Alphius

Alphius is known as a bishop and correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium, by whom he is addressed as "Alphius, Bishop" and to whom Isidore wrote at least six surviving letters in the early-to-mid-5th-century milieu of Pelusium and the eastern Nile Delta. The letters cast him as a fellow churchman whom the learned Isidore both instructs and exhorts: one answers his curiosity about the Greek custom of cult-images, others reflect on the theology of Christ as the divine teacher, while several press more pointed pastoral and moral counsel, urging him to honor the priesthood conferred on him by "a divine nod" and laying out the marks of a noble versus a servile soul. Isidore also writes to him about ecclesiastical disputes and abuses, denouncing a certain Zosimus together with Palladius and Maron, and lamenting that Church property is being plundered for private gain. Beyond his role as Isidore's episcopal correspondent he is otherwise unattested, and the letters do not fix his see.