The Fellow Traveller of a Bird

 To attend to a living child is to be baffled in your humour, disappointed of your pathos, and set freshly free from all the preoccupations. You cannot anticipate him. Blackbirds, overheard year by year, do not compose the same phrases; never two leitmotifs alike. Not the tone, but the note alters. So with the uncovenanted ways of a child you keep no tryst. They meet you at another place, after failing you where you tarried; your former experiences, your documents are at fault. You are the fellow traveller of a bird. The bird alights and escapes out of time to your footing. 

 No man’s fancy could be beforehand, for instance, with a girl of four years old who dictated a letter to a distant cousin, with the sweet and unimaginable message: “I hope you enjoy yourself with your loving dolls.” A boy, still younger, persuading his mother to come down from the heights and play with him on the floor, but sensible, perhaps, that there was a dignity to be observed none the less, entreated her, “Mother, do be a lady frog.” None ever said their good things before these indeliberate authors. Even their own kind—children—have not preceded them. No child in the past ever found the same replies as the girl of five whose father made that appeal to feeling which is doomed to a different, perverse, and unforeseen success. He was rather tired with writing, and had a mind to snare some of the yet uncaptured flock of her sympathies. “Do you know, I have been working hard, darling? I work to buy things for you.” “Do you work,” she asked, “to buy the lovely puddin’s?” Yes, even for these. The subject must have seemed to her to be worth pursuing. “And do you work to buy the fat? I don’t like fat.” 

From Alice Meynell, "Fellow Travellers with a Bird", from Essays.

Lamb to the Slaughter

 When Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, the eunuch is reading Isaiah 53:7-8 (all quotations NRSV-UE): 

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.

The word for 'slaughter' here is sphage; it can be translated as 'slaughter' or 'killing' in general, but it is often used in Greek for sacrificial killing, especially in certain kinds of special sacrifices. The standard word for high sacrifice, i.e., formal sacrifice to Olympian gods, or in the Bible to God, is thysia, and has overtones of communion with the divine, since the sacrifice would be shared with the offerer in a sacrificial feast. These sacrifices were for public festivals or important family occasions, like the birth of a child or a wedding. But there were lots of other sacrifices that had more specialized functions -- for instance, a fairly common sacrifice that would be called a sphage would be a sacrifice before battle. 

We have a similar use of sphage in Romans 8:36, this time quoting Psalm 44:22:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Again, while it could just mean 'slaughter', it almost certainly is intended at least to suggest sacrifice.

The third passage in the New Testament that uses sphage is James 5:5, in James's condemnation of the rich:

You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.

(There is probably an allusion here to Jeremiah 12:1-3.) While 'slaughter' works here, the intended image again seems to be specifically of animals being fattened (a perhaps better translation than 'nourished') for sacrifice. The point is ironic, of course: with all of their ill-gotten wealth, they are in fact just fattening themselves up for imminent sacrifice.

The verb sphazo is also found in the New Testament; interestingly, it seems only to be in the Johannine literature. In one case, 1 John 3:12, it possibly just  means 'kill', but one wonders whether there might be a hint of allusion to the sacrificial meaning mixed in with the more general meaning. Other uses are in Revelation; for instance, Revelation 5:6, 5:9-10, and 5:12:

Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

They sing a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to break its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.”

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

These are all clearly sacrificial, as is the similar usage in Revelation 13:8. Revelation 6:4 is probably just general slaughter (but perhaps the rider on the red horse in taking away the peace of the earth makes men sacrifice each other, in at least a figurative sense), but 6:9 likely implies not just slaughter but also that martyrdom is a kind of  sacrifice:

When he broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?”

The same use of the term for martyrdom is found in Revelation 18:24. 

Revelation 13:3 is a peculiar one. It's about the Beast, and says literally something like, "And one of its heads in the manner of having been killed (esphagmenen) to death, and its death blow was relieved, and all the land wondered at the back of the Beast." In immediate context it makes sense to read the verb as suggesting just killing or slaying in general. Yet the emphatic phrase, 'killed to death' weirdly combined with the weakening hos (like, as, in the manner of), the mentions of worship in the broader context, and the fact that in 13:8 we get the same word (esphagmenou) attached to the Lamb, where it clearly indicates sacrifice, makes me wonder if we should perhaps take the meaning to be that one of the heads seemed to have been sacrificed, which contrasts with the Lamb, who was really sacrificed. The worshipped-on-earth, ten-horned, seven-headed, blasphemously named Beast is to the Dragon as the worshipped-in-heaven, seven-horned, seven-eyed, many-named Lamb is to God; the Beast is therefore perhaps implied to be the pseudo-sacrifice through which the Dragon is worshipped.

Links of Note

 * Peter Harrison, The birth of naturalism, at "Aeon"

* Freya Mobus & Justin Vlasits, Division and Animal Sacrifice in Plato's Statesman (PDF)

* Mark Wrathall, Martin Heidegger, at the SEP
Sophie-Grace Chappell, Plato on Knowledge in the Theatetus, also at the SEP

* Nicholas Colgrove, Defining 'Abortion': A Call for Clarity (PDF)

* Maggie Phillips, One Saint's Day, on Puerto Rico's SanSe festival, at "Tablet"

*Kenny Easwaran, The Concept of Rationality for a City (PDF)

* Patrick Flynn, The Rise of the DIY Deity, at "The Journal of Absolute Truth"

* Thomas Joseph White, How Can One Say that God Has Become Human, at "Church Life Journal"
Brant Pitre, Jesus's Divinity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, also at "Church Life Journal"

* John Schwenkler, "I do what happens": Anscombe on Wittgenstein on the will (PDF)

* Jon D. Schaff, Why Can't We Be Friends?, reviewing Andrew Willard Jones's The Church Against the State, at "Front Porch Republic"

* Ellen P. Aprill, Governmental and Semi-Governmental Federal Charitable Entities (PDF)

* Nathan Schachtman, Anti-Trust in Scientific Journals, from The Martin Center

* Rob Alspaugh, Worth and Eucharist, at "Teaching Boys Badly"

Kinds of Cooperation

(This is a rough attempt to start working this out to my satisfaction. The kinds of cooperation end up being quite important, because different kinds of cooperation can raise different practical and ethical questions and problems.)

 Every action has an intention, where this is not synonymous merely with 'intent', but the actual disposition of the person in the action itself. Because of this, we can divide the kinds of cooperation with an action into three categories: prior to or preparatory of the intention, with the intention, and posterior to the intention.

Cooperation Prior to the Intention

Cooperation prior to the intention can be clearing or contributing.

Clearing cooperation occurs when it tends to the action not being impeded. This can be indirect, in which case it is refusal to impede, or direct, in which cases it is removal of impediment.

Contributing cooperation prior to the intention occurs when we have an action of an agent that disposes another agent to act, particularly by contributing to deliberation. This can be either because the first agent is acting as if a principal cause, in which case the cooperation is command, or as if a ministerial cause, in which case the cooperation is counsel/advice, which would include things like encouragement or exhortation beforehand.

Cooperation with the Intention

Cooperation with the intention can be direct, in which case we have participation in the act itself. For instance, two people rowing a boat together are cooperating by participation in the one action of rowing.

It can also be indirect, in which case it is express consent to the action. This can have many forms, but one common one is when someone cooperates with an action of which they are the patient.

Cooperation Posterior to the Intention

Cooperation posterior to the intention concerns the response to the action having been done, and it can be cooperation by positive response, in which case we have praise/applause/reward, or by shielding from negative response, which can be direct, in which case we have protection, or indirect, in which case we have concealment or, as we often say, 'cover-up'.

With Love So Pure and Pringlish

  The World State
by G. K. Chesterton 

Oh, how I love Humanity,
With love so pure and pringlish,
And how I hate the horrid French,
Who never will be English! 

The International Idea,
The largest and the clearest,
Is welding all the nations now,
Except the one that's nearest. 

This compromise has long been known,
This scheme of partial pardons,
 In ethical societies
And small suburban gardens -- 

The villas and the chapels where
I learned with little labour
The way to love my fellow-man
And hate my next-door neighbour.

Each New Day of Living Doth New Insight Teach

 Reading
by James Russell Lowell 

 As one who on some well-known landscape looks,
Be it alone, or with some dear friend nigh,
Each day beholdeth fresh variety,
New harmonies of hills, and trees, and brooks, --
So is it with the worthiest choice of books,
And oftenest read: if thou no meaning spy,
Deem there is meaning wanting in thine eye;
We are so lured from judgment by the crooks
And winding ways of covert fantasy,
Or turned unwittingly down beaten tracks
Of our foregone conclusions, that we see,
In our own want, the writer's misdeemed lacks:
It is with true books as with Nature, each
New day of living doth new insight teach.

Seeking Self-Knowledge in Conversation with Another

 As with Alcibiades, so with Critias, Socrates emphasizes the need to seek self-knowledge in conversation with another. As Socrates understands it, self-knowledge is not a product of introspection. As knowledge of what makes a human being human, self-knowledge is not at all self-contained or independent. It requires knowledge not only of other human beings but also of the nonhuman things to determine the difference between them and thus what is distinctively human. As knowledge of one's limits, self-knowledge as Socrates understands it entails recognition of one's lack of self-sufficiency and the consequent need to join with others. Self-knowledge as Socrates understands it consists in knowledge of one's ignorance rather than, as Critias claims, knowledge of knowledge. 

 Catherine H. Zuckert, Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, University of Chicago Press (Chicago: 2009), pp. 243-244.

Two Poem Drafts

 Summer Coming In

Someday
when the world is old and broken,
and you and I awake
in the grass among  the ruins,
we'll rise and walk our way,
and tell old tales of elves and men,
and, still dreaming of the past,
we'll watch the summer coming in.

Somewhere
beyond the world's most distant shore,
we'll build a city new
whose gates shall shine forevermore.
We'll settle there in peace,
and tell old tales of elves and men,
and, resting in content,
we'll watch the summer coming in.

Somehow
we'll see all things that eyes can see,
and sail upon the calm
of some dark infinity;
though mortal loves all fail,
we'll tell old tales of elves and men,
from them learn to love anew,
and watch the summer coming in.

Interweaving

Cast, if you will, the silver star upon the sea;
the darkness and the deep is boiling inside me;
sing, if you wish, of the sun and the light,
but I find only silence and my eyes are without sight.
Where is the path to the glory of dawn?
Not in the lands where the sunstar has shone.
Down in the hedges, the witches cast spells;
in cottages women sew charms against hells.
Light with the darkness, and night with the day,
in a strange ring-a-rosie are busy with play.
That interweaves with a little of this,
and misery kisses its cousin named bliss;
such is the way in the lunatic realm,
though brighter than light is eternity's calm.

Pneuma Kyriou ep' Eme

 And he went to Nazara, where he had been reared, and he entered, according to his custom on the day of the sabbaths, into the assembly, and rose to read. And there was handed over to him the scroll of the prophet Esaias, and having unrolled the scroll, he found the place in which it was written:

Lord's Spirit upon me,
on account of which he has anointed me to acclaim to the beggarly:
He has sent me
to heal the battered in heart,
to herald freedom to the conquered, sight again to the blinded,
to commission in freedom the shattered,
to herald a year of Lord's acceptance.

And having rolled the scroll, given to the attendant, he sat, and the eyes of all in the assembly were gazing at him. He began to say to them: Today this Scripture is completed in your ear.

And all witnessed him and wondered at the words of graciousness proceeding from his mouth; and they were saying, Is this not the son of Ioseph? 

And he said to them, Surely you will relate to me this adage, Physician, cure yourself! What we have heard has happened in Kapharnaoum do also here in your homeland. He said, Amen, I say to you, that no prophet is accepted in his homeland. In truth I say to you, many widows there were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut for three years and six months, when there was great famine on all the land, and Elias was sent to none of them except to Sarepta of Sidonias, to a widow woman. And many lepers were in Israel with Elisaias the prophet, and none were purified except Naiman the Syrian.

And all in the assembly were filled with fight, hearing this; and rising, they banished him from the city and led him to the mountain-ridge on which the city had been constructed, in order to cast him down. He, having passed through the middle of them, left.

[Luke 4:16-30, my rough translation. It is very difficult to translate the Scripture reading into English in a way that captures the forcefulness of some of the Greek words used -- for instance, we usually translate 'poor', but it literally means 'crouching like a beggar', i.e., beggarly or destitute. It is also clear in context that Jesus is not speaking economically; we are all the beggarly, Jew and Gentile. (The beggarly state is paralleled with starvation in the days of Elijah and leprosy in the days of Elisha, and in those the point is clearly that these are things that both Jews and Gentiles suffer.) The other words (battered, conquered, blinded, shattered) are words that would be used to describe a people who were utterly defeated in a terrible war. But the active verbs tend in the opposite direction, starting with the strongest one, euangelisasthai, to announce good news, which gives us words like 'evangelize' and 'gospel', and is a word that you would have used for the proclamation or acclamation of a great military victory or something similar.

This briefly summarized sermon is often presented as an inspiring sort of proclamation by Jesus, and it is clear that this is part of the point ("gracious words"), but it is also a judgment. The prophesy is completed simply on being heard, on reaching the ear. But what that means, the synagogue congregation doesn't know. And Jesus's response to their astonishment is not so gracious; he compares Nazareth unfavorably with Capernaum, comparing the situation to when only the Gentile widow of Zarephath or the Gentile official from Syria were faithful in the days of the prophets of Israel, and thus only they received the divine salvation from their ills. Jesus proclaims the good news to the people of Nazareth, and also tells them that they are already too faithless to receive the blessings of it, unlike the people of Capernaum. It's not surprising that they have some vehement resistance (thymos) to this, which leads them to try not only to banish him but also throw him off the ridge. There is then extraordinary artistry in the extremely terse anticlimax: He just walks straight through them and leaves. (After he leaves, he will then go to Capernaum.)]