Jacob

Jacob is known only as the recipient of five letters from Isidore of Pelusium, the ascetic letter-writer active in Pelusium and the eastern Nile Delta in the early-to-mid 5th century. The letters address him as "the Reader" (anagnostes), the minor church office of lector who read Scripture aloud in services, marking him as a junior cleric under Isidore's instruction. Isidore writes to him chiefly as a spiritual and exegetical guide: explaining that God is unchangeable while changing those who need betterment (citing the Psalms), expounding sayings of Matthew on receiving a prophet, warning him to flee the company of the wicked lest bad habit become second nature, urging him not to be scandalized by the worldly prosperity of one Eusebius and his circle, and praising the rewards of virtue. He is otherwise unattested.