Monday, September 11, 2006

Gloria Dei vivens homo

The glory of God is a living human.

- Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses. IV.xx.7

God loves life. He made it. His Spirit sustains it. His Son died for it. The Author of life, the Spirit of life and the Living one: Father Son Spirit live and share their life.

6 comments:

michael jensen said...

hmm, the English is more than a little ambiguous, but then, maybe that's fine. The version you have here seems a little Shirley Maclaine, for me...

Hmm. Dusts off schoolboy Latin:

'The glory of God is A living human'?

byron smith said...

Yes, I suppose in context your translation is better. I just went with one I found on the net. I heard the phrase in a song recently and it struck me (both for its profundity and familiarity), so I went searching for its origin.

The beauty of a blog is that I can now improve the translation and unless people check comments, they'll never know that I originally had "The glory of God is humanity alive".

Meredith said...

Whatever your translation, its an interesting choice of quote for the anniversary of a suicide bombing!!

byron smith said...

Also the anniversary of a CIA supported military coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet which toppled the democratically elected President Salvador Allende (1973). Or one I thought you of all people might know (!) - the first Austrlian involvement in WWI: the invasion of New Britain (1914).

Anonymous said...

hi....i'm from india...
my school logo reads "gloria dei est homo totaliter vivens"...what does totaliter mean??

byron smith said...

totaliter means "entirely" or "totally". I.e. The glory of God is a human entirely alive, who is living life to the full, we might say.