ISAAC OF NINEVEH: Bishop of Nineveh in the seventh century. He was made bishop by the patriarch George (660-680), in succession to Moses, but retired after five months, and died, almost blind from much study, in the monastery of Rabban Shabor. One of his works exists in Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic, and also in a Greek translation by two monks, Patricius and Abraham, of the monastery of Mar Saba, southeast of Jerusalem, and published by Nicephorus (Leipsic, 1770; in MPG. lxxxvi. 799-888). A Latin translation under the title Isaac Syrus, liber de contemptu mundi in fifty-three chapters is in the Bibliotheca magna (Cologne, 1618, VI., ii. 688; Gallandi, Bibliotheca, xii. 3). Another work entitled "Letter to the Holy Father Simon in the Wonderful Mountain" is published in Greek in Mais Nova Bibliotheca, vol. viii., part 3 (Rome, 1871), pp. 156-188; it is interesting for its information about Malpat of Edessa, the originator of the Messalians, and the knowledge it shows of apocalyptic literature.
E. NESTLE.