ESCATH

Maurice A. O'Sullivan mauros at iol.ie
Wed Jul 19 07:24:02 EDT 2000


At 05:44 19/07/00, B.J. Williamson wrote:
>Mark:
>
>Regarding ESCATH, you stated:
>
>>The idea, at least as it is translated into English, seems to imply an 
>>event that is, with reference to time, soon to happen.
>
>To which Maurice responded:
>
>Perhaps the answer is to be found --- even still -- in Ps. 90:4
> >>To your eyes a thousand years
>         are like yesterday, come and gone,
>         no more than a watch in the night.<<
>-------
>
>On few occasions, ESCATH can denote "time" in the sense of days, months, 
>and years. But it can only denote that if the CONTEXT develops that idea, 
>not by the use of ESCATH itself.

In citing Ps 90 I was trying, by a little gentle ( I hope ) irony to show 
Mark that there is no bigger gulf between a twenty first century 
understanding of time and that of the biblical world. But then irony is a 
dangerous device sometimes.

So I never did think that the psalmist was talking about "time" --- we do 
not have here a metric measure but a cosmic yardstick to reinforce " My 
ways are not your ways, says the Lord ".  In fact there is a useful a rule 
of thumb in reflecting on "time" in the Bible in the title of a 
presidential address given some years ago to the Catholic Biblical 
Association of America and subsequently printed in the CBQ ( I do not have 
the details to hand --- doubtless Kevin Woodruff will be able to retrieve 
the details for us ? ). The paper bore the title: "Christ and Time: Swiss 
or Mediterranean ? ".

Perhaps this ( apocryphal ? ) story will illustrate one point in the paper 
about "peasant" time:
An Irish academic attending a conference on Celtic Spirituality was asked 
if there was any equivalent of " manana " in Old Irish. " Oh, yes, 
several  " was his reply " but none of them have that sense of pressing 
urgency conveyed by 'manana' "

Regards


Maurice A. O'Sullivan  [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros at iol.ie






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