Letter 163

Isidore of PelusiumUnknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: An unnamed person
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore addresses several questions of doctrine and discipline in a single letter.

The richness of divine teaching is such that a single passage of Scripture often contains answers to questions we have not yet thought to ask. The teacher who approaches the text with a question will find the question answered; the one who approaches it to confirm what he already thinks will find that too — and will be the worse for it.

Read without an agenda. Let the text say what it says. Then the discipline of understanding it correctly can begin.

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