Cretensis mare

Ὁ Κρὴς τὴν θάλασσαν: "A Cretan to the sea," i.e., unfamiliar with the sea or fearful of it. Strabo gives this proverb in Geography, book 10, explaining that in ancient times, the people of Crete were unsurpassed in navigation and other maritime matters through their long experience. And so "The Cretan knows nothing of the sea" became proverbial for people who feign ignorance of something they know extremely well. For Cretans are islanders, girded by the sea on every side. How, then, could they be ignorant of it?

An alternate form of this expression is Ὁ Κρὴς [δὴ] τὸν πόντον. Aristides uses it in regard to Pericles, and Zenodotus (sic) writes that it is somewhere in Alcaeus. An analogous expression is found in Horace's epistle to Octavian: "I, when I claim not to be composing verses, / am more deceptive than a Parthian in my designs." This is because the Parthians would launch their fiercest attacks by pretending to run away.

Erasmus, Adages

So that's where it comes from

The heretic Basilides came out after [Simon Magus and the gnostic teachers Menander and Saturninus], saying that the high god - the creator of Mind (Greek nous), whenceforth the Word - was called ABRAXAS. In him [said Basilides] do providence, virtue and knowledge have their origin, out of which the principalities and powers and angels were made - infinite processions of angels, who streamed forth and set up the world and its 365 heavens in honor of ABRAXAS (this number being contained in the alphanumeric computation of the name). Among the last of these angels, now made makers of the world, he ranked the god of the Jews (God, that is, of the Law and the Prophets) as a latecomer, saying he was no god at all but an angel who was dealt the seed of Abraham as his portion, and spirited the children of Israel to Canaan out of Egypt land. This angel [Basilides said] was of a more violent temper than the others, and frequently engaged in stirring up wars and rebellions, even spilling human blood. Albeit a creator of the world, he was not the engenderer of Christ, who was sent by ABRAXAS in the form of a phantom without carnal substance. [Phantom Jesus] underwent no passion before the Jews, but Simon [of Cyrene] was crucified in his place. There was therefore to be no religious belief in a crucified figure, lest that belief be placed in Simon. Martyrdom was a disqualifying circumstance. The doctrine of resurrection of the flesh he rejected in the gravest terms, denying that salvation was ever promised to corpses.

Pseudo-Tertullian, Against all heresies I.5

Diet of words

Ambrosius (who supplied our Adamantius aux organes splanchniques du bronze with the parchment, copyists, and funds that made it possible for him to produce his innumerable commentaries), remarks in a letter written from Athens that he had eaten no meal in Origen's company without something being read aloud, nor lain in his guest-bed unaccompanied by a reading from Scripture by one of the brethren, whose readings and prayers followed in continuous succession day and night.

We creatures of the belly, did we ever thus? We who yawn, and rub our eyes, and can barely contain our annoyance after one hour of reading? Then, as if after some great task, we go back to involvement with the business of the world. I say nothing of the heavy meals that depress our faculties, and am ashamed to mention the time lost each day to anticipation of visitors, or the visits we pay to others—when straightaway the prattle starts, and our words are wasted on tearing apart third parties. In dissecting the lives of others, we bite and in turn are bitten, and even as we take our leave we are busy chewing.

When friends have all gone home, our minds keep working. Now resentment makes a lion's face to flash across our own; now plans run through our minds in obsessive bursts, heedless of the Gospel's warning: "Tonight your dumb ass will be stripped of your life/soul. Who do your stored-up goods belong to then?"

Jerome, Letter 43 (To Marcella, in praise of country life)

The dawn of fabric

Whatever myth of origins you believe, the world's first man was surely naked and unclothed when his Potter threw him, before his untimely and unlicensed grab at [the fruit of the Tree of] Knowledge. But enough of esoteric lore. Let's have one of yours instead - the Egyptian tale set down by Alexander for his mother to read about the age of Osiris, back when Ammon, rich in sheep, came out of Libya. It was in their company, the Egyptians declare, that Mercury chanced to brush his hand over a ram, and was so pleased by its softness that he separated a sheep from its fleece. The material's pliancy moved him to keep working it, and at his continued pinching a thread streamed forth. This he wove using a technique he had practiced on strips of linden-bark. Meanwhile, you give credit to Minerva for all wool-craft and construction of looms, even though the work at Arachne's shop was better done.

Tertullian, On the philosopher's cloak III.4-5

Augustine on number III

"I come now to memory's fields and vast pavillions, where innumerable images of every kind of thing brought in by the senses are laid up. There too is stored whatever is expanded, diminished or transformed in any other manner by our thinking, after it comes in contact with our senses, along with everything else entrusted to memory's keeping which forgetfulness has not absorbed and buried... And yet the things themselves do not enter; rather, images of things sensed are there at thought's disposal when it calls them back to mind. Who can say how they are made, even when it is evident which senses caught and stored them away inside?"

"But this is not all my memory's huge capacity encloses. Here too is everything which has not yet fallen away from my liberal education, cached away in something like an interior space which is not a space. And these are no images but the things themselves I carry. For whatever literature and dialectic may be, and whatever I may know about however many different subjects, they are not retained in my memory as images of things left outside. Nor are they like the trace left by a voice pressed in my ears, which, having made its noise and passed away can thus be called back to mind as if it still resounded, though it is heard no more.... Now, when I hear that three types of question may be asked about a thing -- 'Does it exist?' 'What is it?' and 'What are its properties?' -- it's true that I retain images of the sounds out of which these words are made up, and that I know them to have passed through the air with a cry and to exist no longer. It is also true that what those sounds signify are themselves things with which I did not come into contact through any bodily sense, nor have I seen them anywhere but in my mind. And what I have stored in my memory are not their images but the things themselves."

"Also contained in the memory are the principles of number and dimension along with their innumerable laws, none of which were impressed there by bodily sense. They have neither color nor sound, smell or taste, nor can they be touched. I have heard the sounds of the words by which they are signified, when spoken of, but these are not the same as the things themselves. In Greek they are said one way, and another in Latin, but their reality does not inhere in Greek or Latin or any language. I have seen draftsman's lines as fine as a spider's web, but these are not the same as theoretical lines, which no images communicated to me through my carnal eyes. True knowledge of these is inward, without cogitation upon any physical body. The numbers that we count have been reported to me by all my senses, but those with which we count are different -- these are not the images of numbers sensed, but numbers unto themselves. Whoever does not see what I am talking about may laugh at me, and I shall pity him even in his laughter."

Confessions X.8.12-13, 9.16-10.17, 12.19.

Augustine on speech and sense

AUGUSTINE: Now let me ask you: do you think that in our words, the sound itself is one thing and what is signified by sound another?
EVODIUS: I think they are the same thing.
AUGUSTINE: Then tell me where sound comes from, when you speak.
EVODIUS: Who could doubt that it comes from me?
AUGUSTINE: So the sun comes from you, when you say its name?
EVODIUS: You asked me about the sound, not the thing itself.
AUGUSTINE: Therefore sound and the thing signified by sound are different? But you said they were the same.
EVODIUS: Okay, I now concede that what signifies the sun is different from the thing which is signified.
AUGUSTINE: So tell me whether, knowing the Latin language, you could name the sun in your speech, if an understanding of the word sol did not precede its sound.
EVODIUS: In no way could I.
AUGUSTINE: And how about when you plan to say it but remain silent for a brief period? Before the word itself comes out of your mouth, is not something kept in your thought, which someone else will hear when your voice expresses it?
EVODIUS: Obviously.
AUGUSTINE: And while the sun itself is great in size, what about the notion of it held in your thought before it's voiced? Is it possessed of length or width or any such visible quality?
EVODIUS: In no way.
AUGUSTINE: Come now, tell me: when the word comes out of your mouth, and I on hearing it think of the sun -- which you thought of before and during its pronunciation, and now we're both probably thinking of it -- does it not seem to you that what meaning the word transports to me, through my ears, it gets from you?
EVODIUS: So it seems.
AUGUSTINE: Given that a word consists of sound and signification, with sound pertaining to the ears and signification to the mind, would you not therefore conclude that -- like a living being -- the word comprises a body, which is its sound, and something like a soul, which is that sound's meaning?
EVODIUS: Nothing seems likelier to me.
AUGUSTINE: Attend now to whether the sound of a word can be divided into letters, if its soul cannot, since truly: signification is that thing in our thought which a little while ago you estimated to have neither width nor length.
EVODIUS: You have my full attention.
AUGUSTINE: Here's the question. Does it seem to you that when a sound is divided into individual letters, it retains the same signification?
EVODIUS: How could individual letters have the same signification as the word made up of them?
AUGUSTINE: And when the sound is divided into discrete letters, its signification lost, don't you agree that it's no different from the departure of the soul when a body is torn to pieces? and that something like a death has come to pass?
EVODIUS: Not only do I agree, but so freely that nothing in this conversation has delighted me more.
AUGUSTINE: If it is clear enough to you from this comparison that the soul is not cut apart when its body is, now hear how the body's severed members may have life, where an uncut soul abides. For you have conceded -- rightly, I think -- that a sound which functions as a word has something like a soul, which is its meaning; and though the sound itself (which is its body) can be split up, its meaning can't be. Now the name of the sun is such that when a division is made within its sound, no part of it retains any meaning. When the body of the name is torn apart, we therefore consider those letters to be dead members, which is to say they lack signification. But if we find some word whose individual members are able to communicate meaning when separated, you'll have to concede that the "death" effected by their dissection is less than total, since when you regard its members separately you'll see them "breathing," so to speak.
EVODIUS: I concede it heartily, and demand that you give voice to this sound already.
AUGUSTINE: Here it is. When my attention turns to the neighborhood of the sun whose name we were just discussing, it is met by
Lucifer.
When a cut is made between the second and third syllables of this name, the first part retains some significance ["By daylight"] when we say Luci, and in this way more than half the body of the name is left alive. The last part too has soul, for you hear it whenever you are ordered to carry something. How indeed could you obey, on hearing Fer codicem ["Bring the book"] if fer signified nothing? Accordingly, when Luci is added, we hear
Lucifer!
and it signifies the "Lightbringing" star; but when Luci is subtracted, Fer still means something, and therefore may be said to stay alive.

On the Measure of the Soul, 32

Augustine on cognition

AUGUSTINE: Tell me, please, whether everything we know through sight, we see.
EVODIUS: So I believe.
AUGUSTINE: And everything we know by means of seeing, you believe, we know though sight?
EVODIUS: This too I believe.
AUGUSTINE: So when smoke is all we see, by what account do we commonly know an unseen fire to hide beneath?
EVODIUS: It's true, what you say, and no longer would I suppose that whatever we know through sight, we see. For as you have shown, on seeing one thing we can know something else which is not in our sight.
AUGUSTINE: How about what we perceive by sight? Is it possible for us not to see that?
EVODIUS: Not at all.
AUGUSTINE: Knowledge and perception are therefore different things?
EVODIUS: Different in every way. We perceive the smoke we see, and from it we know a fire we do not see to lie beneath.
AUGUSTINE: Your understanding is sound. But surely, once this is accepted you see that nothing of the fire acts on our body, i.e. our eyes, except the smoke which is all they see. For to see is to perceive, and to perceive (as we agreed earlier in our discussion) is to be acted upon.
EVODIUS: And thus I still agree.
AUGUSTINE: Therefore when something becomes not-hidden to the mind through an action upon the body, it is not necessarily the case that any one of the five senses we mentioned is necessarily involved, as long as the experience of that action itself is not hidden. For although the fire is neither seen nor heard nor smelled nor tasted nor touched by us, it is not hidden from the mind once smoke is seen. This not-being-hidden may not be called perception (because the body receives no action from the fire) but instead is called cognition through perception, because out of a separate action on the body, i.e. the vision of something else, the fire is conjectured and ascertained.

On the Measure of the Soul, 24

Augustine on inner sight

"The Bible is an object of bodily sense: of the eyes, if a man reads it, or of the ears if he hears it read aloud. But whatever he understands to be signified by the shapes and sounds of its letters is seen in his soul. He sees his own faith, by which he affirms his belief without hesitation; he sees the thought by which he thinks of all the good his belief can do him; he sees the will by which he steps forward to accept religion; he even sees, fashioned in his mind, a certain image of the Resurrection itself. Without this last, nothing regarded as a bodily event can be understood to have taken place, and even this much may be doubted. But I think you can tell between the way in which he sees his faith and the way in which he sees that image of the Resurrection fashioned in his mind, which even the non-believer sees when he hears the story."

"Although we see some things through the body and others through the mind, it is the mind alone that perceives the distinction between the two. Those things which are seen with the mind are in need of no other bodily sense for us to know they are true. But if the mind does not take in the body's announcements and attend to what is seen through the body, then none of it can be retained as knowledge. Now, those announcements which the mind is said (by a figure of speech) to 'take in' are still left outside; but the mind, without the body's intervention, commits incorporeal likenesses which we call images of physical entities to the memory. From here the mind brings them out of custody, as it can and when it will, in order to pass judgment on them in view of thought. Between these two -- the physical form left outside and the likeness seen within -- a healthy mind can tell the difference, knowing the latter for what is present and the former to be absent. In this way, when I am gone, you think of my physical aspect and it is present to you as an image, but the aspect of which you have the image is not there. One is a body; the other is nothing but the incorporeal image of one."

Letter 147 (to Paulina)/On Seeing God 9, 38

Augustine on facial expressions

Natural signs are those which make another thing known without any will or desire of signifying anything, the way that smoke signifies fire. For smoke does not signify because it wishes to; rather, through observation and contemplation of things experienced it is known that where smoke can be seen, there is fire beneath it. The footprint of a passing animal pertains to this genus. And the affections of a sad or angry soul are signified in the face independently of the sad or angry person's will. And any other movement of the soul may be given away on the face's indication, whatever our will in the matter.

On Christian Teaching 2.I.2, ca. 397 (rev. 427)

Augustine on number II

"The third class of mental images has mostly to do with numbers and dimensions, which exist partly in the nature of things (as when an image of the whole world springs to the mind of one who has just learned its shape), and partly in the study of geometrical figures, musical rhythms, and the infinite variety of numbers. Though I affirm that a true understanding of these things is possible, it is also true that they engender false images which are hard for reason to overcome. What is more, the very practice of dialectic is vulnerable to this evil, since in our divisions and conclusions we use mental images the way we might use counting-pebbles."

"The mind dwells on a mixture of whatever nature endows with imitable form, including things which may never have been perceived externally. But although the mind is present in everything, the origin of images is not in the mind. This is nothing to be surprised at, given that (despite our best efforts) we are not cognizant of our bodily expression and complexion before, in the throes of joy, displeasure and other such movements of the soul, we set their images in our faces. What is worthy of your surprise and contemplation is the way expressions are made to follow affections by the action of hidden numbers in the soul, independent of any drummed-up image of a bodily form. From this I hope that, when you perceive how many of the soul's movements are free of those images into which you are now inquiring, you will understand that the least likely movement by which [true knowledge of] a given body may come to the mind is meditation on sensible forms, which I do not believe the mind can experience without using the body and its senses."

Letter 7 (to Nebridius):4, 7, ca. 387/8.

Augustine on number

"I find it very strange that most people esteem wisdom but consider number to be of little value, when clearly they are one and the same thing. True, Scripture says that wisdom 'reacheth from one end to another mightily, and sweetly doth she order all things.'. But perhaps the power that reaches mightily from one end to the other is number, and what is properly called wisdom is that which orders all things sweetly, with both powers belonging to wisdom as a whole.

"Wisdom gave numbers to all things, no matter the lowliness or loftiness of their station within the material realm. While bodies (being lofty) of course have number, the power to be wise was not given to them all, nor to all souls. But to rational beings wisdom gave enough to serve as an interior seat, from which to 'order all things' endowed with number, no matter how lowly. Because our judgments on bodies are made with the same ease as our judgments on things ordered lowlier than us, the numbers of which we perceive stamped into them, we therefore reckon numbers themselves to be beneath us, and consider them of little value. But when we begin to look above ourselves as well as below, we find that numbers transcend our minds and are permanently fixed in truth itself."

On Free Choice of the Will 2.II.30-1 (ca. 394/5 CE)