After some slackness in my Latin, I’m starting over on Augustine, de civitate dei.
Augustine discusses the duty, often shirked, of Christians to stand up for right morals. In this particular snip, he seems to scold Christians who, though fairly righteous in their own behavior overlook the faults of others.
Plerumque enim ab eis docendis ac monendis, aliquando etiam obiurgandis et corripiendis male dissimulatur. . . .
My big problem is understanding what the passives do.
My proposed translation:
Commonly, Instead of instructing them and admonishing them, sometimes even rebuking and condemning, [the bad behavior] is ignored. . .
From this Augustine goes on to explain why people are often reluctant to scold others.
Hugh, you know Greek, so you know that Greek has future passive participles. In Latin, as I’m sure you realize, gerundives are not really future passive participles at all, but are a particular kind of verbal adjective foreign to English (so sometimes difficult to translate). And when they’re used as they are here (modifyng eis) they even lose most of the sense of moral necessity that they have in e.g. Karthago delenda.
Many thanks, Michael, for the refresher course, and especially that “particular kind of verbal adjective.” I don’t recall hearing that point made so clearly, and was unsure which term to use. I’ll stick with “gerundive” from now on.
It is very helpful to see on-point comments on grammar precepts that have grown less sharp in memory.