British Museum (London, 1863); Praetorius, Beitr. zur Erklärung der himjar. Inschr. (3 parts, Halle, 1872–1874); Kremer, Südarabische Sage (1866); Sprenger, Alte Geogr. Arabiens (1873); D. H. Müller, Südarabische Studien (Vienna, 1877); Id., Die Burgen u. Schlösser Südarabiens (2 parts, Vienna, 1879–1881) (especially for chronology and antiquities); Mordtmann and Müller, Sabäische Denkmäler (Vienna, 1883); Derenbourg, Études sur l’épigraphie du Yemen (Paris, 1884); ld., Nouv. Étud. (1885); Glaser, Mitteilungen über . . . sab. Inschr. (1886); Hamdānī, Geogr. d. arab. Halbinsel, ed. D. H. Müller, vol. i. (Leiden, 1884). See also papers by Osiander, Z.D.M.G. xix.-xx. (1864–1865); Halévy, Journ. As. (1872–1874); D. H. Müller, Z.D.M.G. xxix.-xxxi., xxxvii.; Prideaux, Tr. Soc. Bibl. Arch. (1873); Derenbourg, Bab. and Or. Record (London, 1887).
Later works are: D. H. Müller, Epigraphische Denkmäler aus Arabien (Vienna, 1889); E. Glaser, Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens &c., 1 Heft (Munich, 1889), vol. ii. (Berlin, 1890); Corpus inscriptionum Semiticarum . . ., iv., Paris. vol. i. fasc. 1 (1889), 2 (1892),3 (1900), 4 (1908); Fr. Hommel, Aufsätze und Abhandlungen (1892 sqq.); Fr. Hommel, Südarabische Chrestomathie (Munich, 1893); J. H. Mordtmann, Himjarische Inschriften und Altertümer in den kgl. Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, 1893); H. Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen (“das Land Muṣri”); D. H. Müller, Epigraphische Denkmäler aus Abessinien (Vienna, 1894); E. Glaser, Die Abessinier in Arabien und Afrika (Munich, 1895); J. H. Mordtmann, Musée Impérial Ottoman, &c. (Constantinople, 1895); D. H. Müller, “Arabia” in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie des klassischen Altertums, i. 314-359 (1897); J. H. Mordtmann, Beiträge zur minäischen Epigraphik (Weimar, 1897); E. Glaser, Zwei Inschriften über den Dambruch von Mârib; D. H. Müller, Südarabische Altertümer im kunsthistorischen Hofmuseum (Vienna, 1899); M. Lidzbarski in Ephemeris (1901 sqq.); O. Weber, Studien zur südarabischen Altertumskunde, i.-iii. (1901–1908); H. Grimme, “Verschiedene Aufsätze” in O.L.Z., &c.; D. Nielsen, Die alt-arabische Mondreligion (1904); D. Nielsen, Neue Katabanische Inschriften (1906); E. Glaser, Altjemenische Nachrichten, vol. i.(1906); M. Hartman, “Südarabisches,” i.-viii., in O.L.Z. (1907–1908); Mélanges H. Derenbourg (Paris, 1909); M. Hartman, Die arabische Frage mit einem Versuche der Archäologie Jemens (Halle, 1908); D. Nielsen, Der südarabische Gott Ilmekah (1909); O. Weber, “Gottes Symbole auf südarabischen Denkmälern” in the Hilprecht-Buch (1909), 269-280; cf. also Arabia, Axum.
The lexical material, in so far as it touches the Hebrew, was incorporated by D. H. Müller in the 10th-12th edition of the Gesenius Lexicon and is now incorporated by O. Weber in the 15th edition of the Gesenius-Buhl Lexicon. For collected literature see: up to 1892, F. Hommel’s Südarabische Chrestomathie; from 1892 to 1907, O. Weber’s Studien zur südarabischen Altertumskunde, iii. (D. H. M.)
SABAKI, a river of British East Africa which enters the Indian Ocean in 3° 12′ S., just north of Malinda. The Sabaki rises (as the Athi) in 1° 42′, S., and after flowing north-east 70 m. across the Kapote and Athi plains, turns south-south-east under the wooded slopes of the Yatta ridge, which shuts in its basin on the east. In 3°S. it turns east, and in its lower course (known as the Sabaki) traverses the sterile quartz-land of thee outer plateau.The valley is in parts low and flat, covered with forest and scrub,and containing small lakes and backwaters connected with the river in the rains. At this season the stream—which rises as much as 30 ft. in places—is deep and strong and of a turbid yellow colour; but navigation is interrupted by the Lugard falls, about 100 m. from its mouth. Its total length is about 400 m. Apart from the numerous small feeders of the upper river, almost the only tributary is the Tsavo, from the east side of Kilimanjaro, which enters in about 3° S.
SABAS, ST (439–531), a Palestinian monk, born near Caesarea of Cappadocia. Becoming a monk in his childhood, he went to Jerusalem and lived as a hermit. After a time he established the “Great Laura” monastery in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, and later on the “New Laura,” under St Basil’s Rule. In the Lauras the young monks lived a cenobitical life, but the elders a semi-eremitical one, each in his own hut within the precincts of the Laura, attending only the solemn church services. Sabas was made exarch or superior of all the monasteries in Palestine, and composed a Typicon or Rule for their guidance. He took a prominent part, on the orthodox side, in the Monophysite and Origenistic controversies. His Laura long continued to be the most influential monastery in those parts, and produced several distinguished monks, among them St John of Damascus. It is now known as the monastery of Mar Saba. He is commemorated on the 5th of December.
Another saint of this name, surnamed “the Goth,” suffered martyrdom at the hands of Athanaric the Visigoth in the reign of Valentinian, and he is commemorated on the 12th of April in the Roman Martyrology, on varying days from 12th to 18th in the Greek Menologies.
Sabas’s Life was written by his disciple Cyril of Scythopolis. The chief modern authority is A. Ehrhard in Wetzer u. Welte’s Kirchenlexikon (ed. 2) and Römische Quartalschrift, vii.; see also Helyot, Histoire des ordres religieux (1714), i. c. 16, and Max Heimbucher, Orden u. Kongregationen (1907). i, § 10. (E. C. B.)
SABATIER, LOUIS AUGUSTE (1839–1901), French Protestant theologian, was born at Vallon (Ardèche), in the Cévennes, on the 22nd of October 1839, and was educated at the Protestant theological faculty of Montauban and the universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg. After holding the pastorate at Aubenas in the Ardéche from 1864 to 1868 he was appointed professor of reformed dogmatics in the theological faculty of Strassburg. His markedly French sympathies during the war of 1870 led to his expulsion from Strassburg in 1872. After five years’ effort he succeeded in establishing a Protestant theological faculty in Paris, and became professor and then dean. In 1886 he became a teacher in the newly founded religious science department of the École des Hautes Études of the Sorbonne. Among his chief works were The Apostle Paul (3rd ed., 1896); Mémoire sur la notion hébraïque de l’Esprit (1879); Les Origines littéraires de l’Apocalypse (1888); The Vitality of Christian Dogmas and their Power of Evolution (1890); Religion and Modern Culture (1897); Historical Evolution of the Doctrine of the Atonement (1903); Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion (1897); and his posthumous Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit (1904), to which his colleague Jean Réville prefixed a short memoir. These works show Sabatier as “at once an accomplished dialectician and a mystic in the best sense of the word.” He died on the 12th of April 1901.
On his theology see E. Ménégoz in Expository Times, xv. 30, and G. B. Stevens in Hibbert Journal (April 1903).
His brother, Paul Sabatier, was born at St Michel de Chabrillanoux in the Cévennes on the 3rd of August 1858, and was educated at the faculty of theology in Paris. In 1885 he became vicar of St Nicolas, Strassburg, and in 1889, declining an offer of preferment which, was conditional on his becoming a German subject, he was expelled. For four years he was pastor of St Cierge in the Cévennes and then devoted himself entirely to historical research. He had already produced an edition of the Didachē, and in November 1893 published his important Life of St Francis d’Assisi. This book gave a great stimulus to the study of medieval literary and religious documents, especially of such as are connected with the history of the Franciscan Order. In 1908 he delivered the Jowett Lectures on, Modernism at the Passmore Edwards Settlement, London.
SABAZIUS, a Phrygian or Thracian deity, frequently identified with Dionysus, sometimes (but less frequently) with Zeus. His worship was closely connected with that of the great mother Cybele and of Attis. His chief attribute as a chthonian god was a snake, the symbol of the yearly renovation of the life of nature. Demosthenes (De corona, p. 313) mentions various ceremonies practised during the celebration of the mysteries of this deity. One of the most important was the passing of a golden snake under the clothes of the initiated across their bosom and its withdrawal from below-an old rite of adoption. From Val. Max. i. 3, 2 it has been concluded that Sabazius was identified in ancient times with the Jewish Sabaoth (Zebaoth). Plutarch (Symp. iv. 6) maintains that the Jews worshipped Dionysus, and that the day of Sabbath was a festival of Sabazius. Whether he was the same as Sozon, a marine deity of southern Asia Minor, is doubtful. Some explain the name as the “beer god,” from an Illyrian word sabaya, while others suggest a connexion with Σαϝο (god of “health”) or σέβας. His image and name are often found on “votive hands,” a kind of talisman adorned with emblems, the nature of which is obscure. His ritual and mysteries (Sacra Savadia) gained a firm footing in Rome during the 2nd century A.D., although as early as 139 B.C. the first Jews who settled in the capital were expelled by virtue of a law which proscribed the propagation of the cult of Jupiter Sabazius.
See J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to Greek Religion (1908), p. 414; H. Usener, Götternamen (1896), p. 44; F. Cumont, “Hypsistes” in: Revue de l’instruction publique en Belgique, xl. (1899); C. Blinkenberg, Archäologische Studien (1904).
