‘Abdisho Bar Berīkā

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ABDISHO BAR BERĪKĀ

Or Ebedjesu, Nestorian writer and metropolitan of Nisibis (Soba) and Armenia; d. November 1318. A monk (c. 1284) and bishop of Sīghar and Bet Arabājē, he became metropolitan of Nisibis in 1291. His voluminous writings in Syriac are listed at the end of his Catalogue of Writers (Badger, 361379). Commentaries on the OT and NT, Book of the Secrets of the Philosophy of the Greeks, Book on the Wonderful Economy of Salvation, and many letters are lost. His Book of the Pearl and an Introduction to the Trinity and Incarnation are Nestorian dogmatic treatises; his Symbolum, Canonical Collection, Table of Church Orders and Laws, 50 spiritual poems called Eden-Paradise, Book of Jewels, and his Book of the Foundations of Religion are also preserved, some in Syriac and some in Arabic.

Bibliography: a. baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur (Bonn 1922) 323325. j. parisot, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 1.1:2427. b. kotter, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 3:625626. g. p. badger, The Nestorians and Their Rituals, 2 v. (London 1852) 2:422. j. m. vostÉ, Orientalia Christiana periodica 7 (1941) 233250, Ascension. g. graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur 1:165; 2:214216. j. dauviller, Dictionnaire de droit canonique (Paris 193565) 5:91134.

[f. x. murphy]