ABRAMO ECCHELLENSE. – In Arabic Hāqil, because he was a native of the village of Hāqil in Lebanon (born in 1605, died on 5 July 1664). He studied at the Maronite College in Rome and was subsequently 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. contributed extensively to the Arabic Bible printed in 1671, together with the text of the Vulgate, under the direction of the S. Congr. of Propaganda. His works were published in Rome and 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 published in Rome, with translation and notes, the catalogue of Ebediesu, which was subsequently reprinted, with corrections and more extensive notes, by G. S. Assemani in Bibl. Orient., III, 1.
Another of his works is Eutychius Patriarcha Alexandrinus vindicatus, the first part of which, printed in 1661, deals with De Ecclesiae Alexandrinus originibus, while the second, printed in 1660, deals with De origine nominis Papae nec non de illius proprietate, de Romano Pontifice, adeugue de eiusdem primatu. In these works he refutes Giov. Sedlem, who, having mistranslated Eutychius, had derived from him Protestant theories concerning the hierarchy and against the Pope. Finally, mention should be made of 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.