HE was taken from his cell where he had passed many years in the
deserts, ordained Priest, and placed in the dignity of hospitaller, by
St. Athanasius. He lived in that great city a perfect model of meekness,
patience, mortification, and prayer. He frequently burst into tears at
table, saying: "I who am a rational creature, and made to enjoy God, eat
the food of brutes, instead of feeding on the bread of angels."
Palladius, afterwards bishop of Helenopolis, on going to Egypt to
embrace an ascetic life, addressed himself first to our saint for
advice: the skilful director bade him go and exercise himself for some
time in mortification and self-denial, and then return for further
instructions. St. Isidore suffered many persecutions, first from Lucius
the Arian intruder, and afterwards from Theophilus, who unjustly accused
him of Origenism.[2] He publicly condemned that heresy at {157}
Constantinople, where he died in 403, under the protection of St.
Chrysostom. See Palladius in Lausiac, c. 1 and 2. Socrates, l. 6, c. 9.
Sozomen, c. 3 and 12. St. Jerom, Ep. 61, c. 15, ad Princip. Theodoret.
l. 4, c. 21. Pallad. de Vita S. Chrys. Bulteau, Hist. Mon. d'Orient. l.
1, c. 15
Footnotes:
1. A hospitaller is one residing in an hospital, in order to receive
the poor and strangers.
2. St. Jerom's zeal against the Origenists was very serviceable to the
church; yet his translation of Theophilus's book against the memory
of St. Chrysostom, (ap. Fac. herm. l. 6, c. 4,) is a proof that it
sometimes carried him too far. This weakens his charge against the
holy hospitaller of Alexandria, whom Theophilus expelled Egypt, with
the four long brothers, (Dioscorus, Ammonias, Eusebius, and
Euthymius,) and about three hundred other monks. Some accuse
Theophilus of proceeding against them out of mere jealousy. It is at
least certain, that St. Isidore and the four long brothers
anathematized Origenism at Constantinople, before St. Chrysostom
received them to his communion, and that Theophilus himself was
reconciled to them at Chalcedon, in the council at the Oak, without
requiring of them any confession of faith, or making mention of
Origen. (Sozom. l. 8, c. 17.) Many take the St. Isidore, mentioned
in the Roman Martyrology, for the hospitaller; but Bulteau observes,
that St. Isidore of Scete is rather meant; at least the former is
honored by the Greeks.