Grammatical gender

"Gender has the same root as genre and genus, so, in a grammatical context, refers to the category [or class] of a noun. . . .  English speakers, accustomed to a mother tongue without such noun classifications, may find it difficult to divorce the idea of [grammatical] gender from concepts of male/female, let alone avoid the temptation to find significance in a word's gender.  But many nouns belong to a gender category at complete variance with their meaning:  the Spanish word for masculinity (la masculinidad) is feminine because -idad is a feminine ending.  In contrast, el feminismo (feminism) is masculine because -ismo is a masculine ending.  Nor is it only in Romance languages where such discrepancies occur; like its Spanish and French counterparts, the German word for 'manliness' (die Mannlichkeit) is feminine."

     While the German word for feminism (Feminismus), I would add, is masculine, and the Latin word for manhood or masculinity (virilitas), feminine.  Etc.  Rory McDowall Clark, "Masculine and feminine," letter to the editor, Times literary supplement no. 6371 (May 9, 2025), 6.  More profoundly, though, perhaps, why is -idad "feminine," and -ismo "masculine"?  Etc.

My flesh (viscera), summoned to the resplendent (ignea) stars

Ian Norman

"Yea, it is even granted to restore the dead flesh [(viscera)] after its decease, and once again from its tomb the old form [(effigies)] is reborn, when the mouldering dust [(pulvereo)] comes together.  I indeed believe (and my faith is not vain) that bodies [(corpora)] live as does the soul; for now I bethink me it was in bodily [(corporeum)] form that God returned from Phlegethon with easy step to heaven.  The same hope awaits my members, which, though they are bidden to rest scented with spices in the tomb of death, Christ my leader, who rose from the like earth, calls to the glowing stars."

     Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348-c. 410), "Hymnus ante cibus," Liber Cathemerion III, trans. Thompson, LCL, Prudentius I (1949), 31.  This is followed by a "Hymn after meat" as well.  Trans. Eagan, FC 43 (1962), 23:

Yes, I believe, and my faith is not vain,
Bodies live always along with their souls;
For I reflect that from Hades' abyss,
Christ in body came back from the dead,
Mounting with joy to His heavenly throne.

Laid up for me is the glorious hope
That the still body consigned to the tomb,
Fragrant with funeral balms, will arise,
Called to empyreal stars by our King,
Christ, who arose from a similar grave. 

"a deficiency inherent to the Latin races"

"The condition of Mexico, little satisfactory as it may appear, when compared to our own Republic, is greatly improved from what it was a few years ago; and there is no man living to whom the country is as much indebted as to Juarez for that improved state of affairs.  We Americans generally, in our estimate of that country and its people, commit the error of judging them from our own standpoint, making ourselves the standard, without duly taking into account the disadvantages and drawbacks under which they are laboring.  We are a people among whom republicanism is more fully understood than almost anywhere else in the world.  It almost seems instinctive with us; hence the respect for the Constitution and laws enacted by the majority of the sovereign people.   This respect for the laws is one of our distinctive features, and is in fact the chief guarantee for the duration of the republic:  but we cannot wonder to find the Mexicans as inferior to us in this point as in many others.  Their comparatively low state of civilization, the demoralizing influence of long continued Spanish tyranny, and perhaps a deficiency inherent to the Latin races, have been as many drawbacks to the full comprehension of the principles of republicanism.  In most of the South American republics we notice the same condition."

     [Frederick Douglass], "Our southern sister republic," The new national era, ed. Frederick Douglass, vol. 2, no. 31 (Thursday, August 10, 1871), p. 2, col. 3.  I was put onto this by (and am "quoting" very selectively “from”) Adam Hochschild, “One brief shining moment,” The New York review of books 72, no. 9 (May 29, 2025), 42 (41-42).

Martin Luther on the deserving and undeserving poor

      "In the second place, this '[Give to] everyone' [(Mt 5:42)] does not mean someone who has or can have enough.  There are, especially in our age, a great number of wicked scoundrels who pretend to be poor, needy beggars and deceive people; they ought to receive their 'alms' with a rope and sack from Master Hans—if only the authorities were not so lax and negligent and did not let the gallows stand idle on the streets as if on holiday.  Similarly, there are a good many loafers these days who, being active, healthy, and strong, might well work, serve, and make a living.  But they rely on Christians and pious people being glad to give.  And where there is not enough giving or people do not give adequate amounts, they supplement it by stealing—indeed, by taking things openly in yards, on the street, and even in houses.  The end of it is that I am in doubt whether there was ever such a time when stealing and taking was so common, and yet all the gallows stood all empty and, as it were, on holiday all the year round.  Here Christ commanded you to give not to these kinds of people but only to the needy in your city or around you, as Moses teaches, who are unable to work, serve, or make a living, or else do not make enough money despite their constant labor and service.  In these cases one is to give aid, gifts, and loans whether it is a friend or an enemy.  A Christian can certainly do this and will not find it too difficult, especially when those in charge restrain foreign beggars and vagabonds or strangers and loafers."

      Martin Luther, "To pastors, that they should preach against usury" (1539), trans. Matthew Carver, LW 61, Theological and polemical works, ed. Benjamin Mayes (2021), pp. 308-309.  =WA 51, pp. 383 l. 17-384 l. 3.  I was put onto this by Eberhard Jüngel, “Gewinn im Himmel und auf Erden:  theologische Bemerkungen zum Streben nach Gewinn,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 94, no. 4 (Dezember 1997):  541 (532-552).

"Man's greatness even in his concupiscence, from having known how to draw an admirable moral order from it and make it into an image of charity"

"Man's greatness even in his concupiscence.  He has managed to produce such a remarkable system from it and make it the image of true charity" (Krailsheimer 118 (Lafuma)).

"Man's greatness even in his concupiscence, from having known how to draw an admirable moral order from it and make it into an image of charity" (Levi 150 (Sellier)).

"The greatness of man even in his lust, to have known how to extract from it a wonderful code, and to have drawn from it a picture of benevolence" (Trotter 402 (Brunschvicg)). 

"Grandeur de l’homme dans sa concupiscence même, d’en avoir su tirer un règlement admirable et en avoir fait un tableau de la charité."

     Pascal, Pensées:  Faugère I, 225, CLV / Havet XXIV.80 ter / Brunschvicg 402 / Tourneur p. 197-1 / Le Guern 109 / Lafuma 118 / Sellier 150.

 

"Greatness:  Causes and effects show the greatness of man in producing such excellent order from his own concupiscence" (Kraisheimer 106 (Lafuma)).

"Greatness:  The law of cause and effect demonstrates man's greatness through the construction of such a fine moral order drawn out of concupiscence" (Levi 138 (Sellier)).

"Greatness.—The reasons of effects indicate the greatness of man, in having extracted so fair an order from lust" (Trotter 402 (Brunschvicg 403)).

"Les raisons des effets marquent la grandeur de l’homme, d’avoir tiré de la concupiscence un si bel ordre."

      Pascal, Pensées:  Faugère I, 220, CXXXVI / Havet XXIV.80 bis / Brunschvicg 403 / Tourneur p. 194-3 / Le Guern 97 / Lafuma 106 / Sellier 138.

 

     I was put onto this by the American economist Albert O. Hirschman via Peter Schallenberg, "'Christliche' unsichtbare Hand des Marktes?  Socialethik und Finanzethik," Catholica 76 (2022):  72 (69-76).  Apparently Hirschman traced also the concept of "the invisible hand" to Montesquieu and the thirst for honor rather than money.

"When he took our flesh he dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation”

"quod de nostro assumpsit, totum nobis contulit ad salutem."

What he assumed of ours, the whole [of it] he bestowed upon us for [our] salvation.

     And what he assumed (assumpsit) of ours was, according to the previous sentence, our nature (nostram naturam).  St. Thomas Aquinas, First reading In primo nocturo, Officium "Sacerdos in aeternum" (Officium Sacerdos, noct. 1 l. 1), Officium de festo Corporis Christi (the Office, not the Mass "Cibavit eos").  According to Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino:  his life, thought, and work, 400, at least, the "grounds for denying" that it was Thomas of Aquinas who "wrote new hymns and prayers for th[is] occasion" "are not sufficient," and Corpus Thomisticum considers it "Sancti Thomae Aquino . . . authenticitate probabile".  Paraphrase above from the second reading for the Office of readings for Corpus Christi, Liturgy of the hours, vol. 4, p. 610.  Note that assumpsit and contulit are perfects:  "What he assumed of ours once for all time, the whole [of it] he bestowed upon us permanently for our salvation."

How reliable was Mrs. Norman P. Judd, reminiscing approximately twenty six years after the event?

"'Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day!  No, no, . . . man was made for immortality.'"

     Abraham Lincoln in 1856, according to Isaac N. Arnold, on p. 28 of  The layman's faith:  "If a man die, shall he live again?":  a paper read before the Philosophical Society of Chicago, Saturday, December 16th, 1882, and, of course (re-contextualized), Disney.  Arnold was channeling Mrs. Norman P. Judd, who, however, wrote only (without ever pretending to quote Lincoln),

"[Lincoln] speculated on the possibilities of knowledge which an increased power of the lens would give in the years to come; and then the wonderful discoveries of late centuries as proving that beings endowed with such capabilities as man must be immortal, and created for some high and noble end by him who had spoken those numberless worlds into existence; and made man a little lower than the angels that he might comprehend the glories and wonders of his creation."

     Mrs. Norman B. Judd, "An evening with Mr. Lincoln," in Osborn Hamiline Oldroyd, ed., The Lincoln memorial:  album-immortelles.  Original life pictures, with autographs, from the hands and hearts of eminent Americans and Europeans, contemporaries of the great martyr to liberty, Abraham Lincoln. Together with extracts from his speeches, letters, and sayings. With an introd. by Matthew Simpson, and a sketch of the patriot's life by Isaac N. Arnold (Boston:  D. L. Guernsey, 1882), 522 (520-524), where there is much more, though no occurrence of infinit* specifically.  According to Don E. and Virginia Fehrenbacher, "Mrs. Judd's vagueness about the date and circumstances casts some doubt upon the reliability of this interesting [specifically Mrs. Judd's] recollection" (Recollected words of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Don E. and Virginia Fehrenbacher (Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press, 1996), 271).  Recollected words of Abraham Lincoln, by the way, is a very handy work of reference that places the "recollected words" under the names of those who recollected them, arranged alphabetically, and rates each recollected statement from A to E.  This one gets a D for "A quotation about whose authenticity there is more than average doubt" (liii).  The more expansive recollection of the words of Lincoln on this same occasion as set down by Arnold (above), by contrast, does not appear along with the other recollections subsumed under his name at almost the head of the alphabet on pp. 18-19.
     On the other hand, Isaac N. Arnold could, I suppose, have been present himself that evening, and therefore capable of elaborating on Mrs. Judd's account on the basis of his own memory of the conversation.
     Compare also this account from 1886, which quotes and actually cites "An evening with Mr. Lincoln" (above).
     Militating against the authenticity of this report, however, would be testimony like this, quoted on p. 50 of the 1999 edition of Guelzo's Abraham Lincoln:  redeemer president (Guelzo's source, Stevens' Reporter's Lincoln, 12, attributes it to the young Lincoln, from 1831-1837 resident in [New] Salem, IL, i.e. still nineteen years or more before 1856):  Lincoln "at least once admitted that he could not believe in the personal immortality of the soul.  'So you really believe there isn't any future state?' asked Parthena Hill.   'Mrs. Hill, I'm afraid there isn't,'  Lincoln replied.  "It isn't a pleasant thing to think that when we die that is the last of us.'"
     With thanks to my friend and colleague Dr. Ben McFarland for the diversion.