Letter 172

Isidore of PelusiumUnknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Peter
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore on the apparent triumph of Eusebius's tyranny over those who loved virtue — and why those who perished there should not be mourned as if lost.

Even during the tyranny of Eusebius — as you have written — when the friends of virtue were being destroyed, no one identified the cause of their ruin as anything other than virtue itself.

Justice anticipates the final verdict. The memory of the coming judgment is, for those who have kept it alive in themselves, a sharper instrument of destruction than any earthly power. Do not grow careless. God will not permit what was done there to pass without answer. The one who seems to have won by such means has not yet reached the end of the account.

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