Philoxenus of Mabbug
440 CE–523 CE · Tahal, Beth-Garmai
Philoxenus of Mabbug (c. 440–523), born Aksenaya ("stranger") in Beth-Garmai and later given the Greek honorific Philoxenus ("lover of strangers") at his episcopal consecration, served as bishop of Hierapolis-Mabbug in Syria from 485 until his deposition in 519. He was the most prolific Syriac prose theologian of the Miaphysite movement, championing a single-subject Christology rooted in Cyril of Alexandria against the Council of Chalcedon. He commissioned the Philoxenian version of the Syriac New Testament (508), a rigorous revision bringing Syriac closer to the Greek text, which became foundational for subsequent Syriac biblical scholarship. His thirteen Discourses on the Christian life remain his most widely read work, offering a systematic guide to monastic spirituality in elegant classical Syriac. Exiled by the Chalcedonian emperor Justin I after 518, he was sent first to Philippopolis in Thrace and then transferred to Gangra in Paphlagonia, where he died in 523, venerated as a martyr and confessor by the Syriac Orthodox tradition.
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Tahal, Beth-GarmaiIraq
What they did here
Born in the village of Tahal in the district of Beth-Garmai east of the Tigris, in the region of modern Kirkuk.
About Tahal, Beth-Garmai
Tahal, a place in Beth Garmai, a region of northern Mesopotamia southeast of Kirkuk in modern Iraq. It is given as the birthplace of Philoxenus of Mabbug (c. 440).
In the same place & time
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In the same tradition
The world in their lifetime
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