ABRAHAM ECCHELLENSIS. - In Arabic Hāqil because he was a native of the village of Hāqil in Lebanon (b. 1605, d. July 5, 1664). He studied at the Maronite college in Rome and was later professor of Arabic and Syriac at the Sapienza and a writer in the Vatican Library. He taught Arabic and Syriac at the University of Paris, while collaborating on M. Le Jay's polyglot Bible. A. collaborated extensively on the Arabic Bible printed in 1671 with the text of the Vulgate, edited by the S. Congr. of Propaganda. His works saw the light in Rome and in Paris.
Among others, in 1651 he translated and printed in Paris the Chronicon Orientale of Ibn ar-Rāhib (Ilius monachi), to which he added, from p. 141 onward, the Historiae orientalis supplementum. In 1653 he brought to light in Rome, with translation and notes, the catalogue of Ebediesu, which was later reprinted with corrections and fuller notes by G. S. Assemani in Bibl. Orient., III, 1.
Another of his works is: Eutychius Patriarcha Alexandrinus vindicatus, of which the first part, printed in 1661, treats De Ecclesiae Alexandrinus originibus, and the second, printed in 1660, treats De origine nominis Papae nec non de illius proprietate, de Romano Pontifice, adeugue de eiusdem primatu. In these he refutes Giov. Sedle who, by mistranslating Eutychius, had derived from him Protestant theories on the hierarchy and against the Pope. Finally, mention should be made of the A. E. et Leonis Allatii concordantia nationum christianarum orientalium in fidei cathol. dogmate (1655). His 64 manuscripts, described by G. S. Assemani (Bibl. Orient., I, 573 ff.), passed to the Vatican Library.
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