NISIBI (NUSAYBIN), SCHOOL OF. – A Syriac city in the Mesopotamian plain, it was the seat, around the middle of the 4th century, of a school at which St. Ephrem also taught. Edessa (v.), under the title of “school of the Persians,” when the latter seized N. in 363. At the school of Edessa, after the Council of Ephesus (431) and under the direction of Hibā, later the local bishop, a marked tendency toward Nestorianism made itself felt. Narsaj was placed in charge of the school of Edessa in 437 and remained there for 20 years. But, expelled because of his Nestorianism, he returned to Persia. However, while passing through N., he was invited by the local bishop Barṣawmā to re-establish the ancient school there. Shortly thereafter
almost all of Narsaj’s former Edessene disciples flocked to N. The school of N. was of the greatest importance because it was the most effective center of Nestorianism, which spread from there throughout Persia. Among the school’s disciples were Mār Ābā, Abraham of Kaškar, 'Īšō-jahb I and Sabrīšō'. In the time of Mār Ābā there were 800 disciples at the school.
The Statutes of the school of Nisibis have been preserved (ed. I. Guidi, in Giorn. della Soc. asiat. italiana,
4 [1890], pp. 165-95; cf. J.-B. Chabot in Journal de la Soc. asiatique, 8 [1896], p. 43). They show that the school closely resembled modern “seminaries.” Communal life under the rector (rabbān) and the steward. Two teachers, one an interpreter and the other a “teacher of lessons.” The interpreter followed the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia. The studies lasted 3 years. The school enjoyed a certain exemption from the bishop with regard to internal discipline.
Schulen der morgenländischen Kirchen, Bonn 1916, pp. 77-110; A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, there 1922, pp. 113-15. Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina