Dorotheus (correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium)

Dorotheus is known only as a correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium (d. c. 450), to whom Isidore addressed at least twenty-one letters in the milieu of Pelusium and the eastern Nile Delta in the early-to-mid 5th century. The address lines mark him as a learned layman of high standing: he is repeatedly styled vir clarissimus ("most illustrious," a senatorial honorific) and is variously called a scholasticus (an advocate or trained lawyer) and, in one letter, "deacon and physician." Consistent with that profile, Isidore writes to him as an educated peer, treating juridical and philosophical questions - the role of lawgivers and the purpose of punishment, the qualities of an intelligent and incorruptible judge, the lesser corruptibility of incorporeal things, and themes of humility, the priesthood, and the sacrifice of Isaac. Beyond these letters he is otherwise unattested, and the varying titles may even conceal more than one recipient grouped under the name.