Letter 154

Isidore of PelusiumUnknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Menas the Deacon
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore continues on God's patience with Jerusalem before the destruction — a meditation on divine forbearance.

Continuing on the destruction.

He who was himself wronged did not immediately move to destroy them. He refrained from judgment many times over: first by giving them opportunity for repentance, and then by making clear to all observers that when punishment did fall, it came not from divine caprice but from their own accumulated choices.

This is the pattern of divine justice. It is patient past all human understanding. But patience is not absence. The reckoning comes.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.