Letter 457
Isidore of Pelusium→Unknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Arabianus the Bishop
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore interprets the story of Elijah being fed by a raven — an unclean bird — as evidence that God's providence works through whatever means it chooses, without being limited by conventional categories of purity.
You asked about the raven sent to feed Elijah. It is indeed a peculiar thing: God, who established the distinctions between clean and unclean animals in the Law, chose to feed his prophet through one of the unclean birds. What should we make of this?
The fathers understand it as a demonstration that divine providence is not bound by the same categories that bind us. God can work through whatever instrument he chooses — the dignified or the humble, the pure or the impure according to the law's outward classification, the expected or the utterly unexpected. What matters is not the instrument but the one who sends it.
Receive what comes from God's hand without questioning the hand that delivers it. The provision is what matters, not the intermediary.
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From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Arabianus the Bishop
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore interprets the story of Elijah being fed by a raven — an unclean bird — as evidence that God's providence works through whatever means it chooses, without being limited by conventional categories of purity.
You asked about the raven sent to feed Elijah. It is indeed a peculiar thing: God, who established the distinctions between clean and unclean animals in the Law, chose to feed his prophet through one of the unclean birds. What should we make of this?
The fathers understand it as a demonstration that divine providence is not bound by the same categories that bind us. God can work through whatever instrument he chooses — the dignified or the humble, the pure or the impure according to the law's outward classification, the expected or the utterly unexpected. What matters is not the instrument but the one who sends it.
Receive what comes from God's hand without questioning the hand that delivers it. The provision is what matters, not the intermediary.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.