APOPHTHEGMATIZATIONS.

NZ Truth, Issue 82, 12 January 1907, Page 1

APOPHTHEGMATIZATIONS.

■■.',•■■• ■•••■■-. -"■ , ♦ . i ''''j' 1 . " '■ ■ . ■ -NO. I. 'V- ■■.•■'■."■ :. '■ ''■ v V (By JOHN NORTION.) - ''■'•■ )}:'-' ; ' ' ' . ■ - ' . ' V ;■'•.■.■ ■■ ' I

•■■'■• ,*-t - -.- ; . ■ ' ■ ■ v ' ■• . The long-winded- word standing as chief caption "to these collectanea will probably be banned as an alphabetical ■ ■ abomhlliti on by tpat sort of "savant who $ees neither witi^norwisdom outsjd^:- ; his' own • cogiwvtipns and lucubrati'dris. There »is, neyer-. theless,. a world of meaning comprised in ■• its , .'.seven syllables:. ; ■ A perusal- of ;'■ Trench Upon Wot^s"; will compel many oi>the most -cultured to confess crass ignorance as to the mean'np and. origin of a "multitude of the most -common colloquial- ; isms and popular phrases. So, too, it can be safely said that to ninety- ; nine m every^liiindted tte meanitigor | origin of th : is ',-big wprd" is "all : Greek." Feyr| in'deedj. there be a-] mong the . "comim'pn • crowd 1 " : .who w could teli,'Oft-'hand, the root of'thi^ J phrasE-woiTd, or say whether; it was I of- Greek -or Latin^ofk Sanserif or Saxon origin. . Stranger stiilyvas it may seem, a much larger proportion of men and, women, with, r^ore than a smattering of "-literary, learning," ytould be puzzled to give; the precise meaiiiag of the st?en>-word, apophthegm, \ thus unador-ned" iwtd unashamed- m all' \ its graceful, f^apiiic, Greek nudity. ■% (Apothegm, the- modern American •M- form 'of mis-spelling this beautiful w word, is a bastard Yankeedoodleism, \ a Rooseveltian revolt, a Carnegian •^a conspiracy „ a phonetic felony against -In thp sound aitd symbol of this grace--Ji fuj^. ' Greek-begotten word). Cautiously catechised, scores of persons —most of them much more learned, and 'many of them far better read, toanj the cateohist could wish or slaioj to be— showed themselves "all at sea" as, to the exact meaning, of the word apophthegm. The catechis- , '4 were as badly m need of the chart :\nd compass of a lexicon and a \ dictionary as the catechist himself. f 'mb '' was it that, designated ; the ilictibiarv as "The refuge of tlie literary destitute" ? Many of those questioned as to the meaning, answered confidently and intelligently-, but most of them inaccurately. Lilce the saint and the sinner, who respectively missed Heaven and Hell by a hair, they missed the meaning by. the shade of a shadow, so to i speak. See from 'their various ; answers how near and yet how far tiiey were from grasping the spirit of;, the word. Some said- that an? apophthegm was an adage, an amphorism, an axiom ; others almost hit the mark by ihistakin'g it for a maxim, pure and simple ; while others positively precomzed it as a pirpverb.. Now, ,referemoe to Roget aoid We-bster shows that although an appphthegm has sometimes some cli'gftt syrionym-ity with all these, it is' never absolutely identical with any one of them. It may have spmethin^ ' n common , with all of ; them q : bllectivelv, b\it very little with any of them smeiy. The different meaninirs m which so many persons clothed the same word seems to recall, one kjjows not how or .why. the changing colors of the chameleon, or more appositely stall, Byron's graphic .desI ( cr-iption of the probean transf-or-I mations of tlie, shade of Junius, m. r^ tfen:t arnusvnw and immortal poetical * phanta.smaSOT%,^r'' Tn « Vision :of I it'jiidffmpht. 7 '^- 1 1....;.;...^ ■>..;.;... . ..'.'.._ .. ' \ !■' ' :•>. « ; "' ■ x!; ;-'m.'" it.-'''"";' j .'''Well, what, precisely, is an apoph- \ tb9gm ? According to "Webster, i , -lyhose definiition has the superior ■ sanction of the Standard Dictionary m "anophthewn is "A short, pithy ar,d instructive' saying ; a terse remark, conveying some important truth; a sententious precept or maxim." Hence to apophthegmatize js to moralise ;; whence we get or -.■'< ' rnanuf?cture the word ApophthegmaM feafcjons . "Quod erat demonstranf dum." ■ • • , * ■ . • The art of apophthegmatlzation is ; a very ■•■ancient, one— as old as wickedness, or as the wicked world itself. The very Devil himself was a most artful apophthegmatizer, as is shown -by the story of the Fall. In Eden, Satan artfully, apopthe^a-tized to .Eve about the apple. That tale or \the temptation of our first female parent is, as a scoffing sceptic has sacrilegiously stigmatised it, "a tall story about a sour apple which wants well .stewing m sugar before it can be swallowed:" • : - ■ . • .- « ■■-. * '■.'*■• Moses miist haV# been a great apoijhthegmatizer, or apopthegmatiza- , ter, which you will; although, his i ' ' ' ■ ". -

apophthegms, like i. "those^pf all, Asiatic apophthegmaitizers,. -have as much, and often more, to do with physical, ills thatt-moraTm^^ morality;. • was ol; a. strictly, sexual, sensual- sort, ; making; of -the first five books .of the 'Bible, a dim-natpry , de-, caloguc v against disgusting dirtiness, degrading- debauchery , ' and debasing .drunkenness.... , A nation , that heeded such a moral' monitor as Moses must hiive been very nasty m its .notions, and monstrous m it>s manners. In this; sense, the first five books of the Bible— falsely attributed to Mosesmake of the Bible a beastly book,' fit .neither- for boys or girls iipr'old men or Women.. There is an apophthegm, against which our modern Moseses .will anathematize m vain.' • "■■ ' ■ *'■-,■■■■•-■ .'. " * ■ " ' •■' 1 We are': ,tpld' "to, i search- the; Scriptures,.' and to : interpret them at our pleasuxe by .t>he ■ , help :^of- private, prayer m our i'qwn, closely • .closed closets.; Some ;pi '■'■ us have searched with serioiusl^ searching results to ourselves. •;; These searchings of the Scriptures have caused many of us to question and doubt the ' divinity of the Mosaic dispensation,, made up as it is, mainly, 'of denunciations of: disgusting debauchery ' and frenetic fornications.- Surely a God vAl-mi-ghty, the Alt Father, has not made the- salvation of our immortal souls dependent upon /our implicit belief m the divine inspiration of such a record of ruffianism and rascality, of vice and of crime ! To claim a conscientious assent to the absurd and blasphemous assertion that, a community so corrupt, criminal and, cruel as the heiotish Hebrews were, could be "The Chosen People of God," under penalty of perdition, .is to cow, crush and ,curse donseienoe. > That this Chosen People should afterwards crucify God's Son and Mankind's Redeemer, seems almost a, retributive rebuttal of , such a blasphemy. There is another apophthegmatfeation that not all the anathematizing of priest and .parson, bigot and fanatic, will weaken . of wipe away. By this time the superstitious sectaries ought to be getting some approximation of an idea as to the meaning, of an apophthegm when applted to them and their pragmatical prosings. theological, thun'derings,and hell-fire hbwlings. ■ ■•.. ■' • •.. •■■.•• A word or two more about Moses,, whose history Tom Paine handled so roughly, and of whose morality he metaphorically made mihce-meatj Paine thus apophtihe'gmatized on Moses, or, rather,, on the. writings so absurdly ascribed, to him : "Can a man write an account of his own death and burial ? " The significant silence •< of the . .sectarian savages during; a century has been the only answer. . But "what about Moses and the Pentateuch; ; "Moses had little or. nothing to do with any one of its five books. It's a matter of doubt whether he was the author of the Ten Commandments;'or even ever saw or heard of them. Some parts of the Pentateuch are thousands of years older than Moses and the Bibical date of creation; other parts thousands of years younger. Whoever it was that compiled the Pentateuch.- certain it is that Moses never wrote it. Parts of the Pentateuch were penned or memorised thousands of years before Moses bossed and bamboozled the Israelites for forty years m the 'wilderness. t Other parts of it were I written hundreds of years after the apocryphal date of his mysterious death and. burial "by. Nebo's, lonely mountain," after, his" disappointing peep at the Promised Land from precipitous Pis tab's tantalising top,. Selah : which, being interpreted here means, So much fojr Moses. ; "'" Did space permit, .it might/have, been more profitable to pause here and apophtbegma;tize . upon "Paine ■on the Prophets,'' /than vto spend so much time upon Moses and t/he wanderings and wantonings of the Israeli ; iitesjn the wilderness. Paine, him-j self was a. great apophthegmatizer, a ] great moralist, and a -'good man into the bargain. He it 'was who' wrote thotfe two twin books, "The Age of Reason" and\"The Rigihts of Man." Those books have done more so get up the sway of Reason and establish' the reign of Liberty m this world, by freeing men's minds from the terrors of Pagan- superstition, and --nursing them from the servile seuti-

merits of slavery, than all the mil- [ lions of o^her books printed and cir-\ dilated during the last tuitury. \ ; :J •\ :■ ■Hr^'-mVi:it:'- V; 4^-3Y;, :'-fr\ '■ '■■^M ' In, that ;sj)lendid .apoph + ,ho*iii , • 'The I wfifld is iiiv country ; to do Rood isi my religion," Paine proeli.uuod his principles and policy, and «hus proved himself to be a believer a?id pratftiser of the precepts of Christ, although a disbeliever m the my* lvs of Christianity. • For this Paine has been maligned as a > i \an, aid traduced as \a theologian ; declared to be an ..infidel, and denounced as a debauohed drunkard • a'l 'f which are so many deliberate, detestable, damnable lies. Pairic was no infidel; he believed' m G-od— lie -was a Deis.t, Paine was a good-living, kind-heart-ed man, who lived a ; ioxig life m; decency, and with dignity.. He was the soourge of superstition, o,nd, the. terror of tyrants. ' Paine's goodness: amd glory grows. plainer and, brighter as the world- grows wiser and" happier, largely as the result of his services 'to mankind. . Hydro-Majestic, Medlow Bath, New Year's Day, 1907. • ./ ' ' ============