Nonnus of Nisibin

Nonnus of Nisibin

Nonnus or Nona, archdeacon of the Syriac church of Nisibin was an eloquent Syriac with a smooth style. He was also deeply versed in the sciences of philosophy and theology. Discovering that he was a keen polemicist, Patriarch Quryaqos delegated young archdeacon, Nonnus in 814 to the Court of Ashut Msaker, the Patrician of Armenia, to challenge Theodore Ibn Qurra, who was attempting to convert the Armenians to the Malkite doctrine. Consequently, Nonnus defeated his opponent and converted a great number of the followers of Julian the Phantasiast to orthodoxy, according to Michael the Great. In 818, he witnessed the consecration of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Dionysius Tell Mahre and in 822, he complained to him against Philoxenus, metropolitan of Nisibin. In 828, the Patriarch praised the knowledge and excellence of Nonnus. 

What remains to us of his writings is a medium-sized vellum MS. consisting of one hundred and forty pages and written in the Estrangelo script and it contains the following:

• A treatise in reply to one who asked him the proof of the oneness of God and the Trinity. It also contains a rational and not the traditional proof of the Word of God in forty pages.

• A lengthy treatise consisting of four discourses in eighty-two pages, composed by him when in prison, around 855, against Thomas, the eloquent Nestorian writer and bishop of Marga. Apart from defending the sound doctrine of the church regarding the Incarnate Word of God, he also mentioned the martyrdom of St. Baboy, Catholicos of the East and the persecution inflicted by Barsoum of Nisibin, his message for the clergy and the believers and the burning of the books of the church fathers by his followers. It happened that Nonnus and Thomas were put in the same prison by the order of the king. A controversy went on between the two, when Thomas asked Nonnus many questions, some of which he answered and the rest he postponed to answer in this treatise.

• A reply to two theological questions, one propounded to him by someone and the second in reply to a question from a monk named John, in eighteen pages. We have also read in the magazine of the French-Armenian Studies (1: 3) an article by Marius mentioning that Nonnus wrote a commentary on the Gospel of St. John in Arabic around 840 and that it was rendered into Armenian around 856. He also gives the description of the commentary.

Sources: 

• Patriarch Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum (2003), The Scattered Pearls, A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, Translated and Edited by Matti Moosa, New Jersey