Standard Wolfean Riddle

António Pedro Marques · 16 Aug 2010, 13:53 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?QW50w7NuaW8gUGVkcm8gTWFycXVlcw==?=)
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:53:16 +0100
Subject: (urth) Standard Wolfean Riddle
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Ryan Dunn wrote (16-08-2010 14:31):
> On Aug 16, 2010, at 9:18 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com
> <mailto:entonio at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> David Stockhoff wrote (16-08-2010 12:49 <x-apple-data-detectors://0>):
>>> This shift in focus to the universes might be a way out from a sticky
>>> problem, but you seem to propose that each Jesus is identically
>>> Jesus-like but not necessarily identically effective. Why are some
>>> Jesuses less effective? Why do some fail utterly?
>>
>> It's not a problem with the Jesuses, it's the world that doesn't live
>> up to them. The idea is that ultimately there is free will, and God's
>> creatures may will themselves into damnation. It's not like we're not
>> going down that route ourselves. At a certain point, the
>> responsibility of salvation becomes the creatures'.
>
> What if, in the fiction of BotNS, Wolfe made his own history, mythology,
> etc. Where we have analogies to things like Christianity, but there
> never actually was a Jesus per se.
>
> That way, Severian's can be the savior without any heretical concern,
> and instead of being sacrilege, Wolfe can have established a parable for
> his and our real world. Severian can be the Conciliator, Apu Punchau,
> the Autarch, and Bringer of the New Sun, as many Urth Cycles as Wolfe
> pleases.

My problem isn't heresy. *If* there weren't parallel universes to Briah, one 
of which supposedly is our own, then it would all be more than ok. *But* 
since Jesus does enter the story, since we do and he enters ours, then I 
think it makes no sense at all to have the Increate incarnate in one 
universe and some vague miracle-worker in others. (I have yet to see what 
philosophy did the Conciliator bring. What philosophy his followers have is 
not from him. In fact, theologically speaking, what's Christ-like about the 
Conciliator?)

> Seems cleaner.

What's dirty about having a Jesus in every world?
What's clean about having a Jesus in one world and only a thematic echo in 
the others?

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