Saint Augustine
sometimes that cat
gets on a roll an theres no stopping him
I like him
tho
he consistently makes
cameos in my head pushes the tip of my
ballpoint pen across scores an scores of unlined pages
I cant shake him
he laid this beaut on me down from
415 CE(I know CE would twist his panties hes AD if ever AD was inscribed during
the Fifth Century I dont know if the people then recognised BC BCE AD CE
E-I-E-I-O hey)
The
danger . . . exists that mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man
in the
bounds of hell
I gotta admit I gasped had to take a breath
I was troubled
didnt sound like him
found it cited in a book Upright
Thinkers
I stole some encouragement however the translation had the devil begin with a
little d spirit s man m and hell came around the bend riding the tail of the caboose
sporting a little h
libraries can inspire or
deject
the Chicago Public Library on Michigan is maniacal an I needed a playmate as obsessed as I
the Chicago Public Library on Michigan is maniacal an I needed a playmate as obsessed as I
several hours in defying niggling
librarians who wanted to assist me who were likely the staid spawns of
efficiency an catalogues which I was not I prefer the choke of settled dust paper
mites the aromatic musk of aged long unopened books because I am sensual I guess
I found a thin article by Catholic
mathematician an scholar Jack Perry he preceded
me an was agog as I
he wrote that he found in the
text De Genesi ad Litteran II, xvii, 37, Augustines original Latin: Quapropter
bono christiano sive mathematici, sive quilibet impie divinantium, maxime
dicentes vera, cavendi sunt, ne consortio daemoniorum animan deceptam, pacto
quodam societatis irretiant.
which thank gawd he translated: For
this reason, the good Christian should beware not only of numerologists, but
all those who make impious divinations, above all when they tell the truth.
Otherwise, they may deceive the soul, and ensnare her in a pact of friendship
with demons(I did not know soul was a she).
Perry decried the use of the Latin
mathematici to mean mathematician when it had meant numerologist and defended
his translation the passage had to be read in its entirety read in context of the preceding text which specifically aligned the flagrant trolled bullet point or bumper
sticker call it what one may with the occult and with astrologers
somewhere someone had swung a
corked bat
they slipped in transliteration for
translation
an while the Upright Thinkers
author may have been neglect or too pummeled to precipitate their authorial due
diligence or perhaps wasnt a fan(or devotee)
of Augustine by either honest error
or cheating the ball had to be pulled back
over the fences edge an reclaimed its homer
run an any RBIs disallowed
I have to admit I was relieved
I sat back on my blondewood chair before its stout blondewood table in the dimming preternatural hall a bit prior to the overhead electrical lighting fixtures coming up slipped a flask from my coat pocket an took a sip
I sat back on my blondewood chair before its stout blondewood table in the dimming preternatural hall a bit prior to the overhead electrical lighting fixtures coming up slipped a flask from my coat pocket an took a sip
I believe I whispered aahh an
sipped again
I must also admit the nagging I was
wont as a kid returned to my bones
the modern high school I attended
didnt offer Latin per its curriculum as a foreign language it insisted Latin was
dead the sharp volleys that ensued nearly had me dismissed rather bluntly encouraged
to attend a Catholic high school in the city which catered to students bent on
religion Assholes I inveighed Vulgar Latin and Romantic languages are at the
heart of our English language our neoAmerican braying an spittle an slang
our
thought cherry exceptionalism
often I wonder what CE Fifth
Century Augustine would have said
0100, Thursday, 3
12. 15
1302, Thursday,
3 12. 15
