A Christian Perspective

Well, I have successfully defended my thesis (160pp) and passed both the written and oral comprehensive examinations. I’ll be posting the complete thesis here at another time (once I complete the stylistic edits the Graduate College requested).

I guess it is only appropriate that I want to begin writing about the descensus Christi again since Resurrection Day is approaching. As I wrote before, we are going to explore questions such as: Did Aphrahat see the resurrection of the dead as a resurrection of the righteous with Him and the rest of the dead at a single later point in time? Some of the righteous with Him and the other righteous at a single later point in time? Some of the righteous with Him and a continuous resurrection of the remaining dead (or maybe just the remaining righteous dead) until the end of times when those still remaining would be resurrected. Was Death a personage or is this an extended metaphor (I'll have to bring in other references to help sort that one out)? Where Death and Satan the same personage (Again, I'll have to bring in other texts)? Who were the "powers of his darkness," the ones who mourned the passing of Death's power (yet more texts will need to be brought in for this question)?

But, before we go further let me retell the myth of the descensus Christi as Aphrahat understood the motif. This is retold from many brief references to the descensus Christi and two or three extended passages in the Demonstrations.

I’ll blog again in the next day or two and will provide some background information about how Aphrahat wrote, and how he used his sources. This will be of help when extrapolating what Aphrahat might have meant or what he may have believed from what he actually wrote. This will also help to identify the places within the Demonstrations that may hold data for answering the questions I listed above.