SUIDA (Gr. Σουτάς). — The common name, which goes back to Eustathius in his commentary on Homer (1175), of the supposed compiler of a Lexicon composed around A.D. 1000: in reality it is the Hellenized form of the High-Tessalian Σουτάς, referred to in various manuscripts and by Stephen, the twelfth-century commentator on Aristotle (*Comment. in Arist. Gr.*, XXI, 2, Berlin 1885, p. 285, 18). The term *Suda*, moreover, would not be the name of the compiler—of whom no information is known—but the title of the collection (Stephen says «ἐν τῇ Σουτάς», and the Paris codex 265, of the thirteenth century, in the preface to the Lexicon bears the superscription «Ἡ Σουτάς [sc. βίβλος]», which would mean “Vademecum”).
The Lexicon, which comprises some 30,000 entries, is the largest Greek collection of its kind to have survived and is of a general character, including not only grammatical and etymological data but also historical, geographical, scientific, biographical, and literary information. The sources, more than in the eleven authors indicated by the compiler at the beginning of his “encyclopedia,” are to be sought in other lexica (Harpocration), in scholastic compilations (on Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Gregory of Nazianzus), in the *Proverbs* of pseudo-Dionysius, in the *Lives* of Diogenes Laertius and in those of the comic poets derived from Athenaeus, in Byzantine chronicles, in commentaries on Aristotle, etc. Though compiled with little method, the Lexicon is valuable, despite errors and confusions, for the abundance of information, especially regarding literary history.
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SUIFU, DIOCESE OF. — In the southern part of the province of Szechwan, in west-central China.
Suifu
SUIBERT — SUKABUMI
1497
Vicarate of South-Western Mongolia, which on 14 March 1922 was divided into the two vicariates of Ninghsia and S., the latter annexing part of the territory of the apostolic vicariate of Central Mongolia (now the diocese of Siwantze). On 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in China, the vicariate of S. was raised to the rank of metropolitan archdiocese, which has under it four suffragan dioceses: Ninghsia, Siwantze, Tsining, and Chih-feng. On 8 January 1948, the entire territory of the civil subprefecture of Paotow was detached from the neighboring diocese of Ninghsia and incorporated into the archdiocese of S.
In 1840 the French Vincentian Fathers began their evangelizing work in the region north of the Great Wall of China, geographically known as Inner Mongolia, which today comprises the provinces of Jehol, Chahar, S., and Ninghsia. They were succeeded by the missionaries of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scheut), who arrived in Mongolia on 6 December 1875. The few thousand Christians in 1883 had grown to 14,000, and six Chinese priests were the first collaborators of the Scheut Fathers. In 1900 the Boxer movement caused the death of the apostolic vicar Msgr. Ferdinand Hamer, eight missionaries, the native priest James Lou, and several thousand Christians, and nearly destroyed all schools and charitable works. During the last war, the entire territory of the mission was occupied by the Japanese, who on 21 March 1943 interned the foreign missionaries in the province of Shantung. On 19 August 1951 the archdiocese passed to the Chinese secular clergy, and shortly afterward the communist authorities decreed the expulsion of the European missionaries.
According to the statistical data for 1948–49, the spiritual state was as follows: 40,880 Catholics with 1,773 catechumens; 10,000 Protestants; 20,000 Muslims; the rest are Buddhists or followers of various superstitions; 36 native priests and 45 foreign priests; 44 sisters, of whom 26 are Chinese; 12 major and 32 minor seminaries; 125 catechists; 86 male and 107 female teachers; 2 physicians and 40 nurses; 1 hospital; 19 pharmacies; 36 orphanages; 3 homes for the aged; 58 elementary schools; 3 middle schools; 105 places of worship; 6 deaneries; 37 primary and 53 secondary stations. The ordinary’s see is at Kwei-hwa-ting.