Peter (correspondent of Isidore of Pelusium)

Peter is known only as a recipient of letters from Isidore of Pelusium, the ascetic priest and prolific letter-writer active in the eastern Nile Delta of Egypt in the early-to-mid 5th century. The 51 letters grouped under his name almost certainly address more than one Peter, since Isidore writes to a "Peter the monk" (on the savagery of the human temper compared with tamed beasts), to a "Peter the Reader" (lector), and to a "Peter the Corrector" (corrector, a Roman provincial governor whom Isidore exhorts to rule justly, to be governed by the laws rather than by vice, and to make restitution for anything wrongly taken). Across these notes Isidore writes in the mode of a spiritual director and moral counselor, treating sin and the failure to perceive it, repentance and the search for a physician of the soul, the proper honor due to the priesthood, and the right exercise of lawful authority over piety and Scripture. Beyond what these letters reveal, Peter (or the several Peters) is otherwise unattested.