Elias of Nisibis (b. 364/974-5, d. 438/1046-7) was the most significant theologian writing in Christian Arabic during the fifth/eleventh century. He served as metropolitan archbishop of Nisibis (present-day Nusaybin, Turkey) for the East Syriac ("Nestorian") Church of the East from 399/1008 to 438/1046. He was born in Shīnāyā (hence his nickname Bar Shīnāyā), near the Tigris, south of the Great Zab River. He was ordained a priest in 384/994 by Yuḥannā b. ʿĪsā (d. 401-2/1011), a bishop who would