DIONIGI BAR ŞALİBİ. — Syriac Monophysite writer, d. 2 November 1171. Ordained deacon at Melitene in 1154, he was made bishop of Mar'aš and later of Mabbāg; then in 1166 he became metropolitan of Amida. There he died and was buried in the church of Our Lady, which he had restored. D. is one of the most prolific Syriac writers and one of the most varied in his learning. Many of his works have perished, while others lie hidden in archives.
As an exegete, D. wrote many commentaries on the Bible. There are, still unpublished, fragments of writings concerning the Old Testament, in which, besides the literal sense, the “pragmatic” and the “pneumatic” senses are expounded. The commentary on the Gospels was published and translated into Latin by Sedlacek-Chabot in the Corpus Scriptorum Christ. Orientalium, Script. Syri, 2nd series, XCVIII-XCIX, Paris 1906–33. Other commentaries on the Apocalypse, the Acts, and the Epistles of the Apostles were edited by the same Sedlacek (op. cit., CI, Rome 1910). Of the commentaries on patristic writings, we possess those on Evagrius (ed. of chap. 2 of the introduction and of the exposition of the first sentence, in the Catalogue of the Syriac Co-
dices of Berlin, published by E. Sachau, Berlin 1899, p. 605 ff.), while others on the Cappadocians, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Severus of Antioch have been lost. Apparently, scarcely any trace remains of the theological writings, and especially of his Book of Theology. Better fortune has attended his polemical works against the Muslims (ed. of the 3rd book, by A. Mingana, Manchester 1925), against the Jews (ed. J. de Zwana, Dion. B. S. treatise against the Jews, Leiden 1906), against the Nestorians (account by F. Nau in the Revue de l'Orient chrétien, 14 [1909], pp. 298–320), against the “Chalcedonians” (ed. A. Mingana, in the Woodbrock Studies, I, Cambridge 1927), against the Armenians (ed. A. Mingana, ibid., IV, there 1931), and against idolaters.
Moreover, a treatise on the Eucharistic liturgy has been preserved (ed. H. Labourt, in the Corpus Script. Christ Or., Script. Syri, 2nd series, XCIII, Paris 1903), as well as others on the consecration of the Chrism and on the rite of ordination, still unpublished. D. also compiled an anthology of liturgical melodies, composed a compendium of the lives of the saints and another of apostolic canons, assembled 31 penitential canons, prepared other similar collections, and composed a rite of confession that has been preserved (ed. J. S. Assemani, Biblioteca Orientalis, II, Rome 1721, pp. 172–74).
BIBLI A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, Bonn 1922, pp. 295–97; W. de Vries, Sahramenteheologie bei den syrischen Monophysiten, Rome 1940, passim.
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina