Biography
Aphrahat (c. 270 – c. 345), called the Persian Sage, is the earliest Church writer in the Syriac language whose works have come down to us. He lived in the Persian Empire and, according to tradition, was a monk and a bishop; very little else is known about his life.
His twenty-three "Demonstrations" (337–345) treat of faith, love, fasting, prayer, humility, the resurrection, repentance and other subjects of Christian life, and also defend the Christian faith against the objections of the Jews. They were written during the persecution of Christians under the Persian king Shapur II, and are a valuable witness to the early Syriac Christianity, which was still little touched by Greek philosophy.