Sunday, April 27, 2025
Nothing More Unsightly Than Old Age
Augustine, Sermons 385.4 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 39, col. 1692; tr. Edmund Hill):
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But perhaps this friend of yours, to pass over other things, is an old man; it can happen after all, that you have an old man as a friend. What do you love in the old man? His bent and twisted body, his white hairs, the wrinkles in his face, his sunken cheeks? If it's just the body you can see, there is nothing more unsightly than old age; and yet you love something, and you don't love the body which you can see, which is unsightly.
Sed forte amicus iste tuus, ut alia omittam, senex homo est: fieri enim potest ut habeas amicum senem. Quid amas in sene? Incurvum corpus, album caput, rugas in fronte, contractam maxillam? Si corpus quod vides, nihil deformius prae senectute: et tamen amas aliquid, et corpus quod vides non amas, quia deforme est.
