(CE:1a)
ABABIUS, SAINT, a monk of Scetis. The Copto-Arabic
SYNAXARION by MIKHA’IL, bishop of Atrib and Malij (about 1240), makes no mention of Saint Ababius. However, a fourteenth-century Arabic manuscript, copied in Syria, gives a long life of this saint. The manuscript attributes this life to JOHN COLOBOS (National Library, Paris, Arabe 259, fols. 57r-104v; Graf, 1947, p. 504).
This text is unique and as yet not translated. A translation of the incipit may be instructive: "O my brothers and you who love the living God, I now commence describing the virtues and the life of our father. The parents of this saint, Father Ababiyus, were just and pious."
KHALIL SAMIR, S. J.
