Tales From The Reverend’s Office: Why Won’t Daniel Peterson STFU?
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:03 am
What follows is an account that was prepared without consultation of anyone. Any errors are mine alone and those posters mentioned (Kishkumen, Doctor Scratch, Doctor CamNC4Me, Gadianton) are welcome to confirm or deny anything mentioned herein.
Part 1: A Stoic Prelude
Reverend Kishkumen watched Alfonsy collapse into a wingback leather chair with some concern. The young man looked positively exhausted yet his odd mannerisms indicated the presence of frenetic energy. Assuming a pastoral role Kishkumen handed Alfonsy a sherry glass and advised him to drink its contents. He had seen this before, students at the final phases of their terminal degree often came apart at the seams several times just before the looming date of their defense. He didn’t envy Alfonsy at all. Cassius University was quite progressive in many respects and the forward thinking policies that Dr. Scratch implemented from his formidable perch upon the B.H. Roberts Chair were positively brilliant, yet the administration and some of the faculty still perpetuated draconian traditions of the past. No doubt the conditions of the current pandemic, a full online teaching load, and demanding preparations for what would no doubt be a grueling oral defense, were weighing heavily on the slender shoulders of Alfonsy.
Kishkumen took a seat opposite of Alfonsy. By this time Alfonsy had drained his refreshment and had begun to set the empty glassware down. The Reverend leapt into action and slid a bamboo coaster underneath the drink before it made contact with his favorite chabudai; it had been a charming gift from the late President of Keio University Tadao Ishikawa. Kishkumen quite liked the table and wanted to preserve it and the memory of their friendship. With the integrity of his furniture maintained Kishkumen voiced his concern for Alfonsy.
“You simply look afright Alfonsy, have you been getting much rest? I know this COVID business has made things particularly stressful for us all. Look, I can connect you to some of the University’s resources that can help you. If you don’t take care of yourself then all of this has been for nothing…”
Alfonsy looked perplexed for a moment before interrupting with a gesture and saying, “Oh no no. I was just at open mat and Dr.Cam is coaching us for an upcoming tournament against the Machodos. He had me in a cross side mount for about 30 minutes and nearly suffocated me. I’m still trying to get oxygen back.”
Kishkumen was pleased to see that Alfonsy was staying physically active, though he knew it was not by choice. Dean Robbers insists on maintaining a certain physical culture at Cassius. The Reverend could see his point, strong minds needed strong bodies to house them after all. Yet Kishkumen preferred his elliptical to the grappling mats or the rowing oars and liked green tea much more than protein bars.
“So what brings you here to my office? Surely it isn’t for my thoughts on pankration. I must admit to a few instances when I had to lay hands on some unruly louts, but what do I know about such contests?”
Alfonsy struggled for the words and after a moment he simply recited a distich.
“O si tacuisses,
Philosophus mansisses.”
If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher. The Reverend leaned back into his chair; he was now heading into familiar territory with Alfonsy and understood the nature of this visit. For some time Alfonsy has been expressing his guilt to Kishkumen over how he had chosen to express his disagreements with Mopologists. Not just disagreements, but also displays of public contempt for Mopologists themselves. Those draconian traditions of Cassius fostered an atmosphere of intellectual rigor that often instilled in students high expectations which are never met. The most legendary of Mopologists are often presented to the public as scholars of the highest pedigree who possess charm, wit, and an uncanny ability to synthesize Mormonism with the towering figures and great ideas of the Western canon. Mopologists never rise to the occasion because Mopologetics at its best is often pedestrian and at its worst disturbingly sexist, predictably racist, and palpably homophobic. The usual medium is a consistency of culture war rants by uninspired teachers railing against Darwin, Freud, and Higher Criticism with the less abled Mopologists targeting Evangelicals and Cult Ministries.
The Reverend knew how Alfonsy often struggled to initiate a train of thought and he could already see the young man hopelessly searching for a way to articulate himself. The Reverend opted to give his charge a prompt to aid him.
“I must confess that I was genuinely horrified you were going to drop a Lorenzo Snow couplet on me just then. Can I hazard that this has something to do with your calling and your inability to hold your pen when it comes to judging the merits of mopologetics?”
A sense of relief briefly flashed across Alfonsy’s face and Kishkumen immediately recognized it as a sign that his friend had gotten his mental bearings.
“I’ll start from the beginning. I was helping Professor Symmachus with his 'Latin for Nibley' course and we ended up having a disagreement concerning translation.”
The Reverend couldn’t help but chuckle. “Latin for Nibley” was a euphemism for the Freshman course of Classical Latin. To be admitted to the undergraduate program of Mopologetics, all students must pass a written Latin examination that requires a translation of two different pieces from antiquity with no lexical or grammatical aids. Typically only those who took Latin in a prepschool or took several semesters of Latin at another institution could stand a chance passing it.
Still, Symmachus was a BYU alum and Cassius’ foremost Grammarian. Kishkumen had to know what could have motivated Alfonsy to disagree with him.
“Disagreement you say? Over what?”
Alfonsy reached into a backpack and produced a spiral notebook and pencil. Opening to a clean sheet he wrote out a sentence in bold block letters and placed it before Kishkumen.
It read: “quis philosophum aut ullum liberale respicit studium, nisi cum ludi intercalantur, cum aliquis pluuius interuenti dies quem perdere libet?’
Alfonsy continued with his explanation while the Reverend studied the sentence patiently.
“It comes from Seneca and his ‘Naturales Quaestiones’. Professor Symmachus translated it as ‘Who takes any notice of a philosopher, or that of the liberal arts except when the games are delayed or when there is a rain and they feel like whiling away the hours?’. I guess I felt impelled to voice an objection.”
Kishkumen smiled to himself and heaved a small sigh. Seneca was dangerously underrated these days and the Reverend was pleased to see that Symmachus was doing his part to counter that. Kishkumen glanced up from the paper to make eye contact with Alfonsy and handed him the sheet back.
“What was your objection? Aside from some quibbles, I don’t see what would compel you to speak up.”
Alfonsy underlined the word philosophum several times before handing the sheet back, meeting the Reverend’s gaze.
“Why is philosophum assumed to be a noun? Why not adjectival? ”
Kishkumen sat back for a moment perplexed. Alfonsy filled the silence.
“Think back to the couplet: ‘Philosophus mansisses’. It is preserved in Medieval Latin.”
It was if the air around Kishkumen had become electrified. Thoughts were suddenly flooding his conscious and he began to make connections faster than he could properly understand them. He began to speak aloud and worked his way through the flurry of ideas.
“Well philosophus is a Greek loan word. Seneca would've course describe himself as pursuing philosophia or philosophy, and he would certainly use the verb philosophari, to philosophize, in describing what he and his companions did. Did Seneca ever use philosophus to describe himself or a contemporary?”
Kishkumen put the sheet on the table between them and Alfonsy’s eyes glanced down for a brief moment.
“Professor Symmachus argued he does not and would not have., though there was a possible counter example in ‘Naturales Quaestiones’ where Seneca compares himself to Anaxagoras. Professor Symmachus said I might have missed the joke in that particular passage.”
Kishkumen admitted to himself that Alfonsy had very much piqued his intellectual interest much more strongly than he did his pastoral concerns. He didn’t want to lose track of what was important, but he couldn’t help getting swept up in the intoxication of philology.
“So Professor Symmachus detects a semantic shift at some point after Seneca. Assuming you correct Alfonsy, what would be your proposed translation?”
Alfonsy quickly scribbled on the same paper that contained the Seneca pericope and handed it over to the Reverend. It read, ‘Who takes any notice of the study philosophy or of any of the liberal arts’. Kishkumen wasn’t convinced, but the aspiring scholar across from him wasn’t without ability; no student of Cassius ever is without. The faculty made sure of that. The couplet was still interesting to Kishkumen but Alfonsy never mentioned its origin.
“I’m not one to spend long hours in the Scholastics, but isn’t that couplet a crib on Boethius? He was a significant part of the Medieval curriculum.”
Alfonsy reached back into his backpack and pulled out a hardcover book that looked particularly old to be a textbook. Kishkumen instinctively moved closer to inspect the text and Alfonsy simply handed it to him. The dimensions of the book made it compact, but it felt dense in his hands. Upon inspection of the binding the Reverend let out a cry of surprise and delight. This book was part of the ‘Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum’ out of Vienna in the first half of the 20th century. This was none other than William Weinberger’s critical addition of Boethius’ ‘Consolation of Philosophy’. Say what you will about the high level of academic standards at Cassius, Kishkumen never ceased to be impressed by the University’s ability to put the best books in the hands of their students.
“Many suspect it to be a paraphrase from Book II Prose 7. I have a translation here from Richard Green that I’ll read to you.”
The Reverend quickly found the passage and his eye immediately detected the presence of philosophum. Alfonsy cleared his throat and began reading.
“Did you ever hear the joke about the folly of such arrogance? One man was ridiculing another who falsely called himself a philosopher; he called himself this not because he practiced true virtue, but because of vanity. The first man claimed that he would find whether or not the other was a philosopher by the way the other humbly and patiently put up with insults. The would-be philosopher bore the insults patiently for a while and then said, ‘Now do you think that I am a philosopher?’ His tormentor laughed and replied, ‘I would have thought so, if you had kept silent.’”
The Reverend listened carefully as Alfonsy read, only setting the Weinberger book down when the student had finished. He was always filled with a sense of reverence when ancient philosophy was being discussed and not just by Hellenic Pagans either; Christians, Jews, Muslims, all had recourse to mine the wisdom of the ancients. Especially when it was being read aloud, it almost felt like sacrilege to do anything else but listen closely.
Alfonsy allowed a brief period of silence to dominate the room, he knew the Reverend preferred to have periods of reflection after a reading. He counted to sixty in his head before continuing.
“Professor Symmachus asserted that adjectival use of philosophus may be established in Christian Latin but not for Seneca. I noted Boethius and asked does this mean his father must follow the example?”
Kishkumen snorted. Boethius’ adopted father was Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, one of the many Symmachi of the Late Roman Empire. Alfonsy must have baited Professor Symmachus with that remark. The Reverend stood up and walked over to a bay window on the east wall of his office, it offered a picturesque view of the river that wound its way through this side of the Cassius campus, especially now that the horde of hostile Geese that usually occupied its banks had fled south for the winter. During the last part of the spring semester the Reverend often had recourse to defend himself with an umbrella just to make it pass the creatures on his way home.
“It is like Seneca states my dear Mr. Stakhanovite, ‘illud autem te, mi Lucili, rogo atque hortor, ut philosophism in praecordia ima demittas. This is what I ask and urge, Lucilius, that you should let philosophy sink deep into your heart.’ A quarrel with Professor Symmachus is never a serious matter and I think you’ll find his humor to be in good balance. I’ll bet you a second glass of sherry that he has already forgiven you.”
Alfonsy immediately replied.
“I didn’t quarrel with Professor Symmachus, he seemed to welcome my objection. My only regret in bringing it up was his insistence that we now give Seneca a close reading. No, my actual predicament arose from what happened after my discussion. I was eating a sandwich for lunch and I pulled up the blog ‘Sic et Non’ on my tablet to read. There was something Daniel Peterson posted that bothered me.”
The Right Reverend Kishkumen gave a full body shudder. All the energy that had seeped into his bones from talking philology and philosophy had suddenly vanished and was replaced with a small twinge in his gut.
Part 1: A Stoic Prelude
Reverend Kishkumen watched Alfonsy collapse into a wingback leather chair with some concern. The young man looked positively exhausted yet his odd mannerisms indicated the presence of frenetic energy. Assuming a pastoral role Kishkumen handed Alfonsy a sherry glass and advised him to drink its contents. He had seen this before, students at the final phases of their terminal degree often came apart at the seams several times just before the looming date of their defense. He didn’t envy Alfonsy at all. Cassius University was quite progressive in many respects and the forward thinking policies that Dr. Scratch implemented from his formidable perch upon the B.H. Roberts Chair were positively brilliant, yet the administration and some of the faculty still perpetuated draconian traditions of the past. No doubt the conditions of the current pandemic, a full online teaching load, and demanding preparations for what would no doubt be a grueling oral defense, were weighing heavily on the slender shoulders of Alfonsy.
Kishkumen took a seat opposite of Alfonsy. By this time Alfonsy had drained his refreshment and had begun to set the empty glassware down. The Reverend leapt into action and slid a bamboo coaster underneath the drink before it made contact with his favorite chabudai; it had been a charming gift from the late President of Keio University Tadao Ishikawa. Kishkumen quite liked the table and wanted to preserve it and the memory of their friendship. With the integrity of his furniture maintained Kishkumen voiced his concern for Alfonsy.
“You simply look afright Alfonsy, have you been getting much rest? I know this COVID business has made things particularly stressful for us all. Look, I can connect you to some of the University’s resources that can help you. If you don’t take care of yourself then all of this has been for nothing…”
Alfonsy looked perplexed for a moment before interrupting with a gesture and saying, “Oh no no. I was just at open mat and Dr.Cam is coaching us for an upcoming tournament against the Machodos. He had me in a cross side mount for about 30 minutes and nearly suffocated me. I’m still trying to get oxygen back.”
Kishkumen was pleased to see that Alfonsy was staying physically active, though he knew it was not by choice. Dean Robbers insists on maintaining a certain physical culture at Cassius. The Reverend could see his point, strong minds needed strong bodies to house them after all. Yet Kishkumen preferred his elliptical to the grappling mats or the rowing oars and liked green tea much more than protein bars.
“So what brings you here to my office? Surely it isn’t for my thoughts on pankration. I must admit to a few instances when I had to lay hands on some unruly louts, but what do I know about such contests?”
Alfonsy struggled for the words and after a moment he simply recited a distich.
“O si tacuisses,
Philosophus mansisses.”
If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher. The Reverend leaned back into his chair; he was now heading into familiar territory with Alfonsy and understood the nature of this visit. For some time Alfonsy has been expressing his guilt to Kishkumen over how he had chosen to express his disagreements with Mopologists. Not just disagreements, but also displays of public contempt for Mopologists themselves. Those draconian traditions of Cassius fostered an atmosphere of intellectual rigor that often instilled in students high expectations which are never met. The most legendary of Mopologists are often presented to the public as scholars of the highest pedigree who possess charm, wit, and an uncanny ability to synthesize Mormonism with the towering figures and great ideas of the Western canon. Mopologists never rise to the occasion because Mopologetics at its best is often pedestrian and at its worst disturbingly sexist, predictably racist, and palpably homophobic. The usual medium is a consistency of culture war rants by uninspired teachers railing against Darwin, Freud, and Higher Criticism with the less abled Mopologists targeting Evangelicals and Cult Ministries.
The Reverend knew how Alfonsy often struggled to initiate a train of thought and he could already see the young man hopelessly searching for a way to articulate himself. The Reverend opted to give his charge a prompt to aid him.
“I must confess that I was genuinely horrified you were going to drop a Lorenzo Snow couplet on me just then. Can I hazard that this has something to do with your calling and your inability to hold your pen when it comes to judging the merits of mopologetics?”
A sense of relief briefly flashed across Alfonsy’s face and Kishkumen immediately recognized it as a sign that his friend had gotten his mental bearings.
“I’ll start from the beginning. I was helping Professor Symmachus with his 'Latin for Nibley' course and we ended up having a disagreement concerning translation.”
The Reverend couldn’t help but chuckle. “Latin for Nibley” was a euphemism for the Freshman course of Classical Latin. To be admitted to the undergraduate program of Mopologetics, all students must pass a written Latin examination that requires a translation of two different pieces from antiquity with no lexical or grammatical aids. Typically only those who took Latin in a prepschool or took several semesters of Latin at another institution could stand a chance passing it.
Still, Symmachus was a BYU alum and Cassius’ foremost Grammarian. Kishkumen had to know what could have motivated Alfonsy to disagree with him.
“Disagreement you say? Over what?”
Alfonsy reached into a backpack and produced a spiral notebook and pencil. Opening to a clean sheet he wrote out a sentence in bold block letters and placed it before Kishkumen.
It read: “quis philosophum aut ullum liberale respicit studium, nisi cum ludi intercalantur, cum aliquis pluuius interuenti dies quem perdere libet?’
Alfonsy continued with his explanation while the Reverend studied the sentence patiently.
“It comes from Seneca and his ‘Naturales Quaestiones’. Professor Symmachus translated it as ‘Who takes any notice of a philosopher, or that of the liberal arts except when the games are delayed or when there is a rain and they feel like whiling away the hours?’. I guess I felt impelled to voice an objection.”
Kishkumen smiled to himself and heaved a small sigh. Seneca was dangerously underrated these days and the Reverend was pleased to see that Symmachus was doing his part to counter that. Kishkumen glanced up from the paper to make eye contact with Alfonsy and handed him the sheet back.
“What was your objection? Aside from some quibbles, I don’t see what would compel you to speak up.”
Alfonsy underlined the word philosophum several times before handing the sheet back, meeting the Reverend’s gaze.
“Why is philosophum assumed to be a noun? Why not adjectival? ”
Kishkumen sat back for a moment perplexed. Alfonsy filled the silence.
“Think back to the couplet: ‘Philosophus mansisses’. It is preserved in Medieval Latin.”
It was if the air around Kishkumen had become electrified. Thoughts were suddenly flooding his conscious and he began to make connections faster than he could properly understand them. He began to speak aloud and worked his way through the flurry of ideas.
“Well philosophus is a Greek loan word. Seneca would've course describe himself as pursuing philosophia or philosophy, and he would certainly use the verb philosophari, to philosophize, in describing what he and his companions did. Did Seneca ever use philosophus to describe himself or a contemporary?”
Kishkumen put the sheet on the table between them and Alfonsy’s eyes glanced down for a brief moment.
“Professor Symmachus argued he does not and would not have., though there was a possible counter example in ‘Naturales Quaestiones’ where Seneca compares himself to Anaxagoras. Professor Symmachus said I might have missed the joke in that particular passage.”
Kishkumen admitted to himself that Alfonsy had very much piqued his intellectual interest much more strongly than he did his pastoral concerns. He didn’t want to lose track of what was important, but he couldn’t help getting swept up in the intoxication of philology.
“So Professor Symmachus detects a semantic shift at some point after Seneca. Assuming you correct Alfonsy, what would be your proposed translation?”
Alfonsy quickly scribbled on the same paper that contained the Seneca pericope and handed it over to the Reverend. It read, ‘Who takes any notice of the study philosophy or of any of the liberal arts’. Kishkumen wasn’t convinced, but the aspiring scholar across from him wasn’t without ability; no student of Cassius ever is without. The faculty made sure of that. The couplet was still interesting to Kishkumen but Alfonsy never mentioned its origin.
“I’m not one to spend long hours in the Scholastics, but isn’t that couplet a crib on Boethius? He was a significant part of the Medieval curriculum.”
Alfonsy reached back into his backpack and pulled out a hardcover book that looked particularly old to be a textbook. Kishkumen instinctively moved closer to inspect the text and Alfonsy simply handed it to him. The dimensions of the book made it compact, but it felt dense in his hands. Upon inspection of the binding the Reverend let out a cry of surprise and delight. This book was part of the ‘Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum’ out of Vienna in the first half of the 20th century. This was none other than William Weinberger’s critical addition of Boethius’ ‘Consolation of Philosophy’. Say what you will about the high level of academic standards at Cassius, Kishkumen never ceased to be impressed by the University’s ability to put the best books in the hands of their students.
“Many suspect it to be a paraphrase from Book II Prose 7. I have a translation here from Richard Green that I’ll read to you.”
The Reverend quickly found the passage and his eye immediately detected the presence of philosophum. Alfonsy cleared his throat and began reading.
“Did you ever hear the joke about the folly of such arrogance? One man was ridiculing another who falsely called himself a philosopher; he called himself this not because he practiced true virtue, but because of vanity. The first man claimed that he would find whether or not the other was a philosopher by the way the other humbly and patiently put up with insults. The would-be philosopher bore the insults patiently for a while and then said, ‘Now do you think that I am a philosopher?’ His tormentor laughed and replied, ‘I would have thought so, if you had kept silent.’”
The Reverend listened carefully as Alfonsy read, only setting the Weinberger book down when the student had finished. He was always filled with a sense of reverence when ancient philosophy was being discussed and not just by Hellenic Pagans either; Christians, Jews, Muslims, all had recourse to mine the wisdom of the ancients. Especially when it was being read aloud, it almost felt like sacrilege to do anything else but listen closely.
Alfonsy allowed a brief period of silence to dominate the room, he knew the Reverend preferred to have periods of reflection after a reading. He counted to sixty in his head before continuing.
“Professor Symmachus asserted that adjectival use of philosophus may be established in Christian Latin but not for Seneca. I noted Boethius and asked does this mean his father must follow the example?”
Kishkumen snorted. Boethius’ adopted father was Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, one of the many Symmachi of the Late Roman Empire. Alfonsy must have baited Professor Symmachus with that remark. The Reverend stood up and walked over to a bay window on the east wall of his office, it offered a picturesque view of the river that wound its way through this side of the Cassius campus, especially now that the horde of hostile Geese that usually occupied its banks had fled south for the winter. During the last part of the spring semester the Reverend often had recourse to defend himself with an umbrella just to make it pass the creatures on his way home.
“It is like Seneca states my dear Mr. Stakhanovite, ‘illud autem te, mi Lucili, rogo atque hortor, ut philosophism in praecordia ima demittas. This is what I ask and urge, Lucilius, that you should let philosophy sink deep into your heart.’ A quarrel with Professor Symmachus is never a serious matter and I think you’ll find his humor to be in good balance. I’ll bet you a second glass of sherry that he has already forgiven you.”
Alfonsy immediately replied.
“I didn’t quarrel with Professor Symmachus, he seemed to welcome my objection. My only regret in bringing it up was his insistence that we now give Seneca a close reading. No, my actual predicament arose from what happened after my discussion. I was eating a sandwich for lunch and I pulled up the blog ‘Sic et Non’ on my tablet to read. There was something Daniel Peterson posted that bothered me.”
The Right Reverend Kishkumen gave a full body shudder. All the energy that had seeped into his bones from talking philology and philosophy had suddenly vanished and was replaced with a small twinge in his gut.