Paulos

Otherwise little attested; known chiefly as the recipient of letters under the very common name Paulus/Paulos (Greek Παῦλος). The nine letters addressed to a "Paulos" in this corpus span two quite different milieus -- the school of the pagan rhetorician Libanius at Antioch (later 4th century) and the ascetic correspondence of Isidore of Pelusium in Egypt (early-to-mid 5th century) -- so the name almost certainly stands for more than one individual rather than a single traceable person. In Libanius's letters a Paulus typically figures as a former student, official, or local notable; in Isidore's, a Paulus is generally a cleric, monk, or layman receiving moral and exegetical instruction. No specific dates, offices, or biography can be assigned with confidence beyond what the letters themselves imply.