Commentary for Avodah Zarah 85:9
מגדף בה רבי חנינא ולית ליה לרבי אלעזר הקפר בריבי הא דתנן המציל מן הארי ומן הדוב ומן הנמר ומן הגייס ומן הנהר ומזוטו של ים ומשלוליתו של נהר והמוצא בסרטיא ופלטיא גדולה ובכל מקום שהרבים מצוין שם הרי אלו שלו מפני שהבעלים מתייאשין מהן
R. Hanina ridiculed this ruling: Does not R. Elazar Hakkappar Berebbi agree with the following teaching: If a person rescued something from a lion, bear, leopard, or from a robber, a river, or from what the tide throws up, or the overflow of a river; or if a person finds something in a public thoroughfare or in a place where many people congregate, behold the object belongs to him because the owner despairs of recovering it!
Daf Shevui to Avodah Zarah
R. Hanina quotes a baraita from Bava Metzia. According to this baraita, when people lose something in a place from which they assume that the object will not be recoverable, they despair of recovering it. The object then may be kept by the finder. R. Hanina posits that just as the person who lost the object assumes he will not recover it, he also annuls it as being an idol. So why then does R. Elazar demand that some random idolater annul it?
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