Mara bar Serapion

Mara bar 'Serapion, (Syriac: ܡܪܐ ܒܪ ܣܪܦܝܘܢ‎), sometimes spelled Mara bar Sarapion, was a Syriac Stoic philosopher in the Roman province of Syria. He is only known from in Syriac to his son, who was also named Serapion, which allegedly refers to Jesus of Nazareth.

The letter indicates that Mara's homeland was Samosata, i.e. modern-day Samsat, Turkey (on the west bank of the Euphrates), but his captivity appears to have been in Seleucia, in modern-day Iraq (on the west bank of the Tigris River).

Mara's captivity took place after the AD 72 annexation of Samosata by the Romans, but before the third century. Most scholars date it to shortly after AD 73 during the first century.

begins with: "Mara, son of Serapion, to Serapion, my son: peace." The letter was composed sometime between 73 AD and the 3rd century. There were three cases when captives were taken from Samosata, in 72 AD by the Romans, in 161/162 by Parthians and in 256 by Sasanians and various scholars have presented arguments for each date. Robert Van Voorst (who himself thinks the letter was composed in the second century) states that most scholars date the letter to shortly after AD 73 during the first century.

The letter is preserved in a 6th- or 7th-century manuscript (BL Add. 14658) held by the British Library. Nineteenth-century records state that the manuscript containing this text was one of several manuscripts obtained by Henry Tattam from the monastery of St. Mary Deipara in the Nitrian Desert of Egypt and acquired by the Library in 1843.

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