Aphrahat the Persian | |
---|---|
![]() Aphrahat depicted in Les Vies des Pères des déserts d'Orient : leur doctrine spirituelle et leur discipline monastique (1886) | |
Church Father Bishop, Abbot | |
Born | c. 280[1] Erbil, Sassanian empire |
Died | c. 345 Erbil, Sassanian empire |
Venerated in | Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church Oriental Orthodox Church Church of the East |
Canonized | Pre-congregation |
Major shrine | Mar Mattai Monastery |
Feast | 29 January (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox) 20 Tobi (Coptic Orthodox) |
Attributes | Shemagh, habit |
Patronage | Erbil, Mosul |
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.[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 Mattai 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, Ḥakkimā Pārsāyā), Aphrahat witnessed to the concerns of the early church beyond the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire.
Dukhrana
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).