The Reception of Pauline Thought on Baptism in Syriac Pseudo-Clementines and Aphrahat’s Demonstrations: Extending the “Within Judaism” Paradigm into Syriac Christianity

Abstract

This study examines the reception of Paul's thought on baptism from a Paul-within-Judaism framework in two Syriac Christian texts: the Pseudo-Clementine literature in Syriac and Aphrahat’s Demonstration. By analyzing the treatment of covenant membership and forgiveness of sins as effects of baptism, the research finds that the Syriac tradition of these texts can be argued to still exist "within Judaism". PCL shows proximity to Jewish halakhah, while Aphrahat, despite his eventual supersessionist leanings, argues against Jews on their own Scriptural terms. Both corpora represent the critical final iterations of the Jesus movement within Judaism, demonstrating that the "parting of the ways" was a prolonged process that finalized in the Syriac East during the fourth century.