Isaac of Nineveh

(c. 613 - c. 700)

While serving as bishop of Nineveh around 676, Isaac was asked to resolve a dispute between a debtor and a creditor, but his recommendation for a loan extension was ignored because he had cited the Bible. Discouraged, he left his post after only five months, claiming that he retired for a “reason which God knows,” although some scholars have suggested that he was asked to leave because he was a foreigner. He became an ascetic, spending his last days in the monastery of Rabban Shapur; it is said that he went blind from excessive reading.