ARBELA, CRONACA di. — Syrian document published by A. Mingana (Sources Syriagues, I, Lipsia 1907) and subsequently extensively used by those who study the origins of Christianity in the capital of Adiabene and throughout Persia. The historical authority of this chronicle has today diminished, since criticism has detected legendary elements, contradictions, and suspect information. Its author is said to have been a certain Mēšihā-Zēkā, who must have written it around the middle of the sixth century in Adiabene.
BIBL.: E. Sachau, Die Chronik
von A., Berlino 1915; Fr. Zorell
(vers. lat.), in Orient. Christiana,
7 (1927), pp. 144-204; G. Mes-
sina, La Cr. di A., in La Civ. Catt.,
1932, III, pp. 362-376; I. Ortiz
de Urbina, Intorno al valore storico
della Cr. di A., in Or. Chr. Per., 2
(1936), pp. 5-32, with bibliography.
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina