.16Christ commands inviting the poor and making friends by unrighteous mammon; the friends who receive us into eternal tents are God and his Christ, and true treasure is laid up in heaven.
329. 20.17The blessed poor are those poor in spirit who use wealth for others, like Abraham, Lot, Job, and Zacchaeus; the rich young man went away sad; the reader should urge givers to sow generously.
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