Belated thoughts RE: (urth) Shadowy reflections on an amazing

Nigel observed:

and I insist that this is a case where the author either is -- I was going to say "lying" but let me say instead "being deliberatly disingenuous" -- or doesn't know what he's talking about. Or maybe some combination of the two. And it doesn't start with the temptation in the desert. I mean, come on: his career starts with baptism and ends with resurrection. Before he meets Typhon, he raises the dead, heals the sick turns water into wine, tames wild beasts, and (I think a case could be made) banishes demons. Not to mention coming back from the dead repeatedly, telling parables (what do you think the stories in the Book of Urth and Sky are?), etc., etc., etc.

Well, he isn't literally Jesus: he's not God, and his return isn't the Second Coming of Christ (and I've never understood how the events of UotNS are to be reconciled with the Christian eschatological scheme). But I agree that the similarities between Severian and Jesus go far beyond "he's a Christian, and Christians are supposed to imitate Christ." When I read UotNS, it seemed to me that the portions of the book where Severian is the original Conciliator might have been Wolfe's attempt to imagine why someone might behave as Jesus does in the Gospel of Mark (reluctant to perform miracles, and telling those he's cured not to say anything about it). --Adam

Which raises the question again, are there no more rainbows on Urth? (Other than the one Severian pulls butterflies out of, that is.) -Rostrum