Page:EB1911 - Volume 03.djvu/417

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BAR-HEBRAEUS—BARI
  

large open-air salt water swimming bath. Rugged mountains from 1000 to 1500 ft. in height, a coast with deep indentations and lined with bold cliffs, a sea dotted with rocky islets, clear lakes, sparkling rivulets, deep gorges, and wooded glens are features of the attractive scenery here and in the vicinity. Several fine hotels and a number of costly residences occupy a plateau along the shore and the hillsides farther back. The Kebo Valley Club has fine golf links here; and since 1900 an annual horse show and fair has been held at Robin Hood Park at the foot of Newport Mountain. Bar Harbor is usually a summer rendezvous of the North Atlantic Squadron of the United States Navy. The name Bar Harbor, which displaced East Eden, was suggested by the bar which appears at low water between it and Bar Island. Although the first summer hotel was built here in 1855, Bar Harbor’s development as a summer resort began about 1870, after some artists had visited the place, and made it widely known through their pictures. (See Mount Desert.)


BAR-HEBRAEUS or Abuʽl-Faraj, a maphriān or catholicus of the Jacobite (Monophysite) Church in the 13th century, and (in Dr. Wright’s words) “one of the most learned and versatile men that Syria ever produced.” Perhaps no more industrious compiler of knowledge ever lived. Simple and uncritical in his modes of thought, and apparently devoid of any striking originality, he collected in his numerous and elaborate treatises the results of such research in theology, philosophy, science and history as was in his time possible in Syria. Most of his works were written in Syriac, but some few in Arabic, which had long before his time supplanted Syriac as a living speech.

The son of a physician of Jewish descent, Bar-Hebraeus was born in 1226 at Malaṭiah on the upper Euphrates. His youth was passed in the troublous times of the Mongol advance into western Asia, and his father eventually retired to Antioch, where Bar-Hebraeus completed his education. In 1246 he was ordained at Tripolis as Jacobite bishop of Gūbās near Malaṭia, and a year later was transferred to the neighbouring diocese of Laḳabhīn, whence in 1253 he passed to be bishop of Aleppo. Deposed almost immediately by an ecclesiastical superior on account of disputes about the patriarchate, he was restored to his see in 1258, and in 1264 was promoted by the patriarch Ignatius III. to be maphriān—the next rank below that of patriarch—an office which he held till his death at Marāgha in 1286. He seems to have been a model of devotion to his ecclesiastical duties and to have won the respect of all parties in his diocese.

It is mainly as an historian that Bar-Hebraeus interests the modern student. His great historical work—the Syriac Chronicle—is made up of three parts. The first[1] is a history of secular events from the Creation to his own time, and in its later portions gives valuable information regarding the history of south-east Europe and western Asia. A compendium in Arabic of this secular history was made by Bar-Hebraeus under the title al-Mukhtaṣar fi ʽd–Duwal (Compendious History of the Dynasties). The second and third parts[2] of the Chronicle deal with the history of the Church, the second being mainly concerned with the patriarchate of Antioch, and the third with the eastern branch of the Syrian Church. Of special value to theologians is the Auṣar Rāzē (Storehouse of Secrets), a critical and doctrinal commentary on the text of the Scriptures. Of this many portions have been edited by various scholars, and a valuable study of the work, together with a biography and estimate of its author, has been published by J. Göttsberger (Barhebräus und seine Scholien zur heiligen Schrift, Freiburg i. B., 1900).

A full list of Bar-Hebraeus’s other works, and of editions of such of them as have been published, will be found in W. Wright’s Syriac Literature, pp. 268–281. The more important of them are:—(1) Kĕthābhā dhe-Bhābhāthā (Book of the Pupils of the Eyes), a treatise on logic or dialectics; (2) Ḥēwath Hēkhmĕthā (Butter of Wisdom), an exposition of the whole philosophy of Aristotle; (3) Sullāḳā Haunānāyā (Ascent of the Mind), a treatise on astronomy and cosmography, edited and translated by F. Nau (Paris, 1899); (4) various medical works; (5) Kĕthābhā dhĕ-Ṣemḥē (Book of Ravs), a treatise on grammar; (6) ethical works; (7) poems; (8) Kĕthābhā dhĕ-Thunnāyē Mĕghaḥḥĕkhānē (Book of Entertaining Stories), edited and translated by E. A. W. Budge (London, 1897).  (N. M.) 


BARI, a tribe of Nilotic negroes, living on the banks of the upper Nile some 200 m. N. of Albert Nyanza. They have as neighbours the Dinka to the north, the Madi to the south, and the Galla to the east. The men are tall and thin, the women fat and under middle height. Their colour is a deep dead brown. The men and unmarried girls go practically naked, the married women wearing a goatskin dyed red. The body is ornamented with red clay and the lower incisors are often extracted. Their sole wealth is cattle and their chief food milk and blood; meat is only eaten when a cow happens to die. They live in round grass huts with conical roofs. Twins are considered unlucky, the mother is divorced by her husband and her family must refund part of the marriage-price. The dead are buried in the hut; a square grave is dug in which the body is arranged in a sitting position with the hands tied behind the back. The most important men in the country are the rainmakers, who are reverenced even more than the chiefs, and, indeed, are famous among the surrounding tribes. The Bari warriors have been much recruited for the Egyptian army and were formerly used as slave-hunters by the Arab traders.

See Sir Samuel Baker, The Albert N’yanza (London, 1866); Friedrich Muller, Die Sprache der Bari (Vienna, 1864); G. Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria (London, 1891); W. Junker, Travels in Africa (English ed., 1890–1892); R. C. Owen, Bari Grammar (1908).


BARI (anc. Barium), a seaport and archiepiscopal see of Apulia, Italy, capital of the province of Bari, situated on a small peninsula projecting into the Adriatic, 69 m. N.W. of Brindisi by rail. Pop. (1901) 77,478. The town consists of two parts, the closely built old town on the peninsula to the N., and the new town to the S., which is laid out on a rectangular plan. The former contains the cathedral of S. Sabino, begun in 1035 but not completed till 1171: the exterior preserves in the main the fine original architecture (notably the dome and campanile), but the interior has been modernized. Not far off is the church of S. Nicola, founded in 1087 to receive the relics of this saint, which were brought from Myra in Lycia, and now lie beneath the altar in the crypt. The façade is fine, and the interior, divided into three naves by columns, with galleries over the aisles, has fortunately not been restored; the vaulting of the crypt has, however, been covered with modern stucco. The church is one of the four Palatine churches of Apulia (the others being the cathedrals of Acquaviva and Altamura, and the church of Monte S. Angelo sul Gargano). Adjacent is the small church of S. Gregorio, belonging also to the 11th century. The castle, built in 1169, and strengthened in 1233, lies on the W. side of the old town: it is now used as a prison. The old harbour lies on the E. side of the peninsula, and the new on the W. In the new town is the Ateneo, containing the provincial museum, with a large collection of vases found in the district, in which the pre-Hellenic specimens are especially important (M. Mayer in Römische Mitteilungen, 1897, 201; 1899, 13; 1904, 188, 276). Bari is the seat of the command of the IX. army corps, and the most important commercial town in Apulia. It manufactures olive oil, soap, carbon sulphide and playing-cards, and has a large iron foundry.

Barium does not seem to have been a place of great importance in early antiquity; only bronze coins struck by it have been found. In Roman times it was the point of junction between the coast road and the Via Traiana; there was also a branch road to Tarentum from Barium. Its harbour, mentioned as early as 181 B.C., was probably the principal one of the district in ancient times, as at present, and was the centre of a fishery. But its greatest importance dates from the time when it became, in 852, a seat of the Saracen power, and in 885, the residence of the Byzantine governor. In 1071 it was captured by Robert Guiscard. In 1095 Peter the Hermit preached the first crusade there. In 1156 it was razed to the ground, and has several times suffered destruction. In the 14th century it became an

  1. Imperfectly edited and translated by Bruns and Kirsch in 1789. There is now a better edition by Bedjan (Paris, 1890).
  2. Edited and translated by Abbeloos and Lamy (Paris and Louvain, 1872–1873).