Aphrahat: Select Demonstrations
Mosul · 345
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Aphrahat
Aphrahat
280 CE–345 CE · Adiabene (Nineveh Plain)
Aphrahat, the "Persian Sage" (c. 280–345 CE; some sources give c. 270), was a Syriac-speaking Christian ascetic living in the Adiabene region of the Persian Empire, near modern Mosul and Erbil in northern Iraq. His 23 Demonstrations, composed in two main bursts (337 and 344–345), constitute the earliest substantial body of Syriac theology and reveal deep familiarity with Jewish scripture and practice. He presided over a regional synod and authored a circular letter to the churches of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (Demonstration 14, c. 344), though no source attests that he resided or traveled there. A 14th-century manuscript note names him "bishop of Mar Mattai," but that monastery was founded in 363 CE — nearly two decades after his death — making the tradition historically impossible in its literal form.
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Stop 1 of 1280–345Lifelong Ministry And Writing
Adiabene (Nineveh Plain)Iraq
What they did here
Aphrahat's entire attested life — his monastic asceticism, his composition of the 23 Demonstrations (337–345), and his presidency of a regional synod — is anchored in the Adiabene / Nineveh Plain region of the Persian Empire, between modern Mosul and Erbil in northern Iraq.
About Adiabene (Nineveh Plain)
Adiabene, a region of ancient Assyria around the Nineveh plain (near modern Erbil and Mosul, northern Iraq). An early centre of Syriac Christianity, it is associated with the missionary tradition of Aphrahat and Tatian's eastern milieu.
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Aphrahat’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.