ISIDORE OF PELUSIUM, Saint. - Ecclesiastical writer, born, according to a notice reported by Photius, in Alexandria in the 2nd half of the 4th century. Of a noble and wealthy family, he early felt the attraction of monastic life and withdrew to a monastery near Pelusium where, having become abbot, he carried on a long activity as an apologist, as an interpreter of Sacred Scripture and, albeit indirectly and with little effectiveness, as a defender of orthodoxy. The year of his death is uncertain, but it must be placed, according to what emerges from the reference to particular events in some epistles, after 434.

The only work of I. that has come down to us is the Epistolaria, one of the richest in Greek literature. It comprises in fact 2012 letters distributed in 5 books, some however repeated (e.g.: IV, 147 = V, 91; IV, 190 = V, 138); others of doubtful authenticity because of the absence of an epistolary character, to which must be added the 49 published by Aigrain and another 5 by Capo. Some are very long (II, 146; III, 154), others of only two or three lines (I, 30; III, 190); they are addressed to persons of different condition, bishops, deacons, monks, rhetoricians, political men, and two (I, 35 and 311) even to the emperor, Theodosius II. In them the most varied subjects are discussed: the superiority of the New Testament over the Old Testament (II, 53), the value of Baptism (III, 193), the immortality of the soul (IV, 125), the Montanist (I, 242-45), Manichaean (I, 52), Novatianist (I, 100) heresies, and especially numerous passages of the Bible, in the exegesis of which I., following the orientation of the Antiochene school, reconciles the historical-literal sense with the spiritual sense (θεωρία), but sometimes indulges in allegorical interpretation (e.g., IV, 117).

In other works it has been wrongly believed that an indication could be discerned in the very letters of I.: in II, 138 and 228 he makes mention of a λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνες while, in III, 253 he speaks of a λογίβιον περὶ τοῦ μὴ εἶναι εἰμασμένη, which Niemeyer supposed to be one and the same as the first, conjecturing a λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνες περὶ τοῦ μὴ εἶναι εἰμασμένη recently identified by A. Altaner (Byzant. Zeitschrift, 42 [1942], p. 91 ff.) with Ep. III, 154.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: Works: Editio princeps by Jac. Billius, Paris 1585 (first three books, with Latin translation). The work, completed with the 4th book (C. Rittershaus, Heidelberg 1603) and the 5th (A. Schott, Paris 1698), was reprinted, together with the collations on new codices by P. Posisinus (1670) and by Niemeyer in PG 78, 103-1646; R. Aigrain, Quarante-neuf lettres de la Isidore de Péluse. Ed. crit. de l'ancienne version lat. contenue dans deux manuscrits du Concile d'Ephrès, Paris 1911; Studies: N. Capo, De I. Pélus epistularum recensione ac numero quaestio, in Studi italiani di filologia classica, 9 [1901], pp. 449-66. H. A. Niemeyer, De I. Pélus. vita, scriptis et doctrina commentatio historico-theologica, Halle 1825 (reprinted in PG 78, 9-12 and 1647-71); E. L. A. Bouvy, De sancto I. Pélus. libri tres, Nimes 1885; L. Bayer, Isidore von Pelusium klausische Bildung, Paderborn 1915; D. S. Mplanos, Ἰσίβορος ὁ Ἰηλοκυδίτης, Athens 1922; A. Schmid, Die Christologie Isidore von Pelusium, Freiburg 1948.

Filippo di Benedetto

@incollection{ec7_isidoro_di_pelusio_santo, author = {Di, Benedetto Filippo}, title = {Isidoro di Pelusio, santo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {254}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/isidoro-di-pelusio-santo} }

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Isidore of Pelusium, Saint

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