Saturday, February 24, 2024
What Were We?
Augustine, Sermons 130.4 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 728; tr. Edmund Hill, with his note):
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I mean, God is surely able to make human beings into angels, seeing that he has made horrid, slimy seeds into human beings. What are we going to be? Angels. What were we? It's scarcely decent even to think about; I'm forced to think about it, and I blush to mention it.18 What were we? What has God made human beings out of?Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.48.2 (tr. Gregory Hays):
18. This is Augustine at his least biblical, least attractive, and most typical of the respectable "advanced" opinion of his time.
Potens est enim Deus Angelos homines facere, qui semina terrena et horribilia homines fecit. Quid erimus? Angeli. Quid fuimus! Pudet recordari; cogor considerare, et erubesco dicere. Quid fuimus? Unde Deus homines fecit?
Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow, embalming fluid, ash.For other expressions of the same opinion, see Whence We Come, and Whither We Go.
ἐχθὲς μὲν μυξάριον, αὔριον δὲ τάριχος ἢ τέφρα.
