Antiochus (correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium)

Antiochus is known only as a correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium, active in the Pelusium and eastern Nile Delta milieu of early-to-mid 5th-century Egypt. One of Isidore's letters addresses him as a eunuch and chamberlain of the imperial palace who, in the writer's words, not only serves the empire but directs its affairs and is urged to uphold justice; the remaining letters show him as a lay reader of Scripture who put exegetical questions to Isidore, such as why Philip (one of the Seven, not the apostle) baptized the Ethiopian eunuch and Simon Magus, and why God says in Ezekiel 'My eye shall not spare.' Other letters offer him moral and philosophical counsel on virtue against vice and on moderation, and one alludes to his being oppressed by a presbyter named Zosimus, urging him to bear the wrong patiently. Beyond what these letters reveal about his office and his interest in religious instruction, he is otherwise unattested.