Isaacus
6. Surnamed SYRUS, lived in the middle of the sixth century, and was bishop of Niniveh, but abdicated and retired to a convent, of which he was afterwards chosen abbot. After having lived several years in that convent he went to Italy and died near Spoleto.
Works
It is probable that Isaac wrote originally in Syriac.
De Contemtu Mundi
It is probable that he is the author of the work De Contemtu Mundi, which is mentioned in the preceding article.
Sermones Ascetici
He also wrote 87 Sermones Ascetici, which some attribute to the preceding Isaac, and which are extant in MS. in Greek, in the imperial library at Vienna. Some Homilies of this Isaac are extant in MS. in the Bodleian and other libraries.
Further Information
Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. i. p. 519-520; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. xi. p. 215, &c.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.