Babaj Bar Nesibnaye

BĀBAJ bar NĒSĪBNĀJĒ. - Nestorian monk of the 6th century, also called the Little, to distinguish him from Babai the Great, with whom he had serious disagreements. Born in Nisibis, at the age of 22 he took the monastic habit under the direction of Abraham of Kashkar: on the latter's death (588), B. went to shut himself up in a cave on the mountain of Adiabene (or Hazzah), and after many years returned to Mount Izla, where photo G. Canteau, L'Art de l'Asie occidentale ancienne, Paris 1911. BA'ALBEK - Temple of Atargatis (3rd century).

on the ruins of the ancient monastery of Mār Samuel he built a new one, which took his name. He survived this foundation by 31 years and died at the age of 75 and a half, not before 630.

He wrote metrical sermons (mēmēr) on penance, and hymns for the Sundays after Epiphany, for the fast of the Ninevites and for the Lenten fast, which appear in various manuscripts in Mosul, Cambridge, Paris and Berlin. The hymns for the Sundays are printed in Budge's The Book of Governors (II, London 1893, p. 300), and in the Chaldean Breviary in Kētabā daqdam wa dēbātar (Urmia 1901). The Lenten texts are also printed in these last two. In J. A. Maclean, East Syr. Office (London 1894) and in Theologische Quartalschrift, 48, p. 193 ff. there is a translation of many of the hymns. Other works among those attributed to B. by 'Abdīšō' (G. S. Assemani, Bibl. Orient., III, III, Rome 1725, p. 181) are lost.

Pietro Sfair