BAR HEBRAEUS, GREGORY. - Syriac Jacobite writer, b. at Melitene in 1226, d. at Marāghah in 1286. His baptismal name was John, later changed to that of Gregory Abū 'l-Faraǧ, when he was elected bishop: he is more commonly known under the appellation of B. E. (Syriac Bar 'Ebrājā), because his father, the physician Aaron, was a Jew who had become a Christian. He studied at Antioch, and at the age of 20 he was made bishop of Gübbāš, near Melitene, by the Jacobite patriarch Ignatius II; the following year he passed to the see of Lāqabbīn, and finally to that of Aleppo. In 1264 he was elevated, by Ignatius III, to the dignity of mafrējān, superior to that of bishop. Because of this office of his, and because of the religious and political vicissitudes of his times, he traveled a great deal, but took from this the occasion to consult scholars and libraries. On account of his gentle character, as well as his learning, at his death he was mourned even by his Nestorian adversaries. His tomb is today in the convent of Mâr Matteo, near Mosul. A most prolific polygraph, he was not very profound and even less original. His writings treat of the Bible, of theology, philosophy, sacred and profane history, canon and civil law, natural sciences, medicine, astronomy, even of light literature: they are both in prose and in verse. For this encyclopedic erudition of his he was compared, not without some reason, to his contemporary Albert the Great: it is certain that no one better than he knew how, in a period of full decadence of Syriac literature, to assimilate and fuse together the Syriac and the Arabic cultural heritage.
His principal writings are: the Granary of the Mysteries (Ateşar râzë), a broad biblical commentary, especially philological; the Candelabrum of the Sanctuary (Mënârat qâdë), of which the Book of Rays (Këtâbâ dëzalgë) is, as it were, a summary, which is a general exposition of Monophysite theology; the Book of Directions (Këtâbâ dëhâddâjë), or Nomocanon, a summary of both canon and civil legislation for the use of the Western Syrians; the Book of Ethics and the Book of the Dove, of a juridical-ascetic character; the Cream of Wisdom (Hëvat hekmëtâ), a vast encyclopedia of Aristotelian philosophy transmitted through the Arabs, which still today serves the Syrians as a philosophical repertory; the Book of Pupils, likewise of a philosophical character; a Syriac Chronicle and an Ecclesiastical Chronicle, of which the first, which deals especially with the political history of the East, depends in large part on the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, and was further recapitulated by the author in the Arabic work History of the Dynasties; the Pleasant Tales, which in some passages become scurrilous and obscene; a Syriac grammar; dissertations on medicine, astrology and various poems. Many of these writings are unpublished.