Wind God

Andrew Mason · 05 Nov 2010, 19:05 · from 2010-November.txt.gz

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From: andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com (Andrew Mason)
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 19:05:48 +0000
Subject: (urth) Wind God
Message-ID: <AANLkTi=AKzj==rG2WqQv1FoXA1NG+ZDQPg3yqyKBS9oO at mail.gmail.com>

Um.

Jesus is of course not essential to my theory - the Conciliator might
be a composite figure whether or not Jesus was one of those who
contributed to the composite.

Also relevant to this is something said, I think, by Agia which
suggests that the Conciliator lived thirty thousand years ago. That
might be just because Wolfe hadn't worked out Typhon's dates when he
wrote it, but it could also point to the idea of multiple appearances.

On the Jesus question: I'm not sure it matters for this purpose
whether Urth is Earth, since if it is not, it nevertheless has a past
_very_ like the actual history of Earth, including Fair Rosamund,
Marlowe, Mary Shelley, Lewis Carroll, etc. I find it hard to imagine
that a world could contain all this without containing Jesus, whose
absence must surely have knocked history off-course quite a bit.

There are quite a few references to the Old Testament in the cycle,
including a direct quotation (Joseph's dream) in _Urth_. There is
nothing explicit from the New Testament as far as I can remember; the
nearest is a reference in Dr Talos's play to raising sons from stones,
but that might alternatively be connected with Deucalion.

There does seem to have been something very like the Catholic Church
(and, on the basis of things said last time this came up, the Orthodox
Church as well) in the past of Urth - again, it is hard to imagine
that without Jesus.

However, whatever is the case in _New Sun_, it seems to me that _Long
Sun_, which I am just reading now,  is much more explicit. The
evidence Gerry Quinn  has brought up is relevant, but the clearest
thing seems to me to be the story about the Outsider, 'through a man
he had posseessed and enlightened', whipping the sellers of
sacrificial animals. This is not theologically accurate, of course -
you wouldn't expect that of the Chrasmological Writings - but it seems
clear enough what story it is referring to.

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