From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk
To: An unnamed person; then to Symmachios
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Two letters — the first on the rhetorical virtues needed to bring a wandering soul back to truth; the second to Symmachios on why earthly things change but heavenly things do not.
Touching on the highest of all subjects — for there is nothing more glorious than leading a wandering soul back to the way of truth — the teacher must learn to speak at length where dwelling is profitable, and to hint only where hinting is the proper approach; to proceed by method where method is needed, and to speak plainly whatever is most fittingly said outright. Only by using all these virtues of speech together might one have any hope of drawing up a soul that has been submerged beneath its passions.
To Symmachios: You say — and you say rightly — that the changes of earthly things are the mark of their weakness, while heavenly things are superior to change. You are correct. The mutability of everything here is not a feature; it is a symptom. What is made of the stuff of time will change with time. What is made of the stuff of eternity does not. Seek therefore not what impresses you by its splendor — splendor that depends on conditions is already halfway to failure — but what cannot be taken away.
Context:Two letters — the first on the rhetorical virtues needed to bring a wandering soul back to truth; the second to Symmachios on why earthly things change but heavenly things do not.
Touching on the highest of all subjects — for there is nothing more glorious than leading a wandering soul back to the way of truth — the teacher must learn to speak at length where dwelling is profitable, and to hint only where hinting is the proper approach; to proceed by method where method is needed, and to speak plainly whatever is most fittingly said outright. Only by using all these virtues of speech together might one have any hope of drawing up a soul that has been submerged beneath its passions.
To Symmachios: You say — and you say rightly — that the changes of earthly things are the mark of their weakness, while heavenly things are superior to change. You are correct. The mutability of everything here is not a feature; it is a symptom. What is made of the stuff of time will change with time. What is made of the stuff of eternity does not. Seek therefore not what impresses you by its splendor — splendor that depends on conditions is already halfway to failure — but what cannot be taken away.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.