Mystique

Mystique (pronounced mi-steek)

(1) A framework of doctrines, ideas, beliefs, or the like, constructed around a person or object, endowing the person or object with enhanced value or profound meaning:

(2) The aura of mystery (real, imagined or confected) or mystical power surrounding a particular occupation or pursuit:

1891: A borrowing by English in the sense of “atmosphere of mystery and veneration”, from the French noun & adjective mystique (a mystic; the act of a mystic; the mystical), from the Latin mysticus, from the Ancient Greek μυστικός (mustikós) (secret, mystic), from μύστης (mústēs) (one who has been initiated).  Mystique is a noun; the noun plural is plural mystiques.

A Dangerous Liaison (2008) by Carole Seymour-Jones (1943-2015).

When Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex (1949)) was published by French feminist and social theorist Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), it was recognized almost at once as a landmark in feminist thought but it was in the twenty-first century re-evaluated when gender came to be re-defined as a spectrum rather than a binary.  Of particular interest was de Beauvoir’s mapping of existentialist thought on to the matter, asserting that being a woman was a construct, something obviously dependent on being born female but the product of processes integral to a society in which women had been defined as inferior to men, a tradition she traces back centuries.  The Second Sex and Dr Germaine Greer’s (b 1939) The Female Eunuch (1970) remain the two most important texts of late twentieth century feminism.  De Beauvoir is one of those writers who led a life which many choose to entangle with what she wrote but The Second Sex is best read by allowing the words to prevail.  

However, the complexity of The Second Sex, infused as it was with strands of French structuralism, meant that it lacked accessibility unless a reader had some background in certain philosophical traditions and it was American feminist Betty Friedan’s (1921–2006) The Feminine Mystique (1963) which, by sheer weight of numbers, proved the greater influence politically, many claiming still it was the work responsible for the emergence of second wave feminism.  The Feminine Mystique is by comparison a slight work and although not of excessive length, is thematically repetitious and can be deconstructed as a long social media post about one woman’s discontent with her life, something to which she (not without justification) links the structure of the patriarchal society in which she exists.  That made it a compelling polemic for the receptive millions of women who read it as their own biographies and ensured its success but it also lent second-wave feminism (which greatly the book at least influenced) a distinctly white, Western, middle-class flavor which asked many of the right questions but ignored (rather than deliberately excluded) most of what lay beyond that fashionable but narrow cultural vista.

Jane Birkin and the mystique of the Birkin Bag

The bag lady: Jane Birkin (with her usual straw bag) and Serge Gainsbourg (1928-1991) at the premiere of their film Slogan, August 1969.

One well-known example of manufactured mystique is that attached to the Birkin Bag manufactured by the French fashion house Hermès, the origin of which was a chance meeting in 1984 on Paris-London shuttle flight between the English actress Jane Birkin (1946-2023) and Jean-Louis Dumas (1938-2010), then executive chairman Hermès.  Ms Birkin was placing her usual straw bag in the overhead locker when “everything fell out” her belongings scattering over her and Monsieur Dumas.  The inevitable conversation ensued and the pair thrown together by circumstances spent the brief flight designing Ms Birkin’s ideal leather bag for weekend travel, the airline’s sick bags improbably used for the first sketches.  Within months, the Birkin was a Hermès part-number.

Although in her later years Ms Birkin ceased to carry one (it became “just too heavy"), over the last four decades, the Birkin has become a coveted item, much sought by those attracted by its association with pop-culture celebrities and the price-tag which begins somewhere over US$10,000 and can, for a custom unit, extend into six figures.  Although the Birkin range is advertized both in the glossy catalogues and on-line, it’s not a “display item” carried on the shelves of the bricks & mortar stores and it’s long been part of the product’s image that as well as being PoA (price on application), they’re not “for everyone”, Hermès selling them only to someone “suitable”; it’s all part of the mystique.  There has long been speculation about how “real” this mystique may be, the suspicion being that if anyone offers cold hard cash (or its modern equivalent), a store manager would think of their end-of-year bonus and make the sale.  However, in March 2024, two disgruntled (rejected) Birkin customers filed suit in Federal court in California, alleging Hermès was in violation of US antitrust legislation by allowing only those with a “sufficient purchase history” with the company to bag a Birkin.  Essentially, the case hinges on the lure of the right to buy a Birkin being used as an inducement to spend money on shoes, jewellery, scarves and such, the carrot of the bag dangled while the stick is used to force folk to create a “purchase history”.  The suit also noted the company’s sales associates are driving the scheme, thereby gaining benefits for both themselves and Hermès, an important technical point in US antitrust law.

Hermès Birkin 3-en-1: "(1) a canvas clutch topped with the emblematic leather flap, (2) A leather tote with side straps & turnlock and (3) A clutch & tote together recreate the eternal Birkin."  The 3-en-1 is one of many current designs in the range.

Interestingly, it was further alleged the floor staff don’t earn commissions on Birkin bag sales and are instructed to use the handbags only as a device “…to coerce consumers to purchase ancillary products” while only “…those consumers who are deemed worthy of purchasing a Birkin handbag will be shown a Birkin handbag” in a private viewing room.”  Any civilian (ie a non-celebrity or not someone identified as rich) walking into the store and asking to see a Birkin is told they’re “out of stock”.  The lawsuit requested class-action status for thousands of US consumers who bought Hermès goods or were asked to buy them as a prerequisite for buying a Birkin and sought unspecified monetary damages and a court order banning Hermès’s allegedly anti-competitive practices.

A certain, brutish mystique: 1974 Holden Torana L34.

Restrictions on a right to purchase are not unusual.  Ferrari have specified that some of their low-volume models are available only to previous customers and that has sometimes demanded the prior purchase of more than one of the Italian machines.  Whether apocryphal or not, the story is that on more than one occasion, upon being informed of the clause, the buyer would at random pick a Ferrari from the showroom stock and buy it, just to qualify.  Somewhat down the automotive food chain, in 1974 when quietly Holden in Australia introduced their L34 option (a homologation package to ensure certain bits & pieces could be used in racing) for the Torana SL/R 5000, although the thing could be registered for road use, it was specified it could be bought only by holders of a certain level of competition licence issued by CAMS (the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, then the sport's peak regulatory body).  That policy was a pre-emptive strike to ensure there would be no repetition of the moral panic stirred up two years earlier by the tabloid press which claimed the three local manufacturers were selling “160 mph (257 km/h) supercars” to the public, summoning the fear of the usual suspects (males aged 17-25) unleashing these lethal weapons on public roads.  As was often the case in moral panics, the tabloids were being economical with the truth but their campaign spooked the politicians and the manufacturers, the new generation of high-performance machinery swiftly cancelled.  Ironically, when tested, it transpired the L34 package was about durability rather than power or speed and was actually a little slower than a standard SL/R 5000 but the exotic terms & conditions (T&Cs) certainly gained it some mystique.

The Mean Girls (2004) crew on DeviantArt by SBBeauregarde in cosplay mode: Marvel Comics' Mystique.

The Mystique de la Merde 

The word mystique even has a place in what must be one of the darker corners of literary theory.  The term Mystique de la Merde dates from September 1956 when an article by Robert Elliot Fitch (1902-1986) was published in the New Republic.  Fitch was a Congregationalist minister who graduated successively from Yale (1923), the Union Theological Seminary (1926) and Columbia (1929), later becoming a professor of Christian ethics and dean of Berkeley's Pacific School of Religion but he was interested also in literary theory, often as a device by which he could explore the decline in Western society associated with God’s withdrawal from the place.  Fitch’s Mystique de la Merde wasn’t literally “the mystique of shit” but a description of what he detected in literature (and therefore life in general) as “a preoccupation with the seamier, muddier, bloodier aspects of life, as well as, excessively, with sex and money.”  Befitting the decline of civilization, Mystique de la Merde was a deliberately more vulgar version of Nostalgie de la boue (nostalgia for mud), a phrase coined in 1855 by French dramatist Émile Augier (1820–1889) meaning “an attraction for low-life culture, experience, and degradation (in individuals, institutions & culture).”

In his New Republic piece, Fitch started as he intended to continue: "…perhaps we should take note of a brand of piety which may best be characterized as the mystique de la merde. This might be rendered in English as the deification of dirt, or the apotheosis of ordure, or just plain mud mysticism.  At any rate it provides a label for a sectarian cult which appears to have attracted some of the best talent in contemporary literature."  He nominated Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) as a founding father of the cult (he must have been tempted to call him the “high priest”) in whose writing he identified a surfeit of “…fertility, money, blood and iron."  One sex was stirred into that mix (as Hemmingway did), one has, as Fitch noted: all “…the basic ingredients of ultimate reality" as seen by the merde mystics.

Ernest Hemingway in Cuba, 1952.  F Scott Fitzgerald's (1896–1940) wife Zelda (1900–1948) described Hemmingway's novel The Sun Also Rises (1926) as "Bull fighting, bull slinging, and bullshit".  Had she lived, she may have found "Mystique de la Merde" a needless gloss.

Writing in the milieu of the beat generation writers, Fitch observed that in handling what clearly was a literary phenomenon, the critic was at some disadvantage because while writers could function on the “four letter [word] level”, “…the critic must stick to three-syllable words.”  He concluded, presumably not without regret, that: “When we have become honest, we discover that the reigning God is only a devil in disguise" and the real reason for this is that God “…has made us unhappy.”  He cites Mrs Evans in Eugene O'Neill’s (1888–1953) soliloquy heavy Strange Interlude (1928) who affirms that the only good thing is being happy: “I used to be a great one for worrying about what's God and what's devil, but I got richly over it… being punished for no sin but loving much.”  One suspects Fitch might have written a critique of the early twenty-first century with some relish.

Elector

Elector (pronounced ih-lek-ter)

(1) A person who elects or may elect, especially a qualified voter (ie one correctly enrolled).

(2) A member an electoral college (chiefly US use but rarely used except in a technical context and often with initial capital letter).

(3) One of the (mostly) German princes entitled to elect the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (usually initial capital letter).

1425–1475: From the late Middle English elector & electour, from the Late Latin ēlēctor (chooser; selector) agent noun from past-participle stem of eligere (to pick out, choose), the construct being eleg- (variant stem of ēligere, second-person singular future passive indicative of ēligō (from ex- (out of, from) +‎ legō (choose, select, appoint)) + -tor (genitive -tōris), the Latin suffix used to form a masculine agent noun.  An earlier alternative form was electour but it was obsolete by the sixteenth century; the office in court documents was often described by the noun electorship and there were feminine forms, used with an initial capital letter when grammar demanded: electress, electress consort & princess-electress.  Elector & electorship are nouns; the noun plural is electors.

Elections in the First Reich

The Holy Roman Empire (Sacrum Imperium Romanum in Latin; Heiliges Römisches Reich in German) endured from the crowing of Charlemagne (747–814) on Christmas day 800 until it was dissolved in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars although, technically, the imperial connection existed only since Otto I (912-973) proclaimed himself emperor in 962 and it wasn’t until the thirteenth century the term "Holy Roman Empire" came into use.  Prior to that, the empire was known variously as universum regnum (the whole kingdom (as opposed to the many regional kingdoms in Europe), imperium christianum (Christian empire) or Romanum imperium (Roman empire), but the Emperor's mystique, if not his constitutional legitimacy, was always underpinned by the concept of translatio imperii (that his supreme power was an inheritance from the old emperors of Classical Rome).

The Bishop Consecration of the Elector Clemens August by Benedikt XIII (1727) (in the New Castle Schleißheim), oil on panel in Rococo style by by George Desmarées (1697-1776). 

Accession to the throne of Holy Roman Emperor was sometime dynastic and sometimes political but from the thirteenth century, it was formalised as elective, the electoral college comprised mostly of German prince-electors, the high-ranking aristocrats who would meet to choose of their peers a King of the Romans to be crowned emperor (until 1530 by the Pope himself).  From then on, emperors, keen to assert the idea their authority was independent of the papacy, gained their legitimacy solely from the vote of the electors.  The prince-electors were known in German as Kurfürst; the heir apparent to a secular prince-elector a Kurprinz (electoral prince).  The German element Kur- was based on the Middle High German irregular verb kiesen and was related to the English word "choose" (from the Old English ceosan, participle coren (having been chosen)) and the Gothic kiusan.  The modern German verb küren means "to choose" in a ceremonial sense.  Fürst is German for “prince” but while German distinguishes between the head of a principality (der Fürst) and the son of a monarch (der Prinz), English uses "prince" for both concepts.  Fürst is related to the English first and is thus the “foremost” person in his realm, “prince” being derived from the Latin princeps, which carried the same meaning.

In modern democratic systems, there’s quite a variety of electoral systems and a handful of states even make voting compulsory.  Although political operatives and theorists have constructed elaborate arguments in favor of one arrangement or another, it’s remarkable how, over a number of electoral cycles, the pattern of outcomes produces results which are strikingly similar.  One thing which tends to be common across different systems is that the actual dynamic of the electoral contest is the battle for the votes of a relative handful, the base support of the established parties, although there’s be a general tendency of decline, not falling below a certain critical mass.  So, all the clatter of election campaigns exists to convince a small part of the population to vote differently and these are the famous “swing” voters, those who can be persuaded to change.  Swing voters can bring joy or despair to political parties and in tight contests they’re a particular challenge because they can’t all be nudged to change by the same carrot or stick; some need to be offered hope, some need to be made fearful and some wish simply to be bribed.  The other problem with swing voters is they can swing back so they need again and again to be massaged.  Consider Lindsay Lohan who in 2008 endorsed Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) only to say in 2012 she was “as of now” backing Mitt Romney (b 1947; Republican candidate for president 2012).  Once, she referred to Sarah Palin (b 1964; Republican vice presidential nominee 2008) as a “narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe” yet, presumably using the same deductive process, found Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) was “good people”, a view expressed within a year of declaring herself anti-Brexit voice, a thing Trump supported.  There is of course no reason why people have to align themselves with everything a candidate supports and it seems unknown which way Lindsay Lohan has voted or even if she votes but her seasonal shifts are indicative of the difficulties the parties face and the reason they’re so attracted to the possibilities offered by mining big data so messaging can be scoped down to individual electors.  That's merely the latest refinement in advertising which has moved in less than a century from broadcasting to all, narrowcasting to groups to now messaging to each soul what they want to hear.

Porte-cochere

Porte-cochere (pronounced pawrt-koh-shair, pawrt-kuh-shair, pohrt-koh-shair or pohrt-kuh-shair)

(1) A porch or portico-like structure attached to a building through which a horse and carriage (or now a motor vehicle) can pass in order for the occupants to alight under cover, protected from the weather.

(2) A gateway for carriages in a building, leading from the street to an interior court.

1690–1700: From the French porte-cochère, literally “gate for coaches”, the construct being porte (gateway) + cochère (the feminine adjectival form of coche (coach). Porte was from the Latin porta (a gate or entrance) from the Proto-Italic portā, from the primitive Indo-European porteha, from per- (to pass through/over). It was cognate with the Ancient Greek πόρος (póros) (means of passage).  Cochere was from coche (stage-coach), from the Hungarian kocsi, via the German Kutsche or the Italian cocchio (and a doublet of coach) + -ière.  The –French ière suffix was the feminine equivalent of –ier, from the Old & Middle French –ier & -er, from the Latin -ārium, accusative of –ārius.  It was used to form names in many diverse fields such as botany, architecture, ship-building and chemistry.

The Sublime Porte, photographed in 1904.

Later known as The Imperial Gate (Bâb-ı Hümâyûn), the structure leading to the outermost courtyard of Topkapi Palace, was, until the eighteenth century, known as The Sublime Porte.  Known also as the Ottoman Porte or High Porte (باب عالی‎, Romanized as Bāb-ı Ālī or Babıali), Sublime Porte was a synecdoche for the central government of the Ottoman Empire in the same manner as the White House (US), Number 10 (UK), the Élysée (France) or the Kremlin (Russia).

The linkage which made the term Sublime Porte synecdochic of the Ottoman regime in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) was an old procedure in which the ruler delivered official pronouncements and sometimes judicial judgments at the gate of his palace of the palace.  It had been a frequent practice of Byzantine Emperors and was later adopted by Orhan I (Orhan Ghazi 1281–1362; second bey of the Ottoman Beylik 1323-1362) and thus the sultan’s palace became known as the Sublime Porte (High Gate).  The named moved with the sultan so after Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, the mystique once attached to the palace in Bursa, moved to the new imperial capital where, leading to the outermost courtyard of the Topkapı Palace, it was known variously as the "High Gate", the "Sublime Porte" or the “Imperial Gate” (Bâb-ı Hümâyûn).  The old imperial practice endures in modern politics as the “doorstop interview” although it’s become popular with politicians because having a lockable door immediately to their rear means there’s an easy and safe path with which to beat a rapid retreat when lies are detected or questions become too difficult.

Although uncommon, the term remains in use.  Eric Trump (b 1984) in a tweet described the structure at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas under which, in January 2024, an explosion was triggered in a Tesla Cybertruck, as the "porte cochère".

In fourteenth century Europe, French was the most widely-spoken language and in 1539, the King’s Court declared French to be the official language of government.  It was in this era too that diplomacy began to assume a recognisably modern form with an increasingly consistent use of titles, conventions and institutions and this extended sometimes to architecture.  After Francis I (1494-1547; King of France 1515-1547) and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (Suleiman I (سليمان اول‎) 1494–1566; Sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1520-1566) negotiated a treaty in 1536, the French emissaries walked through the al-Bab al-'Ali (High Gate) to meet with the Sultan’s ministers to place their seals on the document.  Because French was the language of diplomacy, the French translation “Sublime Porte” was immediately adopted in other European chancelleries and became not only the term for the structure but also the synecdoche which served as a metaphor for the government of the Ottoman Empire.  Among locals however, it was often referred to as the “Gate of the Pasha” (paşa kapusu).  Damaged by fire in 1911, the buildings are now occupied by the offices of the Governor of Istanbul.

1967 Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, 1963-1981) under the porte-cochere, Stamford Plaza Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Apostolic

Apostolic (pronounced ap-uh-stol-ik)

(1) Of or characteristic of an apostle.

(2) Pertaining to or characteristic of the twelve apostles.

(3) Derived from the apostles in regular succession as bishops.

(4) Of or relating to the pope as being chief successor of the apostles.

1540–1550: From the French apostolique (pertaining to, related to, or descended from the apostles), from the Church Latin apostolicus (apostolic), from the Ancient Greek ἀποστολικός (apostolikós) (apostolic), from apostolos.  The derived form apostolical emerged also in the fifteenth century.  The construct in the Church Latin apostolicus was apóstol(os) + -ic.  The suffix -ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Apostolic succession

Apostolic succession is the term describing the method through which the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church is held to derive its unique validity by virtue of an unbroken chain of succession from the twelve apostles (or disciples) of Christ.  The mechanics of this are that every bishop is ordained by a previously ordained bishop and that linkage reaches back two millennia to the apostles.  The purity of apostolic succession is an important part of the mystique of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican maintains the linkage is exclusive to them, the schism of 1534, in which Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) separated the English Church from Rome, sundering also the apostolic succession.  Fearing some doubts might exist, Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903; pope 1878-1903) in 1896 delivered Apostolicae Curae, stating all the Church of England’s ordinations were "…absolutely null and utterly void…".

In terms of canon law, it’s not hard to see the pontiff’s point but the English archbishops soon issued their retaliatory Saepius officio, a highly technical piece, offering a kind of elaborate Tu quoque defense which did little except answer questions nobody had asked.  Almost a century later, the Anglicans offered another, admittedly more convincing but still legalistic, argument based on Anglican consecrations since the 1930s being co-performed by bishops recognized by Rome, so, given the effluxion of time, all Anglican bishops were now also in the old Catholic succession; Apostolicae curae, while not invalid, had been rendered obsolete by events, most obviously the bishops in dispute having by then dropped dead.

The view probably never had any chance of being accepted by the Holy See but the Anglicans’ ordination of women and embrace of gay clergy ended all discussion.  In 1998, Cardinal Ratzinger (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the old Holy Office or Inquisition) issued a statement confirming Leo XIII’s view, adding ominously that anyone who denies such truths "... would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church".  There the matter has since rested.

Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) places hands on the head of newly ordained bishop Peter Bryan Wells (b 1963; apostolic nuncio to South Africa and Botswana, apostolic nuncio to Lesotho and Namibiaand & titular Archbishop of Marcianopolis since 2016) of the United States.  St Peter's Basilica, the Vatican, 19 March 2016.

Cardinal Pell’s appointment as a bishop was in an unbroken chain of apostolic succession from the twelve apostles of Jesus; by touch, he’s able to add links to the chain.  Within the Roman Curia (a place of Masonic-like plotting & intrigue and much low skulduggery), Cardinal Pell's nickname was “Pell Pot”, an allusion to Pol Pot (1925–1998, dictator of communist Cambodia 1976-1979) who announced the start of his regime was “Year Zero” and all existing culture and tradition must completely be destroyed and replaced.

Synod

Synod (pronounced sin-uhd)

(1) An assembly of ecclesiastics or other church delegates (particularly of a diocese), convoked pursuant to the law of the church, for the discussion and decision of ecclesiastical affairs (in various denominations such gatherings sometimes described as ecclesiastical councils or).

(2) An assembly or council having civil authority; a legislative body and used (sometimes loosely) of any council of any institution (in this context also used disparagingly of secular institutions thought becoming too rigid in thought or process.

(3) An (often geographical) administrative division or district in the structures of some churches, either the entire denomination or a mid-level division such as a “middle judicatory” or “district”); use of the word “synod” differs between and sometimes within denominations.

(4) In astronomy, a conjunction of two or more of the heavenly bodies.

1350–1400: From the Middle English synod (ecclesiastical council), from the Late Latin synodus, From the Ancient Greek σύνοδος (súnodos or sýnodos) (assembly, meeting; a coming together, a conjunction of planets), the construct being the English syn-(from the Ancient Greek σύν (sún) (with, in company with, together with) + ὁδός ((h)odós) (traveling, journeying; a manner or system (of doing, speaking, etc.); a way, road, path (the word of uncertain origin).  The term סַנְהֶדְרִין‎ (sunédrion) exists in the Hebrew Talmudic literature and was used in a similar way and the early twelfth century Middle English form was sinoth.  Synod was used in the Presbyterian Church between 1953-1922 in the traditional sense of “an assembly of ministers and other elders” when the term was changed to “General Council”, an act of modernization apparently provoked by the word “synod” beings so associated with the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England.  In the schismatic world of the Medieval Church, just as there were from time to time, “antipopes” (from the Medieval Latin antipāpa), there were also antisynods, convened as meetings of his supporters.  Synod and synodicon are nouns, synodic is an adjective, synodal is a noun & adjective, the noun plural is synods.

The adjective synodal (of or relating to a synod) was a mid-fifteenth century creation from the Late Latin synodalis.  As a noun, a synodal was (1) a constitution made in a provincial or diocesan synod which was subject to review by a central body or (2) a tribute in money formerly paid to the bishop or archdeacon (at the time of his Easter visitation), by every parish priest (now made to the ecclesiastical commissioners and in later versions of canon law referred to as a "procuration").  The adjective synodic dates from the 1630s and was from the Latin synodicus, from the Ancient Greek συνοδικός (sunodikós) (of or related to an assembly or meeting); the form used in the late sixteenth century was synodical.  When used of the conjunction of two or more of the heavenly bodies (the moon and the planets) described by the astronomers of Antiquity, the phenomenon may be called a “synodical revolution” and the time in which it occurs a “synodical month”. Despite sounding suspiciously modern, a synodicon is not associated with on-line video gaming.  The noun synodicon was from the Latin, from the Ancient Greek συνοδικόν (sunodikón) and was a substantivisation of συνοδικός (sunodikós) (synodical).  Institutionalized in modern Italianate Ecclesiastical Latin, it describes a document from a church synod or synods, especially the official records of proceedings.  A subsynod (sometimes as sub-synod) is either (1) an assembly of officials which meets prior to a synod proper to make administrative arrangements, formalize an agenda etc or (2) a kind of sub-committee of a synod which is created for some purpose such as allowing a technical matter to be discussed by experts before being referred to the full assembly of the synod for deliberation.

The noun synodality (the plural synodalities) is used in Christianity to refer (sometimes perhaps optimistically) to the “quality or style of a synod; the fraternal collaboration and discernment as typified in a synod”.  The origin of the word synod (the Ancient Greek συν (together) + ὁδός (journey) hints at the hopefully fraternal collaboration and discernment that such gatherings of ecclesiastical worthies are intended to be, the expression of this the essence of synodality.  The notion of synodality is a part of the mystique of the Roman Catholic Church because it’s said to denote the essence of the church’s mission, something explained by the Holy See's International Theological Commission (ITC) which states that synodality encapsulates “the specific modus vivendi et operandi (way of living & method of operation) of the Church, the People of God, which reveals and gives substance to her being as communion when all her members journey together, gather in assembly and take an active part in her evangelizing mission”.

The ITC is an organization of the Roman Curia which advises the magisterium of the church, most notably the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF, the old Holy Office which many still refer to by its original name: The Inquisition).  The IDF was a creation of the re-structuring in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965) and formerly was established in 1969 as a kind of internal think tank which might present a kinder face to the world than the rather austere Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the CDF (as the DDF was then known)).  That was an approach not unknown (for good & bad) in secular politics and while over the years there have been those who claimed the relationship between the ITC and the CDF was the sort of “creative tension” needed to ensure debates over matters of ethics and procedure stayed dynamic, others have seen the tension but little creativity.  For students of structuralism, it’s of interest the prefect of the DDF is ex officio the president of the ITC, an arrangement carried over in June 2022 when Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013), as a part of a range of reforms to the curia, announced the name change from CDF to DDF.

Pope Francis has made synodality (at least his conception of it) as perhaps the core value he intends to be the legacy of his pontificate and the ITC in 2018 published a paper which made explicit Francis was not modest in his ambitions for that legacy, the ITC’s document stating it was “…precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium” and stressed synodality “…is an essential dimension of the Church”, in the sense that “what the Lord is asking of us is already in some sense present in the very word 'synod’”.  Although presumably the pope and the ITC were more concerned with theology than etymology, tracing a tread which ran from the gathering of Christ’s disciples to the sessions of Vatican II in the 1960s, word nerds would anyway have enjoyed the thoughts:

In ecclesiastical Greek it expresses how the disciples of Jesus were called together as an assembly and in some cases it is a synonym for the ecclesial community. Saint John Chrysostom, for example, writes that the Church is a “name standing for 'walking together’ (σύνοδος)". He explains that the Church is actually the assembly convoked to give God thanks and glory like a choir, a harmonic reality which holds everything together (σύστημα), since, by their reciprocal and ordered relations, those who compose it converge in αγάπη and όμονοία (common mind).

Since the first centuries, the word “synod” has been applied, with a specific meaning, to the ecclesial assemblies convoked on various levels (diocesan, provincial, regional, patriarchal or universal) to discern, by the light of the Word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit, the doctrinal, liturgical, canonical and pastoral questions that arise as time goes by.

The Greek σύνοδος is translated into Latin as synodus or concilium. Concilium, in its profane use, refers to an assembly convoked by some legitimate authority. Although the roots of “synod” and “council” are different, their meanings converge. In fact, “council” enriches the semantic content of “synod” by its reference to the Hebrew   קָהָל(qahal), the assembly convoked by the Lord, and its translation into Greek as έκκλησία, which, in the New Testament, refers to the eschatological convocation of the People of God in Christ Jesus.

In the Catholic Church the distinction between the use of the words “council” and “synod” is a recent one. In Vatican II they are synonymous, both referring to the council session. A precise distinction was introduced by the Codex Iuris Canonici of the Latin Church (1983), which distinguishes between a particular (plenary or provincial) Council and an ecumenical Council on the one hand, and a Synod of Bishops and a diocesan Synod on the other hand.

5. In the theological, canonical and pastoral literature of recent decades, a neologism has appeared, the noun “synodality”, a correlate of the adjective “synodal”, with both of these deriving from the word “synod”. Thus people speak of synodality as a “constitutive dimension” of the Church or tout court of the “synodal Church”. This linguistic novelty, which needs careful theological clarification, is a sign of something new that has been maturing in the ecclesial consciousness starting from the Magisterium of Vatican II, and from the lived experience of local Churches and the universal Church since the last Council until today.

So for Francis, the word synodality has assumed an importance beyond that with which it has so long been vested in the Catholic Church so the Vatican watchers took note when, under the pope’s imprimatur, it was in October 2021 announced a summit to be conducted over two years was to be known as the Synod on Synodality.  It would have sounded an innocuous thing had it not been for the ITC’s paper three years earlier and it had the inevitable immediate effect among the clergy, the laity and the theologians: sniffing change in the air, some were hopeful and some fearful.  However, the pope, although thought by many a disruptor is also a realist and understands change in his 2000 year old institution will unfold among the generations to come and his immediate ambition seems restricted to tweaking the way the church relates to the rest of the world rather than overturning dogma.  Thus, expectations of welcoming the LGBTQQIAAOP in the church or approving the ordination of women are absurd but there may be changes in the way bishops both interact with their flock and the priests who are closer to that flock.  Just because a change doesn’t happen in the corridors of the Vatican where the curia plot and scheme, doesn’t mean the power structures haven’t changed.  The flock doesn’t mix with the curia; they talk to their parish priest.

Interestingly, for something some fear will be the harbinger of something radical, the Synod on Synodality is structured in the traditional (Vatican II style) modules with un-threatening names like "communion", "mission" & "participation" but however vague may be the indication of the content, few doubt that at the next session the factions will be mapping onto those titles the concerns which have for decades troubled Rome and it’ll be mostly about sex: whether the thousand-year enforcement of clerical celibacy is the underlying cause of the rampant child-sex abuse among its members, the role of women in the power structures and attitudes towards same-sex relationships including marriage.  Those discussions will play out between the factions and there are few with any hope there'll be many minds changed but the tone of the synod will be important and Francis has the advantage of being the absolute monarch in a theocracy; it is Francis who gets to review the synodicon the theologians and the bishops will submit and he will write the final document of the Synod on Synodality.

Working for more synodality in the world: Lindsay Lohan supporting the NOH8 campaign which sought to end California's 2008 voter-approved gay marriage ban (Proposition 8). 

It means Francis has immense power to shape things and point them in the desired direction and his contribution to ecclesiology is likely to be very different to the intriguing exercises in abstraction which came from the pen of Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022).  Whether that means it becomes simultaneously possible for the church simultaneously to continue to condemn homosexuality as a sin yet approve priests giving a blessing to those in a same-sex marriage remains to be seen but in many places, it would merely be an acknowledgement of what’s already happening.  Still, those who enjoy the process of such things more than the outcome can be assured there'll be much weeping and gnashing of teeth during the modules and some rending of garments on the way out.

Scrofulous

Scrofulous (pronounced skrof-yuh-luhs)

(1) In pathology, pertaining to, resembling, of the nature of, or affected with scrofula.

(2) In figurative use, degraded, morally tainted or degenerate.

(3) In figurative use, Having an unkempt, unhealthy appearance.

1605–1615: The construct was scroful(a) + -ous.  Scrofula (primary tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, especially those of the neck) dates from 1350–1400, from the Middle English scrofula (the plural), from the Medieval Latin scrophulosus & scrōfulae (swollen glands in the neck (literally “little sows”)), the construct being scrōf(a) (a sow) + -ulae (the plural suffix), the derivation explained by the belief breeding sows were particularly susceptible to the disease.  Scrofula is most common in children and is usually spread by unpasteurized milk from infected cows; No longer in technical use, scrofula was also known as “the king’s evil”; as part of the mystique of monarchy, the kings of England and France long pretended to possess the power of curing scrofula by touching the sore, a belief which endured and as late as the eighteenth century, there were still doctors who believed the only cure was to be touched by a member of a royal family.  Improvements in social conditions and treatment meant scrofula became a less common disease in adults by mid- twentieth century although it persisted in children.  With the spread of HIV-AIDS reaching critical mass in the 1980s, there was a resurgence in scrofula and it’s been linked also with monkeypox.  Despite the similarity is spelling, the word scruff is unrelated, being an Old English term for dandruff, the generalized sense of someone who is “rough and dirty” (and thus scruffy) dates from 1871.  Scrofulous is an adjective, scrofulously is an adverb and scrofulousness & scrofuloderma are nouns

The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Scott Morrison's five other jobs

Prime-Minister Scott Morrison in parliament while also holding five ministerial appointments.

The revelation former Australian prime-minister Scott Morrison (b 1968; prime minister of Australia 2018-2022), in much secrecy, had himself appointed himself to five ministerial roles in addition to being the head of government attracted some interest.  The public reaction was muted given the rather arcane administrative mechanisms involved but the usual suspects (journalists and political commentators) seemed to think it a great scandal, an opinion loudly and repeatedly expressed by Her Majesty’s loyal opposition who seemed most interested of all.  Others who had their attention stirred were those of his former colleagues (including the Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)) who were unaware they were job-sharing with the prime-minister until they read about it in the Murdoch press.

Between March 2020 and May 2021, Mr Morrison, on paper, appeared to centralize power in his office by becoming Australia's minister of health, finance, resources, home affairs and the treasury.  In practice, the powers accrued seem to have been exercised only once but that was in a way which appears to violate the agreement between the Liberal and National parties which provides the parameters for the coalition arrangements maintained in government.  Even that, whatever the political implications, doesn’t seem to suggest anything unlawful and the general conclusion which has emerged is that the additional appointments were constitutional.  Whether there are technical reasons which operate to mean the parliament should have been informed is a matter for debate but unarguably, to do so is at least a convention.

Minister for Health #1 & Minister for Health #2 (#2 a replica rather than a fake or imitation).

The This uncertainty and the opposition’s inability to cite specific unlawfulness is why the attack on Mr Morrison was received, outside of the usual suspects, with such indifference, the suggestion of a general moral scrofulousness hardly the same thing as a smoking gun.  What the strange tale did provide was an opportunity for the amateur psychoanalysts to ponder Mr Morrison’s motives and map them onto his well-known world view which is that of an evangelical, born-again Christian.  In justifying his actions because the COVID-19 pandemic meant “these were unprecedented times which required extraordinary measures” and that “no prime-minister… had faced the same circumstances” and added that "there was a clear expectation established in the public's mind, certainly in the media's mind, and absolutely in the mind of the opposition… that I, as Prime Minister, was responsible pretty much for every single thing that was going on".  It was an interesting observation given that almost immediately the pandemic was declared an ad-hoc “national cabinet” was convened, consisting of the prime-minister and the eight premiers & chief-ministers and there was at least as much focus on that eight as there was on the prime-minister.

That was of course inevitable because of the way the Australian constitutions divides the heads of power between the Commonwealth and the states and Mr Morrison, during the pandemic, showed little hesitation in ascribing responsibility for many unpopular measures to the premiers.  In that he was quite correct and there is little to suggest there was a public perception focused wholly on him.  Indeed, what the operations of governments during the pandemic did illustrate was just how extensive are the residual powers of the states, despite a century or more of centralization of power by the actions of the Commonwealth and decision of the High Court.  Still, Mr Morrison says he felt the way he did and was presumably content to be the savior of the nation at its moment of need, an intoxicating prospect for any politician.

Despite the frequency with which it’s used, no edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has ever used the term "messiah complex" (a desire and compulsion to redeem or save others or the world, a form of megalomania in which the individual experiences delusions of grandeur) although other diagnosis are listed which contain at least some of the elements which are understood as being identified with the syndrome.  Of course, there was also the matter of him not trusting some of his ministers to be sufficiently competent to deal with a genuine crisis and it has to be admitted some of his more average ministers (some of them very average) didn’t inspire confidence.

In the chair: Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference.  A Peace Conference at the Quai d’Orsay (1919), oil on canvas by William Orpen (1878–1931).

Those who believe in God, miracles, and that divine providence has chosen them for a special role probably don’t often trouble themselves with tiresome details, something the British diplomat Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) noted of Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924; US president 1913-1921) at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920): “That spiritual arrogance which seems inseparable from the harder form of religion had eaten deep into his soul”.  “This intellectual disability rendered him blindly impervious, not merely to human character, but also shades of difference.  He possessed no gift for differentiation, no capacity for adjustment to circumstances.  It was his spiritual and mental rigidity which proved his undoing.  It rendered him as incapable of withstanding criticism as of absorbing advice.  It rendered him blind to all realities which did not accord with his own preconceived theory, even to the realities of his own decisions”.

Most interesting perhaps is that the revelation of this matter is a story in itself and one which seems to confirm Mr Morrison’s sincerity of purpose in originally having himself created minister of this and that.  Because, in constitutional theory, ministers exercise the powers of the sovereign and many of those powers are limited to a particular minister, in a time of crisis, it can make things worse if a minister is unavailable.  Mr Morrison says he thought at the time the pandemic was declared, the information from overseas was dire and it wasn’t impossible that were the virus to take hold in Australia, it was not impossible ministers might drop dead (the Lord forbid, obviously) and it was thus a sensible precaution to have a backup for ministers serving in critical areas.  Not wishing to burden others, he assumed the duties himself.

Prime-ministerial intrusions into matters beyond their remit have over the years been a thread in a number of memoirs by members of cabinets who at times felt usurped but Mr Morrison's actually cloning and in parallel assuming another's constitutional authority was most unusual.  Some however were interested in other fields and, responding to accusations prime-minister Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) was too activist in the conduct of the war and too inclined to interfere in military tactics and strategy, the political cartoonist David Low (1891-1963) in 1942 commented by depicting the PM as a politician-cum-general-cum-admiral-cum-air-marshal.  There was something in the criticism in that much like Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and others not professional soldiers, Churchill was interested in grand strategy and the minutiae of detail like the calibre of shells but not the vast logistical & organizational operations which tend ultimately to determine success or failure.  Churchill certainly tried to exert influence on his military advisors in favor of his pet projects (of which there were many) and while some were inspired and (especially in the early stages of US involvement in the conflict) wise, the war effort was undoubtedly aided by the chiefs of staff resisting some of his more Napoleonic visions of battle, ensuring Quixotic ventures in the Baltic or the Far East never proceeded.                 

The multiple ministries Mr Morrison discussed some two years ago, in a matter-of-fact manner, with two journalists writing a book about the pandemic.  That this wasn’t revealed for two years seems to be simply because it was a good, juicy bit of the book which the authors didn’t wish to reveal in advance.  When it was published, it was mentioned just as an interesting aspect of pandemic management with not a hint it might be thought improper or even unusual, the secrecy mentioned but only in the sense of it be just one of the many things governments keep secret, so as not to frighten the horses.  It made the front page of the national daily but not as the headline, only a “color” piece rather than the lede, the details on page 2 while the main story was within, a discussion of the book.  Intriguingly for students for media management and the generation of moral panics, the media essentially ignored the story for two days before joining the opposition’s bandwagon attempting to paint the former prime-minister as morally scrofulous.  At that point it did get more interesting, Mr Morrison having appointed himself to five portfolios rather than the two he mentioned and that he’d actually once exercised the powers secretly vested and in a matter which had nothing to do with the pandemic.  What may be of interest is what's not (yet) known.  Whether the power Mr Morrison enjoyed as being minister of this and that was exercised to allocate public money for some purpose isn't known but if such allocations did in secret happen would be a matter pursue.  If the appointments were lawful (as all assume) there presumably any exercise of ministerial power would presumably also be lawful, however politically toxic it may retrospectively prove.  Case law will be of no guide because there have never been, as far as is known, any such cases.    

A quizzical look.  Mr Morrison, who still can't see what all the fuss is about.

Mr Morrison did call a press conference and there the evasive answers and obfuscation began.  His response to his actual exercise of one minister’s nominal authority was so carefully lawyered it should be a model answer for any law student explaining what a minister must do to conform with the demands of administrative law and in claiming he would publicly have advised of his appointment(s) had he exercised the power(s) was simply an untruth.  When asked why he’d vetoed something within the remit of the resources minister, he’d responded that it was within his power as prime-minister.  Still, however economical with the truth he may have been, all appears to have been lawful and presumably if God was that concerned about lying, he’d have added an eleventh commandant.