BAR EBREO, GREGORIO. – Syriac Jacobite writer, b. at Melitene in 1226, d. at Marāgh in 1286. His baptismal name was Giovanni, later changed to Gregorio Abú l-Faraq when he was elected bishop; he is more commonly known by the appellation B. E. (Syriac Bar ‘Ebraja), because his father, the physician Aronne, was a Jew who had become a Christian. He studied at Antioch, and at the age of twenty was made bishop of Gubbás, near Melitene, by the Jacobite patriarch Ignazio II; the following year he was transferred to the see of Laqabbín, and finally to that of Aleppo. In 1264 he was raised by Ignazio III to the dignity of mafréján, superior to that of bishop. Because of this office, and the religious and political events of his time, he traveled extensively, but took the opportunity to consult scholars and libraries. On account of his gentle character, as well as his learning, he was mourned even by his Nestorian adversaries at his death. His tomb is today in the convent of Măr Matteo, near Mossul. A most prolific polygraph, he was shallow and scarcely original. His writings treat of the Bible, theology, philosophy, sacred and profane history, canon and civil law, natural sciences, medicine, astronomy, and even light literature; they are both in prose and verse. For this encyclopedic erudition he was compared, not without some justification, to his contemporary Alberto Magno: certainly no one better than he knew, in a period of the full decline of Syriac literature, how to assimilate and fuse together the Syriac and Arabic cultural heritage.
His principal works are: the *Granaio dei misteri* (*Awsar rāzē*), a wide biblical commentary, especially philosophical; the *Candelabro del santuario* (*Mēndrat qīdē*), of which a summary is the *Libro dei raggi* (*Kētābā dēzālgē*), a general exposition of Monophysite theology; the *Libro delle direzioni* (*Kētābā dēhūdājē*), or *Nomocanone*, a summary of legislation, both canon and civil, for the use of the Western Syrians; the *Libro dell'etica* and the *Libro della colomba*, of juridical-ascetical character; the *Crema della sapienza* (*Hētākēmētā*), a vast encyclopedia of Aristotelian philosophy transmitted through the Arabs, which still serves the Syrians today as a philosophical repertory; the *Libro delle pupille*, likewise of philosophical character; a *Cronaca siriaca* and an *Ecclesiastical Chronicle*, the former of which, dealing especially with the political history of the East, depends largely on the *Chronicle* of Michele il Siro, and was later summarized by the author in the Arabic work *Storia delle dinastie*; the *Racconti ameni*, which in some places become coarse and obscene; a Syriac grammar; dissertations on medicine, astrology, and various poems. Many of these writings remain unpublished.
**