Stipendia Peccati

Peter wept bitterly. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

St Bede's, Sunday 28th of July 2019.

St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, from Chapter 6:

[19] I speak an human thing, because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity, unto iniquity; so now yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification.
Humanum dico, propter infirmitatem carnis vestrae : sicut enim exhibuistis membra vestra servire immunditiae, et iniquitati ad iniquitatem, ita nunc exhibete membra vestra servire justitiae in santificationem.

[20] For when you were the servants of sin, you were free men to justice.
Cum enim servi essetis peccati, liberi fuistis justitiae.

[21] What fruit therefore had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death.
Quem ergo fructum habuistis tunc in illis, in quibus nunc erubescitis? nam finis illorum mors est.

[22] But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting.
Nunc vero liberati a peccato, servi autem facti Deo, habetis fructum vestrum in santificationem, finem vero vitam aeternam.

[23] For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Stipendia enim peccati, mors. Gratia autem Dei, vita aeterna, in Christo Jesu Domino nostro.

Here is the Ronald Knox translation:

I am speaking in the language of common life, because nature is still strong in you. Just as you once made over your natural powers as slaves to impurity and wickedness, till all was wickedness, you must now make over your natural powers as slaves to right-doing, till all is sanctified.

At the time when you were the slaves of sin, right-doing had no claim upon you.

And what harvest were you then reaping, from acts which now make you blush? Their reward is death.

Now that you are free from the claims of sin, and have become God’s slaves instead, you have a harvest in your sanctification, and your reward is eternal life.

Sin offers death, for wages; God offers us eternal life as a free gift, through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nota bene: [9] And he said: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Et dicebat : Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat. [Mark 4. Parable of the Sower]

HIC HAEC HOC

GH emailed me recently with his latest news, including a second hacking of his computer system. This corresponded to a weird email purporting to be from him which I received some weeks ago. Fortunately, my son AHB spotted a tell-tale error in the address line and we spammed and deleted the email.

To commemorate the dastardly cyber attacks, I composed a new pentelope for GH, inspired by 30 little demonstrative pronouns/adjectives he and I once learned by heart as small boys [for newcomers who are unfamiliar with pentelopes, see here or type the term in the blog's search field].

Forsooth I know not why tis him they hack [1],
It grieveth me full sore but, what the heck!
They seemingly consider him a hick [2]
And aim his ham to string[3] or him to hock[4],
Perchance his mail to black[5], or simply huck.[6]

Notes

[1] : hack has multiple pages in the complete OED, but here is their first recorded instance of the cyber sense: d. transitive. To gain unauthorized access to or control over (a computer system, network, a person's telephone communications, etc.), typically remotely. Also with the owner(s) of the system, network, etc., as object. 1983   N.Y. Times 28 Aug. 20   Hackers..wouldn't..think of calling up on the telephone and saying, ‘Hi, I'm a bright young guy and I'd like to hack your computer’.

[2] hick: a. An ignorant countryman; a silly fellow, booby. Now chiefly U.S.1699   B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew   Hick, any Person of whom any Prey can be made..; also a silly Country Fellow.

[3] hamstring v, transitive;  2. transferred and figurative. To disable as if by hamstringing; to cripple, destroy the activity or efficiency of. 1641   Milton Of Reformation 60   So have they hamstrung the valour of the Subject by seeking to effeminate us all at home.

[4] hock:  (a) intransitive. To observe Hocktide.  (b) transitive. To bind or otherwise beset (persons) in the way practised at Hocktide. v1727   Cowell's Interpreter sig. Gga   And in the Accounts of Magdalen College in Oxford there is yearly an Allowance pro Mulieribus Hockantibus, in some Manors of theirs in Hampshire, where the Men hock the Women on Monday, and econtra on Tuesday. 1825   T. D. Fosbroke Encycl. Antiq. II. xiii. 576   On Monday and Tuesday men and women reciprocally hocked each other, i.e. stopped the way with ropes, and pulled the passengers towards them, desiring a donation.

[5] blackmail: Post-classical Latin reditus nigri , redditus nigri (plural) appears to have been invented by Coke after redditus albi white rent (see quot. 1642). He seems to have interpreted white rent as all rent paid in money, and to have invented a contrasting category for rent paid in kind.  [1774   D. Hume Let. 4 June in Edinb. Mag. (1817) Aug. 10/1   I hope all his spleen is not exhausted. I should desire my compliments to him, were I not afraid that he would interpret the civility as paying black maill to him... [Note] This was a sort of tax paid to freebooters, to obtain exemption from their inroads.]

[6] huck: a. intransitive. To higgle in trading; to haggle over a bargain; to chaffer, bargain. Also figurative. To haggle over terms, to stickle. 14..   in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 566/36   Auccionor, to hukke.1468   Medulla in Promptorium Parvulorum 252 (note)    Auccionor, to merchaunt, and huk. a1529   J. Skelton Poems   Now adayes as hucksters they hucke and they styck.

PS: [The Latin huc is an adverb: hūc: (adv.), to this place; hither, here, cf huc et illuc]