BABAJ bar NÉSIBNĀJĒ. - A Nestorian monk of the 6th century, also called the Little, to distinguish him from Babaj the Great, with whom he had serious disagreements. He was born in Nisibis and at the age of 22 he donned the monastic habit under the direction of Abraham of Kaškar; upon the latter’s death (588), B. withdrew into a cave in the mountains of Adiabene (or Hazzah), and after many years he returned to Mount Ižlā, where
on the ruins of the ancient monastery of Măr Samuelc he built a new one that bore 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 (mènné) on penance, and hymns for the Sundays after Epiphany, for the Fast of the Ninevites, and for Lent, which are found in various manuscripts in Mosul, Cambridge, Paris, and Berlin. The hymns for the Sundays are printed in The Book of Governors by Budge (II, London 1893, p. 300), and in the Chaldean Breviary in Kétába daqdam tva d'bbátar (Urma 1901). In these last two the Lenten texts are also printed. Many hymns are translated in J. A. Maclean, East Syr. Office (London 1894) and in Theologische Quartalschrift, 48, pp. 193 ff. Other works attributed to B. by 'Abdísán' (G. S. Assemani, Bibl. Orient., III, III, Rome 1725, p. 181) are lost.