From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Zosimus the Presbyter
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore explains why he writes letters of reproof rather than speaking directly — letters reach people when they are calm and can receive what is said without the defensiveness that face-to-face correction sometimes provokes.
You may wonder why I continue to write rather than coming to speak with you face to face. The reason is this: a letter finds a person at a time of their own choosing. They can read it when they are at peace, when the defenses are down, when the words can enter without the resistance that a direct encounter sometimes provokes. The person being corrected cannot easily be angry at a letter.
When I speak to someone who is disposed to take offense, my words reach ears that are already closed. When I write, the words wait for an opening. I have seen more change from a letter read in a quiet moment than from a conversation conducted in one of heat.
Receive this then as I intend it: not as an attack but as an argument presented when you have the leisure to consider it.
Context:Isidore explains why he writes letters of reproof rather than speaking directly — letters reach people when they are calm and can receive what is said without the defensiveness that face-to-face correction sometimes provokes.
You may wonder why I continue to write rather than coming to speak with you face to face. The reason is this: a letter finds a person at a time of their own choosing. They can read it when they are at peace, when the defenses are down, when the words can enter without the resistance that a direct encounter sometimes provokes. The person being corrected cannot easily be angry at a letter.
When I speak to someone who is disposed to take offense, my words reach ears that are already closed. When I write, the words wait for an opening. I have seen more change from a letter read in a quiet moment than from a conversation conducted in one of heat.
Receive this then as I intend it: not as an attack but as an argument presented when you have the leisure to consider it.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.