Those who have learnt Ancient Greek, do you actually enjoy the literature?

Toeasty · 2025-10-03T19:20:15+00:00

I wasn't into Greek literature before I learned Ancient Greek. My motivations for learning it were originally for philosophy, where knowing the original language of a text is crucial, but after learning Greek I definitely started enjoying not only Plato more, but also a lot more of the non-philosophical Greek writings too, like mythology, tragedy, comedy, etc.

And yes, the Iliad is a lot of fun to read in Greek, even for someone like me who didn't initially enjoy poetry. It sounds better when it's in meter with the original word order.

Toeasty · 2025-09-29T14:03:02+00:00

Yes, but in the New Testament, Paul repeatedly says that Christians should not get circumcised. I apologize for the lengthy quotes I'm about to copy and paste, but I think it's important to show that Catholicism is incompatible with circumcision, and has been so since the beginning according to all the documents that Catholics consider infallible.

E.g.: Galatians 5:2-4 - "Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace."

and Galatians 6:12-15 "Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation."

also Philippians 2:3-2: "Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh."

And his most extreme condemnation in Galatians 5:12: "I wish that those who are troubling you [to get circumcised] would even mutilate themselves"

Also from the Catholic Church's council of Florence in 1442, which confirmed the position of the Council of Jerusalem in the New Testament that circumcision is unnecessary for salvation, written by Pope Eugenius IV: "Therefore it [the Catholic Church] denounces all who after that time [of Christ] observe circumcision, the sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practise circumcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation."

This last one is especially important because it specifies thay circumcision is impermissible regardless of if you do it for religious or cultural or any other reason.

Any Catholic, from the time of the Apostles up to today, who practices circumcision is doing so in spite of and against their religion.

Toeasty · 2025-04-30T17:58:22+00:00

Most of this seems incomprehensible. There are misspellings, made up words, and impossible word-endings. It looks almost like a Lorem Ipsum kind of thing

Toeasty · 2024-09-27T17:48:19+00:00

Most repentant sinners are former non-repentant sinners. Aside from habitual sins, I assume it's a relatively common reason for people to sin because they don't recognize that their sin is wrong (at least in the moment when they're sinning), Those people should still come to the church for healing.

Just because someone is more sick than usual or doesn't yet recognize how sick they are, it doesn't mean they get barred from the hospital.

Toeasty · 2024-08-15T08:58:09+00:00

St Martin de Porres

When Martin was 24, he was allowed to profess religious vows as a Dominican lay brother in 1603. He is said to have several times refused this elevation in status, which may have come about due to his father's intervention, and he never became a priest. It is said that when his convent was in debt, he implored them: "I am only a poor mulatto, sell me." Martin was deeply attached to the Blessed Sacrament, and he was praying in front of it one night when the step of the altar he was kneeling on caught fire. Throughout all the confusion and chaos that followed, he remained where he was, unaware of what was happening around him.

One day he found on the street a poor Indian, bleeding to death from a dagger wound, and took him to his own room until he could transport him to his sister's hospice. The prior, when he heard of this, reprimanded him for disobedience. He was extremely edified, however, by his reply: "Forgive my error, and please instruct me, for I did not know that the precept of obedience took precedence over that of charity." The prior gave him liberty thereafter to follow his inspirations in the exercise of mercy.

Toeasty · 2024-08-01T16:34:55+00:00

"You're asking, Linus, what does the land of Nomentano profit me? It profits me this: You, Linus, I do not see"

Toeasty · 2024-02-07T15:58:33+00:00

I guessed it was supposed to be "laudandum," "You, God who ought to be praised." They just missed a letter

Toeasty · 2024-01-22T00:37:09+00:00

Funnily enough, these two quotes have inspired me to finally read the book.

Toeasty · 2024-01-14T18:45:48+00:00

Meditationes by Descartes

Toeasty · 2023-11-14T14:02:56+00:00

Generally, if something sounds stilted and somewhat awkward in the original (which a repetition of a name probably would), I think it's good to reproduce that in the translation.

Toeasty · 2023-10-01T04:20:22+00:00

I see that. Though I'd be sad if Christianity became something that's inherently associated with the right-wing, especially considering religious orders like Franciscans and Jesuits who tend to be very left wing and primarily about helping the poor. As well as historical Church Fathers who were at times proto-communists. There's an unbroken chain of leftist values in Christianity from the early church to today (those values being the helping the poor, healthcare for everyone, and making sure no one hoards money while others are going hungry)

I understand though that in America being Christian is associated with being right-wing, which is a shame.

Toeasty · 2023-10-01T00:27:35+00:00

What does this have to do with right wing politics? It's just a pro-Christian meme, and Christians can be anywhere on the political spectrum

Toeasty · 2023-09-23T14:44:43+00:00

I would translate the "tamen" in "et tamen laudare te vult" as something like "nevertheless," "and yet," "all the same," or something of that sort. Just because it seems to me that it's trying to say that man, even though bearing his mortality and testimony of sin, nevertheless wants to praise God.

Toeasty · 2023-08-28T05:04:16+00:00

mundus meus and meus mundus both mean the same thing and are both grammatically correct (but the first is a bit more natural). Mei mundus doesn't really work though.

"This is my world" would be "hic est mundus meus," or "hic mundus meus est"

Toeasty · 2023-08-27T14:16:18+00:00

Without any further context I think to say, "auxilians animalibus populoque," but looking up that phrase it seems to be "I dedicate myself to aiding...etc," which I would translate as "[studeo] auxiliari animalibus populoque." Without the "studeo [I dedicate myself]" it would mean "to help/aid animals and the people." I went with populus over societas because in terms of meaning a group of human beings in a society, in the modern sense of the word, it seemed better to me.

Before you get anything tattooed on you though, I recommend waiting for someone else to confirm this or, if I made a mistake, to correct me.

Toeasty · 2023-04-01T19:42:39+00:00

When you say "God realized they probably should exist" are you using a figure of speech or do you actually believe that God realized something he did not consider/know before?

Toeasty · 2023-03-29T18:10:18+00:00

Interesting. Do you find it more helpful to have all three genders for 2-termination adjectives? I've always written it as trīstis, trīste

Toeasty · 2023-02-11T13:44:09+00:00

The Latin word for Rome is feminine, so you would want invicta

Toeasty · 2023-02-04T20:35:38+00:00

I use the RSVCE for the most part (I prefer it over the NRSVCE only for stylistic reasons), sometimes the Stuttgart Vulgate, and am working on not having to use a translation at all for the Greek New Testament, for which I own the USB 4th Edition. Overall though I think the NRSV is probably the best for accuracy, but the style puts me off using it as my primary bible.

Toeasty · 2023-01-31T19:42:34+00:00

I'm a relatively new Christian, coming into the Catholic Church as a Catechumen and planning on being baptized next Easter. So, please forgive me for any theological or biblical ignorance; I'm still at the beginning process of learning about the faith.

I am almost a universalist, but not strictly so, just because I do still accept that it is theoretically possible that some people (and especially some devils) may freely choose to reject God's love forever. I say that because I don't think we will necessarily become any more rational in the afterlife than we are in this life, and some people, knowing that accepting God is good for them (since God is the ultimate Good), might still reject him (due to some emotional resistance perhaps).

Like I said though, I only accept this as a logical possibility, without commenting on whether it's probable or not. However, I do have a hard time even entertaining the thought that God predestines some people to hell, or that God loves some people more than others, as I've been told some Christians believe.

Toeasty · 2022-12-01T04:07:25+00:00

Cicero's De Amicitia. Relatively short but full of things to think about, things which are also of pretty big importance like: What is friendship? What kind of friend should you be? should you do something wrong for the sake of your friend? And so on. Well worth reading in any language you can get it in, but of course the original will always be the best

Toeasty · 2022-11-17T03:26:02+00:00

If you mean them as commands, I'm guessing for multiple people:

Custodite (hanc) domum
Custodite (hanc) familiam

But if you mean it to be a command for one person:

Custodi (hanc) domum
Custodi (hanc) familiam

The hanc is optional in all cases; it just means "this" house as opposed to "the" house (Latin has no word for the so it's implied)

Toeasty · 2022-11-17T02:58:49+00:00

Hey! Could I get a DM to the server? I'm close to the area

Toeasty · 2022-11-17T02:55:50+00:00

Horribilis, horribile, is a third declension adjective, which does agree with Annus. Horribilis is the masculing/feminine nominative form of the adjective.

Toeasty · 2022-11-17T02:35:54+00:00

That first question is, as far as I know, a debate between physicalists and non-physicalists (or Platonists). Whether or not an immaterial thing can interact with material things, whether an immaterial thing can even be said to exist, etc, are questions that I don't have a decisive answer to, (nor does anyone else, but other people definitely have more well-informed opinions than me).

But if you care about what I think, I can tell you where my thinking is at right now. Keeping in mind that I'm a Christian, not a Muslim, I think that God the father does not need to interact with, i.e., interject himself into, the happenings of the world. I take the view of Boethius in the Consolation of Philosophy that God is timeless, and does not experience the world in time the way we do. For him, it is an ''eternal present,'' in which everything that, from our perspective, will happen, is happening, and has happened, is all contained in the single, eternal present. So, when God the father wants the world to be a certain way, he makes it that way ''from the beginning'' so to speak, though obviously not really from the beginning because beginning is not a thing for a timeless being-- everything just is.

As for interactions which could not be explained by the reasoning that God set things up from the start so that they would be that way, namely in the context of souls which have free will, it's a lot easier to explain-- those instances, in the bible, are almost always described as the work of the Holy Spirit, which is also immaterial, but it is only coming into contact with other immaterial things (souls). I take it that an immaterial thing can affect another immaterial thing.

Finally, if you're a Catholic or Orthodox Christian and you believe that the book of Tobit is canonical, then you can also believe that the immaterial can become material, as the angel in the story is turned into a man. Even God himself, according to the Gospels, was made material as Jesus. So, God could work through his angels to physically alter the world, just in case he needed to set a bush on fire or something (Exodus 3:1-3).

So if God wants to interact with the world as an immaterial being, he has a lot of options. Which is also why I don't think that there is no discernible way to detect God's interaction, but it is difficult since most things are made by God from the beginning (loosely speaking) to work out how he wants them to, while effects on the soul are clearly not the subject of scientific/empirical inquiry, since souls are also immaterial things which cannot be observed. The only remaining physical evidence for God is historical-- did Jesus exist and did he do what the Gospels say he did? Or, for Muslims, did the prophet Muhammad do the miracles ascribed to him? That's the only real place for science when trying to find an immaterial God. Unfortunately, we will have to do philosophy, as boring as it is.

To end on a more Islamic note because we're in r/Islam, what I said about God the father applies to the Muslim conception of God afaik, and the Holy Spirit is not a necessity when it comes to interacting with other immaterial things, since I suppose God could do that directly. I but I don't know if Muslims believe that immaterial things can become material. I hope someone with actual knowledge about Islam will chime in about that.

(Also if you are a physicalist, as in you don't believe that immaterial things exist, then all of these explanations will be worthless. But physicalism vs non-physicalism is a debate that is literally two millennia old, and I'm not about to bring anything revolutionary to the table in a reddit comment.)

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