Aphrahat

Aphrahat (ca. first half of 4th cent.) is the author of 23 "Demonstrations" and is commonly referred to as "The Persian Sage". The manuscript tradition has also transmitted his works under the name of Jacob. Not much is known about the life of this writer, but he was likely an ecclesiastical leader writing from the Persian empire in the mid-4th century. His writings constitute one of the earliest collections of classical Syriac, preceding the Holy Mar Ephrem. 1 For more research on the corpus and writings of Aphrahat, see Brock's handout as well as the bibliographical search here.

Dr. Kristian Heal (BYU) has compiled an index of Scripture quotations from St. Ephrem, Aphrahat and the Liber Graduum. We are grateful to him for graciously making this invaluable resource available here: K. Heal, Scripture Citations in the Works of Ephrem the Syrian. 2018.2

Works

 

The English titles in the sections below were taken from A. Lehto, The Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage, vol. 27. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2010. The Entries below will contain the English title, the Latin title from Parisot, links to the Syriac texts of Parisot and Wright, and links to the selected English translations of Gwynn.

 

The Demonstrations