Ambarach, Peter

Ambarach, Peter a Jesuit and Orientalist, was born in 1663 at Gusta, in Phoenicia. He was educated from 1672 to 1685 at the Maronite College, of the Jesuits at Rome, and returned in 1685 to Syria. He received holy orders from the Maronite patriarch Stephen of Ado, and was intrusted with the revision of Arabic liturgical works, and with their translation into Latin. The Maronites sent him to Rome in behalf of their Church; and while on his way home the grand-duke Cosnio III retained him at Florence for the sake of arranging a printing-office and the Oriental types bought by his father, Ferdinand. Afterwards he was appointed professor at Pisa. In 1707 Ambarach joined the Jesuits at Rome, and Clement XI added him to the commission appointed for the criticism of the Greek text of the Bible. In. 1730 cardinal Quirini intrusted to him the Latin translation of the Syriac work of Ephrem. The first two volumes appeared in 1737 and 1740; with the third volume he had advanced as far as the middle of the work when he died. The volume was completed by Stephen Evodius Assemani, and was published in 1743. The second volume contains also two treatises by Ambarach on the eucharist. See Biographie Uiniverselle, 4, 198; Bauer, in Wetzer u. Welte's Kirchen-Lexikon, s.v. (B. P.).