” “"One of the virtues that best becomes the disciples of Christ is humbleness": it was stated today by Benedict XVI during the general audience in Saint Peter’s Square, where gathered 13,000 pilgrims. Pope focused his catechesis on the ancient Syriac Churches of the IV century and the figure of Afraates, also known as the "Wise Man". The Syriac communities of the IV century recalled the Pope constitute the Semitic world which the Bible itself comes from and are the embodiment of a Christianity the theological formulation of which has not yet come into contact with different cultural currents but lives in its own peculiar forms of thinking. These are Churches in which asceticism, in different hermitic forms (hermits in the desert, in the caves, enclosed, stylites), and monasticism, in forms of community life, play a role of vital importance in the development of theological and spiritual thinking". Afraates, from the region of Nineveh-Mossul, who lived in the first half of the IV century, was at the head of a monastery and then became a bishop. He spoke the Syriac language and wrote 23 speeches about "different topics of Christian life, such as faith, love, fasting, humbleness, prayer, the ascetic life itself and even the relation between Judaism and Christianity, between the Old and the New Testament". (continued) ” “
