Aphrahat the Persian Sage

c. 270–345 · Syriac Church (Persian Empire) · Northern Mesopotamia (Sasanian Persia)

Aphrahat (c. 270–c. 345), 'the Persian Sage', was a bishop or senior ascetic of the Church in the Sasanian Empire, untouched by Greek theology and the Arian controversy. His twenty-three Demonstrations, written between 337 and 345 in an acrostic sequence, are homiletic expositions of faith, fasting, prayer, the monastic life, the Resurrection and persecution, and are the earliest surviving works of Syriac Christian literature.