Baba II Rabba (Samaritan Aramaic: ࠁࠢࠁࠢࠀ ࠓࠠࠁࠠࠄ Bābāʾ Råbbå, Samaritan Hebrew: ࠁࠢࠁࠢࠀ ࠄࠣࠂࠟࠃࠅࠫࠋ Bābāʾ ʾagā̊dōl; literally "Baba the Great"), was a notable Samaritan High Priest. He is believed to have lived during the late third and early fourth centuries CE; Jeffrey Cohen puts his birth at 288 and his death at 328. The son of the Samaritan High Priest Nethanel III, Baba Rabba was probably born in Kiryat Hagga, modern-day Hajjah, West Bank. Little is known about his life. According to later Samaritan works, he was a religious reformer and together with the scholar Marqah helped codify Samaritan liturgy and worship. He appears to have had connections with the Roman authorities, and may have exercised some temporal authority over the Samaritan community, which appears to have been relatively autonomous during this period. One chronicle places his death at 362 in Constantinople. Baba is also remembered for his actions against Roman (Byzantine) sanctions on the Samaritan community, such as resisting the ban on circumcision imposed on the Samaritans, re-opening and building brand new synagogues throughout Samaria, and administering the country in the midst of its rebellion against the Romans. Per Samaritan chronology, he lived in the "eighth period". The Samaritan Rebellion In the early common era, Byzantine rule in Palestine experienced periods of religious fanaticism. Both Jews and Samaritans faced severe persecution. The Jews had revolted against Rome multiple times in the first and second centuries CE, but the especially crushing defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE proved to be the final stand for Jewish independence, and worsened the already growing Jewish diaspora which would last an additional 2000 years. In comparison, subsequent revolts were minimal, such as the Jewish revolt against Constantius Gallus in 351, which, while thousands-strong, lasted only a year before being decisively crushed by the Romans. Samaritans were generally ambivalent to Jews, and historically their relationship with their sister Israelites was rough, and occasionally hostile. Uneager to join the various revolts, they were therefore spared the Romans' wrath, and following the successive defeats of the Jewish rebellions and the progressive extinction of Jews in Palestine, a vacuum opened in the land that the Samaritans, as well as Ghassanid Arabs, were happy to fill. This began a golden age for the Samaritans, who enjoyed limited autonomy from the Roman government. In the fourth century CE, Baba Rabba, as the son of the high priest, succeeded