Is there a Doctor in the House?

Recently, I've been spending a bit more time with my buddy Aphrahat -- one of my "great writers you've (probably) never heard of". Aphrahat is otherwise known as "the Persian Sage" ... now, how's that for pretentious? Given, however, that his slightly younger contemporary, Ephrem, had already nabbed the sub-title "the Syrian," I suppose we'll have to cede to Aphrahat the two things we know about him with some degree of certainty: a.) He was "Persian" -- East Syrian, and b.) he was at least generally recognized as wise.

What little there's left of his writings encompasses 23 single-subject treatises, better known as "Demonstrations," from the first half of the fourth century. These cover such handy topics as "prayer," "fasting," "wars," "virginity," etc. -- a kind of "everything you've always wanted to know about ___ but were afraid to ask" for the moderately ascetic Eastern Christian of late antiquity. (Quite a few of these can be accessed in translation here; plus, if you're feeling ambitious and have your Payne-Smith or Brockelmann handy, there's always the parallel Syriac/Latin version here.)

One of the treatises that's captured my attention recently is No. 7 -- "On Penitence." (In conversation with one of my "normal" -- a.k.a. not patristically-minded -- friends who remains too polite to simply avoid the "so, what are you working on?" question, I was recently asked whether penitence is "that thing from the Da Vinci Code, with the self-flogging". The answer is, I think, that quite aside from the fact that the Da Vinci Code is a literary abomination, some things just got a bit more ... intense ... in the Medieval era. Medievalists, please don't hurt me!) The treatise's thesis is easy to sum up: Penitence -- asking for it, offering it, receiving it -- is a very good thing. (Indeed, Aphrahat suggests that if a certain ancestral bozo has had the good sense to own up to his apple-related misdeed and asked God's forgiveness, humanity might not be in this present mess -- a suggestion Ephrem heartily seconds in his Commentary on Genesis.)

One of the likely but uncertain bits and bobbles about Aphrahat is the suggestion that he may have been a bishop. Tradition certainly -- and with great certainty: mistakenly -- places him at the helm of the Mar Mattai bishopric, but some of the Demonstrations themselves hint at Aphrahat's having held episcopal office. Demonstration VII certainly knows of such an office (... and we'd be more than a little confused if it didn't! ...) and identifies it with the Mt. 16:19 responsibility of holding the keys to the kingdom: The bishops are those whose task is to loose and to bind -- although reading Aphrahat, the latter is consistently downplayed. The bishop's role, the reader is given to understand, is central in large part because he relieves repentant Christians of the burden of their sins.

Aphrahat couches this in terms of the "physician" metaphor: Bishops are the medical personnel that appeases the wounds Christians have sustained in their battle with the adversary. The Christian that succumbs to temptation is thus wounded and cannot fully rejoin the battle unless he first brings his sin -- the wound -- to the attention to the bishop. Only by airing out one's sins and by receiving the medicine of penitence can the Christian be once again fortified ... although, Aphrahat suggests, a second wound in the same place, while heal-able, will take the Christian permanently away from the battle proper.

What's interesting about the text is the ways in which it testifies to tensions within the ecclesial hierarchy in Aphrahat's community. The bishops, as will have already become apparent, are key to the church's struggle against evil and Aphrahat addresses them as such. By the same token, however, they are far from the frontlines; those are staffed by the Bnei Qyama, the Sons and Daughters of the Covenant, a quasi-ascetic group about whom we know little ... and what little we know comes from the likes of Aphrahat and his later contemporary Rabbula. Whatever else they do, they spend considerable time in prayer and devotion; as such, they are the obvious targets for the adversary, Aphrahat reasons -- so much so, that news of a wound sustained by one of them has the potential to damage the morale of the entire "army".

Their physicians, the bishops, must thus treat each confession with confidentiality and sensitivity ... and yet, the reader infers, Aphrahat's bishops are less than enthusiastic about dispensing the medicine of penitence to their ascetic constituents. Aphrahat thus has no qualms about reminding them of their two-fold relationship with God: On the one hand, bishops image God amongst the people -- God's example as forgiving, loosing, receiving is thus the primary inspiration for the bishops' task vis-a-vis penitents. On the other hand, bishops as physicians are in the employ of the same king -- God -- who also leads the army to which the Bnei Qyama belong. They will thus receive the king's praise and recompense for restoring his warriors to him -- and face his wrath if they fail to do so. The bishops thus have power -- but all power is conditional upon its proper employ: The physician who does not heal is useless; the representative of God who acts in un-god-like ways fails at his task.

Such tensions between hierarchal and "rogue" manifestations of authority are, of course, not limited to the 4th century Syrian churches. While the Bnei Qyama disappeared soon after Aphrahat's time -- or so we gather -- the tension between bishops and mystics, and, right into the 21st century, between regular and secular clergy belie similarly competing concerns. Bishops and Ascetics. Physicians and fighters. I suppose there might be a lesson in all this ... somewhere.