de desperatione...

In a footnote, I just read that somebody has written an article about Augustine's homiletic use of the nominative absolute. Two observations:

1. What is that.
2. I hope I never become one of those scholars.


UPDATE:

Somewhat more awesomely, in a later footnote to the same tractate:

'Deo gratias [thanks be to God] had become a rallying cry for the Catholics against the Deo laudes [praises be to God], the rallying cry of the Donatists, especially of the Circumcellions who used it as a war chant.'