Letter 1535
Isidore of Pelusium→Unknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk
To: An unnamed person
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore reflects on how spiritual sickness renders itself invisible — we cannot see what we will not look at.
Since we ourselves have no perception of the terrible things we do, because of laziness and self-love — and since we do not provide that perception to others either, because they are in no better state than we are — we fancy ourselves healthy. And so we neither seek physicians nor want to be healed.
This is the most dangerous kind of disease: the kind that convinces its host that there is nothing wrong. The man who knows he is sick is already partway to a cure. The man who does not know has lost even the beginning.
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From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk
To: An unnamed person
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore reflects on how spiritual sickness renders itself invisible — we cannot see what we will not look at.
Since we ourselves have no perception of the terrible things we do, because of laziness and self-love — and since we do not provide that perception to others either, because they are in no better state than we are — we fancy ourselves healthy. And so we neither seek physicians nor want to be healed.
This is the most dangerous kind of disease: the kind that convinces its host that there is nothing wrong. The man who knows he is sick is already partway to a cure. The man who does not know has lost even the beginning.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.