Saint Aphrahat

Aphrahat (c. 280–c. 345; Syriac: ܐܦܪܗܛ, Ap̄rahaṭ, Persian: فرهاد, Arabic: أفراهاط الحكيم, Ancient Greek: Ἀφραάτης, and Latin Aphraates), venerated as Saint Aphrahat the Persian, was a third-century Syriac Christian author of Iranian descent from the Sasanian Empire, who composed a series of twenty-three expositions or homilies on points of Christian doctrine and practice. All his known works, the Demonstrations, come from later on in his life. He was an ascetic and celibate, and was almost definitely a son of the covenant (an early Syriac form of communal monasticism). He may have been a bishop, and later Syriac tradition places him at the head of Mar Mattai Monastery near Mosul in what is now northern Iraq. He was a near contemporary to the slightly younger Ephrem the Syrian, but the latter lived within the sphere of the Roman Empire. Called the Persian Sage (Syriac: ܚܟܝܡܐ ܦܪܣܝܐ, Ḥakkimā Pārsāyā), Aphrahat witnessed to the concerns of the early church beyond the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire. Aphrahat was born near the border of Roman Syria and Neo-Persian Iran around 280, during the rule of Sasanian Emperor Shapur II. The name Aphrahat is the Syriac version of the Persian name Frahāt, which is the modern Persian Farhād (فرهاد). He might have had Persian Jewish ancestors. The author, who was known as "the Persian sage", came from a Zoroastrian family and may have himself been a convert from Zoroastrianism, though this appears to be later speculation. An early tradition, found in the colophon to a manuscript dated to 510, instead ascribes to him the name Jacob, which may have been his baptismal name. Hence he was already confused with Jacob of Nisibis, by the time of Gennadius of Massilia (before 496), and the ancient Armenian version of nineteen of The Demonstrations has been published under this latter name. Thorough study of the Demonstrations makes identification with Jacob of Nisibis impossible.