stultifico
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Latin
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (Classical Latin) IPA(key): /stulˈti.fi.koː/, [s̠t̪ʊɫ̪ˈt̪ɪfɪkoː]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /stulˈti.fi.ko/, [st̪ul̪ˈt̪iːfiko]
Verb
stultificō (present infinitive stultificāre, perfect active stultificāvī, supine stultificātum); first conjugation
- (transitive, Late Latin or Medieval Latin) to make stupid or foolish
- c. 390, Origen, translated by Hieronymus, Translatio Homiliarum in Ieremiam et Ezechielem, Homily 5, sections 800-802:
- Vērum exemplum interpōnāmus, ut perspicuē possit intelligī quōmodō fatuum Deī stultam fēcerit sapientiam mundī: fingam paulisper mē, quī aliquid putor nōsse, cum īnsipiente aliquō, et inērudītō cōnferre sermōnem, quī nihil intelligat, nihil acūtae disputātiōnis interroget. Numquidnam opus mihi est ad illius stultitiam arguendam, dialecticam calliditātem, et profundōrum sēnsuum acūmen adhibēre? Nōnne ad ūnīus sermunculī jactum vīlis et modicī, quī tamen illius intelligentiae videātur ācerrimus, fatuum eum et īnsipientem esse convincam? Sīc igitur ad mundī sapientiam stultificandam nōn est opus sapientiam Deī dēscendere, et cum eā colluctārī, quae deorsum est sapientia, sed sufficit fatuum Deī: quoniam fatuum Deī sapientius est hominibus[...]
- Truly, let us give an example, so that it can clearly be understood how the foolishness of God can make the wisdom of the world stupid: let me for a short time make myself, who am thought to know something, have a conversation with someone unwise and uneducated, who can understand nothing [and] can make no clever argument. Is there any need for me, in order to refute his stupidity, to use logical cleverness and the subtlety of profound ideas? At the utterance of one trivial and ordinary little statement, which would still seem very penetrating to his understanding, wouldn't I prove that he is foolish and unwise? Thus, therefore, in order to make the world's wisdom stupid, there is no need for the wisdom of God to come down and wrestle with it, which is an inferior wisdom, but rather, the foolishness of God suffices; after all, the foolishness of God is more wise than humans[...]
Conjugation
Further reading
- “stultifico”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “stultifico”, in ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ [Logeion] (in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Chinese), University of Chicago, 2011