Lampetius

Lampetius is known only as a frequent correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium (d. c. 450), to whom roughly thirty-three of Isidore's letters are addressed; he is otherwise unattested. Across the surviving letters his honorific shifts, being addressed at different points as a monk, a deacon, and most often as a bishop, which may reflect a career advancing through the clergy or simply variation in the manuscript address lines. The letters to him range from spiritual admonition (one rebukes him as a monk for taking up the plow of salvation and then turning back in sluggishness, invoking the example of Simon Magus) to substantive scriptural and theological instruction addressed to him as bishop, on subjects such as how divine power is perfected in weakness, why the Law excluded lepers from sacred precincts, the duty of reconciliation before bringing one's gift to the altar, and the abuse of the priesthood by an unworthy man named Eusebius. Isidore also writes to him about practical pastoral matters, including reproaching him for neglecting an ailing presbyter, Zosimus, and discussing the decline of a city said to have died together with one Ammonius, which places Lampetius in Isidore's early-to-mid 5th-century Pelusium and eastern Nile Delta milieu, though the letters do not fix his own see or residence.