Isaac of Nineveh

d. c.700. Nestorian* bishop of Nineveh; sometimes called “Isaac Syrus.” Originally a monk in Kurdistan, he was made bishop by the patriarch George, but after only about five months in the episcopate he retired to a monastery at Rabban Shapur. During his later life he was suspected of departing from Nestorian tenets. Although he wrote in Syriac, many of his extensive writings (mostly on asceticism and related topics) were translated into Greek, Arabic, and Ethiopic. The Greek translation was undertaken by two monks, Patricius and Abraham, of the monastery of Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. Part of this was eventually published at Leipzig in 1870 by Nicephorus Theotokios. Most of the Syriac text remains unpublished, but there are Latin versions in J.P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LXXXVI (1) pp. 811-86.