Mara Bar-Serapion

Mara bar Serapion , or "Mara son of Serapion", was a Syriac Stoic philosopher in the Roman province of Syria. He is only known from a letter he wrote in Aramaic to his son, who was named Serapion, in which he refers to the execution of "the wise king of the Jews", a phrase some scholars interpret as an early non-Christian reference 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.

Mara's religion A number of scholars such as Sebastian Brock, Fergus Millar, Ute Possekel, Gerd Theissen states that Mara's reference to "our gods" indicates that he was neither a Jew nor a Christian, the letter stating:

Thou hast heard, moreover, concerning our companions, that, when they were leaving Samosata, they were distressed about it, and, as if complaining of the time in which their lot was cast, said thus: "We are now far removed from our home, and we cannot return again to our city, or behold our people, or offer to our gods the greeting of praise."

Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough state that Mara was unlikely to have been a Christian. Robert E. Van Voorst notes that the phrase "our gods" appears only once in a quotation of Mara's fellow captives, leaving open the possibility that Mara himself may have been a monotheist. Van Voorst adds two factors that indicate Mara was not a Christian, the first being his failure to mention the terms Jesus or Christ. They state that the term "king of the Jews" has never been seen in the Christian literature of antiquity as a title for Jesus.

The last paragraph of Mara's letter states:

One of his friends asked Mara, son of Serapion, when in bonds at his side: “Nay, by thy life, Mara, tell me what cause of laughter thou hast seen, that thou laughest.” “I am laughing,” said Mara, “at Time: inasmuch as, although he has not borrowed any evil from me, he is paying me back.”

Ilaria Ramelli, who holds that Mara lived towards the end of the first century, states that his letter has strong stoic elements.