Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is theHoly

Yes.

Well, the fact that is does somehow pass through the singularity, on board the Ship perhaps, or in the Yesod Library, is the intra-textual indicator that these events are in our past. That's always the problem with Wolfe: which of the tiny hints are important and which of the hints are not hints at all?

Protestant missionaries of the Theoanthropos. Well, like the Apollo picture, somehow this earlier BangganB of the cosmos is much like ours, but not quite the same. I do think we have an incarnation of the 2nd person of God in this earlier cosmos, the aforementioned Theoanthropos, the original Conciliator of which Severian is an application, but as Dan'l mentioned, from some Roman Catholic perspectives the atonement of the Son is "eternal" so it could "happen" in time more than once. If this was not in Wolfe's mind, then I doubt if we are supposed to press the problem of a repeated crucifixion. But then, if we allow Wolfe the "liberty" to have a previous incarnation and atonement-of-infinite-worth in the Briah cosmos, then how are we to "know" that Severian's manuscript is from a previous cosmos and has made it into ours? Which "hint" do we take as simply a liberty we grant the author, and which "hint" we take as internal to the argument of the narrative? After all, maybe Wolfe just "somehow" got Severian's book from the future and "somehow" (golden spectacles?) was able to translate it, and we are not supposed to ponder further? Or, maybe it fell back to him through the corridors of time, instead of proceeding forward to him from the previous BanggnaB. Is there another "hint" that resolves the question? This is the problem and frustration when reading Wolfe! JBJordan Nutria

Did he explain why he has completely reversed his statements in the appendix of Shadow?

Where is this "fact" documented?

Whay can't this just be regarded as allegorical? The crucifixion would not be repeated so much as represented, it avoids all problems with time-binding statements and promises attributed to G-d, doesn't make a liar out of the translator, and doesn't require the Book to travel half a universe backward, get translated, then come 1 1/2 forward to be published.

I agree. The internal evidence of tBotNS is only consistant with it being set in the very far future. I'd be curious to know if the external statements were delivered ex-cathedra or if they were accompanied by any explanation or rational that gives reason for the change. I have to suspect pure mischief. Matthew

Textual and theological difficulties aside, I really don't like this idea. I won't say it ruins the books for me, but it does detract substantially from their sense of wonder and the uncanny. It's as if had declared that THE DYING EARTH was really the Dying some-other-planet-that-happens-to-be-called-Earth. Since, afaik, there's no indication in the original BotNS that the books are taking place in a previous universe, I'm tempted to speculate (and hope) that this was an idea Wolfe thought of after writing the original books. --Adam

JJ: This universe that you sought in Briah are part of it. Is that our universe? Or is that a universe that resurrected saints have set up in the world to come as part of the cities that they made? GW: No. I thought of it as a long past universe. Something that we are repeating rather than something that we are. http://www.op.net/~pduggan/gwjbj3.html That was my source. Nutria (JJ)

Well yes, =Yesod= is a previous universe, an extension of one, or at the very least, a place settled by refugees from one according to Mantiss.

Thanks. But that does seem like mischief because the explanation of the origin of the manuscript is in the book, so we have to add a further wrap around it to account for the book arriving in our hands. On a metaphysical level I also cavil somewhat - the similarities of the books ancient past with our world are too similar. Either it's not just cyclic but the repetition is near identical or we have to interpolate additional holes through which things like the moon picture have been moved. For sheer fun I quite like the idea of Ultan's library being part of L space. Just as the shelves reach might the archive of the House Absolute so too one might hope to turn an unexpected corner and come across a russet furred Librarian subjecting a minor grimoire to some remedial book-binding. But no, placing tBotNS in a distant past distresses me. It's too complex. Not that we expect anything but complexity from Wolfe; but this is purposely complex and purposelessness is not a lupine characteristic. Matthew

No, QED combines special relativity and quantum mechanics. The problem of reconciling general relativity with quantum mechanics is still unsolved. --Adam

If you're going to count the intros/appendix where Wolfe talks about translating Severian's manuscript, Wolfe directly refers to all the stuff of Severian's time being in the future, or "futurity." I guess Wolfe could have been mistaken... -Rostrum

Rostrum saith:

Yes. But on the other hand, he also writes of having been allowed to tour and photograph the "surviving" buildings of that distant future period. Which seems to put the distant future into the distant past and make the whole thing cyclic after all, dunnit? --Dan'l