ADIABENE (Hadyab, native name; Greek Ἀδιαβήνη). - A region situated on the left bank of the Tigris with Arbela as its ecclesiastical capital, inhabited by a population of predominantly Aramaic origin; the literary language was Aramaic.

The first concrete evidence of Christianity in A. is found in the Acts of the martyrs killed during the persecution of Shapur II in the second half of the 4th century. It must be believed, however, that even at the beginning of the 3rd century there were Christians in the ecclesiastical province of Arbela, since the Liber Legum Regionum (ed. in Patrologia Syriaca, II, 608) attests their presence in Persia. Indeed, everything suggests that Christianity penetrated into A. at an early date through the Jews. The influence of the latter was so great there that Helena, sister and wife of Monobazus I, and her son Izates adhered to Judaism around the year 30 of the Christian era (Flavius Josephus, Antiquit. Iud., XX, 2-4). On the other hand, relations between Jerusalem and A. were then very close, as is proved by the fact that Izates sent his five sons there to be educated, and Queen Helena went there around the year 44 and had a mausoleum erected for herself.

Setting aside the not very reliable information provided by the Chronicle of Arbela, it emerges that in the middle of the 4th century St. John, martyred in 344, was bishop of Arbela, and that he was succeeded by St. Abraham, who was also martyred in 345. The considerable number of martyrs demonstrates to us that Christianity had by then become solidly rooted and spread there.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: J. Labourt, Le christianisme dans l'empire perse sous la dynastie sassanide, Paris 1904; P. Peeters, Le Passionnaire d'Adibène, in Analecta Bollandiana, 43 (1925), pp. 261-304; I. Ortiz de Urbina, Interno al valore storico della Cronaca di Arbela, in Or. Chr. Periodica, 12 (1936), pp. 5-32.

Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina

@incollection{ec1_adiabene_hadyab_nome_indigeno, author = {Ortiz, de Urbina Ignazio}, title = {Adiabène (Hadyab, nome indigeno; gr. ἀδιζβήνη)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {305--306}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/adiabene-hadyab-nome-indigeno-gr-adizbene} }

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Adiabene

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