SIMEONE, BAR SABA, saint. — Archbishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (Persia), martyr, put to death by Sâpore II at Karkha de Ledan on 17 April 344 (according to Peeters, 341).
According to the reliable acts, the Saint is said to have refused to collect double taxes from Christians in order to wage war against the Romans. S. heads a group of about a hundred Persian martyrs, among whom Guhišazâd, a eunuch who had formerly been Sâpore’s tutor, Abedechala and Ananias, priests, and Punicio, prefect of the imperial artisans, stand out. Feast: 21 April.
BIBL.: The Acts, with a special introduction by M. Kmosko, in Patrologia Syriaca, II, Paris 1907, pp. 660–1055; P. Peeters, Le - Passionnaire d'Adibène, in Anal. Bolland., 43 (1925), 266; Martyr. Romanum, p. 149; P. Peeters, La date du martyre de st S., in Anal. Bolland., 56 (1938), pp. 118–43. Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina