RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Non-conformists North African Church
Secerius (Hagenau, 1527) is prefaced with a letter by Melanchthon to the Abbot Friedrich of St. Aegidien at Nuremberg commending the " very learned poems of Nonnos on John's Gospel in place of many a prolix commentary." The latest and best edition is that of A. Scheindler (Leipsic, 1881). Of especial value is the " Paraphrase " toward the reconstruction of the text of the Johannine Gospel. Hermann Kochly, foremost in the use of the Paraphrase for textual criticism, is of the opinion that Nonnos had a briefer text of the Gospel than those now critically studied by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Buttmann — and is inclined to regard that as the original (Opuscula philologica, vol. i., Opuscula Latina, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 421^*26, Leipsic, 1881). Scheindler, in the main, accepted Kochly's views, though not in all details. Lately Friedrich Blass (in his edition of John's Gospel, Leipsic, 1902) and Ralph Janssen have gone into the subject. Blass is of the opinion that the text which Nonnos used agreed in many points with codex Syrus Sinaiticus, with codex D., the Latin witnesses, and with Chrysostom. Janssen has issued Das Johannes-Evangelium, nach der Paraphrase des Nonnos Panopolitanus mit einem ausfiihrlichen kritischen Apparat (Leipsic, 1903), which is an attempt to reproduce the original text of the Fourth Gospel from Nonnos. Both Blass and Janssen agree upon the fact of a shorter original text of the Gospel, having obtained additional evidence unknown to Kochly.
(Carl Bebtheau.)
Bibliography: Fabricius-Harles, Bibliotheca Grwca, viii. 601-612, Hamburg, 1802; A. Pauly, Real-Encyklopadie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften, v. 692 sqq., Stuttgart, 1848; G. Bernhardy, Grundriss der griechischen Litteratur, ii. 1, pp. 45, 374 sqq., 393-394, Halle, 1867; Krumbacher, Geschichte, pp. 10, 655.
NOPH, nef : A city of Egypt, mentioned by several prophets (Isa. xix. 13; Jer. ii. 16, xliv. 1, xlvi.14, 19; Ezek. xxx. 13, 16) of the eighth to the sixth centuries. It is in the Septuagint correctly identified with Memphis. The name is a corruption from the Egyptian name of the town Merir-nufer, Menfer, (Coptic Menfe, in the cuneiform inscriptions, Mempi) . The ruins of Noph at Memphis are located on the western bank of the Nile, somewhat south of Cairo, in the neighborhood of the villages Mitrahine and Bedraschen. Here are also the ruins of the chief temple of Noph which was consecrated to the local god Ptah. According to tradition, the town was founded by the first historical king, Menes, and was influential under the old kingdom (third millennium b.c). Even at the time of Augustus, Memphis was yet a large and populous town, but seems to have lost its importance in the Byzantine period and to have decayed completely after the foundation of Cairo under the Arabic rule. (G. Steindorff.) Bibliography: C. R. Lepsius, Denkmaler aus Mgypten, ii. 1, 6 parts, Berlin, 1849-59; W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ii. 324-326, London, 1878 (gives history) ; A. Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, ib., 1894.
NORBERT, NORBERTINES. See Prjemonstra-
TENSIANS.
NORRIS, JOHN: English clergyman, usually mentioned in connection with the Cambridge Platpnists (q.v.) ; b. at Collingbourne-Kingston (14 m.
n.e. of Salisbury), Wiltshire, 1657; d. at Bemerton (2 m. w.n.w. of Salisbury), Wiltshire, 1711. He was educated at Winchester School and Exeter College, Oxford (B.A., 1680), and was later appointed a fellow of All Souls' (M.A., 1684). From 1692 until his death he was rector of Bemerton, the parish earlier held by George Herbert. Though an Oxford man, and thus, one might suppose, under the dominion of Aristotle, he early devoted himself to the study of Plato, and kept up a correspondence with More on metaphysical problems. In fact, it was he who handed on the tradition of idealism to Berkeley in the next generation. As a Platonist, he was naturally in opposition to the method of Locke, with whom he found himself in conflict also as the principal English disciple of Malebranche. His Essay towards the Theory of an Ideal and Intelligible World (2 vols., London, 1701-04), represents this side of his teaching, though his most popular work was the Miscellanies (Oxford, 1687), poems, essays, letters, etc.
Bibliography: Consult, besides the literature under Cambridge Platonists, A. a Wood, Athence Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss, iv. 583-586, London, 1820; Julian, Hymnology, p. 810; DNB, xli. 132-134.