A Warning Against Self Teaching

Βαρύν ὑπῆλθες ζυγὸν, ἀπειροζυγος ὤν. Καὶ δέος ἐστὶ μὴ πρὸς τὴν σμινύην τοῦ Θείου ἀτονήσῃς ἀρότρου, κακείνου φανῇς συνεργὸς τοῦ πύργον οἰκοδομοῦντος, καὶ τὰς δυνάμεις μὴ προορῶντος. Εἰ τοίνυν δόκιμος βούλει γενέσθαι μοναχὸς, μὴ αὐτόβουλον καὶ μονότροπον ἀρέσκειαν μετέρχου, ἀλλὰ κλῖνον τὴν γνώμην τοῖς βίῳ καὶ χρόνῳ καὶ πόνῳ ἤδη τὸν θεῖον σκάψασι καὶ σκαπανεύσασιν ἀμπελῶνα· παρ' ὤν εὐκόλως τὴν ἐργασίαν μαθήσῃ. Γελοῖον γὰρ καὶ καταγέλαστον, βαναύσου μὲν τέχνης πανταχόσε περινοστεῖν διδασκάλους, τὴν δὲ θείαν φιλοσοφίαν, ὡς εὐτελές τι, ἑαυτοῖς ἐπιτρέπειν. Ἅγιος Ἰσίδωρος Του Πηλουσιώτου, Βιβλίον Πρῶτον, Ἐπιστολή ΣΞ', Λουκᾳ Μοναζοντι

You have come under a heavy yoke, unknown until now. And there is grave danger that the plough is slack upon you, so that you appear to be a fellow worker of the one who sought to build a tower and did not consider the requirements to do so. 1 If then one wishes to be proved a monk, you should not enter into pleasing your own will alone but, so that you might learn with ease, be supported by one who with life and time and labour has toiled in and cultivated the Divine vineyard. Laughable it is that in every common trade one would seek a teacher and yet for the Divine philosophy, as if it were a trivial matter, one would turn to oneself. Saint Isidore of Pelusium, Book 1, Letter 260, to the Monk Luke 1 Lk 14. 28-30