AtDTDA [38] p. 1084/1085: Bending Light, Creating Invisibility

[Mark Kohut]

Yea, Biblical, that's why I asked;-- I just have trouble seeing Fascism capitalized (even with ironic intent) by TRP............

Anyone else?

Mark




--- On Sun, 8/10/08, robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: AtDTDA [38] p. 1084/1085:  Bending Light, Creating Invisibility
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Sunday, August 10, 2008, 4:12 PM
> MK: Why does TRP capitalize Word?.........
> 
> I suppose that "The Word", as in the revealed
> word from "On high", would apply [in an ironic
> fashion] to "The Word" describing Italy's new
> direction.
> 
> But as usual, it probably boils down to the Biblical sense
> of the Word:
> 
> 
> From: CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Logos
> 
>           The Logos
> 
>           The word Logos is the term by which Christian
> theology in 
>           the Greek language designates the Word of God, or
> Second 
>           Person of the Blessed Trinity. Before St. John
> had 
>           consecrated this term by adopting it, the Greeks
> and the 
>           Jews had used it to express religious conceptions
> which, 
>           under various titles, have exercised a certain
> influence on 
>           Christian theology, and of which it is necessary
> to say 
>           something.
> 
>           The logos in Hellenism
> 
>           It is in Heraclitus that the theory of the Logos
> appears for the 
>           first time, and it is doubtless for this reason
> that, first among 
>           the Greek philosophers, Heraclitus was regarded
> by St. Justin 
>           (Apol. I, 46) as a Christian before Christ. For
> him the Logos, 
>           which he seems to identify with fire, is that
> universal principle 
>           which animates and rules the world. This
> conception could 
>           only find place in a materialistic monism. The
> philosophers 
>           of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ
> were dualists, 
>           and conceived of God as transcendent, so that
> neither in 
>           Plato (whatever may have been said on the
> subject) nor in
>            Aristotle do we find the theory of the Logos.
> 
>           It reappears in the writings of the Stoics, and
> it is especially 
>           by them that this theory is developed. God,
> according to 
>           them, "did not make the world as an artisan
> does his work, 
>           but it is by wholly penetrating all matter that
> He is the demiurge 
>           of the universe" (Galen, "De qual.
> incorp." in "Fr. Stoic.", ed. 
>           von Arnim, II, 6); He penetrates the world
> "as honey does 
>           the honeycomb" (Tertullian, "Adv.
> Hermogenem", 44), this 
>           God so intimately mingled with the world is fire
> or ignited air; 
>           inasmuch as He is the principle controlling the
> universe, He 
>           is called Logos; and inasmuch as He IS the germ
> from which 
>           all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos
> (logos 
>           spermatikos). This Logos is at the same time a
> force and 
>           a law, an irresistible force which bears along
> the entire world 
>           and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable
> and holy 
>           law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and
> which every 
>           reasonable man should follow willingly
> (Cleanthus, "Hymn 
>           to Zeus" in "Fr. Stoic." I,
> 527-cf. 537). Conformably to their 
>           exegetical habits, the Stoics made of the
> different gods 
>           personifications of the Logos, e.g. of Zeus and
> above all 
>           of Hermes.
> 
>           At Alexandria, Hermes was identified with Thoth,
> the god of 
>           Hermopolis, known later as the great Hermes,
> "Hermes 
>           Trismegistus", and represented as the
> revealer of all 
>           letters and all religion. Simultaneously, the
> Logos theory 
>           conformed to the current Neoplatonistic dualism
> in Alexandria: 
>           the Logos is not conceived of as nature or
> immanent necessity, 
>           but as an intermediary agent by which the
> transcendent God 
>           governs the world. This conception appears in
> Plutarch, 
>           especially in his "Isis and Osiris";
> from an early date in the 
>           first century of the Christian era, it influenced
> profoundly the 
>           Jewish philosopher Philo.
> 
> http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09328a.htm