Aphrahat (c. 280–c. 345; Syriac:ܐܦܪܗܛ‎ — Ap̄rahaṭ, Persian:فرهاد‎‎, Greek Ἀφραάτης, and Latin Aphraates) was an Syriac-Christian author of the 3rd century from the Adiabene region of Assyria (then Sassanid ruled Assuristan), which was within the Persian Empire, who composed a series of twenty-three expositions or homilies on points of Christian doctrine and practice. 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 Matti monastery near Mosul, in what is now northern Iraq. 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, ḥakkîmâ p̄ārsāyā), Aphrahat witnesses to the concerns of the early church beyond the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire.