ISIDORE OF ALEXANDRIA, St. — Hermit of Mount Nitria, b. 319, d. 404. He was a disciple of St. Anthony the Hermit and a companion of St. Macarius. Together with St. Athanasius he came to Rome and returned with the noblewoman Melania to the Egyptian desert.
His gentleness became celebrated, and besides the gift of tears, the ease with which he fell into ecstasy while taking food. With the desert Fathers Macarius and Pambo he struck the monk who owned property: “Thy money perish with thee” (Acts 8:20). He suffered greatly at the hands of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, who first wished to elevate him to the episcopate and then expelled him not only from the Church of Alexandria but also from the desert of Nitria. With his monastic disciples, likewise banished from Egypt, he sought the protection of St. John Chrysostom in Palestine. It should be noted, however, that Metaphrastes mistakenly attributes this latter event to the homonymous Isidore of Pelusium. Our Isidore has also been confused with the bishop of Hermopolis and with another Isidore, a priest of the Origenist party.