Increate on trial

Roy C. Lackey · 28 Mar 2005, 21:32 · from 2005-March.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Mon Mar 28 21:32:10 2005
Subject: (urth) Re:  Increate on trial
Message-ID: <002301c53420$a2397700$8c3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Adam wrote:
>True; but, if the universe of the Sun cycle is our universe, then the
>Incarnation has already taken place; whereas if it's a previous universe,
as
>Wolfe once said in an interview, then it won't take place on Sev's Urth at
>all. Either way, there seems no particular reason for the Increate to
>concern himself with the Urth of Sev's day.

As I've said earlier, the destruction of Urth was largely a symbolic
punishment; symbolic because Urth was man's ancestral birthplace, and
mankind was dispersed too far and wide in the galaxy (galaxies?) for the
Hierogrammates to overcome entropy (135) and hit mankind all at once. If the
Incarnation took place in the Sun cycle universe, and that universe was also
ours, then the site of that Incarnation seems to me quite sufficient reason
for the Increate to concern himself with Urth. All the Christian echoes I
noted before indicate that Urth was that site, otherwise how did they get
there from a previously collapsed universe?

Also, if Urth is Earth, as I think it _must_ me, then the Increate walked
the planet with various Old Testament luminaries -- to say nothing of the
life and death of Jesus. There can be no more hallowed ground in any
universe.

If the Sun cycle _did not_ take place in _our_ universe, then the
Incarnation presents a religious problem. It is central to the Christian
faith that the Incarnation was a _unique_ historical event. If that is so,
and Jesus didn't suffer on Urth, then the people of Urth were doubly damned.
Not only were they paying a price for the 'sins' of the Hieros of a prior
universe -- something they had no control over, but they had no chance for
'salvation', for, as Christians maintain, only by way of Jesus might they be
redeemed. Big problem.

>This is an important quote, but it doesn't seem to me to be as
>straightforward as you imply. It could just as easily mean that the
>Hierogrammates are keepers of sacred writings, rather than that they
receive
>a continuous stream of orders from the Increate. If the latter were the
>case, one would expect to see the Hierogrammates described as carrying out
>the orders, rather than just recording them.

I thought that in putting the Epitome of Urth on trial they _were_ carrying
out the orders of the Increate.

At one point Sev noted the "spangled sky of Yesod", and asked Apheta about
other worlds. She said "When we require them, the Hierogrammates will build
more -- worlds as fair as this, or more fair. Suns for them too, should we
require more suns." (p-142) It's hard for me to imagine the Creator
permitting such godlike feats without express leave to do so. From _Genesis_
onward, the Increate seems to take grave exception to such things.

>I'm also dubious about your identification of the Hierogrammates with
>archangels. For one thing, they were created by the men of the previous
>universe. For another, they can die, or at least their children can
>(Tzadkiel's son).

I thought that the angelic nature of the Hierogrammates had been hashed out
and largely agreed upon by this list years ago. <g> Alga, for one, iirc,
held them to be such. Since you appealed to _Lexicon Urthus_, so will I. "In
the Kabbalistic book _The Zohar_, Tzadkiel is fourth of the ten archangels
of the Briatic world." (247)

And if archangels are invulnerable by nature, why was Michael wearing armor?
(KNIGHT, 274)

-Roy

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