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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Agreeing with M. Davidson on Greek implicatures

At

http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0901A&L=CLASSICS-L&P=R1018&I=-3

I quote from Migne's Patrologia Latina)

Ἔνθεν εἰκότως αὐτὸς ἐν ἑστιάσει ποτὲ δεξιούμενος ἐπισκόπους λόγον ἀφῆκεν ὡς ἄρα καὶ αὐτὸς εἴη episkοpοs, ὧδέ πη αὐτοῖς εἰπὼν ῥήμασιν ἐφ’ ἡμετέραις ἀκοαῖς aλλ’ ὑμεῖς μὲν τῶν εἴσω τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ἐγὼ δὲ τῶν ἐκτὸς ὑπὸ θεοῦ καθεσταμένος
episκοpος ἂν εἴην ἀκόλουθα δὲ τῷ λόγῳ διανοούμενος τοὺς ἀρχομένους ἅπαντας ἐπεσκόπει, προὔτρεπέ τε ὅσηπερ ἂν ἡ δύναμις τὸν εὐσεβῆ μεταδιώκειν βίον

And comment:

"It's obvious, and I cannot agree more with M. Davidson, that the play on
words here, on 'episcopos'. The eye that sees but does not see itself. This is
quasi-rhetorical, if not 'metaphorical' (Davidson's sobriquet) and an antecessor,
no doubt to the hate-speech of Charles the First.

(Matter of fact, I feel a lot of consideration for Charles I -- his wife is
an opera heroine ("I puritani"), even if _muta_.)

But back to the 'implication'. It's _not_ logical. But supposing we analyse
it in terms of what Russell mis-called the 'meta-' prefix (he coined 'metalanguage' and object-language) we would have:

x is the bishops's bishop.

This _entails_:

1. there are _other_ bishops, whose job is basic -- since they care for
their communties.
2. This papal monster is the self-appointed meta-bishop, as it were
(meta-episcopalian, if you must). By appointing hisself (sic) to his job he is
certainy depriving the populus romanus for whose service he exists as bridge-maker
of a full-time profession, and trust he'll spend the rest of the middle ages
supervising those who rather _read_ the books (biblia) themselves and spare
with 'sui interpres'!

So, what can be taken _prima facie_ as a compliment (and trust some blind Catholic to reason: 'hey, there's this expression 'custos custodum' and that's what we are: we are the custodian of the global moral consciousness!') is indeed a _denial_ of
the job a religious leader is supposed to fill! Ah, for the times of Apollodorus, when nobody cared if Zeus married an immaculate Virgin or what!

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