From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Rhetius
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore defines the gold standard of genuine friendship — transparent, neither flattering nor secretly hostile.
I hold the straightest rule of friendship to be this: one who breathes in harmony with his brothers without pretense; who neither courts friends through flattery nor pursues enmities in secret; who stands naked before all with his soul open — simple in his judgment, simple in his speech, and simpler still in his manner of life.
For friendship built on flattery is friendship with a wound hidden in it, while enmity conducted in secret is a war waged without honor. The man who is one thing to your face and another behind your back has mastered neither friendship nor courage. But he who is the same in all directions — the same thought, the same tongue, the same life — that man I call a friend.
Context:Isidore defines the gold standard of genuine friendship — transparent, neither flattering nor secretly hostile.
I hold the straightest rule of friendship to be this: one who breathes in harmony with his brothers without pretense; who neither courts friends through flattery nor pursues enmities in secret; who stands naked before all with his soul open — simple in his judgment, simple in his speech, and simpler still in his manner of life.
For friendship built on flattery is friendship with a wound hidden in it, while enmity conducted in secret is a war waged without honor. The man who is one thing to your face and another behind your back has mastered neither friendship nor courage. But he who is the same in all directions — the same thought, the same tongue, the same life — that man I call a friend.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.