Christians and Christs: A new RPG?

James Jordan · 14 Jun 2002, 17:13 · from urth-v0206.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Christians and Christs: A new RPG?
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 12:13:22 -0500
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At 09:27 AM 6/12/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Crush declaimed:
>
> > ... Actually, I think the operative sentence here is "Severian is a
> > Christian rather than a Christ." Although, to me for some reason,
> > saying Severian is a Christian is a more jarring statement than
> > saying he's a Christ.
>
>Well, here you fall afair of the common Catholic theological concept
>of the "anonymous Christian" -- the person who, for whatever reason,
>is not given the grace to know and believe in Christ in this life, but
>believes in what the closest conception available to him/her. This is
>a hair, but a critical hair, separater from syncretic universalism: it
>doesn't say that everyone will be saved; rather, it says that God
>plays fair and that everyone has the opportunity to be saved.
>
>--Blattid

         I'm inclined to think that there is Christianity in the Urth=20
world, but that we don't see it except very indirectly. Wolfe has left it=20
in the background, but hinted at it with his Byzantine setting, the=20
Byzantine theological terminology (Increate, Pancreator, Theoanthropos),=20
the confused but still somewhat faithful nuns of the Pelerines (sp?) with=20
their saint-relic shrine, etc. Severian utters a prayer as he commits his=20
first book to the stellar winds. So I don't think we're supposed to think=20
of Sev as an "anonymous Christian" but as a person living in a confused and=20
compromised Christian world (as all Christian worlds are, because of sin,=20
and Byzantium certainly was) and as having a background that makes him a=20
very "undisciplined" Christian of some sort. He's a believer, but a weak=20
one. He shares the common faith of his society.
         BTW, when Wolfe told me that he was thinking of Briah as a=20
previous universe, I took it at face value. Maybe all this means is that=20
this is what he was thinking when he started out. He was "playing" with the=20
notion of a cyclical universe. I certainly don't have anything invested in=20
it, and the 11 or 12 volume super-novel is in a lot of ways simpler if we=20
assume it is "our" universe. I don't think it matters much, for I have not=20
been able to see that it is some kind of major interpretive clue -- except=20
that it does allow him to have a flood over the earth, which in our=20
universe would be problematic because of the promise to Noah. That aspect=20
of the narrative is "cleaner" if this a pre-Noah universe.
         FWIW.

Nutria



--=20

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