ISIDORO di ALESSANDRIA, saint. - Solitary of Mount Nitria, born in 319 and died in 404. He was a disciple of St Anthony the Hermit and companion of St Macarius. Together with St Athanasius he came to Rome and departed with the matron Melania for the Egyptian desert.
His meekness became famous, as did, besides the gift of tears, the ease with which he fell into ecstasy while taking food. Together with the fathers of the hermitage Macarius and Pambo, he struck the monk who owned property: «pecunia tua tecum sit in perditionem». He suffered greatly at the hands of the patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria, who had first wished to raise him to the episcopate and then expelled him not only from the Church of Alexandria but also from the desert of Nitria. Together with the monks who were his disciples, themselves likewise banished from Egypt, he sought the protection of St John Chrysostom in Palestine. It should be noted, however, that Metaphrastes wrongly attributes this latter event to the homonymous Isidore of Pelusium. Our I. has also been confused with the bishop of Hermopolis and with another Isidore, an Origenist presbyter.