Life and Baptism
According to ecclesiastical tradition, Abibas was the second son of Gamaliel, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin in first-century Jerusalem and the teacher under whom the Apostle Paul had studied. The same tradition holds that Gamaliel, together with Abibas and Nicodemus, received baptism at the hands of the Apostles Peter and John.
Abibas is said to have reposed at the age of twenty, of natural causes, dying before his father. He was buried at Caphargamala (Capergamela), an estate belonging to Gamaliel about twenty miles from Jerusalem. By his own will Gamaliel was later buried in the same place, having earlier laid there the body of his baptized son and, with Nicodemus, the relics of the Protomartyr Stephen.
Relics & Shrines
The body of Abibas was uncovered in the year 415, together with those of Saints Stephen, Gamaliel, and Nikodemus, at Caphargamala. By the traditional account the discovery came about during the time of John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, when Gamaliel appeared three times in a dream to Lucian, a priest at Caphargamala, and at length revealed to him everything concerning the burial of all four saints.
The synaxarion relates that when the burial cave was opened, a strong, sweet-smelling fragrance from the relics of the saints permeated the entire place. In 428 the relics of Saints Stephen, Gamaliel, Abibas, and Nikodemus were transferred from Jerusalem to Constantinople and placed in the church of the holy deacon Laurence.
Veneration
Abibas is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on August 2, the day on which the finding of his relics and those of his companions is observed. Belonging to the undivided Church of the first century, he is also venerated in the Roman Catholic tradition, where the feast of the finding of the relics is reckoned on August 3; a separate commemoration on December 2 is especially kept at Pisa.
His memory is closely joined to the August 2 cluster of commemorations in the Orthodox calendar, which also marks the finding of the relics of Saint Gamaliel and of the Righteous Nicodemus and the translation of the relics of the Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen from Jerusalem to Constantinople.
