ISIDORO di PELUSIO, saint. — Ecclesiastical writer, born, according to a notice reported by Photius, in Alexandria in the second half of the fourth century. Of 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 out 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 references to particular events in some epistles, after 434.
The only work of I. to have survived is the Epistolaria, one of the richest collections in Greek literature. It comprises 2012 letters distributed in 5 books, though some are repeated (e.g.: IV, 147 = V, 91; IV, 190 = V, 138); others are of doubtful authenticity because they lack an epistolary character; to these must be added the 49 published by Aigrain and another 5 by Capo. Some are extremely long (II, 146; III, 154), while others consist of only two or three lines (I, 30; III, 190); they are addressed to persons of various conditions—bishops, deacons, monks, rhetors, political figures—and two (I, 35 and 311) even to the emperor, Theodosius II. 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), and Novatianist (I, 100) heresies, and especially numerous passages of the Bible. In his exegesis of these passages, I., following the orientation of the Antiochene school, reconciles the historical-literal sense with the spiritual sense (θεωρία), but at times indulges in allegorical interpretation (e.g., IV, 117).
It was mistakenly thought that an indication of other works could be discerned in I.’s own letters: in II, 138 and 228 he mentions a λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνες, while in III, 253 he speaks of a λογίβιον περὶ τοῦ μὴ εἶναι εἰμασμένη, which Niemeyer supposed to be identical with the former, 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.