Hierogrammates

Since I touched on the subject of the Pelagian heresy: Peter Wright, in ATTENDING DAEDALUS, contended that the Hierogrammates had their own alien agenda, that they were not manipulating mankind on Urth at the behest of the Increate. In simplistic terms; they were bad guys. If they were bad guys, then Severian was just their puppet, the destruction of Urth and the birth of Ushas were just necessary steps in furtherance of their own selfish ends. It had happened before and would happen again. Ushas was not a new beginning for mankind that would lead to some sort of reconciliation with the Increate, it was not a break in the pattern of repeating universal cycles. The remnants of mankind from Urth would, in Ushas, develop (with the guidance of the Hierodules and the Hierogrammates) into the Hieros, who would then cruelly fashion the Hierogrammates. It's not hard to find evidence in the text of the Urth Cycle to counter the idea that Wolfe intended the Hierogrammates to be seen as bad guys. I've pointed out such evidence in past discussions. Still, if the Hierogrammates are good guys, they seem to be aggressively exercising the Pelagian belief that man can achieve salvation by his own efforts, without need of a redeemer. -Roy

There might be an admixture of Teilhard de Chardin in that through aeons of effort, mankind achieves salvation by producing/becoming the grace-giving Godhead. The cyclic nature of Briah allows this to happen in the middle, rather than at the end of time. Or it could be that the Hierogrammates were intended to appear to have some of the duality of Clarke's Overlords.