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Oversights Helping Hands It was at the meeting of the Collegium Phaenomenologicum at Città di Castello in the summer of 2003 that some of us learned that Derrida was seriously ill. In the Museo del Duomo in that town hangs Pinturicchio’s “Madonna with Child and Saint John.” On a card reproducing a photograph of this painting which I sent to Derrida I drew his attention to “the unbelievable play of their hands”:1 the way the positions of the fingers and thumb of the Virgin’s left hand, with the thumb and the little finger stretched out from the other three fingers like the arms of a crucifix, match those of the fingers of the crossed hands of Saint John clasping the Bible to his chest. Her first three fingers are grouped together in order to symbolize the Holy Trinity. The Son holds up only the first and second finger, He Himself being the Signifier and Signified of the third member of the Trinity. I also pointed to the way she, handmaiden, doulē, ancilla, Magd, servante of him who “hath holpen his servant Israel: as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever,” is helping her son to hold up his right hand as with it he makes the sign of blessing over the head of Saint John, toward which his gaze is directed. Her gaze too is directed toward the saint’s head, but by way of the hand that she, main tenant, is assisting her son to hold up. A mutual aid society? At least a family scene in THIRTEEN 238 | margins Of religiOn which each member helps each other directly or indirectly. But can this aid be mutual, given that the family has a head? Hierarchy need not mean that the father can receive no help from those under his direction. Even a father can cry, “Help.” Help might be forthcoming even from the direction of the so far unmentioned Gentiles. And it is to questions of direction, directness, indirection , and drawing attention that are directed the words I am directing to you now, maintenant. The names of two of the Gentiles just mentioned are also mentioned in the picture of a scene that the scene in Pinturicchio’s picture calls up. Another Pinturicchio Mother and Child hangs in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Walking east from that building, along the frontages of Balliol and Trinity colleges , you pass the spot where an archbishop of Canterbury who had a hand in composing the Book of Common Prayer held that hand out into the flames that were about to consume him. You come then to the Bodleian Library. One of the manuscripts in that library is Matthew Paris’s The Prognostics of Socrates the King. This is the fortune-telling book the frontispiece of which is reproduced on the cover of Derrida’s The Post Card and on postcards sold at the Library shop. We read in the latter book that at least one correspondent who contributes to it purchased a pile of those cards.2 One of these cards, its picture facing us, can be seen in the photograph on page 15 of Jacques Derrida, comprising Derridabase and Circonfessions, attributed respectively to Geoffrey Bennington and Jacques Derrida.3 In the photograph Derrida is shown seated at the computer in his study at his home at Ris-Orangis with Geoff Bennington standing behind him and pointing toward the screen. In the picture reproducing Matthew Paris’s illustration Plato stands behind a seated Socrates who writes, contrary to the legend subscribed to by Nietzsche that Socrates never wrote a word. Socrates writes apparently according to the directions of Plato, whose left hand is stretched out so that Socrates can see it with its pointer-finger raised in hodegetria : “He is showing the direction.”4 With the pointer-finger of his right hand Plato seems to be prodding Socrates in the back as though he wishes either to add emphasis to what he wants Socrates to write down or to get him to turn around and look him in the face. Plato is alarmed. His eyes bulge and his brow is wrinkled. Socrates’ eyes are fully concentrated on the task of charging his stylus with ink. His lips are sealed. Plato’s mouth is open, as though he is struck by wonder at what he is saying—that wonder, thaumazein, with which he says philosophy begins—or else simply wondering what he should say. Socrates’ left...

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