{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3302", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3302, "subject": "Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is the Holy", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-06-10T19:05:26+00:00", "last": "2002-06-11T06:23:52+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-06-10T19:05:26+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is the Holy", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Andrew writes again..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... by the end of the _Short Sun_ it's pretty obvious that the\nOutsider is the Holy Trinity, especially with the (re) introduction of\nthe eucharist. That aside, this leaves some concerns..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I'd say \"it's pretty clear that the Outsider is the God of\nChristianity.\" The entire theology of the Trinity seems to be\nuntouched by the texts (though the Person of Jesus is, as you \nobserve, mentioned without name in a few places). \n\nSo what is happening here? There is some reason in the Long/Short \nSun texts to suppose that some form of church which worshipped the\nGod known in the _Whorl_ as the Outsider, was present in the world \nfrom which the _Whorl_ was launched. The Chrasmologic Writings \nmention, briefly, the man whom the Outsider had both enlightened\nand possessed, and wound up crucified.\n\nSo Typhon and his brood create the _Whorl,_ a place in which they\ncan be as gods; they brutally try to suppress all memory of the\nreligions of Urth. Yet hints of these religions creep through, so\nthat the \"Vironese Faith\" rather resembles Temple Judaism, albeit\nwith many Gods; so that the Trivigauntes have a religion very similar\nto Islam, except with the sexual roles reversed; and so that there\nis even some vague memory of the Incarnation.\n\nIn the protagonists of the Long and Short Sun books, the Outsider \n(that is, God) begins once again to break through to a captive\npeople, to tell them the truth about who He is and what He wants\nof them. These protagonists fill prophetic roles, and participate\nin varying ways in reinstituted and reconstituted sacraments.\n\nBut what _is_ the Incarnation that is so vaguely remembered?\n\nWolfe has on several times suggested that the world of the _Sun_\nbooks is _not_ our future, but a past \"cycle\" of creation; if so,\nthen the Incarnation that we know of has not yet happened. It would\nbe theologically difficult to suggest that the Incarnation, and \nespecially the once-for-all Sacrifice happens again and again in \nsuccessive universal cycles ... though, in fact, it happening \n\"again and again\" could, from at least a Catholic point of view,\nbe simplified to it happening once, and the other \"occurrences\"\nare \"participation\" in the one occurrence, as the sacrifice of the\nMass participates in it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "During his enlightenment, Silk sees what one could well assume is\nJesus being taken down from the cross. Now, if this is the case,\nit seems that He has taken his time about returning, to say the least. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I don't want to get into a religious debate; I'd say that Wolfe\nmost likely has an attitude similar to that of many Catholics, especially\nmany American Catholics: which is that the eschatological sayings of the \nNew Testament are to be taken in a different light from their obvious \nliteral sense. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Indeed, it also appears that the sacraments and Church have lapsed,\nand it seems rather unlike the Nicene God to allow His Church to\nfade out for several hundred thousand years." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, yes; but then, Christians of many stripes seem to have no problem\nwith that idea. Some Protestants seem to have the idea that there was\nno real Church from shortly after the death of the Apostles until the\nReformation. Some Catholics seem to have the idea that the real Church\nwas suppressed at (or until) one or other of the Vatican councils. Etc.\nAnd if my hypothesis is true, that there was some such church in the \ntime of Typhon, then there probably has been no lapse at all, except \non board the _Whorl_. (Even Severian, if I am not mistaken, has heard \nrumors of the Incarnation; but we get no real details of the religious\nbeliefs and practices of his time.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Furthermore, it seems that at the end of _Urth of the New Sun_, he's\nsomewhat violating His promise never again to destroy the \nworld again by water. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, assuming that this is an earlier universal cycle, one can weasel\neven easier by saying that the promise hasn't yet happened ... but I\nthink that the Urth isn't _destroyed_ by water, it's renewed by water.\nIn fact, one could claim that it's baptised, as Severian himself is in\nthe opening chapter of tBotNS, \"Death and Resurrection.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I guess one could weasel out of this by saying that it's\nSeverian who did it, but since the Hierodules (who serve Tzadkiel, who\nbeing an angel is under the Increate)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, if I recall, Tzad is a Hierogrammate. But I could be wrong." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-06-11T06:23:52+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is the Holy", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 10/06/2002 15:56:39 James Jordan wrote:\n.... remember that Urth is a universe-cycle before ours. These events\npredate the promise to Noah by about 50 billion years maybe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What tells us this?\n\nMatthew" } ] } ] }