Aphrahat (c. 280–c. 345; Syriac: ܐܦܪܗܛ — Ap̄rahaṭ, Persian: فرهاد, Greek Ἀφραάτης, and Latin Aphraates) was a Syriac-Christian author of the third century from the Adiabene region of Assyria (then Sassanid ruled Assuristan), which was within the Persian Empire, who composed a series of twenty-three expositions or homilies on points of Christian doctrine and practice.[2] 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 Matti monastery near Mosul, in what is now northern Iraq.[3] 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, Ḥakkîmâ Pārsāyā), Aphrahat witnesses to the concerns of the early church beyond the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire.
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Ephrem the Syrian (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ Mār Aprêm Sûryāyâ;[1] Greek: Ἐφραίμ ὁ Σῦρος; Latin: Ephraem Syrus, also known as St. Ephraem (Ephrem, Ephraim); ca. 306 – 373) was a Syriac Christian deacon and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is especially beloved in the Syriac Orthodox Church, and counted as a Venerable Father (i.e., a sainted Monk) in Eastern Orthodoxy. His feast dayis celebrated on 28 January and on the Saturday of the Venerable Fathers. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in the Catholic Church in 1920.
Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as prose biblical exegesis. These were works of practical theology for the edification of the church in troubled times. So popular were his works, that, for centuries after his death, Christian authors wrote hundreds of pseudepigraphal works in his name. He has been called the most significant of all of the fathers of the Syriac-speaking church tradition.[2]
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