Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, City of God 2.1 (tr. Henry Bettenson):

But as things are, the intelligent are infected by a gross mental disorder which makes them defend the irrational workings of their minds as if they were logic and truth itself, even when the evidence has been put before them as plainly as is humanly possible. Either they are too blind to see what is put before their face, or they are too perversely obstinate to admit what they see. The result is that we are forced very often to give an extended exposition of the obvious, as if we were not presenting it for people to look at, but for them to touch and handle with their eyes shut.

nunc vero quoniam ille est maior et taetrior insipientium morbus animorum, quo inrationabiles motus suos, etiam post rationem plene redditam, quanta homini ab homine debetur, sive nimia caecitate, qua nec aperta cernuntur, sive obstinatissima pervicacia, qua et ea quae cernuntur non feruntur, tamquam ipsam rationem veritatemque defendunt, fit necessitas copiosius dicendi plerumque res claras, velut eas non spectantibus intuendas, sed quodam modo tangendas palpantibus et coniventibus offeramus.

For intelligent read unintelligent (insipientium). Cf. the translation of Demetrius B. Zema and Gerald G. Walsh:

Unfortunately, however, there prevails a major and malignant malady of fools, the victims of which mistake their irrational impulses for truth and reason, even when confronted with as much evidence as any man has a right to expect from another. It may be an excess of blindness which prevents them from seeing the most glaring facts, or a perverse obstinacy which prevents them from accepting the facts when seen. This compels me to present more diffusely, not for their closed eyes to see, but, so to speak, for their hands to touch and feel, some obvious points.

Bettenson's mistranslation is even made the basis of scholarly arguments, e.g. by Peter Busch, "On the Use and Disadvantage of History for the Afterlife," in Christopher T. Daly et al., edd., Augustine and History (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 3-30 (at 9):

As for "the learned," who should know better, they are moved by a perverse hatred of Christianity and like to give academic respectability to popular slanders (2.3). There would seem to be little hope for this audience, either, for as long as they want to disagree with Augustine they will be capable of making endless replies and objections to anything he says."The intelligent," Augustine laments, "are infected by a gross mental disorder which makes them defend the irrational workings of their minds as if they were logic and truth itself, even when the evidence has been put before them as plainly as is humanly possible" (2.1).

Labels: typographical and other errors