Aba II was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 741 to 751. He is included in the traditional list of patriarchs of the Church of the East.

Sources

Brief accounts of Aba's reign are given in the ''Ecclesiastical Chronicle'' of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus (''floruit'' 1280) and in the ecclesiastical histories of the Nestorian writers Mari (twelfth-century), Amr (fourteenth-century) and Sliba (fourteenth-century).

Aba's patriarchate

Aba was a student under

Gabriel Arya Gabriel Arya (fl. late 7th century), also called Gabriel Qaṭraya, was a biblical exegete who wrote in Syriac. The byname ''Qaṭraya'' indicates that he was a native of Beth Qaṭraye (Qatar). ''Arya'', the Syriac for lion, is probably a nickna ...

at the

School of Seleucia-Ctesiphon The School of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (sometimes School of Seleucia) was a theological school of the Church of the East located in the western half of the city of Seleucia-Ctesiphon on the right bank of the Tigris. It was an independent Christian schoo ...

. As patriarch, he got into a dispute with his clergy over the running of the school. The following account of Aba's reign is given by Bar Hebraeus:

After fulfilling his office for eleven years, he (
Pethion Pethion was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 731 to 740. Sources Brief accounts of Pethion's patriarchate are given in the ''Ecclesiastical Chronicle'' of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus (''floruit'' 1280) and in the ecclesiastical histo ...
) died in the year 123 of the Arabs D 740/1and was succeeded by Aba Bar Brikh Sebyaneh from Kashkar. This man was well read in church literature and dialectic, wrote a commentary on Gregory Theologus, and devoted all his time to the reading of books. Meanwhile the clerics seized the revenues from his school and removed it from the authority of the catholicus. He took this badly, left Seleucia, and went instead to live in a monastery near Kashkar. Then the clerics suppressed his proclamation by removing his name from the diptychs, but after he wrote them soothing letters and returned to them they welcomed him back. During his time, in the year 129 of the Arabs
D 746 D, or d, is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''dee'' (pronounced ), plural ''dees''. History The ...
the caliphate of the Arabs came to an end in Palestine and the caliphate of the Abbasids began in the East. The Abbasids were fonder of the Christians than the Damascenes had been. The catholicus Aba, after fulfilling his office for ten years, died at the age of over a hundred and was buried in Seleucia. Bar Hebraeus, ''Ecclesiastical Chronicle'' (ed. Abeloos and Lamy), ii. 152–6

Notes

References

* Abbeloos, J. B., and Lamy, T. J., ''Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum'' (3 vols, Paris, 1877) * Assemani, J. A., ''De Catholicis seu Patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum'' (Rome, 1775) * * Brooks, E. W., ''Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum'' (Rome, 1910) * Gismondi, H., ''Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria I: Amri et Salibae Textus'' (Rome, 1896) * Gismondi, H., ''Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria II: Maris textus arabicus et versio Latina'' (Rome, 1899)

Bibliography

External links