ABRAHAM ECCHELLENSIS

Maronite scholar; b. Ḥāqil (Mt. Lebanon), Feb. 18, 1605; d. Rome, July 15, 1664. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāqilānī studied at the Maronite Roman College, was ordained and remained a deacon, taught Syriac and Arabic at Pisa and in Rome, published a Syriac grammar (1628), and became the interpreter for the Propagation of Faith (1635),

succeeding the Maronite bishop, Sergius Rezzee, on the project to revise the Arabic translation of the Bible. From 1640 he collaborated with C. le jay on the Polyglot edition of the Bible, revised the work of gabriel sionita, and published the Book of Ruth in Arabic and Syriac with a Latin translation, and Maccabees three in Arabic and Latin. In 1645 he became professor of Syriac and Arabic at the Collège de France and in 1647 published three letters in defense of his book on Ruth. He was appointed by Pope alexander vii a scriptor for Arabic and Syriac at the Vatican Library (1660), and spent the rest of his life studying and publishing. His private library is conserved in the Vatican under Fonds Ecchellensis.

Bibliography: a. schall, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 2 1:61–62. j. lamy, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 1.1:116–118. l. petit, Dictionnaire d'histoire et géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris 1912–) 1:169–171. g. graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur 3:354–359. y. i. ad-dibs, Al-Ğāmi‘ al-mufaṣṣal fī ta’rīḥ al-Mawārina al-mu’aṣṣal (Beirut 1905) 383–386, history of the Maronites. p. raphael, Le Rôle du collège maronite romain dans l’orientalisme (Beirut 1950) 88–92.

[e. el-hayek]