A monk of Scetis. The Copto-Arabic Synaxarion by Mikhail, bishop of Atrib and Malij (about 1240), makes no mention of Saint Ababius. However, a fourteenthcentury Arabic manuscript, copied in Syria, gives a long life of this saint. The manuscript attributes this life to John Colobos1. This text is unique and as yet not translated. A translation of the incipit may be instructive: "O my brothers and you who love the living God, I now commence describing the virtues and the life of our father. The parents of this saint, Father Ababiyus, were just and pious."
1Troupeau, G. Catalogue des manuscrits arabes [National Library], Manuscrits chrétiens, Vol. 1, no. 259, pp. 222-23. Paris, 1972.