Letter 225

Isidore of PelusiumUnknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Harpocras the Sophist
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore argues that arrogance, when it exceeds all measure, is a form of madness — a departure from reason that leaves the person unable to function as a rational being.

When arrogance — which is a form of madness — exceeds all measure and restraint and departs from the principles of reason and good sense, the one who suffers it can no longer function as a thinking person. He has lost the instrument that would allow him to evaluate his own condition.

This is the particular danger of intellectual arrogance in a man of gifts. The very faculties that should enable self-correction have been turned toward self-justification. The more gifted the person, the more sophisticated and airtight his self-deception becomes.

The only cure is humiliation — not imposed from outside, but genuinely experienced. And that is precisely what the arrogant person does everything possible to avoid.

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