 
                         20060522.00

     The 13th chapter of the first letter to the Corintians.
seems to me to identify itself as rhetoric even from the
opening allusion to speaking with the tongues of men and of
angels.  What is referred to here with respect to speech, is
not the logos, the existential content of language.  Rather
what is referred to here is language as public speech, as
persuasion, as the discourse that creates a public consensus.

     All three introductory rhetorical descriptions of what
agape is not, are revealing.

     If agape is not eloquence, nor sacrifice, nor knowledge,
I can only conclude that agape does not exist.

     If self-sacrifice is not an expression of agape, I don't
know what self-sacrifice is.  The sacrifice which is not an
expression of agape is surely a sacrifice remote from the
crucifixion.  I was under the impression that agape was what
the crucifixion was all about.

     The knowledge which does not lead to, or result in
agape, is surely somewhing other than Socratic knowledge
which, by definition, is immediately productive of the good,
and I thought that in social intercourse, agape was the good,
which cannot be the case if agape is not cogate to knowledge.

     It can only follow that if agape is not sacrifice and is
not knowledge, and is not even rhetorical perfection
(beauty), as exemplified by this text, why then it must be
nothing.

     Finally the implicit comparison (categorization) of
faith hope and agape is prima facie evidence of the
rhetorical nature of the text.  Only in rhetoric are the
three susceptible to comparison.

     For, in the first place, faith and hope cannot be
compared because they are mutually exclusive.  Where there is
faith, hope is superfluous; if hope has a function, faith is,
by definition, absent.  Hope is meaningful only in the
absence of faith.

     Furthermore, as attributes of personality, faith and
agape are fundamentally different: for the direction of faith
is inward: faith is ones awareness of his spiritual
existence.  Agape is directed outward; it is a description of
ones relationship to the world.  The equation of faith and
agape implicit in the comparison, suggests that one or both
have been misunderstood.

     All of the foregoing off the top of my head, subject to
later revision or retraction; since I am writing this in
Konnarock, cut off from my books and from my high speed
internet connection.

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Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
