On a Proverb

Bos lassus fortius figat pedem Divus Hieronymus oppido quam elegens adagium usurpavit ad beatum Aurelium Augustinum scribens eumque deterre cupiens, ne juvenis senem provocet. Propterea quod tardius quidem ad pugnam excitantur hi, qui jam sunt aetate quasi fessi, verum iidem gravius saeviunt atque urgent, si quando senilis illa virtus irritata recaluit: Memento, inquit, Daretis et Entelli et vulgaris proverbii, quod bos lassus fortius figat pedem. A veteri triturae more ductum apparet, cum circumactis a bubus super manipulos plaustris grana excutiebantur, partim a rotis in hoc armatis, partim a taurorum ungulis. Et lex illa Mosaica, quam citat apostolus Paulus ad Timotheum, vetat, ne bovi trituranti os obligetur. Itaque bos lassus, quoniam gravius figit pedem, magis est ad trituram idoneus. At non item equus ad cursum. Potest allusum videri et ad hoc, quod juvenes corporis agilitate praepollent, senes in stataria pugna ac viribus superiores sunt, id quod et Vergilius in Daretis et Entelli congressu declarat. Nec admodum hinc abludit illud, quod in Graecorum collectaneis positum reperio, Ἀρτέμας Βοῦς, id est, Lente bos, subaudiendum movet pedem. Nam sensim quidem movet, at gravius premit. Adagia,I,47, Erasmus

The weary ox fixes a firmer foot. Saint Jerome with more utility than elegance took up the adage when he wrote to the Blessed Aurelius Augustine wishing to deter him lest youth provoke old age. Accordingly those who are already wearied with years are more slowly roused to fight but greater is their violence and drive when the strength of their old age is warmed by anger. 'Remember,' he says, 'Dares and Entellus and the common proverb that the weary ox fixes a firmer foot.' It seems that of old it was the custom to use oxen to thresh the bundles of the threshing floor, partly by binding them to a millstone and partly by use of the hooves of the creatures. And the Mosaic Law, which the Apostle Paul cites to Timothy, prohibits the binding of the mouth of the ox so used. Thus a weary ox, because he treads more heavily is better able to thresh the wheat. One does not use the same horse for every race. It seems that for games that the body of a youth would excel but in a toe to toe fight the elder man is superior, which is what Virgil declares in the encounter of Dares and Entellus. Nor does he sing out of tune in that, for in the Greek collections I find it is given as 'Slowly the Ox', by which should be understood its step, for prudently it moves and it presses down mightily.  The Adages, I, 47, Erasmus

Dead Souls

Vides fratrem indigna patientera, nihil commouetur animus, modo tua res sit incolumis. Cur nihil hic sentit anima? Nempe quia mortua. Quare mortua? Quia non adest illius uita, deus. Siquidem ubi deus, ibi caritas. Deus enim caritas est. Alioqui si uiuam es membrum, cur ulla pars corporis dolet te non modo non dolente uerum ne sentiente quidem? Accipe signum non paulo etiam certius: Defraudasti amicum, commisisti adulterium, capitale uulnus accepit anima, et tamen adeo tibi non dolet, ut etiam quasi de lucro gaudeas iactesque, quod turpiter admisisti. Certum habe mortuam iacere animam. Non uiuit corpus, si punctionem aciculae non sentiat, et uiuet anima, quae tanti uulneris sensu uacat? Audis quempiam sermones impios, tumidos, maledicos, impudicos, obscoenos proferentem, uerbis rabiosis in proximum debacchantem, caue putes isti homini uiuam esse animam. lacet in sepulcro pectoris putre cadauer, unde eiusmodi foetores exhalantur et proximum quemque inficiunt. Christus Pharisaeos sepulcra dealbata uocat. Quid ita? Nempe quia mortuam animam secum circumferebant. Et regius ille propheta: Sepulcrum, inquit, patens guttur eorum, linguis suis dolose agebant. Piorum corpora templa sunt spiritus sancti, impiorum sepulcra cadauerum, ut potissimum in eos quadret illa grammaticorum etymologia: soma quasi sèma. Sepulcrum pectus, guttur et os hiatus sepulcri. Neque ullum corpus tam mortuam est destitutum anima, quam mortua est anima relicta a deo. Enchiridion Militis Christiani, Desiderius Erasmus

You see your brother suffering disgrace, your soul is not troubled, you are uninjured. Why does the soul feel nothing here? Certainly because it is dead. Why dead? Because its life is not present, that is, God.  Where God is, there is love. God is love. If you were a living member, how could any part of your body ache and you not sense the pain? Take a more certain sign. You deceived a friend, you committed adultery, your soul has received a fatal wound, and yet you feel no pain; indeed you are happy as if you have made a profit, and you boast of what you have shamefully done. For certain your soul lies dead. A body is not alive if it does not feel the pricking of a pin, and is a soul alive which has no feeling of such a wound? You hear evil speech, malevolent, perverted, filthy, words raging wildly against a neighbour: think not the soul of that man to be alive. There lies a corpse in the sepulchre from whence such stench rises that it infects any man who comes near. Christ called the Pharisees whitened sepulchres. Why so? Because they carry dead souls about with them. And that prophetic king said, Their throat is an open sepulchre, since they spoke deceitfully with their tongues. The bodies of the good are temples of the Holy Ghost; the bodies of the wicked are the tombs of corpses, that it might be as the etymology of the grammarians say, σῶμα quasi σῆμα. The breast is the sepulchre, the throat is the gaping of the sepulchre. And yet that body deprived of the soul is not so dead as is the soul forsaken by God. Handbook of the Christian Soldier, Desiderius Erasmus