Zeno (correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium)

Zeno is known only as a correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium (d. c. 450), to whom Isidore wrote at least seven surviving letters; he is otherwise unattested. The letters consistently address him as a presbyter (priest) and present him as an ascetic of voluntary poverty, praising his wrestling-bouts against the passions and exchanging a gift of a cloak and tunic that Isidore returns by invoking the Baptist's command against keeping two tunics. Isidore repeatedly commends to him the example of the late bishop Hermogenes, calling Zeno that bishop's true disciple and imitator and urging him to seal his virtue with humility and moderation. He is best placed only as context within Isidore's milieu of Pelusium and the eastern Nile Delta in early-to-mid-5th-century Egypt; no birth or death dates, specific see, or further career can be established from the evidence.