ABBAHU, RABBI. – A Palestinian scholar of the “college of doctors” at Caesarea, who lived at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century.
He established the system still in use for the sounds of the shofar on the Day of Atonement. A halakhist and aggadist, an orator, and a mathematician, he was also versed in Greek and enjoyed esteem among Roman authorities, before whom he intervened to improve the lot of his coreligionists. As a result of his relations with the Romans, he engaged in disputes against Christians, opposing (Palestinian Talmud, Ta‘anith, II, 65, 59) the divinity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the Ascension.
BIBL.: Z. Frankel, Möbö ha-jerushalmi, Breslau 1870, pp. 58b–60a; Isaac Hirsch Weiss, Dor dor we-doreshav, III, Vienna 1883, pp. 103–105; W. Bacher, Agada der palästinensischen Amoräer, II, Strasbourg 1896, pp. 88–142; J. Halévy, Dörth harishonim, II, Frankfurt a.M. 1901, pp. 350–355; H. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, IV, Leipzig 1908, pp. 284–289; A. Hyman, Töledöt tannaim we-amoraim, London 1910, pp. 62–71; H. Strack, Jesus, die Häretiker und die Christen nach den ältesten jüdischen Angaben, Leipzig 1910, p. 37; V. Larrañaga, L'Ascension de Notre Seigneur dans le Nouveau Test., Rome 1938, p. 11 ff. (cf. p. 96 ff.). Eugenio Zolli.