Letter 1579: If, speaking of a man and a woman as two separate persons, it is said: "What God has joined, let no man put asunder"...

Isidore of PelusiumNeidos|c. 430 AD|Isidore of Pelusium|To Neidos (recipient)|AI-assisted
education booksgrief deathimperial politicsmonasticismwomen

To Neidos.

For those who, like you, have not so much as tasted toil, it is not right to speak of needing rest. For rest is the second course that follows toil; apart from toil, it would justly be called self-indulgence. Those who are leaving off their toils must rest; but those who hold back from toiling altogether are to be called profligate and idle. And so, as long as you do not accept the sweat of labor, you must abstain even from the very name of rest.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.

Latin / Greek Original

Τῶν ὥσπερ σὺ ἄγευστον τῶν πόνων, οὐ δίκαιον
λέγειν ἀναπαύλης δεῖσθαι. Δευτέρα γὰρ τῶν πόνων
ἡ ἀνάπαυλα· χωρὶς δὲ ἐκείνων, τρυφὴ δικαίως ἂν
καλοῖτο. Τοὺς μὲν γὰρ πόνων λήγοντας ἀναπαύεσθαι
χρή· τοὺς δ’ ὅλως ἀφεστηκότα τοῦ πονεῖν, ἀσώτους
κλητέον καὶ ἀργούς. Ὥστε ἕως ἂν σὺ μὴ παραδέξαι
τοὺς ἱδρῶτας, ἀφεκτέον καὶ τοῦ τῆς ἀναπαύσεως
ὀνόματος.

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern isidore pelusium workflow v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/PatrologiaGraeca

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