Severian as reverse Christ (or something)

David Stockhoff · 21 Nov 2008, 13:16 · from 2008-November.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:16:09 -0500
Subject: (urth) Severian as reverse Christ (or something)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1227218986.14328.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
References: <mailman.1.1227218986.14328.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <4926B499.3040007 at verizon.net>

My attempt at clarification may have gotten lost because I mistitled my 
second post. I'll try one more time.

I've read very little about Wolfe, or Wolfe's ideas about Wolfe, or 
other people's ideas about Wolfe---I have only read all of Wolfe. So I 
am happy to be corrected or told that I don't have a new idea. I'll 
assert it more forcefully this time:

Tertullian is a direct source of the character Severian. (See the 
footnotes I added below.)

Wolfe did not come up with a torturer Christ (and let's face it, Christ 
is a fictional character, so it makes little difference whether Severian 
IS or IS NOT "Christ" although it makes for an interesting discussion) 
because he was reading Hannah Arendt about the banality of evil, or 
about the Nuremburg trials, or the crimes of Beria or Stalin or Tiberius 
or whoever. He came up with the torturer Christ in part because he read 
these passages of Tertullian.

That is my theory and it is mine. (Wish I knew how to apply formatting.)

David

*A1. Tertullian (3rd century).* This early representative of patristic
thought follows the radically pacifist tendency of not a few Christians at
that time who tended to take the Gospel's 'counsels of perfection' as
universally binding precepts. Certainly, in Tertullian's judgment, any
complicity in torture ? either ordering it or personally applying it ? is
definitely ruled out for a disciple of Jesus. Arguing that no soldier, after
converting to Christianity, should continue in the army, especially given
its pagan character, he asks rhetorically,

"[S]hall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become
him even to sue at law? And shall *he* apply the chain, and the prison, *and
the torture*, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own
wrongs?"*1 

In similar vein, discussing "what offices a Christian man may hold", he
refers to a recent case wherein a Church member had the opportunity to
receive high public office as a magistrate. Tertullian argues that it would
be morally impossible for this man to satisfy both the Gospel's demands and
those of Roman law, for that would require him to abstain not only from all
public pagan sacrifices, oaths, etc., but also from "sitting in judgment on
anyone's life or character, . . . neither condemning nor fore-condemning;
binding no one, imprisoning *or torturing no one*".*2
* These are the earliest known explicit Christian statements on the
morality of torture.

1. /De Corona,/ 11, emphasis added.

2. /De Idololatria/, 17, emphasis added.

>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:15:08 -0500
> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 51, Issue 44
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Message-ID: <4925D35C.1040409 at verizon.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
>
> Let me clarify my thought.
>
> I meant that it's almost as though Wolfe read Tertullian (or the debate 
> he was part of) and and responded to him by deliberately constructing a 
> character according to those severe Christian prohibitions /as though 
> they were precise specifications/: a Christ figure who is everything 
> Christ's followers cannot be. Why these specifications and not others?
>
> I think this goes beyond "sin" and repugnance, neither of which is 
> mentioned here. It's a question of temporal  authority vs spiritual 
> authority, at least. But we knew that.
>
>
>
>
>   
>> ------------------------------
>>
>>     
>

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