Because Learning about Words is Fun

Merriam-Webster's word for today:

doyen \DOY-un\ noun

*1 : the senior or most experienced member of a group
2 : the oldest example of a category

Example sentence:
We watched a TV documentary by Jacques Cousteau, the doyen of undersea explorers.

Did you know?
English picked up "doyen" from French in the 17th century. The French term in turn comes from the Late Latin word "decanus," which itself comes from the Greek "dekanos," meaning "chief of ten." A "doyen" can be a leader of a group, such as a diplomatic corps. In this regard, the word has been used to refer to someone who is specifically or tacitly allowed to speak for that group. More broadly, a "doyen" refers to a highly skilled and respected veteran of a particular field. The feminine form of "doyen" is "doyenne."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

John Calvin, Near-Classicist

Unlike Luther, Calvin was not a university-trained theologian. He had, of course, been sent by his father to the University of Paris in order to study for the priesthood. But the original plans for John's ordination were scuttled when his father, a notary for the bishop of Noyon in Picardy, quarrelled with the cathedral chapter. In the aftermath of the quarrel Calvin was sent instead to Orleans and later to Bourges to study law. By inclination Calvin preferred to be neither a lawyer nor a priest, though he did obey his father by earning a doctorate in civil law. In the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, written many years after the events, Calvin claimed that his chief ambition as a young man had been to lead a quiet life as a reclusive scholar, one who edited and interpreted classical texts. He might very well have lived such a quiet life, had he not experienced what he later described as a rapid, if somewhat reluctant, conversion to the Protestant movement. This unexpected conversion propelled him within a remarkably short time to prominence withing Protestant circles of reform.

(From David C. Steinmetz, 'The Theology of John Calvin' (in The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology, edited by David Bagchi and David C. Steinmetz [2004], pp. 113-29), pp. 113-14.)

Auden's Thoughts on Catullus (et al.)

From 'New Year Letter', Part One:

There DRYDEN sits with modest smile,
The master of the middle style,
Conscious CATULLUS who made all
His gutter-language musical,
Black TENNYSON whose talents were
For an articulate despair,
Trim, dualistic BAUDELAIRE,
Poet of cities, harbours, whores,
Acedia, gaslight and remorse,
HARDY whose Dorset gave much joy
To one unsocial English boy,
And RILKE whom die Dinge bless,
The Santa Claus of loneliness.

An Article on Novels Set in Ancient Rome

You may find it here.

(Link via Arts&Letters Daily.)

'Sermo Beati Augustini super Verbis Apostoli ad Galatas...

The Boar's Head Tavern currently has a banner quote by Augustine (not sure how long it will remain up there) that reads as follows:

We, who preach and write books, write in a manner altogether different from the manner in which the canon of Scriptures has been written. We write while we make progress. We learn something new every day. We dictate at the same time as we explore. We speak as we still knock for understanding. … I urge your charity, on my behalf and in my own case, that you should not take any previous book or preaching of mine as Holy Scripture. … If anyone criticises me when I have said what is right, he does not do right. But I would be more angry with the one who praises me and takes what I have written for Gospel truth than the one who criticises me unfairly.

For anyone interested (which perhaps is only me), I believe this is pulled from one of Augustine's Dolbeau sermons (the 'Sermo Beati Augustini super Verbis Apostoli ad Galatas...'). Here is some of the Latin, which includes part of the passage quoted above:

Certe non quiesco, quantum possum, ubi esse possum utilis fratribus, et loquendo et scribendo. Admoneo caritatem vestram, a me, usque ad me, ne cuiusquam disputationis librum aut disputationem pro canonica scriptura habere velitis. In scripturis sanctis iudicare discimus, in scripturis nostris iudicari non dedignamur. Illud quidem eligendum est et hoc potius de duobus optandum, ut scribendo vel loquendo vera dicamus, nusquam erremus. Sed quoniam hoc implere difficile est, ideo aliud est firmamentum canonis, tamquam caelum ubi sunt constituta luminaria scripturarum, velut inter aquas et aquas, inter populos angelorum et populos hominum: illos supra, istos infra. Teneamus scripturam tamquam scripturam, tamquam deum loquentem; non ibi quaeramus hominem errantem. Non enim frustra canon in ecclesiam constitutus est: spiritus sancti hoc officium est. Si quis ergo legit librum meum, iudicet me: si rationabile dixi, sequatur non me, sed rationem ipsam; si hoc provavi testmonio evidentissimo atque divino, sequatur non me, sed scripturam divinam. Se autem aliquid quod ego recte dixi reprehendere voluerit, non rect facit, sed plus irascor tali lauditori meo qui librum meum tamquam canonicum accipit, quam ei qui in libro meo etiam non reprehendenda reprehendit. Rogo vos: quamvis intentos vos videam et paene recentissimos, velut modo audire coeperitis, tamen nolo aliquid amplius dicere, ut hoc quod ultimum dixi fortiter teneatis.

The whole sermon is an interesting survival from Late Antiquity and can be read with great profit.