What's So Great About Ushas

John Watkins · 19 Jul 2008, 14:28 · from 2008-July.txt.gz
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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:28:03 -0400
Subject: (urth) What's So Great About Ushas
In-Reply-To: <BAY103-W9008FF80353AE47792143D7880 at phx.gbl>
References: <BAY103-W9008FF80353AE47792143D7880 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <93d4039f0807190728p1b5dbaadwcbfed472235a9c49 at mail.gmail.com>

At least one quibble--"Tzadkiel" is the name of an angel in the Jewish
mystical tradition.  That tradition, like the Kabbalah, is outside the
Christian tradition.  Catholics normally confine the list of
archangels to the three named in Scriptural sources:  Michael,
Gabriel, Raphael.  I feel this is significant because Wolfe, in his
interview with James B. Jordan says in reference to the cabalistic
material he used  "I have the great disadvantage of not believing in
it and so I can't get so caught up in it as cabalist really do. To me
it was someplace that I could steal ideas and names from."

Interestingly, in that same interview, Wolfe calls Tzadkiel "an angel
of justice," whereas according to Jewish tradition, Tzadkiel is an
angel of mercy, identified with the "angel of the Lord" who stops
Abraham from sacrificing Isaac.  So that's part of my response to your
point about what "angels" do in the Old Testament--to point out that
according to tradition Tzadkiel, at least, rejects human sacrifice,
the very thing Wolfe's Tzadkiel seems to delight in--"The
death-agonies of the world you know will be offered to the Increate.
And they will be indescribable."

The other part of my response is more complicated, so I'll just give
it in brief--I would be very surprised if Wolfe turned out to be a
literal believer in the Flood, but the Flood, at any rate, is God's
work, not the work of angels.  So to were the fall of the walls at
Jericho and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Your other
examples are not examples of genocide or of divine or angelic
action--the Midianites lost a decisive military encounter after God
gave Gideon some tactical tips, the Amorites were defeated by Joshua
and show up later as a peaceful neighbor of Israel, the Philistines
were eventually wiped out by the Babylonian Empire after several wars
with the Hebrews, etc.  You missed the Assyrian army wiped out by an
angel, but it'd be a waste of time to explain how an angel destroy an
invading army is a poor analogy to artificial lifeforms created by
futuristic humans can drown an entire planet's population.

A further question.  If Wolfe is so gung-ho about an allegedly
bloodthirsty God with equally bloodthirsty angels, where are they
outside the New Sun books?  Is Michael in the Wizard Knight so
bloodthirsty?  Are the gods promoting war and human sacrifice in the
Long Sun the Increate, or the false gods?  Does SilkHorn's (who's
fairly dialed-in the the Increate, what with the theophanies) approach
to the inhumi in Short Sun reflect the ethics of Jesus Christ, or the
ethics of Tzadkiel of the Urth of the New Sun?

I do agree whole-heartedly with one of your sentences, however.  "The
name Tzadkiel seems already more obvious than usual."  Quite
so--suspiciously so.



On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 10:53 PM, b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Paul B, I'm not sure if your last post clarified things for me. I don't begrudge you
> dodging my nosy question about your faith but I am still not sure if you
> are saying you don't think Gene Wolfe intended Hierogrammates to be angels or if
> it is your opinion they are not a good representation of what angels should be like.
>
> John Watkins explicitly states he intends to present arguments for Gene Wolfe's intentions
> and gives a list of pros and cons. I think there is a glaring omission in the list of pros and a
> mistake in the list of cons which is continually repeated in this discussion.
>
> Missing in the list of pros is that the only Hierogrammate we see (Apheta and Venant and
> the other larvae are named Hierarchs) is named "Tzadkiel". This name, like Michael or
> Gabriel IS the name of a judeo-christian arch-angel.  I don't see how much less
> circumstantial the evidence could be. I suppose Wolfe could have called them "Angels"
> all through the text instead of Hierogrammates but I can't think he'd ever stoop to hitting
> his readers over the head with such a blunt instrument as that. The name Tzadkiel seems
> already more obvious than his usual.
>
> The mistake in the list of cons is to say that the Hierogrammates cannot be angels or connected
> to God because they engage in the "morally dubious, if not outright evil" behavior such as
> genocide (I presume). How can it be ignored that God and angels commit genocide left and right in the
> Bible? The Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the 10th Plague, the Red Sea on the Egyptian army,
> Jericho, the Midianites, the Amorites, the Phillistines, the list goes on and on. How can God and
> angels be re-defined as being incapable of genocide when that's one of the main things they do?
>
> I think only a secular humanist could redefine them as gentle caretakers of precious human life
> (which is why it would be more interesting if Paul B was Christian or Jewish).  I see no evidence
> that Gene Wolfe is a secular humanist and I find it really hard to conceive that he meant
> Hierogrammates to represent anything but angels.  They look like angels, they act like angels
> they are named like angels, they live in a higher, heavenly plane like angels.....
> ah well. Perhaps it's just me that sees it.
>
> -bsharp
>
>
>
>
> >I don't know about Paul, but I'd be more interested if we focus on the
> question of whether the Hierogrammates are intended to be (unfallen) angels
> by Gene Wolfe.  Without my books at hand, the argument for this appears to
> be:
>
> 1)  "Holy" is part of their name.
>
> 2)  Tzadkiel has a winged form that Severian identifies as an angel.
>
> 3)  Severian thinks Hierogrammates serve the Increate.
>
> 4)  Wolfe referred to Tzadkiel as an "angel" in an interview.
>
> The argument against the Hierogrammates being angels, as I understand it, is
>
> 1)  Catholic theology posits that angels are perfectly moral, but the
> Hierogrammates frequently engage in morally dubious if not outright evil
> behavior.
>
> 2)  Hierogrammates, unlike angels, are not direct creations of God.
>
> 3)  Most of the arguments that Hierogrammates are angels are hearsay.
>
> I think these are both colorable arguments, but I come down on the "not"
> side.  The Hierogrammates are obviously *spoken of *as angels, but they are
> just as obviously not two things that are *essential *to the meaning of the
> word "angel.">
>
>
>
>
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