Catholic Radio Dramas

Circumcision of Heart

From ‘The Demonstrations’ by Aphraates of Persia, Bishop (d. 345)

Law and covenant have been entirely changed. God changed the first pact with Adam, and gave a new one to Noah. He gave another to Abraham, and changed this to give a new one to Moses. When the covenant with Moses was no longer observed, he gave another pact in this last age, a pact never again to be changed.

He established a law for Adam, that he could not eat of the tree of life. He gave to Noah the sign of the rainbow in the clouds. He then gave Abraham, chosen for his faith, the mark and seal of circumcision for his descendants. Moses was given the Passover lamb, the propitiation for the people.

All these covenants were different from each other. Moreover, the circumcision that is approved by the giver of those covenants is the kind spoken of by Jeremiah: Circumcise your hearts. If God’s pact with Abraham was firm, so also is this covenant firm and trustworthy, nor can any other law be laid down, whether it originates outside the law or among those subject to the law.

God gave Moses a law together with his prescriptions and precepts, and when it was no longer kept, he made the law and its precepts of no avail. He promised a new covenant, different from the first, though the giver of both is one and the same. This is the covenant that he promised: All shall know me from the least to the greatest. In this covenant there is no longer any circumcision of the flesh, and seal upon the people.

We know, dearly beloved, that God established different laws in different generations which were in force as long as it pleased him. Afterward they were made obsolete. In the words of the Apostle: In former times the kingdom of God existed in each generation under different signs.

Moreover, our God is truthful and his commandments are most trustworthy. Every covenant was proved firm and trustworthy in its own time, and those who have been circumcised in heart are brought to life and receive a second circumcision beside the true Jordan, the waters of Baptism that bring forgiveness of sins.

Jesus, son of Nun, renewed the people’s circumcision with a knife of stone when he had crossed the Jordan with the Israelites. Jesus, our Savior, renews the circumcision of the heart for the nations who have believed in him and are washed by Baptism: circumcision by the sword of his word, sharper than a two-edged sword.

Jesus, son of Nun, led the people across the Jordan into the promised land. Jesus, our Savior, has promised the land of the living to all who have crossed the true Jordan, and have believed and are circumcised in heart.

Blessed, then, are those who are circumcised in heart, and have been reborn in water through the second circumcision. They will receive their inheritance with Abraham, the faithful leader and father of all nations, for his faith was credited to him for righteousness.

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings

Aphraates (d. 345) was born of a pagan family in Syria on the Persian border. He was converted to Christianity and became a hermit at Edessa in Mesopotamia. There, he lived in the greatest austerity. Later, he moved to a hermitage next to a monastery in Antioch and attracted great numbers of visitors drawn by his holiness and reported miracles. He publicly opposed the Arians, who tried to have him exiled, but Emperor Valens refused to do so, reportedly because he thought the death of one of his attendants who had threatened to murder Aphraates was in retribution for his threat. He became bishop of the monastery of Mar Mattai on the eastern shore of the Tigris, near the modern Mosul in Mesopotamia. The ruins of this monastery, now called “Sheikh Matta”, are there today.

An illustrious author, Aphraates wrote the Demonstrations, a series of twenty-three treatises written between 335 and 345 considered the oldest extant document of the Church in Syria giving a detailed summary of the early Christian faith. They contain valuable information on dogmatic and moral theology, liturgy and the ecclesiastical history of the early Catholic Church in the fourth century. Among doctrines defined are the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role as the Mother of God, the foundation of the Church on St. Peter, and the sacraments of the Church. Aphraates affirmed that the Holy Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Christ. He treats of penance and penitents, and describes the priest as a physician charged with the healing of a man’s wounds. The sinner must make known to the physician his infirmities in order to be healed, i.e. he must confess his sins to the priest, who is bound to secrecy. His writings, well anchored in Sacred Scripture, are a valuable history of the canon of Sacred Scripture and its implementation by the early Church. Aphraates suffered persecution at the hands of King Sapor the Great and was known as “the Persian Sage.”