Subject: (urth) Saint Catherine and the Nature of the Flood

From: Jordon Flato <jordonflatourth at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:37:38 +0000

So, I haven't chimed in for a while (and haven't really had anything
urth-shattering to add in any event), but a few things from recent
discussions have caught my eye and brought up questions for me.

1)  Christianity in the world of Urth
The question has been around a long time, no?  Was there Christianity in
the past of Urth, or is this a universe without Christ?  Is this a universe
which prefigures ours, with echos of the Christian story in it, but without
the physical incarnation of Christ which would enact the salvic effect of
that incarnation?  My question, which I can't recall seeing discussion of,
but doubtless has in fact been picked apart and answered in a number of
ways already, is this:

If the guild of torturers practices a rite central to their mythology and
close to the very nature of their order, a rite which involves a character
named Catherine who's story we can easily and readily track to the real and
actual Saint Catherine of our world, doesn't that strongly indicate the
presence, in the distant past of Urth, of a real Christianity?  The very
existence of saints, and of this one in with details so similar to the
details of the story we know of Saint Catherine, seems to beg the question
for me.  How could you have her story without having first had Christ?
 What sorts of 'close but not identical' circumstances could have existed
to give rise to this exceptionally similar story to our own?

Is this simply a function and artifact of the translation gimmick?  Gene
Wolfe the discoverer of the manuscript attempting to translate
untranslatable elements by placing in terms and whole myths with which we
are familiar?

What has past thinking on this board done with this question?

So, now, and
2)  The Flood:  Is it a spiritual act of renewal/genocide, or pretty much
just a physical by-product of the gravitational effect of the white
fountain giving the sun the ol' hot beef injection?  It was recently
pointed out that in the future of Master Ash, most humans had escaped and
dispersed to the four corners of the universe.  This was, no doubt, a much
better outcome for the individuals of Urth, many if not most of whom could
have gone on to live lives of some meaning and worth.  Better than being
drowned, for sure.  But the Heiro's have a plan.  They want to turn Man
into themselves, they want to uplift us, if we prove worthy.  Severian
passes that test, and man is found worthy, but not *as he is*.  Gather the
wheat and burn the chaff.  If man has been shown to have the potential for
evolving into the next stage, there must be the correct setting for such
(the renewal of the Urth's resources as Ushas) and the removal and washing
clean of all of the habits, traits and declining traditions which brought
Humanity into the negative judgement in the first place, said judgement
having resulted in the black hole sun.

In this sense, I think Severian, and the qualities which have been honed in
him by his magnificent journey, takes on perhaps his most 'christian' role
off stage in the series.  I wish I had the book in front of me, but the few
things he says to the new Humanity on Ushas sound very Christlike to me.
 Looked at as a god, his every word will serve as, at least in part, the
basis for a new moral direction for man.  Urth and Severian have both been
put through the fire, and what is left is metal ready to be tempered to a
finer degree than what was possible before.  So there is a physical and yet
quite spiritual dimension to the flooding of Urth.
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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:37:30 +0000

Hi, Jordon. Good to "see" you.

Jordon Flato wrote:

> presence, in the distant past of Urth, of a real Christianity? “The very
> for me. ?How could you have her story without having first had Christ” “What
> sorts of 'close but not identical' circumstances could have existed to give
> rise to this exceptionally similar story to our own”
>
> Is this simply a function and artifact of the translation gimmick?

I'm inclined to think so -- indeed, the translator seems to substitute
saints' names for whatever past/future terminology people of the
Commonwealth use to name themselves. (And it won't do to say that
those names are direct; look how much the names of well-known saints
have changed in common usage after just two thousand years: e.g.,
Cephas --> Petrus --> Peter.)

The concept of saints isn't intrinsically Christian, either; Buddhism
has something that we translate as "Buddhist saints."

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at clueland.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:27:23 +0000

On 3/14/2012 3:37 PM, Jordon Flato wrote:
> But the Heiro's have a plan.  They want
> to turn Man into themselves, they want to uplift us, if we prove worthy.

Argh!!! Tzadkiel spells it out: A humanlike race became the godlike 
Hieros and ascended from Briah. Their forsaken servant creatures became 
the angelike Yesodis and called themselves Hierogrammates and Hierarchs 
and Hierodules, but by the time they ascended from Briah to Yesod, the 
Hieros were gone. The Yesodis now seek to guide and manipulate humanity 
into becoming like the Hieros so the Yesodis can ascend with them.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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From: Jordon Flato <jordonflatourth at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 23:05:25 +0000

Jeff, yes, that was what I was trying to say.  Thanks.  I didn't take the
time to lay it out correctly.  My main point is that this uplifting of
humanity is the purpose of the flood, not just as a consequence of the
White Fountain.

Dan'l,

Clearly a lot of the Saints names were added by the translator, we know
this.  But, it's the RITUAL that I'm concerned with.  Did the translator
add that in?  Because the wheel, the roses, the striking off of the head,
all of that is REALLY from Catherines story, regardless of her name.  That
is the story of Saint Catherine.  So, did the translator completely add in
all of that for some reason?  Or did all of that stuff really occur to
Severian.  And if it happened, it is following the story of a Christian
Saint, who wouldn't have existed to generate the story if there hadn't been
a Christianity.

And, if we ARE saying that he added in or manipulated that element of the
story, then every single detail of Sev's journey becomes so suspect as to
become nearly meaningless (which of course is very Wolfean anyway).

So how about that?

On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at clueland.com> wrote:

> Argh!!! Tzadkiel spells it out: A humanlike race became the godlike Hieros
> and ascended from Briah. Their forsaken servant creatures became the
> angelike Yesodis and called themselves Hierogrammates and Hierarchs and
> Hierodules, but by the time they ascended from Briah to Yesod, the Hieros
> were gone. The Yesodis now seek to guide and manipulate humanity into
> becoming like the Hieros so the Yesodis can ascend with them.
>
> --
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> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
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From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:47:23 +0000

No dia 14/03/2012, ?s 22:27, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at clueland.com> escreveu:

> Argh!!! Tzadkiel spells it out: A humanlike race became the godlike Hieros and ascended from Briah. Their forsaken servant creatures became the angelike Yesodis and called themselves Hierogrammates and Hierarchs and Hierodules, but by the time they ascended from Briah to Yesod, the Hieros were gone. The Yesodis now seek to guide and manipulate humanity into becoming like the Hieros so the Yesodis can ascend with them.

Why don't we call them yerus, or better yet yarus.

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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:00:09 +0000

On 3/14/2012 9:47 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
> No dia 14/03/2012, ?s 22:27, Jeff Wilson<jwilson at clueland.com>  escreveu:
>

Yahoos?

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From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:08:56 +0000

Perfect! 'Yahoos' it is. Jeff?

No dia 15/03/2012, ?s 02:00, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> escreveu:

> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at clueland.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:55:11 +0000

> Perfect! 'Yahoos' it is. Jeff?

It may prevent their confusion with the Hieros, but replacing that with 
the confusion about why they're called yahoos doesn't strike me as a 
particularly gainful exchange.

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:57:26 +0000

> From: Jordon Flato <jordonflatourth at gmail.com>

...

>Dan'l,
>
>
>Clearly a lot of the Saints names were added by the translator, we know this. “But, it's the RITUAL that I'm concerned with. ?Did the translator add that in” “Because the wheel, the roses, the striking off of the head, all of that is REALLY from Catherines story, regardless of her name. ?That is the story of Saint Catherine. ?So, did the translator completely add in all of that for some reason” ?Or did all of that stuff really occur to Severian. ?And if it happened, it is following the story of a Christian Saint, who wouldn't have existed to generate the story if there hadn't been a Christianity.

I don't think that follows. Universes are similar to each other, and might affect each (through "morphic resonance"?). So maybe there could have been a very Catherine-like story, and even a very Christianity-like religion, without an incarnation.

Jerry Friedman

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From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:46:37 +0000

>Jeff Wilson: But, it's the RITUAL that I'm concerned with.  Did 
>the translator add that in?  Because the wheel, the roses, the 
>striking off of the head, all of that is REALLY from Catherines 
>story, regardless of her name. 
 
>Jerry Friedman: Universes are similar to each other, and might affect 
>each (through "morphic resonance"?).  
 
Yes. Or you could argue that earth culture such as Catherine's story,
Frankenstein and the Rubiyat have echoed down the corridors of time
back to Urth, as Dr. Talos describes.
 
You could argue that Urth cannot be earth because it would mean God
is breaking his Covenant with a second Flood. Or you could argue that
humanity has changed sufficiently to the point that the Covenant was
rendered null and void.
 
Like many other points of contention in Wolfe's work, the evidence is a 
Necker cube or Old Lady/Young Lady, and can be seen differently from 
different perspectives. Both are correct. The incorrect position is 
asserting that there is only one way to see it properly.

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at clueland.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:39:23 +0000

>> story, regardless of her name.

thricetimes Argh!! I did not say this.