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 NIMROD

84

MISIBIS

Mary, Franciscan Fathers, Marists, Lazarists, Sul- picians, and various orders of teaching brothers. The Oblates of the Assumption, for teaching and foreign missions, also foiiiided lu-re, and tlie Besan(,'oii Sisters of Charity, teachers and nurses, have llieir mother- houses at \imes. At t lie beginning of the century the rehgious congregatit)ns conducted in this diocese: 3 creches, .53 day imrserics, U boys' orphanages, 20 girls' orphanages, 1 employment agency for females, 1 house of refuge for penitent women, C houses of mercy, 20 hospitals or tisylums, 11 houses of visiting mn-ses, 3 houses of retreat, 1 home for incurables. In 1905 the Diocese of NJmes contained 420,S3t) inhabitants, 45 parishes, 239 succursal parishes, 52 vicariates subven- tioned by the State.

Gallia Christiana Nova. VI (1739), 426-516; 608-53, 1118-1121, 1123, and Imlrumenta, 165-226, 293-312; Duchesne, Pastes Epis- copaiu. I (1900). 299-302; Germain. Histoire de Viglise de Ntmes (Paris. 1838-42); Goiffon, Catalogue analytique des ivSgues de NImes (1879); Duband, Nemausiana, I (Ntmes. 1905); Boulen- GER, Les Protestants d Nimes au temps de VMit de Nantes (Paris. 1903) ; Iloux. Ntmes (Paris. 1908) ; Durand. L'iglise Ste Marie, ou Notre Dame de Ntmes. basilique cathidrale (Ntmes. 1906) ; Char- vet, Catalogue des hifques d' Uzhs in Mimoires et Comptes rendus de la Sociili Scienlifique d'Alais, II (1870). 129-59; Taulelle, L'abbaye d'Alais: histoire de S. Julien de Valgalffue (Toulouse.

1905). Georges Goyau.

Nimrod. See Nemrod.

Ninian, Saint (Ninias, Ninus, Din.\n, Ringan, RiNGENi, bishop and confessor, date of birth unknown; d. about 432; the first Apostle of Christianity in Scot- land. The earliest account of him is in Bede (Hist. Eccles., Ill, 4) : "the southern Picts received the true faith by the preaching of Bishop Ninias, a most rever- end and holy man of the British nation, who had been regularly instructed at Rome in the faith and myster- ies of the truth; whose episcopal see, named after St. Martin the Bishop, and famous for a church dedicated to him (wherein Ninias himself and many other saints rest in the body), is now in the possession of the Eng- lish nation. The place belongs to the province of the Bernicians and is commonly called the White House [Candida Casa], because he there built a church of stone, which was not usual amongst the Britons". The facts given in this passage form practically all we know of St. Ninian's life and work.

The most important later life, compiled in the twelfth centur}' by St. Aelred, professes to give a de- tailed account founded on Bede and also on a "liber de vita et miraculis eius" (sc. Niniani) "barbarice scriptus", but the legendary element is largely evi- dent. He states, however, that while engaged in building his church at Candida Casa, Ninian heard of the death of St. Martin and decided to dedicate the building to him. Now St. Martin died about 397, so that the mission of Ninian to the southern Picts must have begun towards the end of the fourth century. St. Ninian founded at Whithorn a monastery which became famous as a school of monasticism within a centurj' of his death; his work among the southern Picts seems to have had but a short-lived success. St. Patrick, in his epistle to Coroticus, terms the Picts "apostates", and references to Ninian's converts hav- ing abandoned Christianity are found in the lives of Sts. Columba and Kentigern. The body of St. Ninian was buried in the church at Whithorn (Wigtown- shire), but no relics arc now known to exist. The "Clogrinny", or bell of St. Ringan, of very rough workmanship, is in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh.

Bede, Hist. Eccles.. tr. Sellar, III (London, 1907), 4; Aelred, Vita S. Niniani in Forbes. Historians of Scotland, V; Acta SS.. Sept., V. 321-28; Caporave, Nom Legenda Anglice (London, 1516); O'CONOR, Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores (Dublin. 1825); CoLOAN. Ada SS. Hibern. (Louvain, 1647), 438; Challoner, Britannia Sancta, II (London, 1745), 130; Stanton, Menology of Brigland and Wales (London. 1887), 448. 669; MacKinnon, Ninian und seinEinfluss auf die Ausbreitung des Christenthums in Nord-Briiannien (Heidelberg, 1891). this is the most authorita- tive work on the subject; see also Idem, Culture in Early Scotland; Anakda BoUandiana, XII, 82; Revue Binidictine, IX. 526.

G. Roger Hudleston.

Ninive (Nineveh). See Assyria.

Nirschl, Joseph, theologian and writer, b. at Dunlifurth, Lower Bavaria, 24 February, 1823; d. at \\ lirzburg, 17 January, 1901. He was ordained in 1851 and graduated as doittor of (hcnlogy in 1.S.54 at Munich. He was appointed te;i(h(r of Chri.stian doctrine at Passau in 1855 and in 18('i2 pnifcs.sor of church history and p;itrology. In 1879 he became profcs.sor oi I'liurcli liistoiv at Wiirzburg, and was ap- pointe.1 dean of the cathedral in 1892. Of his numer- ous works, mostly on patrislics, the most important are: "Lehrbuch der Patrologic vmd I'atristik" (3 vols., Mainz, 1881-5); "Urspruiig und Wosen des Bosen nach der Lehre des hi. Augustinus" (Katisbon, 1854): "Das Dogma der unbeflecktcn Empfiingnis Maria' (Ratisbon, 1855); "Todesjahr des hi. Ignatius von Antiochien" (Passau, 1869); "Die Theologie des hi. Ignatius von Antiochien" (Passau, 1869, and Mainz, 1880); Das Haus und Grab der hi. Jungfrau Maria (Mainz, 1900). He translated into German the letters and the martyrium of St. Ignatius of Antioch (Kemi)- ten, 1870) and the Catecheses of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Kempten, 1871). He defended the genuineness of pseudo-Dionysius and of the apocryphal letter of King Abgar of Edessa to Jesus.

Lauchert in Biogr. Jahrb. und deutscher Nekrotog (Vienna, 1904). 169 sq.

Michael Ott.

Nisibis, titular .iVrchdiocese of Mesopotamia, situ- ated on the .Mygdonius at the foot of .Mt. Masius. It is so old that its original name is vmknown. In any case it is not the Achad (Accad) of Genesis, x, 10, as has been asserted. When the Cireeks came to Mesopo- tamia with Alexander they called it Antiochia Myg- donia, under which name it appears for the first time on the occasion of the march of Antiochus against the Molon (Polybius, V, 51). Subsequently the subject of constant disputes between the Romans and the Parthians, it was captured by Lucullus after a long siege from the brother of Tigranes (Dion Cassius, XXXV, 6, 7); and by Trajan in 115, which won for him the name of Parthicus (ibid., LXVHI, 23). Re- captured by the Osrhoenians in 194, it was again con- quered by Septimius Severus who made it his head- quarters and established a colony there (ibid., LXXV, 23). In 297, by the treaty with Narses, the province of Nisibis was acquired by the Roman Empire; in 363 it was ceded to the Persians on the defeat of Julian the Apostate. The See of Nisibis was founded in 300 by Babu (d. 309). His successor, the celebrated St. James, defended the city by his prayers during the siege of Sapor II. At the time of its cession to the Persians, Nisibis was a Christian centre important enough to become the ecclesiastical metropolis of the Province of Beit-Arbaye. In 410 it had six suffragan sees and as early as the middle of the fifth century was the most important episcopal see of the Persian Church after Seleucia-Ctesiphon. A great many of its Nestorian or Jacobite titulars are mentioned in Cha- bot ("Synodicon orientale", Paris, 1902, 678) and Le Quien (Oriens christ., II, 995, 1195-1204) and several of them, e. g. Barsumas, Osee, Narses, Jesusyab, Ebed-Jesus, etc., acquired deserved celebrity in the world of letters. Near Nisibis on 25 June, 1839, Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, won a great victory over the troops of Mahmud II. To-day Nezib is a town of 3000 inhabitants in the sandjak of Orfa and the vilayet of Aleppo. Its oil is considered very fine.

The first theological school of Nisibis, founded at the introduction of Christianity into the town, was closed when the province was ceded to the Persians, great persecutors of Christianity. St. Ephraein re- established it on Roman soil at Edessa, whither flocked all the studious youth of Persia. In the fifth century the school became a centre of Nestorianism.