Memoria Press Newsletter 12/99

Certum quia impossible
"It is certain because it is impossible"
-Tertullian, De Carne Christi

NOTA BENE

HE new book from Memoria Press, Traditional Logic, Book II: Advanced Formal Logic, will be available next month. It is a continuation of the study of formal logic begun in Book I, which has been called "the most helpful logic course out there today." In addition to the regular text, the new book contains case studies of famous arguments from history, philosophy and literature. These include Plato's hypothetical syllogism on the power of love, Shakespeare's sorites on manners, several epicheiremema used by St. Thomas Aquinas in his cosmological argument for the existence of God, and many, many more. For a preview of the contents of the book, take a look at the Table of Contents posted on our website.
Book I is already revolutionizing logic instruction by taking students step by step through the study of traditional logic from simple argument forms to complex forms rarely treated in other books in a thoroughly traditional and systematic format.


In Defense of the Permanent Things Maybe the best way to deal with the modern world is to study something else. A classical educator argues that the water is always purer upstream.	Encouragement and fortification for the classical educator

UT, it is objected, after all, the ancients are not ourselves, and in our devotion to them we lose touch with modern thought and modern problems
     ... Of course, no one supposes that a study of thought and history is complete when we have mastered the classics. But the simplicity and lucidity with which they raise, one after another, the fundamental problems of life and thought, make them a better introduction to these than the modern writers. They give, as a German writer has said, not mass of knowledge, but clearness of fundamental principles ... Want of such clearness is the greatest source of error, and produces the type of man common and dangerous in the age of journalism, who is at the mercy of the last bee that happens to have lodged in his bonnet.
     Because the first task and greatest need of education is to secure this clearness, it is continually forced back into the past. ... The moderns are more complicated; they presuppose, for their full understanding, knowledge of their predecessors, and they contain, mixed with much truth, errors on which time has not yet passed judgement, and which are therefore difficult to detect. This makes them unsuitable food for the young student, and education turns to the older writers, who have the principles of the subject in a simpler form, whose views have been scrutinized, and whose errors laid bare. By so doing she loses touch for a moment with the most modern developments; but she does so deliberately, knowing that the student will grasp them more quickly and judge them more accurately, if he has made his ground principles sure.
       - W. Livingstone, A Defense of Classical Education, 1917

I think it would be a good idea."

-Mahatma Gandhi (when asked about Western Civilization)

Sursum Corda

Resonet in Laudibus
Resonet in Laudibus
cum jucundis plausibus
Sion cum fidelibus
Apparuit quem genuit Maria.

Sion lauda Dominum
Salvatorem omnium
Virgo parit Filium
Apparuit quem genuit Maria.

Refrain:
Gaudete, gaudete.
Christus natus hodie!
Gaudete, gaudete,
ex Maria Virgine.

Joseph Dearest (Song of the Crib)
"Joseph Dearest, Joseph mine,
Help me cradle the child divine
God reward thee and all that's thine
In paradise," so prays the mother Mary.

"Gladly, dear one, lady mine,
Help I cradle this child of thine;
God's own light on us both shall shine
In paradise, as prays the mother Mary."

Refrain:
He came among us at Christmastide,
At Christmastide, in Bethlehem;
Men shall bring Him from far and wide
Love's diadem: Jesus, Jesus,
Lo, He comes, and loves, and saves, and frees us!

CONTEST FOR YOU AND YOUR CHILD Win A Free Book Of Your Choice From Memoria Press (click here to enter contest)

HE hymn above, Resonet in Laudibus, is a 14th century Latin carol from Germany. As Edward Heath, the prime minister of England put it, "It has a soft, lilting rhythm beautifully suited to a cradle song and the tune has the utmost simplicity." Consequently, the melody was later adapted for a lullaby sung by the Virgin Mary in a 16th century mystery play in Leipzig, Germany. The translation of this German cradle song, Joseph Dearest, is the text that is found today in many carol collections. The stanzas are a charming dialog between Joseph and Mary, and in later stanzas the servants chime in.
The Latin text, of course, is unrelated to the words of Joseph Dearest and since we have not provided a translation, we thought we would let our readers translate it themselves. Submit your translation to us by January 5, 2000. The entrant with the best translation will win a free book of their choice from Memoria Press.
The music for the Latin and English versions of this carol are the same in the stanzas but different in the refrains. To hear the tune that goes with the stanzas and the English refrain, click here. We were unable to locate the music for the Latin refrain.

Have a blessed Christmas!