“Speech is really an image of mind: so I have learned to know you from your letters, just as the proverb tells us we may know the lion from his claws.”
–St. Basil the Great (Basil of Caesarea) (4th Century)
Question for reflection: In what ways does Basil’s metaphor suggest that language reveals our soul?
Source: Letter 9 to Maximus the Philosopher, in The Letters, trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1926), Vol. 1, p. 35.