St Polycarpus och Russells Thékanna

På en annans blogg diskuterade jag med en atheist, som först klämde ur sig "enligt de flesta historiska belägg har Jesus-gestalten aldrig funnits som historisk person".

Jag förklarade att hvilken historisk person eller hvilket historiskt faktum det än handlade om, är det orimligt att de flesta historiska belägg skulle belägga just den personen eller det faktum. I stället för att upprepa mitt exempel, tar jag ett annat. Cena Trimalchionis är en roman. Eller snarare Satyricon är den romanen, Cena Trimalchionis är bara det berömdaste kapitlet.Den belägger dermed gifvetvis intet sin handling. Men den belägger att nyrika festprissar, slafvar och frigifna, menniskor med potensproblem och dyrkan af Priapus för att få bot på dem voro kända fenomen. Så Cena Trimalchionis belägger intet att det fans kristna eller att Jesus funnits. Men Buffy belägger - hvad jag känner till hittils - icke att Bertrand Russell funnits eller att Obama fins eller att Angela Merkel finns. Bara att vampyrer och tonårsproblem voro kända i början af 21^sta århundradet och ibland associerade. Så är det alltid med "de flesta historiska källor". Hvarje belägger vissa saker, intet andra. Om hvarje enskild sak tiga de flesta källor.

Kom så Bertrand Russells berömda thékanna på tal.

Utanför Saturnus ring sväfvar en thékanna i omloppsbana som vi intet kunna se derföre att den är för långt borta. - "Klart det intet gör!" - "Bevisa det!"

Nu torde Russells invändning vara en fin parodie på argumenteringen hos en agnostiker som intet erkänner ngt belägg för att Gud fins, lika litet som Russell gjorde, och i hvilket fall som intet är ens villig att tänka sig att en eventuel gud skulle ha med Jesus eller med mirakler att göra, men ändå intet vill utesluta att ngn gud ändå kan finnas. Men till Russells thé-kanna säger jag "belägg den thé-kannan eller ge dig". Och om Russell (eller snarare ngn lärjunge eller lärjunges lärjunge, för om han spökade skulle han knappast upprepa de misstag han hamnade i helvetet för inför spökeri-vittnena) svarar ngt om att jag borde belägga min Gud eller ge mig, så svarar jag: gerna det!

Mitt argument är intet att en elefant kan finnas i källaren äfven om ingen sett den eller ingen hört den eller ingen känt dess ben eller snabel eller betar der i källaren. Mitt argument är att "elefanten i källaren" faktiskt belagts. Men gifgvetvis icke af "de flesta historiska källor", eftersom ett sådant universelt genomslag är otroligt.

I. o. f. s. har visserligen Jesus belagts i de flesta historiska källor som skrifvits i Vest sedan han lefde på jorden, genom referens på referens, men då tala vi redan om Jesus som "religiös gestalt i det fjerran förflutna", ngt som atheisten antagligen anser kan vara påhitt i hvilket fall som. Vi tala om historiska belägg om Jesus som "historisk gestalt i det nyligen förflutna". Det nyligen förflutna kan då begränsas till första århundradet. Efter St Johannes Himmelsfärd är det ingen som lefvat som samtida med Jesus. Hvad jag häfdar är att från den tiden finnas - flera olika till och med oberoende källor till att han funnits, ingen källa till motsatsen, och massor af källor som helt enkelt lemna detta derhän. Som Cena Trimalchionis.

Cena Trimalchionis är ett belägg för att Satyricon har en författare. Vi ha ett antal källor, jag har ingan aning om hvilka, som kalla författaren Petronius. Tacitus som historieskrifvare belägger att Petronius funnits och varit magister elegantiarum åt Nero. Och Nero belägger, genom sin förfölgelse mot kristna - likaså hos historikern Tacitus (se dennes Annales XV.44. om att kristna - evt. under tortyr, det står intet - bekänt sig som* anklagades af Nero som anstiftare af Roms brand och torterade deom på alla sätt*) - att det vid den tiden, c:a 30 år efter Jesu död och uppståndelse, funnos kristna. Samt att de förfölgdes efter Roms brand på kejserligt dekret.

Huru många sekter känner du sjelf till som ha hyfsadt många medlemmar nu, som gå tillbaks på en person som dog 30 år sedan enligt hvad de påstå sjelfva, och som ändå intet funnos längre tillbaks i tiden än tio år sedan och hvars grundare för 30 år sedan är ett rent påhitt? Nej, just det!

Bland de kristna som förfölgdes då, funnos två collegor till Petronius och Tacitus, d v s två författare. St Petrus och St Paulus. De voro också rätt prominenta inom den sekten. Nå, voro de nu mer collegor till Petronius, d v s romanförfattare, eller till Tacitus, d v s historie-skrifvare? Faktiskt icke riktigt vare sig det ena eller andra. Snarare till en annan välbelagd samtida författare, Seneca, hans Epistulae Morales. De skrefvo nämligen om huru man bör lefva. Deremot togo de ganska ofta till förklaringar om en viss Jesus, som Petrus sjelf har sett udner jordelifvet och som Paulus sett efter uppståndelsen.

Så, om nu Jesus intet funnits, har St Petrus och St Paulus funnits, eller äro de också påhitt? Och om de nu vore ett påhitt från en mycket mer sentida kristendom, huru kunde Tacitus påstå att kristna förfölgdes för att ha anstiftat Roms brand?

Nu nämner Tacitus intet St Petrus och St Paulus. Det gör deremot St Irenaeus. Och han nämner att St Petrus var Lärjunge till Jesus men att St Johannes också var det. Och han är känd som lärjunge till St Polycarpus som var känd som lärjunge till Johannes som var det till Jesus. Så om Jesus var ett påhitt, huru är det då med Petrus och Johannes, författare som påstå sig ha bevittnat lefnaden hos Vår Herre?

Om de icke funnits, hvarföre fins då en samling af en Uppenbarelse, en lefnadsskildring af Jesus (som utelemnar barndomen), och tre bref om kristet uppförande tillskrifna Johannes och två bref tillskrifna Petrus? Om de funnits men intet Jesus, hvarför dogo de då för sitt tydligen gemensamma påhitt?

St Paulus fins omnämnd his St Lukas - författare till ett Evangelium (lifsbeskrifning af Jesus, med bitar af barndomen) och en bok om hvad som hände efter att Jesus farit upp till himlen. St Paulus sjelf skref fjorton bref. Men om nu Lukas hittade på den der Paulus, hvem författade då de fjorton brefven?

Och, förutom att Petrus, Paulus och Johannes samtliga skrifvit att de mött Jesus mer än en gång - St Paulus i uppenbarelser efter himmelsfärden, men han skrifver om dem som sett honom efter uppståndelsen efter att ha varit lärjungar före korsfästelsen, de båda andra skrifva sig ha varit med honom före korsfästelsen med - och förutom att de efterlemnat texter som ingen då tycks ha tagit för nöjesläsning i stil med Satyricon ha de omnämnts af en groupe andra författare, af hvilka jag redan nämnt St Irenaeus. Denne nämner också att kyrkan i Rom - altså sektens lokalafdelning i kejserliga hufvudstaden, om du vill vara spydig - hade efterträdare till Petrus och Paulus: Linus, Cletus, Clemens och nio till fram till tidpunkten då han skrifver detta. Allesamman dödade af kristendomsförfölgande staten. Och han nämner två andra skildringar af Jesu lif, tillsammans med Johannes och Lukas: före Lukas kommer Markus och före Markus Matthaeus. Och den här Markus är också känd från andra håll, t ex som förste bsikopen af Alexandria i Egypten. Ja, biskop var - så kom man öfverens - standard-titeln på en chef för en local eller regional afdelning af "de kristna".

Så, om Russell nu skulle velat jemföra Jesu lefnad med sin berömda thé-kanna utanför Saturnus bana, hvars enda belägg intet är ett belägg utan bara ngt Russell kläckte ur sig i en débat, så skulle det nog bli problematiskt. Om han frågat mig eller ngn annan katholik eller orthodox huru vi visste att Jesus lefvat, hade denne andre (jag är sjelf fïor ung för att ha talat med Russell) svarat samma som jag nu gör:

A) Genom de tre synoptiska evangelierna och deras författare, Matthaeus, Markus, Lukas, och genom Petrus, Paulus, samt indirect genom deras martyrium under Nero, bekräftadt af Tacitus;

B) Genom Johannes, genom Polycarpus, genom Papias, genom Ignatios of Antiokia, genom Clemens, genom mottagande kyrkor af Clemens och Ignatios bref, och;

C) Genom St Irenaeus af Lyon, samt de tolf efterträdare till Petrus och Paulus i Rom som han räknar upp.

Jefviga? Kanske om Jesu guddom. Knappast om sina inbördes relationer och kännande till af hvarandra. Du vet att Russell funnits för att Dawkins talat om honom, kanske mött honom. Deremot kan Dawkins ha varit jefvig om afsaknaden af gudom i universum och att Russell skulle haft rätt om det.

Den lista af de så kallade apostoliska fäderna jag räknat upp delvis under B, delvis under C, kände katholska kyrkan alltid till. Likaså de första protestanterna, som lifligt 1400 år i efterskott försökte göra dem till protestanter. Efter tvåhundra års débatter, som omvexlade med religionskrig, och som protestanterna hade en tendens att intet vinna, började protestanter tycka det var bäst att glömma Clemens och Polycarpus i dagligt tal. Och då började protestantiska England men äfven Bayle tappa de kristna tron. Hvilket är anledningen till att Russell saknade kunskap om detta, han var ju, som exemplet med thé-kannan bevisar, engelsman. Undrar hvarföre Gramsci, han var communist och officielt atheist, intet försökte med en italiensk espresso-bryggare? Kanske för att Rom, Petrus, Paulus, Linus, Cletus, Clemens och de andra i clubben voro litet för nära inpå?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibl. Georges Pompidou
Sta Bernadette af Lourdes' dag
18-II-2011

"Atheismen är sann, för det tycker sofistikerade engelsmän.
Engelsmän är sofistikerade, för sofistikerade engelsmän äro atheister."

Typ.

*Fel i Wikipedian igår, och jag var stressad, här är hvad Tacitus skrifver, på engelska:

Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

- Källa: Tacitus Annales, XV, scrolla ned rätt långt!

Sun God, Smith God, Wine God or Dying Bridegroom God, Healing God or Judging God ... Which is it, Acharya?

D. M. Murdock a k a Acharya has come out with a new book:

Jesus Christ, Mason of God

I mean, one thing about all these Pagan divinities is that they actually did use some kind of labour division, some kind of specialisation. Beside them, Our Lord looks like a Renaissance Man. I think St Athanasius of Alexandria and I know CSL in a book citing him, whether in that context or just after or before it states that the miracles of Jesus are miracles that identify him as the reality behind all the Pagan myth gods.

Even if Our lord HAD been just a myth god rather than the one who outdo these many ones, it would not have proven him unhistorical. Some of the myth gods were persons before getting into godhead honours. Julius Caesar and Buddha are two generally admitted examples, one could add Odin who was probably an adept of Hermes Trismegistos or something equally foul before getting known in Upsala as someone a bit like Saturn (as an old guy) a bit like Jove (as ruler of gods and men, even as supposed creator) and, on top of that, Hermes or Mercurius. As a Christian I need not believe his relation to the wife of Niord who succeeded him and Frey who succeeded Niord was a demonic illusion, only that his way later appearances were.

But the point is, with all these Pagan parallels, D. M. Murdoch has very skillfully proven what she refuses to see: that Paganism is not a parallel for Christ.

Pagan artisan gods were typically Smith Gods and as such Ugly and Bad Tempered. She has an example where one such - a Celtic one - is also a Carpenter. Our Lord was Carpenter, Period. Pretty unique among Pagan Artisan Gods. OK, I think there was a Babylonian example of a Potter God (not named Harry to the best of my knowledge) but Our Lord seems to have used pottery clay on one or two occasions: 1) according to a childhood gospel he made clay birds and when an envious neighbour child wanted to destroy these he chased them away for their safety, and away they flew, quite alive; 2) he mingled clay from dust and his spittle to cure a pair of eyes. Otherwise, he was a carpenter and a fisherman (would that qualify as Poseidon or something?) but neither potter nor the much more typical smith.

And bad tempered? Well, he used to call a certain sect hypocrites, the same that is national religion among the nation now bearing the name of his, but it is not a question of envy against some more beautiful guy, as when Venus did it with Mars. Maybe just some kind of envy against some kind of intruder, but not a good romantic.

When Acharya S/D. M. Murdock is so good at finding parallels, it is surprising she does not find the obvious parallel. A knight in shining armour on a white horse and with a sword, a prince who saves his bride to be, now that is a parallel to Our Lord, according to Apocalypse Ch. 19 (Hey, if you deny the Gospels are anything like historical, why stick to them and avoid apocalypse?). Only, unlike Hephaistos and Ptah, unlike Jupiter Hospitalis (Zeus Xenios), unlike Aesculapius and Bacchus et c. myths and cults, Cinderella and Snow White are not pre-Christian but post-Christian. Not inspriing Christianity but inspired by it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Paris V
9 - II - 2011,
Saint Appolina

"racisme et traditionnalisme" ...

Avant de moraliser, vaut mieux savoir de quoi on parle.

En anglais, le mot "Racist" a été répéré par les érudits de Oxford English Dictionary la première fois en 1932, la page da la BpI étant déchiré je reconstruits depuis informations sur Facebook: dans un article sur la Slavophilie ou les Slavophiles, par Trotski, traduit en anglais par quelqu'un moins d'interessant, qui était effectivement cité, mais dont je ne me souviens pas. La mot "Racism" je n'ai pas vérifié.

Le mot "Racialist" est plus vieux en anglais, déjà un débat au Canada de 1917. Vingt ans plus tard il sera appliqué aux adeptes de Mein Kampf ou Mythus des XX Jahrhunderts en Allemagne. Trotski n'a donc pas inventé le mot anglais, il a juste contribué, à travers son traducteur, de le remettre sur modèle français.

De 1932, remontons donc à 1929, en français, de OED au Robert:

Raciste. 1929

En adoptant une idéologie raciste, ces nations finissent par croire que leur position éminente n'est pas due à des mérites qu'il faut entretenir, mais uniquement au faveur du sort, à leur beau physique (...) Les groupes qui s'estiment éminents ne peuvent plus avoir désormais qu'une attitude haineuse et revendicatrice vis-à-vis des autres. Ils estiment que tout leur est dû puisqu'ils sont de la "race suprème" (...) seul le peuple élu a des droits sur toutes choses (...) pour lui il n'y a pas de nations étrangères, il n'y a que des esclaves revoltés (...)

Gaston BOUTHOUL, Traité de Sociologie, p. 273

Est-ce vraiment comme ça qu'on utilise le mot aujourd'hui? C'est à peu près la même réprobation, mais pas exactement les mêmes critères pour l'appliquer sur quelqu'un. Il y a des Musulmans qui seraient prèts à dire tout ça sur quelqu'un qui ne veut pas les avoir dans son entreprise, son salon, sa charité, peut-être, pour les pauvres, mais exclusion d'un endroit qui est avantageux n'égale pas un statut d'esclave. Si tel épicier peut sans être raciste préférer d'embaucher son cousin, est-ce déjà là une volonté apparente de dominer les français? Le Pen lui-même¹ ne le dirait pas, et c'est quand même lui qu'ils citent le plus souvent à propos du "racisme" en France aujourd'hui. SI un entrepreneur peut préférer son cousin, ALORS l'autre peut préférer son compatriote de souche. L'un comme l'autre ne relève pas du racisme dans ce sens là, mais de préférence pour les siens avant les autres.

Même plus: selon cette définition, soit les écrivains de PRÉSENT sont menteurs, ce que je ne crois pas, soit il y a des gens qui ne sont pas français de souche qui répondent mieux à l'un ou l'autre définition de raciste donné ici par le sociologue.²

Mais peut-être qualifier comme Racisme une chose apparentée à la droite actuelle est quand même une tradition française? Encore Robert:

Racisme. 1902

Est-ce que les écrivains de l'Action française, jaloux de fonder philosophiquement leur misérable doctrine purement politique, ne regarde pas les idées de race et de tradition comme le substratum du nationalisme et du monarchisme? (...) Il ne m'appartient pas de refaire ici le procès du racisme et du traditionnalisme (sic³).

A. MAYBON, in Revue blanche, n°223, 15 sept 1902, p.146-148

Il se trouve, en effet, que la revue et l'article sont accessibles par Wikiquote. Robert ne cite pas, mais d'une côté l'auteur trouve mal des gens de l'Action française de ne pas lire Karl Marx, il se vante de réalisme, reproche aux racistes-pour-ainsi-dire⁴ d'avoir la tête dans les nuées et dit que même leur chef Mistral ne suit pas ses disciples ...

Chez Maurras le mot Race ne revient pas à l'étude scientifique ou biologique de raciologie (Rassentypus en allemand) mais à tout une autre chose, qui reclame plutôt d'être traduit par Tradition familiale, hérédité familiale. Maurras parle, en effet, des Capétiens comme "la Troisième Race" - après les Mérovingiens et Carlovingiens, biensûr. Dans ce sens là, mais pas dans le sens de raciologie, les Noirs des Antilles ou de Caméroun sont plus proches de nous que les Arabes et les Rroms les plus foncés plus proche de nous que les Afghanis-Pachtounes. Car, on a partagé la même religion plus longtemps, plus extendument, avec plus de mariages entre les groupes. Mais biensûr les Manouches de France ou de France-Espagne-Allemagne sont plus proche de nous que le sont les Rroms de Roumanie et plus proches d'eux que nous le sommes. Nous? Bon, il y a quand même ici les Normands qui partagent ma race EX-Viking. Et il y a eu des missionaires de France (de Corbey) qui nous ont sauvé du style de vie Viking. St Anchaire et Rimbert, notemment.

Ça n'a rien à voir avec le mot anglais "Racialism" qui dépeint les agitations eugéniques de Margaret Sanger. C'est le tort d'un Adolf d'avoir mélangé les deux.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI, G. Pompidou/Paris
4-II-2011



¹J'ai dit que je n'aime pas Le Pen, mais c'est une autre histoire: son attitude envers les bigouden comme adolescent n'est pas exemplaire, et je préfère Bruno Gollnisch. --- ²Pourvu que l'exemple du "peuple élu" était vraiment juste dans son cadre de "raciste" et pas encore un pas plus loin. Alors il y a quelques-uns qui repondent à la définition de raciste, d'autres qui répondent à la description de syndrome de peuple élu --- ³Je me demandais si (sic) était pour le mot traditionnalisme ou pour les deux n. Vu qu'il écrit nationalisme avec un n (sans sic par Robert), il me semble qu'il ait vaccillé entre les paradigmes "-tion, -tionnel, -tionnalisme" (comme en "tradi-") et "-tion, -tionel?, -tionalisme" (comme en "na-"). --- ⁴Un homme qui parle de "racisme" parle normalement pas de "tenants du racisme" ou "d'adeptes du racisme" mais des "racistes" - ou il n'en parle pas du tout, il les appelle "nationalistes" (sic) mais analyse leur "nationalisme" (re-sic) comme relevant de "racisme et traditionnalisme". Même si Robert n'a pas encore trouvé le nom raciste dans son article de 1902.

Ou plutôt, n'achetez pas le numéro 185 de Sans-Logis!

La p. 14 donne ses explications très naturalistes du "mythe" sans même prendre en considération la possibilité que ça soit vrai.

Le démon existe. Ses illusions aussi. Et parfois, quand les hommes de Dieu viennent leur faire une défaite, c'est en leur donnant d'abord une touche de réalité.

Les bâtons des prêtres égyptiens ont été transformés en serpents, sans doute en apparence seulement. Quand c'était le bâton de Moïse, il a avalé les serpents des prêtres du Pharaon. L'avalement était réelle, si les serpents des prêtres égyptiens ont pu souffrir réellement d'être avalés par le serpent de Moïse, c'est que Dieu leur a accordé un moment de réalité pour les annéantir de façon plus éclatante.

De même j'imagine avec La Couleuvre, monstre issu des incantations d'un prêtre de Céres, adversaire de St Front, qui, tout comme Moïse était un homme de Dieu. Lui, il a d'abord chassé la Couleuvre de Périgueux, ensuite il l'a annéanti à Lalinde, le Saut de la Gratusse.

Les anthropologues et religieux consultés par la rédaction de Sans-Logis refusent d'admettre cette possibilité, ils sont très défectueux en doctrine Catholique.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Baudoyer, Paris
St Basil, 3-II-2011

John Sanidopoulos is often good, but again dishonest, out of loyalty to neohimerite "orthodox"

Here is link to post.

Its condemnation of abortion is good and recognised as such by both Catholics and Orthodox. But since quoting Church Fathers he is also condemning Contraception, though Catholics and Paleohimerites, but not Neohimerites recognise that.

I added three comments, of which he did not approve the second, the one most condemning of neohimerite "orthodoxy".

I quoted from post, from St Augustine quote:

that they procure poison to produce infertility, and when this is of no avail, they find one means or another to destroy the unborn and flush it from the mother's womb.

I noted: that "poison to procure infertility" corresponds to contraceptive pill, just as much as "one means or another to ... flush it from the mother's womb" corresponds to abortion pills or other means of abortion.

I noted furthermore, that if he was a neohimerite, he needed to tell his bishop that, I as a Papist knew it already from Pius XI (Casti Connubii) and from Paul VI (Dignitatis Humanae), as well as paleo-himerites already were told so by that bishop of Shanghai and San Francisco and by Fr Seraphim Rose.

This was left out. The quote from Saint John Chrysostom confirmed it, and therefore I added a comment that he DID approve:

St John the Gold Mouth: "Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility?"

Contraception pills are precisely "medicines of sterility". Thank you again.

Which proves he had already seen and disapproved the other comment.

HGL

This means I am very suspicious of intent when two persons of Greek Orthodox Church - one probably excommunicate, since communist and atheist - greeted me this last week. Also of that OCF thing I received like an invitation in this guestbook spam from Chisinau:

https://www.ocf.net/members/Annual-credit-report-identity/default.aspx

Ort/Place: Meniappeaby, Cotonou
Datum: 2010-10-14 07:25:03
Kommentar:

As could be seen from RIPE nr, the spammer was not in Cotonou but in Chisinau.

Brain death diagnosis kills? (link)

Implications of ischemic penumbra for the diagnosis of brain death:
Apnea testing may induce rather than diagnose death

By Cicero Galli Coimbra, M.D., Ph.D.

Click title of or in this post to read story.

Discovering relevant questions or - forgetting relevant answers?

In The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis starts off criticising two (unnamed) English text-books that subrepticiously argue that value is subjective, and that appeal to emotions is both wrong and un-informative.

This trend of challenging received wisdom, seems to have gone on, in the teaching of English in England and US, et c, as well as in the teaching of other first languages. Witness this title, but which is not a textbook:

The Rhetoric of Fiction
Wayne C. Booth (2d edition)

Winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award 1962 and the David H. Russell Award of the Nat. Counc. of Teachers of English 1966 (?)

Obviously this book is on the influential side in these professions. And it does challenge given wisdoms, let's have a closer look: this time it is, among other things, the knowability of someone else's emotions, that is under crossfire. As this is not a text-book for pupils, the attack is pretty direct. Before quoting, let it be noted that this approach completely ruins any argument in favour of the position of "Orbilius" and "The Green Book", that value is a matter of emotion: if one cannot know the emotions of one another, how can one know that someone else, when evaluating something, is really speaking about his (presumably unknown) emotions for it?

Here we go, quoting a footnote that ends on page 18:

"[...ac]counts, like the Bible, packed with such illicit entries into private minds, with no distress whatever. For us it may seem strange that the writers of the Gospels should claim so much knowledge of what Christ is feeling and thinking. "Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him" (Mark 1:14). "And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him ..." (5:30). Who reported to the authors these internal events? Who told them what occurs in the Garden, when everyone but Jesus is asleep? Who reported to them that Christ prays to God to "let this cup pass"? Such questions, like the question of how Moses could have given an account of his own death and burial, may be indispensable to historical criticism, but they can easily b overdone in literary criticism."

This is the passage indeed, for which I named this article. And I am not concerned with literary criticism as such, any more than C. S. Lewis*, but with answering something given when purporting to speak on literary criticism, in this case historic criticism. The question before us is, whether Christian readers of the Gospels, as well as Christian and Jewish readers of Pentateuch and Job (we'll get to that book later, touching Homer too) of long ago where blind to very simple questions - or whether unchristian readers of these books, like Mr. Booth (not easily confounded with William B.!) are ignorant of and blind to very simple possible and even (once you come to think of them) compelling answers.

If you have 2000 years accepting a text as true information honestly given and say 50 years saying it pretends to know the unknowable, since knowability is no new discovery, the spontaneous hunch would be to agree with the 2000 years, even before coming to solution of problems. Let us now approach solutions.

On the Gethsemane Question, I am actually forced to repeat what C. S. Lewis had said already, either in Miracles or possibly in Fern Seeds and Elephants. I'll try to vary the wording at least. Nowadays, music on radios, cassette recorders, CDs, LPs, singles, MTV, mp3 is ubiquitous. So was, during Antiquity, the spoken word without any amplification or preservation, spoken on occasions when we would have been silent - or out of reach from hearing it. Sometimes it provoked sleep. In BoNe you will find that reading aloud from Moby Dick sends people (and monsters) to sleep. Actually, so does monotonous speaking anyway. You won't know what I mean, if you have not been to some nowadays very unusual sermons. Catholic and Orthodox priest are not encouraged to exceed a quarter of an hour, but ... Now, unlike the instantaneous sleep magic in BoNe, when you fall asleep in real life, there is a moment when you are still listening, there is a moment when you catch isolated words and forget them immediately because you are to tired to care and only then comes the time when you hear nothing, because you are fast asleep. The New Testament gives us three examples:

1 St Paul preaches (not as in a sermon in Mass or homily halfway through Divine Liturgy, so as to let people sit, but really trying to say all essentials to newbies on one occasion, no doubt), a boy sits on the windowsill (no doubt to catch fresh air so as not to fall asleep, probably his ma or pa was more interested than he was), and falls asleep. He loses balance, falls, breaks the neck. A physician present there (enter St Luke, author of the Acts of the Apostles where you find this) makes a death warrant. St Paul raises the boy to life.

2 St Paul is on trial, he has a lawyer to speak on his behalf. As Lewis noted, the reported words are way too short for a Roman rhetor to get away with, even if he was badly paid. Probably St Paul either fell asleep and remembered only first phrases or so or gave a few sentences in exact quote before going on to a very abridged version.

and, most important:

3 Before this happened, Christ had prayed. His disciples probably slept a few hours. Which means He prayed a few hours. The words reported are too short to have been all the prayer of those hours, it is simply a few phrases that woke the disciples up because He cried them aloud. That He prayed the rest of the time is reasonably assumed without risk of mistake, because they knew His habits (I mean after three years together on practically every piece of road and field in Palestine ...)

and, not as important, but still:

4 It happens, even when priests limit sermon time, if I am to trust this:

___ Where no one can see/hear me talking during services

___ Where no one will notice me sleeping during services

___ Where no one can see/hear me talking or me sleeping during the sermon
(note: additional charge) (from Orthodixie)

Next question: how does St Mark know that Jesus felt a virtue go forth from Him, when the woman touched his garment?

Acts 19: 11 And God wrought by the hand of Paul more than common miracles. 12 So that even there were brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the wicked spirits went out of them.

St Paul and - more important for St Mark, perhaps - St Peter made miracles too. They knew what it felt like. I do not, but I trust the word of St Peter in the writing of St Mark. Unless, of course, St Mark had performed healings himself before writing this. Or Jesus had told St Peter and other Apostles, when speaking after the healing of that woman. A question which Wayne C. Booth does not ask, but which these texts answer is: God does work wonders by the touch of the relics (even just garments, clothes) of Christ and His Saints. Which is one reason why Protestantism is dead wrong (at least as preached at Reformation, there are Anglo-Catholics and such who are not really as Protestant as all that in this respect).

Third question: how does anyone but Jesus Himself know when He is "moved by pity"?

Indeed, how does anyone know the emotions of anyone else? Nevertheless, we pronounce ourselves on each others' emotions pretty often. Gestures, ensuing deeds, facial expression, and so on, and so forth do help us to guess pretty accurately. Sure, the pretense to empathy can be sham, as is probably the case when not just momentary emotion, but exact motive for it or subconscious motive for something else is guessed along with it (a hobby that psychiatrists and Freudians indulge in and sometimes get paid for), but I think anyone can pretty easily use signs like these, particularly with people they know, to ensure an immediate guess of someone else's emotion.

Mark 1: 40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down said to him: If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 41 And Jesus having compassion on him, stretched forth his hand; and touching him, saith to him: I will. Be thou made clean. 42 And when he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was made clean.

Pretty straight guess that Our Lord felt sorry for the man, isn't it? Or that he simply decided to act so. Because "having compassion" is not primarily in Biblical language a strong emotion, but a decision to act compassionately, or so I have heard people tell. Even so, anyone might feel sorry for a leper. Why not Our Lord?

Not so for Mr. Booth. If Federigo is really in love with Monna Giovanna is something that no-one can know. Especially not Boccaccio, who is a total stranger (hullo, how does Mr. Booth know that?) and not even Fiametta. He makes a long discussion of the questions involved with "omniscient author's viewpoint" in that story the pages that precede. And apparently, if someone is really in love with someone is an unknowable question. Like the State of Grace in Roman Catholic Theology. Only that emotions are so much more superficial as a question, so much closer to flesh and therefore surfaces of it, than a purely spiritual fact. But some, having decided that morality and values be based on emotion rather than spirit, apparently go along to where they treat emotions as spiritual, that is unknowable.

Fourth set of questions: who wrote Job, how does he know what God and Devil say outside human observations, how did Moses write what happened after his death?

God talked to Moses on more than one occasion. And proved He was God to Moses and the audience** by miracles. The book of Job is something God told Moses. So were the six days of creation. So might the end of the Pentateuch be, except the other explanation is that Deuteronomy has Moses for author because he is author of nearly all the text. The last chapter is only 1/34 of the whole text. Douay-Rheims Bible Online comments in red italics in this chapter. See comment on verse five.

Hans Lundahl
Avignon
5/18 Juin 2008

*was in that place, that is: otherwise he was a Literary Historian by profession.
**scroll down to section marked in yellow