ARBELA, CHRONICLE OF. - A Syriac document published by A. Mingana (Sources Syriques, I, Leipzig 1907) and subsequently widely used by scholars studying the origins of Christianity in the capital of Adiabene and all of Persia. The historical authority of this chronicle has today diminished, since criticism has noted legendary elements, contradictions, and suspect information. Its author is said to be a certain Mèsiñà-Zèkà, who is believed to have written it around the mid-6th century in Adiabene.
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina
ARBELA ("Αρβηλα")
[ζά] of Galilee. - A locality in northern Palestine captured by the Syrian Bacchides (v.), who took many Judges there who had taken refuge, at the beginning of the campaign in which Judas Maccabaeus perished (1 Macc. 9:2). According to the indications of Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Iud., XII, 11, 1), it corresponds to modern Hirbet Irbid, where the remains of the synagogue of A. are found, on a plateau overlooking the Wādi el-Ḥamām, west of Tiberias. The fertility of the "plain of 'Arbēl" (Pesqṭā dē-R. Kahānā, 1144) was well known, a fertile countryside between Ḥaṭṭīn and Irbid.
Opposite are the steep caves of Qal'at Ibn Ma'an, which seem to be identified with Masaloth (Heb. mēsillōth, "steps"), mentioned together with A. (1 Macc. 9:2). Herod had difficulty in reducing the brigands entrenched there (Flavius Josephus, Bell. Iud., I, 6, 2).
Antonino Romeo
ARAZZO - St. Paul Preaches in Athens. A. by Leo X for the Sistine Chapel, on a cartoon by Raphael.