St. Pachomius Library

Mar Gregory Bar Hebræus, Jacobite (Non-Chalcedonian) Primate of All the East

Arabic ABU AL-FARAJ IBN-AL-IBRI; Syriac GREGORIOUS YOUHANON BAR-EBROYO
XIII Century
Possibly the son of a Jewish doctor who became a Christian, Bar Hebræus (1226- 1286), studied medicine at Antioch and Tripoli before he became a bishop in the Jacobite church, taking the name Gregorius. In 1264, he was elevated to the metropolitanate of the East and lived at the monastery of Mar Mattai near Mosul. A follower of Avicenna, Faraj authored Biblical exegesis and commentary on Aristotle, as well as a grammar and an autobiography. He wrote a Granary of Mysteries and an Aristotelian encyclopædia, The Cream of Science. His history of the world from the Creation to his present is, for modern scholars, a source of reliable information about the Middle East from X-XIII Centuries.
Karen Rae Keck

ABOUT:
- Sir E. A. Wallis Budge: The Life of Bar Hebraeus. From the introduction to Budge's 1932 translation of the Chronography.. --- SOR
- George Lane: An Account of Gregory Bar Hebraeus Abu al-Faraj and His Relations with the Mongols of Persia. From Hugoye, 2(2), 1999. --- SyrCom
- Fr. Joseph Tarzi: Maphryono Mar Gregorious Youhanon Bar Ebroyo. Presents the view of Jacobite historians that Bar Hebræus was not in fact of Jewish descent, but rather that his ancestors came from Ebra in Mesopotamia. --- SOR

1
Return to St Pachomius Library.