RABBŪLÂ. - Syrian bishop of Edessa, b. at Berea near Antioch in the second half of the 4th century, elected bishop ca. 415 and d. on 7 Aug. 435 (according to Peeters, 436). According to his biography written in Syriac by a contemporary, R., the son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, converted to Christianity ca. 400, came to Palestine and was baptized in the Jordan.
Having returned to his homeland, he left his family and his employment to become a monk. Elected bishop, he attended in Ephesus (431) the conciliabulum of the Antiochenes and subscribed to the condemnation of St. Cyril of Alexandria. But once back in Edessa he went over to Cyril's side, translated some of his dogmatic works into Syriac and had epistolary relations with him. He also had the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia burned, thereby arousing the indignation of the master of the Edessene school, Ibas, who appealed to Bishop John of Antioch. The latter forbade the Antiochene bishops to communicate with R., but after the peace agreed between St. Cyril and the Antiochenes (433) R. drove Ibas out of Edessa, and he stirred up the Armenians. They therefore received from R. a writing in which they were put on guard against the Nestorian errors.
The scanty writings of R. (letters, instructions to monks and some versions) as well as his biography have been edited by J. J. Overbeck, S. Ephraemi Syri, Rabulae... (Oxford 1865, pp. 159-238; German trans. G. Bickell [Bibliothek de Kirchenväter, Ausgewählte Schriften der syrischen Kirchenväter], Kempten 1874, pp. 166-271).
The thesis of Burkitt, namely that R. had the Syriac version of the separate Gospels composed in order to replace the Diatessaron with it, is today effectively contested.
Bibliography4 works
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina