Sabrishoʿ bar Pawlos (late 12th cent.) [Ch. of E.]

Liturgical poet of whom one hymn has been preserved.

Author of a hymn for Mid-Lent, preserved in the Ktābā d-Wardā (see Gewargis Warda ) and published by Cardahi. The author is called Mawṣlāyā ‘from Mosul ’, and in the subscription of one ms. it is reported that he was a teacher in the Monastery of Mar Michael in Mosul in 1188/89. His significance as a liturgical poet may have extended far beyond the one hymn that is known, as the name of ‘Sabrishoʿ of Mosul’ is remembered in a 20th-cent. dorekthā by Thomas Hanna of Karamlish (ed. by E. Braida, forthcoming in A. Mengozzi, Religious poetry in vernacular Syriac from Northern Iraq, CSCO 627–628).

In addition, an author by the name of Sabrishoʿ d-Pawlos (‘of Pawlos’, or perhaps ‘who [is] Pawlos’, rather than ‘son of Pawlos’) is mentioned among ‘the orthodox teachers’ in a list that is found in some E.-Syr. mss. (see, e.g., Vandenhoff; comp. Van den Eynde, XXV, Document VIII). While it first seemed reasonable to assume that this is the same person, Reinink argued against their identity, because Sabrishoʿ d-Pawlos happens to be quoted in the Gannat Bussāme within a passage that is attributed to the 9th-cent. author Ṣharbokht . This would require a significantly earlier date for this second Sabrishoʿ. Regardless of what his relationship to Sabrishoʿ bar Pawlos is, no further information on Sabrishoʿ d-Pawlos is available.

Finally, Scher proposed, albeit only tentatively, that Sabrishoʿ bar Pawlos is to be identified as the author of an anonymous commentary on the Bible, preserved in mss. Mosul 1–3 (dated 1701), parts of which exist in several other mss. (Scher, 228). Although Baumstark gave some additional weight to this proposal, by reiterating it (without, however, explicitly endorsing it), no positive evidence in its support can be provided. At least some parts of this anonymous commentary must belong to an earlier period, and Sabrishoʿ’s authorship is highly unlikely.