ABSTRACT
Babai the Great (551–628), monk, abbot, de facto bishop, and theologian of the Church of the East during the last decades of the Sasanian Persian Empire, is considered that tradition’s greatest systematic theologian, following in esteem only Theodore of Mopsuestia. Although most of his numerous works have not survived, fortunately several of his most important have been transmitted to us. Babai also attracted some hagiographical attention, some flattering and some rather blunt in evaluation. Babai himself authored a number of saints’ lives, and one in particular reveals more about Babai and the political dilemmas in which he was immersed than it does about the saint.
