God/Increate in the New Sun

Lee Berman · 02 Dec 2010, 23:15 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 18:15:41 -0500
Subject: (urth) God/Increate in the New Sun
Message-ID: <SNT123-W22057344D4A56E9C764D34CF270 at phx.gbl>

>Son o'Witz- I think it's perfectly clear that the Outsider is Christ or logos.
>He's presented as the REAL diety outside of the false Pantheon.

I could be. But I just can't be sure. I have doubts. A similar discussion cropped
up recently and I think it was Andrew Mason who pointed to a Christ-figure from a 
story in Long Sun. He was only a little bit perturbed that in the story, the 
Christ-figure was a man who was possessed by The Outsider while he was doing his 
thing in the Temple.

I was rather more perturbed. Such possession doesn't sound like the modern Christian 
God to me and this doesn't seem like a casual mistake Wolfe would make.

I think it is possible that Wolfe did not mean for Briah to be a Christian universe. 
Briah seems to be a place where there is not just one true God and human constructed
false ones. It seems to be a place where superhuman beings abound who sometimes take
on the trappings of gods and under the right conditions, are worshiped as such.

I'll again mention the final denouement of BotNS which takes place in the future of
the Long and Short Sun stories. After all Severian's efforts and after so many people
killed, I would at least hope for Ushas to show signs of being a Christian planet. 
Instead we have a rather gnostic group of four opposite gods, dark and light, male
and female. And a demon swimming around in the ocean.

Maybe Severian, as Sleeper, will somehow change this to monotheism and get them to 
believe in a Savior. But there isn't any hint of it in the text, though there easily
could have been. I think it is possible Briah will have to Gnab and Bang into a new
universe before they get a true Jesus.

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