Some short notices on Babay the Great

First, the Basran Isho'dnah #39:

Saint Mar Babai the Great, who founded a famous school and monastery in Beit Zabdai. — His family was from Beit Zabdai; his village was called Beit 'Ainâtha, his parents were faithful, owners of servants and servants. He applied himself to the study of the [Christian] doctrine and the commentaries for fifteen years, then he was a doctor at Nisibis in the xenodochion. Later he went to the mountain near Mar Abraham [i.e. Izla], and became his disciple. He stayed some time in this place, then he returned to Beit Zabdai and built in the middle of his parents' fields a famous monastery to which he added large schools. He returned to the monastery of Mar Abraham and lived there for a long time in solitude. He wrote many books and commentaries. He emigrated to Our Lord at the age seventy-seven years old, and his body was deposited between Mar Abraham and Mar Dadisho'.

Next, Siʿrt #84:

After the death of Rabban Mar Abraham, his disciple Mar Dadisho succeeded him. After him Babay was chosen to run the convent. He repaired its construction, worked numerous miracles, healed maladies, and converted a crowd of Magi and heretics to the orthodox faith. His fame was known throughout all the Persian Empire. The Fathers and the teachers renowned his merits. After the death of Catholicos Georgius, by the will of Kosrau Parwez, the Church rested without a leader ... this saint, encouraged by many metropolitans and bishops, worked diligently to restore the affairs of the Church and to prevent those accursed from harming the Christians. In this struggle he had the support of Yazdin the Good. Mar Babai ruled the convent for twenty-four years. He died at the age of seventy-five, in the thirty-eighth year of Kosrau. He has left many books.

I am also directed to Mari bin Sulayman, 61 (latine) and to 'Amr bin Matta, 52 because... Siʿrt. Note that for "Mari" we should say "Majdal" because there's long been a complaint that Mari and 'Amr be confused - vide Hoyland, 716 and Bo Holmberg (pdf). Majdal is anyway chronicling Catholicoi so just says this:

Thus the Church lacked its own patriarch for seventeen years, which direction meanwhile fell to Mar Aba the archdeacon and to Mar Babay the Great from the monastery of Mar Abraham [=Izla]; and she remained deprived of a shepherd until the kingdom fell to Shiroë.

The Google-assisted translations - Fr, Fr, Lt - are mine. They suck, they're my fault.

The full account is Thomas of Marga 1.34 which claims that Kavad II Shiroë permitted a synod; this elected Babay to Catholicos, although Babay declined the honour. UPDATE 4:30 PM MST: No, I don't trust Thomas. Although I can believe Babay's name was mooted as "honorary pope in retrospect", maybe with a symbolic acclamation that he be pope for a day. I'd further believe that Babay was uninterested in the mummery. I'd have to read the minutes which aren't in Alqosh.

In chapter 27, before that, Thomas says (slightly differently): first, the murder of Khusro, then the election of a Catholicos (=Isho'yahb), then Babay's retirement to a monastic cell. This chapter agrees fairly well with Siʿrt as to the summary of his deeds.

Mostly in the above we have dealt only with the early terminus. Of these the Majdal alone sets a new pope to follow Khusro - namely, Isho'yahb of Gdala - under Shiroë. Christoph Baumer, Church of the East, 92-7 has proposed instead AD 630 - so Philip Wood interprets. I would toss into this mix Isho'dnah again, whose otherwise-lost saecular history Elias bar Shenaye cites: under Shiroë, was Isho'yahb of Gdala elected. Guidi's Khuzestan Chronicle sets Isho'yahb's accession at #31 also within Shiroë's #29-32. Wood, in short, should have known better.

I'll point out for Siʿrt that "year 38" will refer to the last official year. This may, however, be taken like Iran will take the year of Yazdegird III. Khusro may or may not be alive; Babay's death may precede or postdate February AD 628. Everyone else I can find agrees the next Catholicate was decided under Shiroë whose majority-subset has Babay still alive but uninterested in that job.

We must disagree with Siʿrt's implication that Babay was running the convent at his death. Mar Habiba is already the lead recipient of Isho'yahb of Nineveh's condolence. It may be that Babay relinquished command at 75 years but lingered in a cell as "emeritus" for another year-and-change. Isho'dnah implies he'd quit ruling the place rather before that, founding his own monastery, and returning as an ordinary monk.