ABBREVIATORS: Officials of the papal chancery
whose duty it is to prepare apostolic letters
expedited through that office. The name is derived
from the fact that part of their work consists in
taking minutes of the petitions addressed to the
Holy See and of the answers to be returned. Formerly
they were divided into two classes,
di parco
maggiore
and
di parco minore,
but the latter class
has long been abolished. In the College of Abbreviators
at the present time there are twelve clerics
and seventeen laymen. Legislation of Feb. 13,
1904, defines their duties anew. The office dates
from the early part of the fourteenth century, and
has been filled by many distinguished prelates.
In 1466 Paul II. abolished it because it had been
corrupted, but it was restored by Sixtus IV. in 1471.
There is also an
abbreviatore di curia
attached to
the datary, who prepares minutes of papal letters
addressed
motu proprio
to the entire Church.
ABDIAS, ab'di-as: Legendary first bishop of
Babylon. Under the title,
De historia certaminis
apostolici
there exists a collection of myths, legends,
and traditions relating to the lives and works of
the apostles, and pretending to be the Latin translation
of the Greek translation of the Hebrew work
of Abdias. Neither the book nor its author was
known to Eusebius or to Jerome, nor do they find
mention before Ordericus Vitalis (12th cent.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. Lazinon,
De historia certaminis apostolici,
Paris, 1560, and often reprinted; Fabricius,
Codex
apocryphus,
ii.
(1st ed., 1703), and ii., iii. (2d ed., 1719);
C. Oudin,
Commentarius de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis,
ii.
418-421, Leipsic, 1722; G. J.
Voss, De historicis Gracis,
p. 243, ib. 1838; J. A. Giles,
Codex apocryphus Novi Testamenti,
London, 1852; Migne,
Troisieme et derniere encyclopedie theologique, xxiv.
(66 vols., Paris, 1855-66); S.
C. Malan,
Conflicts of the Holy Apostles . . . translated
from an Ethiopic MS.,
London, 1871;
DCB, i.
1-4.
ABEEL, DAVID: Missionary; b. at New Brunswick,
N. J., June 12, 1804; d. at Albany, N.Y.,
Sept. 4, 1846. He was graduated at the New
Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1826; in 1829
he went to Canton as chaplain of the Seaman's
Friend Society; and in 1831-33 he visited Java,
Singapore, and Siam for the American Board.
Returning to America by way of Europe in 1833,
he aided in founding in England a society for promoting
the education of women in the East. He
went back to China in 1838 and founded the Amoy
mission in 1842. He published a
Journal
of his
first residence in China (New York, 1835),
The
Missionary Convention at Jerusalem
(1838),
Claims of the World to the Gospel
(1838).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
G. R. Williamson,
David Abeel,
New
York, 1849.
