While the priest finds Oidipous’s response to be fully adequate to the suppliants’ prayers, the audience has the sense that he is only so to the extent that the present and potent god can be seen to be working through him. The priest, however, clearly does not recognize the fact that the god appears now to be making public declarations. Despite his office, the priest seems to be no more sensitive than Oidipous to the god’s presence. It is not, then, the office that bestows perspicacity, but something akin to sensitivity to the possibility of the god’s desire to help and capacity to speak through mortal speech and act through media such as natural disaster. [Mpei] [Apcmu] [Apaon]