Abraham of Kaškar (ABRAMO DI KAŠKAR) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. I, p. 98

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

ABRAMO di KAŠKAR. - B. in the year 491 at KAŠKAR, today al-Wāšit, in Mesopotamia, he is called the Great and the father of monasticism among the Nestorians. D. in 588.

He reformed monastic life, which had greatly declined, and wrote rules for his monks (571), later renewed by his successor Dadiessu (588). J. B. Chabot published these two documents with a Latin version in the Rendiconti dell'Accademia dei Lincei (Rome 1898, p. 51 ff.). The Office of the Chaldeans attributes hymns to A.,

(photo Eke, Catt.)
ABRAMO DI S. CHIARA — Der Narrenspiegel: copper engraving from the Nuremberg edition of 1709.

as is shown by J. A. Maclean, East. Syr. Daily Offices, London 1894, p. 251. A. was the first to prescribe the habit and tonsure for monks.

BIBL.: G. S. Assemani, Bibl. Orient., III, 155; Tommaso di Mares, ed. Budge, I, I, chap. 4, and Introduction, pp. cxxviii ff.; Cron. di Seert: PO 7, col. 133; J. Labourt, Le Christianisme dans l'empire Perse, 2nd ed., Paris 1904, pp. 316–18; Maris, Anni et Shbae, De patriarchis Nestoriumorum commentaria, ed. H. Gismondi, I, Rome 1897, p. 41; Liber cantitatis, ed. Chabot, in Melanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, 16 (1897), and ed. Bedjan under the title Liber fundatorum monasteriorum in regno Persarum, Paris 1901, § 14; J. B. Chabot, in Journ. Asiat., ser. 9, 8 (1896), pp. 53–54.