Help with two very simple but opaque gobbets of neo-Latin

Question

I write again asking for help with two passages of Lawrence of Brindisi.

1. Christus autem virga est divinae virtutis : [examples of biblical virgae]. Sed virga ista facta est diversorum colorum, albi et nigri: albedo habitus ac positio est sicut lux, nigredo vero privatio sicut tenebrae.

It's the last bit that I find a bit confusing, on two levels. First, the syntax: "the whiteness is habitus and positio, like light, while the blackness is privation, like shadows." Is that how this should be understood?

The next question is the sense of positio. Obviously derived from ponere. But in this religious context, is just plain 'position' appropriate?

2. Quod autem de proximo faciendum est, habendum est pro facto, hinc oriente aurora dicimus factum diem

For context, here is the surrounding text:

Does de proximo mean simply "next"? I think that's the logic: 'what must be done next, must be considered as done, hence, at the first light of dawn, we say that it is daytime.'

Answer 1

For your first question:

• You understand the syntax correctly.

• habitus ac positiō is the 2-for-1 translation equivalent of the single Aristotelian ἕξις héxis. A lucid explanation for why this is needed is found in Bydén (2022):

  “Héxis” is the action noun of the verb “échein.” But “échein” can be used both transitively, so as to mean “to have – or hold, or contain – (something),” and intransitively, usually with an adverbial modifier, so as to mean “to be (somehow) disposed.” And “héxis” is the action noun of both transitive and intransitive “échein.” As a result, it is radically ambiguous.

  In English, an equivalent is even harder to find, something like “a having-of/state/disposition.”

• This is opposed to prīvātiō, this time a one-word correspondence to the Aristotelian στέρησις stérēsis, and to the English “privation.”

• The light-shadow analogy is also straight from A's On the Soul.

For your second question, the context unambiguously fixes the interpretation of dē proximō as a single time adjunct (an adverbial) meaning “very soon, next thing” - such use of dē became common already in late Latin (dē subitō etc.). In fact it appears in DuCange, glossed as “Brevi, intra proximos dies, Gall. Dans peu.”

Bib:

• Bydén, B. (2022). "Chapter 1 Aristotle’s Light Analogy in the Greek Tradition". In Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition

Answer 2

Given the context, I'd take the second passage to mean: "that which is to be done shortly/soon/next, should be considered as having been already done".

The thrust of the paragraph is something like: "If Christ has just been born, how can there already be glory and victory? How can there be a harvest when only the seed has yet been born? But that which we know will inevitably happen soon can be taken as a fact, just as when the sun is just rising, we say it's already day." The paragraph gives various analogies between Christ and a seed/the sunrise/etc. as harbingers of something bigger to come, and the sentence you highlight describes the logic behind those analogies.

Admittedly I haven't found a clear parallel for de proximo meaning "shortly, soon" or "next", though proxime sometimes has that meaning (L&S, II.B.2.a), so it's only the context that can argue for this reading. Maybe this is a medieval usage (though it doesn't seem to be in du Cange).