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

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
Cc: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2008 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: AtDTDA [38] p. 1084/1085: Bending Light, Creating Invisibility


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

Unless he conceives of Fascism as a one-of-a-kind thing. (proper noun)

He sometimes portrays the world as consisting of particulars, without the 
need for universals.

There was only one westernman and only one pard.


>
> Mark
>
>
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>
> --- 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
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