John (correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium)

"John" is the name attached to six letters in the correspondence of Isidore of Pelusium (d. c. 450), active in the Pelusium and eastern Nile Delta milieu of early-to-mid-5th-century Egypt; he is known only as a recipient of Isidore's letters, and the six in fact appear to address several different men of that common name rather than one person. They include John a deacon, to whom Isidore expounds scriptural passages from Hebrews and the Psalms; John a monk, whom he admonishes on fasting and ascetic vigilance against gluttony; John the advocate (scholasticus), to whom he writes contemptuously of effeminate stage-dancers; and John a soldier, whom he rebukes sharply for plundering monks' dwellings and farmers' harvests and urges either to soldier lawfully against the barbarians or to live as an orderly citizen. Beyond these brief exhortations and scriptural and moral lessons, none of these correspondents is otherwise attested.