Letter 470
Isidore of Pelusium→Unknown|isidore pelusium
From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Atherious the Bishop
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore warns a bishop against trading ecclesiastical integrity for the favor of secular authorities — a bishop who cultivates powerful patrons at the cost of his independence has sold the most valuable thing he had.
The friendship of the powerful is pleasant, Atherious, but costly — and the cost is not always visible at the time of purchase. What is given in exchange for that friendship is usually something the bishop did not know he was giving: a small concession here, a silence there, a judgment rendered in a direction that pleases the patron. Each one seems minor. Together they add up to the bishop's freedom.
A bishop who has lost his freedom has lost what makes his office worth having. He can still perform the ceremonies and sit in the chair. But the thing that makes those ceremonies and that chair meaningful — the authority to speak truth without regard for consequence — is gone.
Cultivate the friendship of the powerful by all means. But calculate the cost before you accept it, and refuse it when the cost is what I have described.
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From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Atherious the Bishop
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore warns a bishop against trading ecclesiastical integrity for the favor of secular authorities — a bishop who cultivates powerful patrons at the cost of his independence has sold the most valuable thing he had.
The friendship of the powerful is pleasant, Atherious, but costly — and the cost is not always visible at the time of purchase. What is given in exchange for that friendship is usually something the bishop did not know he was giving: a small concession here, a silence there, a judgment rendered in a direction that pleases the patron. Each one seems minor. Together they add up to the bishop's freedom.
A bishop who has lost his freedom has lost what makes his office worth having. He can still perform the ceremonies and sit in the chair. But the thing that makes those ceremonies and that chair meaningful — the authority to speak truth without regard for consequence — is gone.
Cultivate the friendship of the powerful by all means. But calculate the cost before you accept it, and refuse it when the cost is what I have described.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.