Narsai (sometimes spelt Narsay, Narseh or Narses; Classical Syriac: ܢܪܣܝ, romanized: Narsay, name derived from Pahlavi Narsēh from Avestan Nairyō.saȵhō, meaning 'potent utterance'; c. 399 – c. 502) was one of the foremost of the poet-theologians of the early Church of the East, perhaps equal in stature to Jacob of Serugh, both second only to Ephrem the Syrian.
Narsai was born at ‘Ain Dulba (ܥܝܢ ܕܘܠܒܐ "Plane Tree Spring") in the district of Ma‘alləta (ܡܥܠܬܐ) in the Sasanian Empire (now in Duhok Governorate, Iraq).
[1]: 2 Being orphaned at an early age, he was raised by his uncle, who was head of the monastery of Kfar Mari (ܕܝܪܐ ܕܟܦܪ ܡܪܝ) near Beth Zabdai (ܒܝܬ ܙܒܕܝ).
Evidence from the first Statutes of the School of Nisibis, drafted in 496, shows that Narsai was still alive, and he must have been a venerable old teacher in his nineties.
The later Syriac writer Abdisho bar Berika of Nisibis suggests that Narsai wrote 360 mēmrē in twelve volumes along with prose commentaries on large sections of the Old Testament and a book entitled On the Corruption of Morals.