"because He hath deigned to praise Himself, therefore hath man found how to praise Him"

"We must take care that the praise we offer him proceeds in good order, with no kind of excess creeping in which could offend the one whom we praise. We therefore think it best to follow the path of praise marked out in God’s scriptures, not declining from the way either to the right hand or to the left. I would go so far as to say to you, beloved, that God has praised himself in order to give human beings a pattern by which they can praise him in a seemly fashion. Because God has kindly praised himself, men and women know how to praise him [(ut bene ab homine laudetur deus, laudauit se ipse deus; et quia dignatus est laudare se, ideo inuenit homo quemadmodum laudet eum)]."

     St. Augustine, Exposition of Ps 144 (145).1, trans. Maria Boulding, WSA III/20, 379.  Latin from CCSL 40, 2088 ll. 1-8 via CAG via Past Masters.  St. Augustine continues as follows:  "It cannot, of course, be said to God, as it is to humans, Let not your own mouth praise you (Prv 27:2). If a human being praises himself, it is arrogance, but if God praises himself, he does so out of his mercy. It is to our advantage to love him whom we praise because, by loving the good, we become better. Knowing that it is good for us to love him, God has made himself lovable by praising himself, and in making himself lovable he has our good at heart. He therefore stirs up our hearts to praise him, and he has filled his servants with his own Spirit, to enable them to offer him praise. And if it is his own Spirit, present in his servants, who is praising him, what else can we conclude but that God is praising himself?"  Trans. H. Walford, Expositions on the book of Psalms, Library of the Fathers, vol. 6 (1857), p. 314:

in order that the praise which we give Him may be in due order, that it may not by any excess offend Him Whom it praiseth, it is better for us to seek the path of praise in the Scripture of God, that we turn not aside from the way, either to the right hand or to the left.  For I venture to say to you, beloved, God hath praised Himself, that He might be properly praised by man:  and because He hath deigned to praise Himself, therefore hath man found how to praise Him.

"she was squeamish, and she was [still] alive"

     'I have heard that white men eat turtles,' said Long Bear’s wife.  'I do not believe it.'
     'They do eat turtles,' said High Backbone, 'and they eat frogs.  A white man told me.  I asked him.'
     'Ey!  And such unclean things; I could not eat them,' cried Bird Woman [(Sacagawea)].

     . . .

     "How do we know this happened?  Buffalo Bird Woman was there, she told [Gilbert] Wilson, and Wilson told us.  It’s even possible that Wilson confirmed it with Wounded Face.  This simple story, published by a man careful with facts, might tell us two things about Bird Woman in the 1860s:  she was squeamish, and she was alive."

     Thomas Powers, "Getting Sacagawea right," reviewing Our story of Eagle Woman:  Sacagawea:  they got it wrong, by the Sacagawea Project Board of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (Paragon Agency, ), The New York review of books 70, no. 10 (June 8, 2023):  41, 42 (39-42), on Sacagawea "in the mid-1860s", not long before (supposedly) her actual death in 1869, not 20 December 1812 as long thought.  Nineteen or twenty in August of 1806 (39), she would thus have been born c. 1786 or 1787.

Salt and light

"First salt, then light, so that you may learn how profitable sharp words [(τῶν κατεστυμμένων ῥημάτων)] may be and how useful serious doctrine [(τῆς σεμνῆς διδασκαλίας)]."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on Matthew, as trans. Liturgy of the hours (Universalis).  =Homiliae in Matthaevm, ed. Field (1839), vol. 1, p. 201 at 195A =PG 57, col. 232.  NPNF:

"And before they are salt, and now light; to teach thee how great [(ἡλίκον)] is the gain of these strict precepts, and the profit of that grave discipline: . . ."

No easy struggles or unimportant tasks

"Do not think, he says, that you are destined for easy struggles or unimportant tasks.  You are the salt of the earth."

Μὴ τοίνυν νομίσητε, φησὶν, ἐπὶ τοὺς τυχόντας ἀγῶνας ἕλκεσθαι, μηδὲ ὑπὲρ μικρῶν τινων εἶναι τὸν λόγον ὑμῖν·  "ὑμεῖς ἐστε τὸ ἄλας τῆς γῆς."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on Matthew, as trans. Liturgy of the hours (Universalis).  =Homiliae in Matthaevm, ed. Field (1839), vol. 1, p. 199 at 193E =PG 57, col. 231.  NPNF:

"'Think not then,' He saith, 'that ye are drawn on to ordinary conflicts, or that for some small matters you are to give account.' 'Ye are the salt of the earth.'"