How are his studies of Messianism progressing? W. is burrowing back through Rosenzweig and Cohen to Schelling, whose books he can only get hold of in Gothic script. He can't read Gothic script, he says. Nevertheless, he's made some discoveries, says W. It's all to do with infinite judgements, he says. And the infinitesimal calculus.
Messianism's got nothing to do with mysticism, says W. He can't abide mysticism. It's maths, it's all about maths! He can't do maths, W. says. There's some great flaw in him which prevents him really understanding Messianism. But then too it might have something to do with the two kinds of the negative in ancient Greek, W. says. The two kinds of privation, the second of which is not really a kind of privation. It's like the in- of infinite, W. says, which is not simply an absence of the infinite.
But W.'s studies of ancient Greek are not progressing well, he says. It's the aorist, it defeats him every time. W.'s bumping his head against the ceiling of his intelligence, he says. I often have that feeling, I tell him. No, you're just lazy, W. says. What are your thoughts on Messianism? I tell him I have no thoughts on Messianism.