A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Γρηγέντιος), archbishop of Tephar (Τεφὰρ, the Sapphar, Σάπφαρ, of Ptolemy, and the Saphar, Σάφαρ, of Arrian), capital of the Homeritae, a nation of Arabia Felix, the site of which is a little above 100 miles N.N.W. of Aden. The place of his birth is not ascertained. In the Greek Menaea, in which he is called Γριγεντῖνος, he is described as a native of Milan, and the son of Agapius and Theodota, inhabitants of that city ; but in a Slavonic MS. of the Disputatio, mentioned below, he is described as the son of Agapius and Theotecna, a married pair living in the little town of " Lopliane, on the frontier of Avaria and Asia." He went to Alexandria, where he embraced the life of an anchorite, and from whence he was sent by Asterius, patriarch of Alexandria, to take charge of the church of the Homeritae, which had been relieved by the Aethiopian Elesbaan, king of the Axumitae, from the depressed condition to which it had been reduced by the persecution of Dunaan, king of the Homeritae, a Jew. The reigning prince at the time of the mission of Gregentius, was Abramius, whom Elesbaan had raised to the throne, and with whom, as well as with his son and successor, Serdidus, Gregentius had great influence. Abramius died A. D. 552, after a reign of thirty years, and Gregentius died year, and was buried in the great church at Tephar.

[J.C.M]