Text
Syriac sermon for conversion of the pagan Harranians.
Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers 24-25 (Syriac):
It is a matter of great wonder, therefore, o unbaptized men of Harran, how those of the philosophers, wise ancients and leaders of pagan religion … spoke openly and in an unveiled manner about the Trinity and unity of the Godhead who is worshipped and glorified by the Christians; how this godhead is the one true God who is known in three persons, of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is something which not even the true prophets opened up and illuminated in their revelations of the Christian faith to any greater extent than did the pagan philosophers who made clear pronouncements about God is one, creator of all that is visible and invisible; and that he has a Son eternally born from him, and beyond time, just as a ray is born from sun; who is his Word, through whom and in whom he created the worlds; how he also has a Spirit who continually proceeds from him, and how the Godhead is single, and there is no other God except one. They (= the pagan philosophers) also prophesied that the Son and Word of God would come down upon earth and be embodied from a virgin, and become a man, clothed in humanity; and how he was about to suffer, be crucified, be buried, rise on the third day, and be raised up to his Father and Sender. … How then, after testimonies such as these, can you be so brazen as to stand in dispute, not just with his own prophets, but also with those who were leaders of the religion to which you belong?
You should realize, then, that it was not vainly that God effected this with the pagan philosophers, but it was because his holy Gospel was going to be preached among all the nations under the sky, in order that the pagan nations, on hearing the name of “Son of God” and again of his birth from a virgin and his passion, death and resurrection, should not feel disgust and run away as though from something strange and unacceptable. It was for this reason he educated their hearing with utterances such as these which were committed to writing by their oracles. For the divine power compelled their demons, to whom they were sacrificing, to testify to God and to his Son and his Holy Spirit, and concerning the entire economy of Christ God, one of the holy Trinity, so that when the mystery was revealed in its own time, it might be believed by all the nations on the grounds that the testimonies of their own wise men and philosophers agreed with those of the prophets and apostles sent by God for the salvation of mankind.
This has taken place in this way, and now all nations, peoples and tongues have accepted the Gospels and believed in Christ and in his Father and his Holy Spirit - with the exception of yourselves (= the Harranians) who have made yourselves of your own choice and freewill the refuse of mankind. How great, then, is your sin against God, seeing that the world moves in the great light of the Gospel of Christ as in daylight, while you alone of the Christian polity are unwilling to leave the darkness of the hateful night of the idolatry by which formerly the entire world went astray through ignorance. For in Abraham’s time, when the darkness of the error of paganism was spread over the whole world, and Abraham alone knew God and believed in him, your ancestors did not consent at all to walk in the light of Abraham’s lamp and so to escape and be saved from the darkness of error which gripped all the nations.
Source (list of abbreviations)
Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers 24-25 (Syriac)
Bibliography
| Brock 1992, VII 232-233 | Brock, Sebastian. Studies in Syriac Christianity, History, Literature and Theology. London: Variorum Reprints 1992. |
Links (external links will open in a new browser window)
Cf. A sermon against Harranians (1)
Amar Annus
URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000479.php
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