Chaeremon

Chaeremon is known only as a recipient of letters from Isidore of Pelusium, the ascetic and exegete active in the eastern Nile Delta of Egypt in the early-to-mid 5th century; two of the thirteen letters address him explicitly as a deacon (new-545, new-712). Isidore's letters to him are overwhelmingly reproachful: he charges Chaeremon with leading a defiled life while presuming to investigate doctrine and to partake of the Eucharistic Mysteries unworthily, even comparing him to Judas, and rebukes him for lampooning his bishop Eusebius while committing the same faults himself. Other letters credit Chaeremon with eloquence, a sharp mind, and formidable powers of speech while faulting his quarrelsome, haughty temper, and one (letter 63) reproves him as an anchorite for indulging in pagan Greek literature. Beyond what these letters reveal of a learned but morally censured cleric in Isidore's circle, Chaeremon is otherwise unattested.