To the priest Sosipater.
Do not count it a triumph, reverend Sosipater, that you are denouncing a cult or a point of view which does not seem to be good. And do not imagine that, having thoroughly refuted it, all is therefore well with Sosipater. For it could happen that the one hidden truth could escape both you and others in the midst of falsehoods and appearances. What is not red does not have to be white. What is not a horse is not necessarily human.
This is what you will do if you trust me. You will cease from the denunciation of others and you will speak about truth in such a manner that everything you say will be irrefutable.
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I came across this last night and thought it would make a fine beginning to this long-delayed project. The injunctions of the sixth-century mystic to his clerical friend spoke to me, and I realized that, all too often, I am Sosipater too. Anyway, I thought it might serve as a nice reminder to myself that the positive building up of an idea is a much more difficult project than is the dismantling of another's position and in so doing encourage appropriate humility in this enterprise.
You have set the right tone for our project, Gabriel. To delight in dismantling error is not the same as to delight in speaking the truth. Humility is key. Without it, we could corrupt truth - or at least our tiny fragment of it - into a mere showcase for our pride. I hope that we able to keep the Areopagite's advice in mind as we work through this project.
Your phrasing "To delight in dismantling error" recalls the sententia (if not the exact verba) of a C. S. Lewis quotation which I don't recall ever having read but which you have mentioned to me on several occasions. Something about a desire to see blacker devils and an orientation towards hell. Do you recall where that came from? Almost every time I think of that quotation, it hits me pretty hard. I think I tend towards that error he warns against: the capitalists which inhabit my mind are nasty indeed.
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