the son of Eliehannah, and father of Joshua, of the tribe of Ephraim. The Greeks gave him the name of Nane instead of Nun. This person is only known in sacred history by having been the father of Joshua.

Nuns, a woman, in several Christian countries, who devotes herself, in a cloister or nunnery, to a religious life. There were women, in the ancient Christian church, who made public profession of virginity, before the monastic life was known in the world, as appears from the writings of Cyprian and Tertullian. These, for distinction's sake, are sometimes called "ecclesiastical virgins," and were commonly enrolled in the canon or matricula of the church. They differed from the monastic virgins chiefly in this, that they lived privately in their fathers' houses, whereas the others lived in communities; but their profession of virginity was not so strict as to make it criminal for them afterwards to marry, if they thought fit. As to the consecration of virgins, it had some things peculiar in it, and was usually performed publicly in the church by the bishop. The virgin made a public profession of her resolution, and then the bishop put upon her the accustomed habit of sacred virgins. One part of this habit was a veil called the sacrum velum; and another was a kind of mitre or coronet. Nuncio, or Nuntio, an ambassador from the pope to some Catholic prince or state, or a person who attends on behalf of the pope at a congress, or an assembly of several ambassadors.