Patriarch Nuh the Lebanese
(d. 1509)
Patriarch Nuh was a prominent church dignitary known for his piety and good administration. He was also a writer and a poet but some of his verse is marred by the unnaturalness of style which was prevalent in his time. He was at the village of Baqufa in the mountain of Lebanon in 1451 and was converted from Maronism to Orthodoxy. He studied the Syriac language and religious sciences under the monk-priest Tuma of Hims in the Monastery of Mar Musa the Abyssinian. He was ordained a priest and then a metropolitan for Hims in 1480 under the name Cyril. He was consecrated a Maphrian of the East in 1489 and ascended the patriarchal throne in 1493 and was named Ignatius. He died at Hama on July 28, 1509, after having ordained thirteen metropolitans and bishops.
Patriarch Nuh has an anthology in ninety-two pages, containing rhymed odes and verse pieces in the twelve-syllabic meter, some of which are arranged according to the alphabet as well as to his name. They are on supplication, repentance, the state of the soul and how to control it, complaint against vicissitudes and the injustices of the rulers who are the descendants of the Huns and Kurds, description of roses, sojourn and communication with friends. Among these are two odes which he delivered to Hims and Lebanon as well as eulogy of the ascetic priest Tuma of Hims. Another ode declares that the Lord is life and that He offers it to those who believe in Him; yet another, consisting of 136 lines on the universal and particular natures, which he composed in response to the request of Malke, metropolitan of Madan. It contains some poor usages as a result of his adherence to one rhyme. He also wrote some puzzles which are rather poor.592 A number of manuscripts in his neat handwriting have survived, as well as a hymn in Arabic on the Virgin and a very brief historical tract.