Urth - Earth links

Matthew Weber · 14 Oct 2011, 19:44 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: palaeologos at gmail.com (Matthew Weber)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:44:22 -0700
Subject: (urth) Urth - Earth links
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On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 12:40 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com>wrote:

>
>
> --- On *Fri, 10/14/11, Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
>
> I was indeed brought up in a very religious household, with all of those
> things you mentioned; I didn't take the apparent reference to Christ to be
> anything more than a secular adjustment of present-day myths for a
> far-future Urth.  Our entire mythology, Christian or otherwise, is condensed
> to some bizarre miasma in the dying Sun days; whatever resemblance they have
> to present Christianity is the result of cultural evolution.  It seems to me
> that Holy Catherine (sp? I don't have the book in front of me) isn't even a
> religious figure; just a left-over tradition from long ago that the Guild
> retains for tradition's sake.  Despite initial impressions, I think it
> becomes clear that the Conciliator is not Christ (or a type of Christ), and
> when you read what Wolfe wrote about concerning the "translation" of TBONS,
> it becomes further clear that references to saints, the use of Latin, etc.,
> are just contrivances by the "translator" to make the story accessible to
> the reader.  We aren't supposed to think that they are actually referring to
> "saints" as we know them; the word "saint" is just supposed to the closest
> equivalent for the purposes of translation.
>
>
>
The ritual of the Torturers in which Catherine is beheaded is a reference to
the martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria.  Sentenced to be broken on the
wheel, she was beheaded when the wheel fell apart at her touch.  So it's
pretty clearly referencing the early Christian tradition, although at the
time BotNS takes place it could be a custom whose purpose and original
meaning has been forgotten.

-- 
Matt +

All things are the same--familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance,
coarse in substance.  All things now are as they were in the day of those
whom we have buried.
    Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Meditations, IX, 14
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