Aphrahat the Persian Sage
Church father · 4th century
The earliest Syriac Christian writer whose works survive, called the Persian Sage. He lived in the Persian empire and wrote 23 Demonstrations between 337 and 345. He quotes the Gospels as the Syriac church read them, probably from Tatian’s Diatessaron.
Quoted For
- Mark 16:9–20 “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils …”
The church fathers are the early Christian writers. Their quotations show which reading was known, where, and when, often earlier than any manuscript of the passage that survives.
