|
| novus
ordo seclorum |
Date:
Tue, 6 Jul 1993
From:
"Terry L. Papillon"
Subject:
Dollar Bill
Who
can tell me please the source of the latin quotation "novus
ordo seclorum" on the back of the US dollar bill? Is it
connected with the image above it? with the Masons? Is the quotation
above it, "annuit coeptis," connected with it, or a
separate thought imported into the seal? Where does this whole "great
seal" come from? A (conservative) theologian wants to translate
the former quotation "the new secular order" I'm trying to
explain the difficulties there, but I can't explain the connections
between secularis and our modern connotation of secular (vs. state).
When does the change from "of or pertaining to the age"
move to the modern idea of secular? Thanks in advance for the help.
Date:
Tue, 6 Jul 1993
From:
"David N. Wigtil"
Subject:
Dollar Bill
Just
a nasty flash...imagine an alternate bad translation, saeculum = siècle,
and then the NEW ORDER OF CENTURIES: First would come the 20th
century, then maybe 4th century B.C. to talk with Plato & Co.,
followed by maybe something from the early empire, and then why not
12th B.C. to find out what really triggered the Dark Age?
Date:
Tue, 6 Jul 1993
From:
Carl Conrad
Subject: Re: Dollar Bill
"Novus
ordo seclorum" is pretty close to the opening lines of the 4th
Eclogues. In its context there it surely refers to the new sequence
of the world-ages-- from Iron to Bronze to Silver to Gold, a
sequence which Vergil seems to telescope into the childhood and
adolescence of the child whose birth the poem heralds.
Date:
Tue, 6 Jul 1993
From:
"Richard F. Thomas"
Subject:
dollar bill
yes,
i too had always assumed it was from the beginning of eclogue 4, as
i assume "annuit coeptis" implies that somebody listened
to virgil at geo. 1.40 (annue coeptis). zeus popping up again it
seems. who put it all together and put it o n the dollar bill i too
would like to know.
Date:
Tue, 6 Jul 1993
From:
Patrick Rourke
Subject:
SECULAR ORDERS
Maybe
you might want to try explaining to him that Horace's SAECULAR ODE
is also often called the CENTENNIAL HYMN, and that it was
commissioned for the SAECULAR GAMES. And that he shouldn't even try
to make sense out of the dollar bill -- unless he really thinks that
the Founding Fathers preferred a salad bowl to a melting pot (E
PLURIBUS UNUM).
Date:
Tue, 6 Jul 1993
From:
WEBB DENNIS
Subject:
Dollar Bill F
The
following short account of the Latin phrases on the U.S. dollar bill
is from "Vergil in the American Experience" by Meyer
Reinhold, published as Chapter IX of the same author's "Classica
Americana". "Political science was at a premium for the
Revolutionary generation, and the cult of antiquity was at its
height in America, as the Founding Fathers ransacked the Roman and
Greek classics for republican models and classical virtues. It was
at this time that the Great seal of the United States was created,
adopting its mottoes from Vergil. In 1782, the year of the
eighteenth centenary of Vergil's death, Congress approved the design
of the official seal. One of the consultants to the committee that
drew up the seal was Charles Thomson, Secretary of Congress, who had
been a teacher of Latin in Philadelphia. The seal (now on the
obverse of the dollar bill), contains three Vergilian tags: "annuit
coeptis" (adapted from Aen. 9.625 and Georg. 1.40: "audacibus
adnue coeptis"); "novus ordo seclorum (adapted from Ecl.
4.5: "magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo"), and "e
pluribus unum" (adapted from Moretum 103: "color est e
pluribus unus"). However, the motto "e pluribus unum"
appears to have been taken over, not from the Moretum directly, but
from the legend on the title page of the British "Gentleman's
Magazine", popular on this side of the Atlantic. These mottoes
embodied a statement of the classical heritage and humanistic
origins of the first modern republic, even if the heraldic emblems
and the devices would have been understood only by educated
Americans."
Date:
Wed, 7 Jul 1993
From:
Dougal Blyth
Subject:
Re: Dollar Bill
I'm not sure why you oppose secular to the state, but I assume the
derivation of *secular*, in the modern sense opposed to *sacred*,
from *saecularis* maintains the opposition of the temporal to the
eternal (i.e., the changing and the unchanging).
Date:
Wed, 7 Jul 1993
From:
Owen Cramer
Subject:
Re: Dollar Bill
And,
if you take "saeculorum" as a descriptive gen., "New
World Order"
Date:
Wed, 7 Jul 1993
From:
Bill Kupersmith
Subject:
Secular (was Dollar Bill)
For
"secular" meaning "having to do with this world"
(as opposed to the world or life to come) see C. S. Lewis, Studies
in Words, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 225-37.
Date:
Wed, 7 Jul 1993
From: "Sterling G. Bjorndahl"
Subject:
Re: Dollar Bill
So
instead of "new secular order" you can tell him that it
means "New Age." That'll REALLY set a conservative
Christian theologian's mind at ease!
Date:
Thu, 8 Jul 1993
From:
Carl Conrad
Subject:
Re: Dollar Bill
When dealing with computers, a little paranoia is usually
appropriate. This is sort of paradoxical, isn't it. We go back to
the thread of how we denote the time frame we are using. Surely
there was a lot of feeling at the founding of the U.S. that
something really new was in the works. It goes with that peculiar
Enlightenment attitude that wants to be anti-Christian and secular,
but in a religious sort of way. I translate Latin diplomas
frequently for foreign M.D.'s seeking licenses, and I find phrases
like "anno nostrae salutis" occasionally coupled with
something like "anno reipublicae Americanae." That way we
can have our "secular" religion--and eat it too.
Date:
Thu, 8 Jul 1993
From:
William Douglas Burgess
Subject:
Re: Dollar Bill
This
is the first time that I have done this, so I don't know if it will
work, but here goes. One of the "advantages" of being the
only ancient historian at a small, regional university is that you "get"
to teach all sorts of things, including the occasional American
history survey (American history could use a good subversive ancient
historian, I think.) "Novus Ordo Seclorum" should properly
be translated as "The New Order of the Ages", and yes, it
is a reference to classical literature. The "Fathers" were
all hot for the Classics, as we all know. And were heavily
influenced by the writing of the libertarian Whigs of England. I
recommend to your "conservative theologian" the series of
books on the Constitution and the Fathers by the Amerian historian
Forrest McDonald, especially the one entitled "Novus Ordo
Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution". It
ought to knock his socks off. I hope this works and you get all of
this, if not I will try again. |
| Culled
from
classics.log9307. |
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