The anonymous author of the Syriac Book of Steps, a contemporary of St. John Chrysostom, is more deliberate than his predecessor, Aphrahat, in portraying the Apostle as the authentic interpreter of Christ. The author is retrospective in his attempt to re-establish the purity of the ideal of the itinerant teacher by appealing to the example of the Apostle, and at the same time forward-looking when he teaches a non-mythological understanding of faith based on the antithesis of the old and the new; he remains a lone voice, who as a preacher sees himself committed to the Apostle's suffering.