Letter 179

Isidore of PelusiumUnknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Anonymous
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore argues that flattery is more dangerous than insult — even teachers who hate flattery use fear and reproach as their tools, never false praise.

Even though teachers and fathers have rejected flattery as something supremely harmful and ruinous — using fear instead to manage their students and children — we too, if we have any sense, should turn away from flatterers more decisively than we turn away from those who insult us.

The reason is simple: insult from outside wounds the surface. Flattery works from inside, making the person complicit in his own softening and ruin. The damage flattery does is greater than what abuse does, for those who do not guard themselves against it. And it is harder to break free from than any passion I know.

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