# Digest urth.v002.n012 *The Urth list — 2 messages, 1 voices, 29 Jun 1997* > 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. --- ### Alice Turner *29 Jun 1997, 22:34* Sarcos (that's a Vironese name?---as if!) >> Agia's casual reference to the Theoanthropos (the only such reference >> in >> the quintet) is equivalent to one of us saying "Jumping Jehosaphat!" > Bwah ha ha ha! Yer kidding rite? "casual" references? mentioned "only" > once? That's supposed to mean it isn't important or significant? This is > *Wolfe*, you algid hearted pond-scum! ( :-) ) > > We only say Jehoshephat because there was someone of that name. How does > Agia know of any theoanthropos? Well, I'm presuming she can read. And if she can't read, there are stories, an oral tradition. How do we know of Hercules or Hecuba? And the subject originally related to whether Severian is a Christian. Care to offer your proof that he is? Suckah? -pondscum- --- ### Alice Turner *29 Jun 1997, 23:03 · follows Alice Turner* I put that badly. The point really is that one can say "Jumping Jehosaphat!" without having the foggiest idea of who (or what) Jehosaphat was, simply because it's ingrained in tradition, like saying "Geshundeit!" when someone sneezes, whether or not you believe in demons. Agia makes a casual, throwaway reference. The reference is not picked up as significant by Severian, nor is it a plot point anywhere else in the quintet. I take it that there is a traditional story of such a character, perhaps in the Brown Book, but certainly somewhere in the long rich half-forgotten history of Urth. And since my own position is that Severian himself is a form of that character, then, yes, indeed there is significance in Agia's throwaway line. -alga- ---