Rule of St. Benedict

chstudent1564 · February 10, 2016, 11:18am

Reading through the Rule of St. Benedict, I came across a construction that seems to pair ut with the infinitive to express purpose, which I hadn’t seen before. The passage reads:

Ergo, cum aliquis suscipit nomen abbatis, duplici debet doctrina suis præesse discipulis, id est omnia bona et sancta factis amplius quam verbis ostendat, ut capacibus discipulis mandata Domini verbis proponere, duris corde vero et simplicioribus factis suis divina præcepta monstrare.

The English translation reads, “he should show all good and holy things in deeds more than in words, setting out God’s commands verbally for receptive disciples, but teaching the hardhearted and less intelligent the divine precepts through his deeds.”

I’m trying to understand how the ut . . . proponere/monstrare is functioning here. Is it expressing purpose -“he should show all good and holy things . . . so as (ut) to set forth (proponere) God’s commands”? If so, it would seem to contradict the “rule” that infinitives can’t express purpose in Latin, though I realize there are exceptions to this. I appreciate any help the community can provide!

Shenoute · February 10, 2016, 12:55pm

As far as I know, “ut + infinitive” is not found in Medieval Latin, even in texts exhibiting many uncommon features. This sentence as it stands is puzzling to me also.

I don’t think purpose is what is expressed here, proponere/monstrare builds on the duplex doctrina mentioned before.
“he should show all good and holy things in deeds more than in words, in order to set out God’s commands verbally for receptive disciples…” doesn’t seem to make much sense.

Well, infinitives can express purpose in Medieval Latin, as well as in Classical Latin poetry

mwh · February 10, 2016, 5:47pm

This is so very strange it makes me suspect the text. Why not proponat and monstret? proponeret and monstraret would more easily account for the corruption, though—how strict is sequence in these texts?
ut surely consecutive (“in such a way as to”) rather than purpose.

bedwere · February 10, 2016, 6:21pm

I read for Librivox from this version, which is not critical but has proponat, demonstret.

Shenoute · February 11, 2016, 7:56am

This article sheds some light on the question.

Ponesse M.:

Smaragdus begins his discussion by drawing attention to the ambiguity in the wording of the passage, most notably, the lack of a finite verb within the clause (‘ut . . . proponere . . . monstrare’). His contemporaries overcame this seemingly ungrammatical construction by adopting the variant in the revised text in which the infinitives have been conjugated in the third person singular and placed in the subjunctive mood: ‘ut capacibus discipulis mandata Domini verbis proponat, duris corde vero et simplicioribus factis suis divina praecepta demonstret’. This solution is awkward at best. In no way can the passage be understood as denoting purpose and the subordinate clause lacks necessary information to imply result. Alternatively, if ut was understood as a coordinating conjunction linking jussive subjunctives in a single clause, it is likely that it would have been changed to et in the revised text to avoid confusion. Smaragdus, as a grammarian, was no doubt aware of these difficulties before he found his solution in the standard text of the Rule. His answer was to supply the finite verb debet from the context of the passage, and explains that ut was in fact acting as a conjunction connecting the two infinitives, thereby circumventing the problems inherent in the sentence.

chstudent1564 · February 11, 2016, 10:26am

Wow, great information, thanks! It’s comforting at some level that this passage also perplexes grammarians both medieval and modern.

Hylander · February 11, 2016, 1:57pm

ut > was in fact acting as a conjunction connecting the two infinitives, thereby circumventing the problems inherent in the sentence.

Huh? vero is the word that coordinates the two infinitives. Ut would join the two _debet_s. But conjecturing debet (and translating ut “as”) works.

Could debet in the first clause be understood in the clause introduced by ut? I think that would be too far a stretch–debet must have accidentally dropped out.

Interesting example of Carolingian scholarship.