Letter Writing

Down through the centuries, letter writing has played an important role in the lives of individuals, families, friends, colleagues, advisers and officials. One of the best-known examples is the celebrated exchange of letters during the Middle Ages between Abelard and Heloise, who, though heads of religious orders, wrestled with the nature of love and friendship. Other examples include the vigorous pastoral letters of the converted slave trader John Newman and the deeply personal and theological letters written from prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer before his death at the hands of the Gestapo.

The Disappearing Art of Letter Writing

In the nineteenth century letter writing became a popular activity. This was particularly the case among women, and they produced some fine examples and collections of letter writing. The early decades of this century saw an enormous increase in the numbers of letters, mainly of a business or official nature. With the advent of the telephone, personal notes and cards began to replace letters, and custom-length aerograms replaced the regular, leisurely lengthed letters that friends and families used to exchange. With the introduction of faxes and now e-mail and lower international telephone costs, there has been a marked reduction in traditional letter writing. In 1977 household-to-household missives accounted for 6 percent of the U.S. mail; fifteen years later that figure dropped to 4.4 percent. For all the increase in public educational facilities, there also seems to be a deterioration in the quality of letters, as Ken Burns’s television series on the Civil War so eloquently reminded us. It is also probably the case that people read letters more quickly and reread them less often. Since phone messages are not preserved, fax paper has questionable life span, and e-mail communications are rarely saved, it will be more difficult in the future to reconstruct people’s thoughts and lives from what they have written.

Letter Writing in Earlier Times

Communicating through letters could be as old as writing itself. Originally messages were sent on leaves, bark or stone, and later on leather, linen and wax. The earliest form of paper was made from papyrus reeds several centuries before the coming of Christ. From the time of Israel’s kings onward, the Bible contains many references to, and examples of, letters. Most of these are official documents. Sometimes their full text is reproduced (see Ezra 4:8-23; see Ezra 5:6-17; Neh. 6:5-8; Jeremiah 19:1-13). The use of papyrus, which was so light and easy to carry, opened up the possibility of ordinary people writing letters. Since not everyone was literate, scribes could be hired to do this, which became a regular part- or full-time occupation. Those who were literate often used secretaries for lengthier letters if their eyesight was poor (as was probably the case with Paul; Galatians 6:11).

Due to the durability of paper under dry conditions, many thousands of these letters have survived. Most of them are brief, formal and fairly stereotyped. Their contents deal with personal, familial or business matters, and many are designed for maintaining friendship. Letters were regarded as equivalent to or simply another form of the personal presence of their authors. They were generally carried by people known to those who wrote them, often slaves or subordinates, who would also bring back replies, though mail services had existed in large organized societies for some centuries (for example, Esther 3:13; Esther 8:10). From the third century a.d. onward, letters containing money or sensitive information were often entrusted to Christians, since they could be depended on not to steal or divulge their contents.

Examples of longer, more didactic or public letters also survive from this period. Some of the early philosophers, for example, Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus, occasionally used letters for teaching purposes. But it was the publication of 931 letters by the Roman moralist Cicero, after his death, that opened the way for letters to be taken seriously as a public educational device. Many other collections followed thereafter. Some of these, as with Seneca and Epicurus, verged on being epistolary treatises rather than genuine letters. There were also books or manuals on letter-writing style. These discussed different types of letters—for example, of introduction, apology, gratitude, accusation, praise, criticism, consolation, friendship.

The apostolic letters in the New Testament, including the seven letters to the churches in Revelation, fall midway between the two categories of personal and public letters. Some, like 2 and 3 John or the letter to Philemon, are relatively informal. Others, such as the letter to the Hebrews or to the Romans, are semiformal in character and contain lengthier theological and ethical discussions. Even so, they are more personal in tone and more concrete in character than letters by contemporary philosophers. As well as dealing with matters of religious belief and church life, they touch on such everyday issues as whether to buy meat in the marketplace, how to order your time, how to behave at certain kinds of dinner parties, whether to get married or remain single, when husband and wife should or should not have sex and what is the best way of resolving legal disputes between Christians.

» See also: Friendship

» See also: Gossip

» See also: Telephone

» See also: Time

References and Resources

W. G. Doty, Letters in Primitive Christianity (Philadelphia, Penn.: Fortress, 1973). Donna E. Schaper, Why Write Letters: Ten Ways to Simplify—and Enjoy—Your Life (New York: Pilgrim, 1995).

—Robert Banks