@Ghost-of-a-Duke
How is it irrelevant?
What is irrelevant is the quality of appreciating forgoing knowledge / wisdom has to do with the TIME in history when such a virtue is had.
John of Salisbury wrote in his Metalogicon: "Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature."
John of Salisbury said it first.
You think no one ever had this attitude before John of Salisbury made note of it? Why should we believe he invented such an attitude?
As such I tip my hat to the original quote, not those who parroted it centuries later.
I thought you tipped your hat [edited] to the quality of the attribute of recognizing one has to give credit to predecessors.
I'm sure you don't think such a thing STARTED with your quoter.
(Mentioning Paul and Luther was the irrelevant thing, as they were the subjects of the quote, not the author of it).
Here's the relevancy. In a quality you admire HERE, I, in another thread pointed out was possessed by Witness Lee. That's the fellow you were working hard at to disqualify as a decent human being.
If the quality is to be admired over here with Bernard of Chartres and/or John of Salisbury, I mentioned that the trait was also admired by some Christians concerning Witness Lee and Watchman Nee, who both admitted the very same appreciation to predecessors.
"But my guy said it first" is irrelevant to the quality of the virtue.
Is it not to be respected in someone who may have said something similar a thousand years earlier ? Is it less to be admired because in some other area someone else confessed a similar gratitude 300 years from now ?