travelling north

James Wynn · 03 Jun 2010, 19:49 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:49:47 -0500
Subject: (urth) travelling north
In-Reply-To: <74ACEC927B2D43749BA167224C5AB711@jill>
References: <74ACEC927B2D43749BA167224C5AB711@jill>
Message-ID: <4C08075B.2030400 at gmail.com>

On 6/3/2010 2:04 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
 >The Book of the Long Sun is set in the same universe,
 >and in it Silk has a vision of a hero riding into a city,
 >greeted by supporters waving fan-shaped leaves.
 >(I can't remember the page offhand.)
 >Surely this represents Palm Sunday,
 >suggesting that Jesus existed in this universe?
 >-Gerry Quinn

He had this vision during his enlightenment by the Outsider (presumably 
the Increate). Surely the Outsider is the Lord of all the Universes, and 
could offer a vision from any of them. Still, I've never been able to 
piece together any narrative value from saying that Jesus never came in 
Severian's universe. As was recently pointed out, the world would be 
quite different if there had never been a Christianity, and Severian's 
past is very much like our own.

IMO Too much is made of Wolfe's personal Christian beliefs in his most 
of his fiction. I don't think he tries to make his fiction conform to 
correct theology. I recall that in an interview he obliquely used Orson 
Scott Card as an example of a writer that puts his faith into all of his 
writings and said that he himself did not do that.

"The Concilliator" is more of a Gnostic concept and a Gnostic Christian 
concept. I don't believe Wolfe is Gnostic even though it is reasonable 
to assert that what _The Chronicles of Narnia_ were to Orthodox 
Christianity, the entire Sun Cycle is to Gnostic Christianity. Wolfe has 
said that Severian is a "Christ-figure". Well, Mithras is a 
Christ-figure. Hercules was, in some 1st or 2nd century paen, called 
"The Savior of the World".

J.

PS Before anyone objects, I realize that Paul used the term "mediator" 
in Galatians and 1 Timothy, but in Galatians he says that with Christ 
there was no mediator between God and Mankind, and in 1 Timothy he seems 
to be using the term ironically to dispense with complicated concepts of 
mediators in ala angels, the Law of Moses, and (I think) early 
Gnosticism (in 1 Tim. he also refers to "profane and vain babblings, and 
oppositions of science falsely so called" and "myths and endless 
genealogies [aeons]").

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