Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition
ʿAbdullāh I bar Sṭephanos (d. 1557) [Syr. Orth.]
Patr. (1521–57) and advocate for printing the first Syriac NT. He was born in Qalʿat Mara probably at the end of the 15th cent. ʿAbdullāh moved the patriarchal see temporarily from Dayr al-Zaʿfarān to Amid. Having heard about the possibilities of printing books in Europe, ʿAbdullāh sent his student Mushe of Mardin to Rome sometime before 1549, armed with two mss. of the Peshitta NT. ʿAbdullāh lived to see the first printed edition of the Syriac NT, brought to light by Mushe and Widmanstadius in 1555. His name appeared in the colophons.
Sources
- S. P. Brock, ‘The development of Syriac Studies’, The Edward Hincks Bicentenary Lectures, ed. K. Cathcart (1994), 96.
- Dolabani, Patriarchen, 203–5.
George A. Kiraz