Sunday, July 17, 2005
(11:13 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
A Pious Thought for Sunday
In the Victorian edition of the early church fathers that I am using, there are occasional explanatory footnotes. They had very different ideas about what requires a footnote -- rather than, say, an explanation of an obscure cultural practice, there are often notes that highlight what the editor thinks is a particularly edifying passage or a disproof of the doctrine of papal infallibility.In Clement of Alexandria's The Instructor, I have found a particularly helpful footnote that I would like to share. The Instructor is a very detailed account of how one should live -- what kind of fabrics are appropriate for clothing, what situations require annointing, etc. In one passage, Clement is describing the holy person's sleeping patterns, and he says that everyone should get in the habit of waking up to praise God throughout the night. The editors feel that this is especially good advice that has been followed by holy men throughout the ages, and they accordingly drop this footnote:
Holy men, on waking in the night, have always used ejaculations, even when unable to rise.
