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Dear list-members, Being an ardent disciple of sancta Procrastinata, I finally sit down and take the time to introduce myself to you, and at the same time, ask for your help in a question I have come accross in my work. I hope you will excuse my "French written accent"... I am at the moment a master's student in French Literature at the University of Montreal, and I work on Jean de Joinville's "Vie de saint Louis", written at the very beginning of the 14th century. Maybe as you know, Joinville was a knight who went on saint Louis' first crusade, so it is a very rare example of a saint's life written by a lay man. In fact, I'm not sure there is another example of that. And what I study for my master's is precisely this profound laity that Joinville gives to his king's sanctity (he knew Louis quite well), as I think Joinville sees in saint Louis the perfection of chivalery and what he calls «prud'homie». In his text, Joinville recalls alot of saint Louis' favourite sayings, and at this one time, in an anecdote where Joinville narrates an anecdote where he, the king and the king's family almost died on the ship on the way back from the crusade, saint Louis quotes saint Anselme (I do not know how he is called in English). Here is therefore Joinville quoting saint Louis quoting saint Ancelme (!) : «Or dit saint Anciaumes que ce sont des menaces Notre Seigneur, aussi comme se Diex vousist dire: " Or vous eusse je bien mors se je vousisse ". Sire Dieu, fait li sains (here, saint Anselme, again), pourquoy nous menaces tu? car es menaces que tu nous faiz, ce n'est pour ton preu ne pour ton avantage, car se tu nous avoies touz perdus, si ne seroies tu ja plus povre et se tu nous avois tous gaignez, tu n'en serois ja plus riche. Donc n'est ce pas pour ton preu la menace que tu nous as faite, mes pour nostre profit, se nous le savons mettre a oeuvre. » my own little translation: «Now saint Anselme says that this (a near-death experience) is a threat from God, as if he had wanted to say to us: "I certainly would have made you die if I had wanted to". Dear God, says the saint, why do you threaten us? Because these threats that you utter towards us are not for your profit or your advantage, because if you had lost us all, you would not have been poorer, and if you had won us all, you would not have been richer. Therefore, the menace you have uttered towards us is not for your advantage, but for our profit, if we are able to make the best of it.» Jacques Monfrin, who has edited the text, said that he has not come accross this in saint Anselme's work. But I wonder if that idea of God not being richer or poorer is something that we can find somewhere else, maybe in saint Augustin, or elsewhere... Has anyone of you ever come accross this idea? Sophie Cardinal-Corriveau Université de Montréal P.S. Docteur Souple, qu'est-ce que vous me faites rigoler!!! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%