Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Unflesh
Augustine, Sermons 140.6 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 775; tr. Edmund Hill, with his note):
See also Alexander Souter, A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 133:
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The gospel of John puts our minds through their paces, planes them smooth and defleshes17 them, to make sure we think about God in a spiritual, not a fleshly, material kind of way.He didn't invent the word. See Thesaurus Linguae Latinae s.v. excarno (5,2:1203):
17. Excarnat, possibly a word he invented himself. It is not given in Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary.
Exercet mentes Evangelium Ioannis, limat et excarnat, ut de Deo non carnaliter, sed spiritaliter sapiamus.
excarno, deprive of flesh (SS. Ezech. 24. 4 cod. Wirc.); weaken (ZENO 1. 12. 8); cut off goose-flesh (CHIRON 575); rid of fleshly characteristics (AVG. c. Arrian. 14. 9, serm. 140. 6).
