{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5232",
    "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": 5232,
    "subject": "Urth Digest, Vol 51, Issue 44",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2008-11-20T21:15:08+00:00",
    "last": "2008-11-20T21:15:08+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<4925D35C.1040409@verizon.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David Stockhoff",
        "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net"
      },
      "date": "2008-11-20T21:15:08+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 51, Issue 44",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Let me clarify my thought.\n\nI meant that it's almost as though Wolfe read Tertullian (or the debate \nhe was part of) and and responded to him by deliberately constructing a \ncharacter according to those severe Christian prohibitions /as though \nthey were precise specifications/: a Christ figure who is everything \nChrist's followers cannot be. Why these specifications and not others?\n\nI think this goes beyond \"sin\" and repugnance, neither of which is \nmentioned here. It's a question of temporal  authority vs spiritual \nauthority, at least. But we knew that."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "------------------------------\n\nMessage: 4\nDate: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:54:21 -0500\nFrom: \"John Watkins\" <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>\nSubject: Re: (urth) Severian as reverse Christ (or something)\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" <urth at lists.urth.net>\nMessage-ID:\n\t<93d4039f0811201154v58204796p2fadecf2753008b9 at mail.gmail.com>\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"windows-1252\"\n\nNaturally it's applicable to Severian.  Wolfe makes it pretty clear, I\nthink, that he finds Severian's profession to be repugnant.\n\nSeverian's journey, unlike the journey of Christ, is out of great sin into,\nwell, maybe not exactly virtue, but into lesser sin.  He's a better person\nat the end than at the beginning.\n\n\nOn 11/20/08, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:\n  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Recent lurker, first-time poster. Please excuse any formatting offenses!\n\nAs part of blog discussion on another topic, someone sent me a link\nregarding the historical development of Catholic positions on torture:\n\nhttp://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html\n\nAnd the following caught my eye (the middle part):\n\n\n*A1. Tertullian (3rd century).* This early representative of patristic\nthought follows the radically pacifist tendency of not a few Christians at\nthat time who tended to take the Gospel's 'counsels of perfection' as\nuniversally binding precepts. Certainly, in Tertullian's judgment, any\ncomplicity in torture — either ordering it or personally applying it — is\ndefinitely ruled out for a disciple of Jesus. Arguing that no soldier, after\nconverting to Christianity, should continue in the army, especially given\nits pagan character, he asks rhetorically,\n\n\"[S]hall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become\nhim even to sue at law? And shall *he* apply the chain, and the prison, *and\nthe torture*, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own\nwrongs?\"*1 <http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html#FN_1>*\n\nIn similar vein, discussing \"what offices a Christian man may hold\", he\nrefers to a recent case wherein a Church member had the opportunity to\nreceive high public office as a magistrate. Tertullian argues that it would\nbe morally impossible for this man to satisfy both the Gospel's demands and\nthose of Roman law, for that would require him to abstain not only from all\npublic pagan sacrifices, oaths, etc., but also from \"sitting in judgment on\nanyone's life or character, . . . neither condemning nor fore-condemning;\nbinding no one, imprisoning *or torturing no one*\".*2<http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html#FN_2>\n* These are the earliest known explicit Christian statements on the\nmorality of torture.\n\n\nI have no argument to make here---I merely find the references to binding\netc.very applicable to Severian. It's almost a summary of his daily routine.\n(Recall that \"lictor\" means \"he who binds.\")\n\nCan Christ not be a Christian?\n\nDavid Stockhoff\n\n------------------------------\n\n    "
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}