Quasi Christ?

David Stockhoff · 09 Feb 2009, 22:50 · from 2009-February.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:50:28 -0500
Subject: (urth) Quasi Christ?
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1234217321.18697.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
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Well there's simply not a lot to go on, is there? Consider the central importance of Urth/Ushas to the whole Hierogrammatic Plan, and you can see that a one-size-fits-all Christ is a simpler theory than infinite ones, but as I explicitly commented, those aren't ruled out either. We just don't know.

As I said, we know absolutely nothing about the Cumaean and the being on Sirius. We know almost nothing about Abaia and Erebus. Is there more than one Tzadkiel? His son is another pseudo-Christ, but that's all we are told. Do you know of any sentient beings in TBotNS that are not singular? We know of 2 Hierodules for sure, maybe 3 but I don't think Apheta counts (not sure what she is).

The Neighbors are another matter, but we know almost as little about them.

Without knowing the histories of their societies, we don't know whether they have converted to Wolfean Catholicism or any other flavor, or indeed to anything we could call a religion. We don't know how aliens regard the Increate in general. 

Keep in mind that I am specifically referring to alien *religion* and alien Messiahs. Someone else noted that CS Lewis considered multiple Christs to be kosher, so to speak, and Wolfe has touched on that approach elsewhere. But in TBotNS, not a word.

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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 14:02:38 -0800
From: Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
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	<273409710902091402j76b72eb8r10900f006df8ceba at mail.gmail.com>
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I'll have to go back to the books to find the quotes I'm looking for, but
although they don't appear in the text as such, there are, from what I
remember, references to other sentient races.  Races that were subjugated by
Typhon, and in reference to all of the other Islands on the Yesod, and other
references to other civilizations mentioned in some of those Apheta/Sev
conversations. Again, I don't have the books in front of me, so I could be
compeltely misremmembering.

However, what of the being on Sirius who the Cumaen 'contacts' to remember
Apu Punchau?  That is at least one explicit reference.

 I don't see how you can say that the novel must simply rule out all other
sentient species.   Is there evidence for this?  And to say "powers" like
Cumaen, Inire...that seems like a cop out.  What are Powers then.  Divine?
You don't seem to take that position.  So, what are they?  Oh, and you
mention the Inhumu.  Well, what about the Neighbors?  They seem more salient
here.  They are not human, and they first fed on the Neighbors.  Are you
saying the neighbors are human?  I sure missed that part.  I guess there are
arguments for that (if you buy the whole Blue/Gree is Ushas/Lune thing,
which I don't think I do).

What are Abai and Erebus?  Aren't they most likely alien beings who landed
on Urth and are attempting to take it over?  I suppose that isn't
necessarily the case, but it seems likely from some evidience.

I can't expect you to deal thoroughly with such a really strange question,
but I think you haven't really thought through your answer.  I can't blame
you for that though.

And if every 'species" did have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment,
then that would seem to me to be against the Catholic doctrine.

But I'm really splitting hairs here, and seem to have lost track of the
point I was trying to make!

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 1:42 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:

> > First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient
> > species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the
> > TBotNS universe---only Powers like the Cumean, Inire, Tzadkiel, etc. (The
> > Inhumi are different, and look at how closely Wolfe examines their moral
> > potential, and how he ties it to humans'.)
> > We can't speculate on their histories because we don't meet more than one
> > of them---their societies and histories are closed to us. But for all we
> > know, every one of their "species" did indeed have some sort of
> > "unique-intervention" moment. The Increate could have an infinity of sons he
> > sent off to die horribly, *but we don't need to know about it.* TBotNS is
> > not really an "interstellar" or galactic SF novel.
> >
> > Second, I agree that it would be a basic unfairness to all the other
> > interstellar races to have the only OTC in the universes land on Earth in 0
> > AD, and I'm sure this has occurred to Wolfe. *But that's not what TBotNS is
> > about.* Perhaps the LS/SS novels pay a bit more attention to that problem,
> > but still in a necessarily anthropocentric manner.
> >
> > I don't think the Pope has ruled yet on whether space aliens have souls.
> >
> >
>   
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