"You are our letter." The phrase is Paul's, and whoever searches for it usually wants the meaning of the verse. This article does something else, and it is worth saying what: it is not a commentary on 2 Corinthians 3, it is the bridge that the class on the Phaedrus draws between Paul and Plato, four centuries earlier, on a similar idea: what truly matters is written in the one who learns, and not only on paper.
The verse and its address
Paul writes to the Christians of Corinth, who had received the Gospel from him. And he tells them he has no need of a letter of recommendation. Paul, who wrote many letters, points the other way: the letter that recommends him is the Corinthians themselves.
"You are our letter, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, in the hearts" (2 Corinthians 3:2-3). Notice that the verse itself works with contrasts: ink and Spirit, stone and flesh. Who writes, where it is written, and with what, all of it is at stake in the phrase.
Plato, four centuries earlier
The Phaedrus ends by distrusting writing. In the myth of Theuth and Thamus, the king of Egypt refuses the gift of letters: whoever trusts them will remember from outside, by signs, and not from within. The whole myth is in The Myth of Theuth: why Plato distrusted writing. What interests us here is Socrates' next step.
He compares writing to a painting: painted figures seem alive, but if someone questions them, they remain gravely silent (Phaedrus 275d). A text says always the same thing, does not know who it is talking to, does not defend itself and does not explain. And then Socrates says there is another writing, the legitimate one: the one done, with knowledge, in the soul of the one who learns (276a). This is the knowledge that answers. It is what you can say with your own mouth, and defend when someone disagrees.
The bridge: writing in the other
Put the two passages together. In Plato, the knowledge that counts is what is written in the soul of the one who learns, in the living conversation with the one who teaches. In Paul, Christians are a letter written in their hearts. The dates show these are not contemporaries: the Phaedrus dates from around 370 BC, and the second letter to the Corinthians from around 55 to 57 AD. The class does not claim that Paul read the Phaedrus. What it does is bring the two ideas together, and the closeness is this: the image of writing in the one who learns, rather than writing on paper, appears at both ends.
Where the bridge ends: who writes
This is where the two ideas part, and the class is clear about it. Plato's idea, that of writing on the soul of the one who learns, is carried by Paul to a place where Plato could not go. In Plato, the one who writes on the soul of the learner is the teacher, who passes on the word in conversation. In Paul, the one who writes in the heart is not only a teacher who converses: it is the word that comes from God, through his instrument. In the verse, it is the Spirit of the living God.
That is why the bridge is good for seeing what the two share, and bad for making one the disciple of the other. Plato could not reach where Paul reaches, and what separates them fits in one sentence: in Paul, the one who writes is God. If the question that brought you here is about Plato and God, the subject is in Did Plato believe in God? The Demiurge of the Timaeus.
The letter kills, and the Spirit gives life
Right after the verse comes the phrase the class uses to sum up the difference: the letter kills, and the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). The class makes one point clear: this is not contempt for the text. Christians copied the Scriptures by hand, with immense care, for many centuries. But for them, reading never sufficed. The Word has to leave the page and dwell in the heart of the one who reads.
Note the similarity of stance with Plato, who does not reject the book either: he writes dialogues, so that the book is the beginning of a conversation and not the store of knowledge. In both cases the text is a starting point, and what matters is what happens after the reading, in the one who reads.
The wider road: Plato and Christianity
The bridge of the Phaedrus with Paul is a short and specific road. The wider road between Plato and Christianity runs through the Timaeus, the dialogue that Saint Augustine read and in which he recognized something like the beginning of Genesis. That route, and what Christians accepted and corrected in Plato, is in Plato and Christianity: from the Timaeus to Saint Augustine's Genesis.
To keep
The class sums it up this way: Socrates left the city, spoke against love with his face covered, and had to retract. He showed that speech leads souls, and that it can serve what is true or only what convinces. And he ended by distrusting writing, because a book can give the impression that you know without your really knowing. The knowledge that counts, for Plato, is what is written inside you. And that, the class says, is what Paul recognized when he said that Christians were a letter written in their hearts.
Here is the question with which the Phaedrus is closed in the class: of everything we know, how much has already been written in us, and how much is still only in books? For the context of the whole dialogue, begin with Plato's Phaedrus: summary and how to read it.
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Discover the courseFrequently asked questions
Where does the phrase "you are our letter" come from?
It comes from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 3, verses 2 and 3. Paul writes to the Christians of Corinth, who had received the Gospel from him, and says he has no need of a letter of recommendation: their letter is the Corinthians themselves, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, in the hearts.
What does Plato have to do with that phrase?
The class on the Phaedrus brings two ideas together. Plato says there is a legitimate writing, the one done with knowledge in the soul of the one who learns, in contrast with a text that does not answer. Paul, about four centuries later, says Christians are a letter written in their hearts. It is Plato's idea carried to a place he could not reach: in Paul, the one who writes in the heart is not only a teacher in conversation, it is God himself.
Did Paul read Plato?
The class does not claim that. What it does is bring together two similar ideas, separated by about four centuries, without arguing that one read the other. On the wider relation between Plato and Christianity, the path goes through the Timaeus, which is treated in another article.
Does "the letter kills" mean contempt for the text?
According to the class, no. Christians copied the Scriptures by hand, with great care, for centuries. What the phrase marks, in this reading, is that for them reading was never enough: the Word has to leave the page and dwell in the heart of the one who reads.
Continue: Plato's Phaedrus: summary and how to read it · The Myth of Theuth: why Plato distrusted writing · Plato and Christianity: from the Timaeus to Saint Augustine's Genesis · Galleria Doria Pamphilj and Caravaggio
Source class: Fedro, de Platão