"He [God] has favored our undertakings."
During this Christmas season, I have done a little thinking about the value of money in our lives. I have noticed a pattern in my fiscal life of loosening up the grip on my available, and sometimes unavailable, cash reserves. I think this might be something that many of us can relate to, especially as we seek to bring joy to others through annual gift-giving. I can't seem to help myself sometimes when shopping for my wife, and I always seem to go "over budget," if there is actually a budget at all.
In light of this as well as necessity, Myrriah and I have decided to forgoe gifting to each other for the last two years running. It serves a two-fold purpose to help us afford to keep gifting to our immediate family and to help us focus on the best and only gift we need, our Savior Jesus. This boycott on gifting has also extended to our birthdays and has led to experimentation in as far as gifting sans cash purchases.
In thinking about money, I decided to write about the many latin phrases that are included on our US currency.
E Pluribus Unum-
Meaning "a new order of the ages," this phrase was first suggested by Charles Thomson who came up with the final design for "The Great Seal." Thomson included this motto for the seal signifying the beginning of a new American era. This phrase is sometimes translated incorrectly as, "new world order."
The phrase is taken from the fourth Ecologue of Virgil, which contains a passage that reads:
Now comes the final era of the Sybil's song; The great order of the ages is born anew. And now justice returns, honored rules return; now a new lineage in sent down from high heaven.
It is curious that the medieval Christians read Virgil's poem as a prophecy of the coming Christ. There is also a lot of interesting symbolism in these seals and I encourage you to learn more about it as I chose not to take the time to go over that in this posting. It really has no direct connection to Latin in our context.
Annuit Coeptis- "He [God] has favored our undertakings."(seen above pyramid)
In 1782 William Barton started work on the national seal and his proposal can be seen below. Originally he suggested, "deo favente," literally, "with God favoring," above the pyramid and "perennis," "everlasting," below. You may quickly notice that our two latin phrases from above the pyramid are very similar in meaning. Barton meant his motto to allude to the Eye of Providence which he equated to none other than God. When Thomson took over, he meant his motto to have a similar meaning, but decided to adopt a phrase from Virgil's Aeneid. The unfortunate part is that with the new phrase, God had technically been removed from the meaning, although most agree that God is still implied just as I indicated inside the brackets of the translation. Thomson explains his purpose, "The Eye over it [the pyramid] and the motto Annuit Cœptis allude to the many signal interpositions of providence in favor of the American cause." Quote #3
Out of all these Latin phrases found on our currency and seal, I found the two above the pyramid to be most interesting. When we look at the literal translation of annuit coeptis, we are left to supply a subject, which we can leave as he, or we can assume from the seal that it means Providence itself, rendered from the Eye of Providence, the triangle above the pyramid. Providence in many definitions refers to God, and even in the basest sense assumes a divine attribute. I feel that we can correctly translate this, "God has favored our undertakings," where undertakings can be understood to mean the founding of the United States.
Does God still favor our undertakings or endeavors as a country? as individuals? I feel that as God's tool on Earth, our government will not always act directly in God's favor, nor has He expected it or any other such establishment outside of Israel's theocracy under Himself to do so. We as individuals, however, do need to keep ourselves in check by asking ourselves, "are my endeavors/undertakings in God's favor?" "Are my endeavors seen to be in God's favor?" Unfortunately, we can answer negatively to these questions all too often. Let us keep ourselves in check so that we may proudly say that with God's help, "Annuit Coeptis!"
During this Christmas season, I have done a little thinking about the value of money in our lives. I have noticed a pattern in my fiscal life of loosening up the grip on my available, and sometimes unavailable, cash reserves. I think this might be something that many of us can relate to, especially as we seek to bring joy to others through annual gift-giving. I can't seem to help myself sometimes when shopping for my wife, and I always seem to go "over budget," if there is actually a budget at all.
In light of this as well as necessity, Myrriah and I have decided to forgoe gifting to each other for the last two years running. It serves a two-fold purpose to help us afford to keep gifting to our immediate family and to help us focus on the best and only gift we need, our Savior Jesus. This boycott on gifting has also extended to our birthdays and has led to experimentation in as far as gifting sans cash purchases.
In thinking about money, I decided to write about the many latin phrases that are included on our US currency.
E Pluribus Unum-
This is by far the most popular latin phrase included on our dollar bill and most also know what it means, "out of many, one." We can see phrases similar to this going back to the ancient greek philosopher Heraclitus in his 10th fragment quoted by Aristotle, also in Moretum, a poem attributed to Virgil, and finally, to St. Augustine in his Confessions. Most likely what we took the phrase from was a monthly magazine started in 1731 in London, Gentleman's Magazine, which used it on their annual volume title page, next to a boquet of flowers.
"America was originally likened to a bouquet of different flowers [left], where unity and individuality coexisted – not a "melting pot" [right] that blended everyone together." Quote #1
In 1776 "e pluribus unum" was suggested as a motto (and remained as a de facto motto until 1956) to be included on the US seal. Below is an original drawing submitted by the first comittee, Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson, who hired Pierre Eugene du Simitiere for this purpose.
"The center section of their shield has six symbols for the Countries from which these States have been peopled: the rose (England), thistle (Scotland), harp (Ireland), fleur-de-lis (France), lion (Holland), and an imperial two-headed eagle (Germany)." Quote #2
Novus Ordo Seclorum-
(seen below pyramid)
Meaning "a new order of the ages," this phrase was first suggested by Charles Thomson who came up with the final design for "The Great Seal." Thomson included this motto for the seal signifying the beginning of a new American era. This phrase is sometimes translated incorrectly as, "new world order." Now comes the final era of the Sybil's song; The great order of the ages is born anew. And now justice returns, honored rules return; now a new lineage in sent down from high heaven.
It is curious that the medieval Christians read Virgil's poem as a prophecy of the coming Christ. There is also a lot of interesting symbolism in these seals and I encourage you to learn more about it as I chose not to take the time to go over that in this posting. It really has no direct connection to Latin in our context.
Annuit Coeptis- "He [God] has favored our undertakings."(seen above pyramid)
In 1782 William Barton started work on the national seal and his proposal can be seen below. Originally he suggested, "deo favente," literally, "with God favoring," above the pyramid and "perennis," "everlasting," below. You may quickly notice that our two latin phrases from above the pyramid are very similar in meaning. Barton meant his motto to allude to the Eye of Providence which he equated to none other than God. When Thomson took over, he meant his motto to have a similar meaning, but decided to adopt a phrase from Virgil's Aeneid. The unfortunate part is that with the new phrase, God had technically been removed from the meaning, although most agree that God is still implied just as I indicated inside the brackets of the translation. Thomson explains his purpose, "The Eye over it [the pyramid] and the motto Annuit Cœptis allude to the many signal interpositions of providence in favor of the American cause." Quote #3
Out of all these Latin phrases found on our currency and seal, I found the two above the pyramid to be most interesting. When we look at the literal translation of annuit coeptis, we are left to supply a subject, which we can leave as he, or we can assume from the seal that it means Providence itself, rendered from the Eye of Providence, the triangle above the pyramid. Providence in many definitions refers to God, and even in the basest sense assumes a divine attribute. I feel that we can correctly translate this, "God has favored our undertakings," where undertakings can be understood to mean the founding of the United States.
Does God still favor our undertakings or endeavors as a country? as individuals? I feel that as God's tool on Earth, our government will not always act directly in God's favor, nor has He expected it or any other such establishment outside of Israel's theocracy under Himself to do so. We as individuals, however, do need to keep ourselves in check by asking ourselves, "are my endeavors/undertakings in God's favor?" "Are my endeavors seen to be in God's favor?" Unfortunately, we can answer negatively to these questions all too often. Let us keep ourselves in check so that we may proudly say that with God's help, "Annuit Coeptis!"
