Frustula Augustiniana

Si distortum digitum haberes, non ad correctorem digiti tui medicum curreres? Certe tunc se habet bene corpus tuum, quando sibi concordant membra tua; tunc diceris sanus, tunc bene vales. Si autem aliquid in tuo corpore dissentiat ab aliis partibus, quaeris qui emendet. ...Certe viliores sunt ceteris membris capilli tui? Quid vilius in corpore tuo capillis tuis? Quid contemptius? Quid abiectius? Et tamen si male te tondeat, irasceris tonsori, quia in capillis tuis non servat aequalitatem... De utilitate ieiunii vi.8 . For the Curious This is a post from a year ago, which I have pruned of its context because I want to focus on hair, for more on which, see below. Before that, however, here's a little context. This sermon has been dated by Edmund Hill to the Ember days of 411 or to Lent of 412 – a sound argument based on Augustine's use of compelle intrare and its relation to the decrees of the Council of Carthage in 411 regarding the Donatists. Augustine became fond of using...

Idipsum et idipsum et idipsum, sanctus, santus, sanctus, dominus deus omnipotens. Augustinus, Confessiones XII.vii.7 . For the Curious In principio...   This just happened to be the beginning of the Frustula Augustiniana back in 2017. I posted it on Facebook when I still had that, people loved it, and so it began. It is, so far, the second shortest of all the frustula. For the really curious While O'Donnell's commentary on Conf.  IX.iv.11  has plenty for us to chew on about  idipsum in Augustine, he doesn't help with understanding where this odd use might have come from and whether Augustine knew that he was turning an adverbial into a name for being. Let's look at what we've got here: The very center of Augustine's thought (being)* found shaped through a Greek adverbial construction reinterpreted in order to praise the author of all our understanding and of every being. Where did it come from? Augustine used the phrase id ipsum with specifyin...