Do you see why "inoculate" has to do with the oculus? Think of the eye of a potato. The oldest meaning of "inoculate" is horticultural, the (unlinkable) OED tells us:
To set or insert (an ‘eye’, bud, or scion) in a plant for propagation; to subject (a plant) to the operation of budding; to propagate by inoculation; to bud (one plant) into, on, or upon (another).Then we get the figurative use, the oldest example of which comes in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (1604):
Vertue cannot so enoculat [1623 innocculate] our old stock, but we shall relish of it.The use of "inoculate" in the context of fending off disease arrives in 1722, in the London Gazette: "The Experiment of inoculating the Small-Pox upon..Criminals."
Speaking of eyes and having — in the first post today — spoken of the 10 Commandments, I wanted to show you a photo I took last December, a closeup of the monument on the grounds of the Texas State House (the one the U.S. Supreme Court left standing):
What's up with the eye?
All the Supreme Court said about that eye was: "An eagle grasping the American flag, an eye inside of a pyramid, and two small tablets with what appears to be an ancient script are carved above the text of the Ten Commandments."
Here's the Wikipedia article on "The Eye of Providence (or the all-seeing eye of God)...."
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29 comments:
"The Eye of Providence"
The all seeing Eye of God.
Or if you want to be a conspiracy type. The Freemason Influence on our nation's founders...
Drill Sgt is right except that, according to Wikipedia, use of the eye in the Great Seal predates Masonic adoption of the symbol.
Rand Paul is an eye doctor.
Althouse: "Rand Paul is making me see that the measles vaccine is a stalking horse."
"Rand Paul is an eye doctor."
Not only that, if you look closely you will see the eye is wearing glasses. You can see the frames, the over-priced frames.
The money is in the frames.
Conspicuous by its absence from this post is any mention of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.
My language fail here is that every time I see the word "inoculate," I think it is missing an "n." Innoculate. Wrong, but it looks so right.
We used that word in India a lot - get your inoculation. Maybe British usage.
I believe the pyramid-encased eye is the ancient symbol of theosophy
Balfegor said...
My language fail here is that every time I see the word "inoculate," I think it is missing an "n." Innoculate. Wrong, but it looks so right.
An innocuous error.
But it was Ron Paul making me see...
I have this linguistic bias against conflating inoculation with vaccination, but current Wikipedia opinion seems to hold that my distinction is archaic.
Anyways, I was surprised to hear that the Masonic usage of the "Eye of Providence" post-dated the creation of the Great Seal, but it makes sense - meaning not necessarily that the Mason conspiracy created the USA, but rather that the United States and its iconography were extremely influential upon the Masons.
I wonder if there will one day be a Wikipedia article explaining every Joan River's joke?
With respect to smallpox, inoculation was with smallpox (variola hopefully minor) and vaccination was with cowpox (variolae vacciniae). Inoculation could kill one in a hundred.
God watches over you... Behold, He who keeps Israel, neither sleeps nor slumbers. (Ps 121:4).
The religious legalists who try to keep the law don't like that Eye that always sees their works. But people of God who are always being Guarded from their enemies by the all seeing eye welcome it.
In which group are the SCOTUS?
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The New Testament lesson from the Episcopal morning prayer today features the line "if thine eye offends thee, pluck it out..."
Although, we use the New Revised Standard bible, so it doesn't really read like that any more.
Well, the Pantheon in Rome has a large concrete dome on top of it, and the round hole in the center of that dome is called an "oculus."
Although I think it's there to let light in, and not to let all those gods look in.
The use of "inoculate" in the context of fending off disease arrives in 1722, in the London Gazette:
That phrase, below, appears in The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, 1721....
"The Experiment of inoculating the Small-Pox upon [six] Criminals."
If I'm reading this correctly, they all caught smallpox, except for one who'd already had it.
Google ngram is interesting - 'inoculate' was pretty popular in 1800.
The British are here, and flying F-35s in my neighborhood. First I've seen them in the air. They are surprisingly small and very graceful.
And then there's the Bob Dylan logo, reportedly based on the Eye of Horus.
http://www.edlis.org/shelf/boblogo.jpg
Every time I see that eye above the pyramid, I think "Annuit Coeptis!" and I get the same strange feeling I got as a child, when I somehow sensed that the stuff on the dollar was occult -- without knowing anything about the Masons. I think I thought "Annuit Coeptis" was an incantation in Egyptian (Coptic??). I still don't know what it means, and I haven't Googled it because I'll be disappointed.
After every inoculation I always vaccinate myself with some blueberry pie.
(Meade can explain.) (Or vaccsplain.)
"Inoculate" is one of those oft-ammended words that people always want to annoint with a double letter.
Did the inoculation of an image of an eagle on that Ten Commandments monument immunized it against being removed as a violation of the Establishment clause?
The Eye of Providence is shown on the reverse of the Great Seal as the pinnacle of a towering edifice, much like this
"If I'm reading this correctly, they all caught smallpox, except for one who'd already had it."
I don't know where you found this, but, of course they all caught smallpox.
This was before Edward Jenner's cowpox based vaccine. The idea behind this inoculation (aka "variolation") was to deliberately give yourself smallpox before you caught it naturally because smallpox contracted via variolation was significantly less lethal than naturally contracted smallpox (~three percent vs. thirty percent).
Because variolation deliberately produced cases of smallpox, and because these cases were then as contagious as the naturally contracted variety, variolation was not an individual's decison: either an entire community would be variolated, or no one would be.
"Prævenérunt óculi mei ad te dilúculo: ut meditárer elóquia tua"-- from this afternoon's hour of None: my eyes have opened to Thee this day, that I might meditate on Thy words, Lord. The Supreme Court lets that Omnipotent Eye remain only by purposefully closing theirs. Which says something instructive about their lordships' sort of 'justice'.
the eyes have it.
"Or if you want to be a conspiracy type. The Freemason Influence on our nation's founders..."
Masons are pretty straightforward about and proud of that influence, which is the reason for all the legacy symbolism in government. Masonic lodges have been, since well before the Revolution, extremely democratic, egalitarian across racial and economic lines, and founded on a core belief in God-endowed rights. Not a coincidence or a secret that most of the Founding Fathers were Freemasons.
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