Perhaps, but I don't see the relevance, or rather the parallels, to the discussion. Following your understanding of these terms, one must always call the Catholic christ-interpretation "Christ" and the "heretical" christ-interpretations "Christ-like." This is or would be patently absurd and useless and irrelevant, and I object. Feel free to adopt that convention, but recognize that it is merely a convention.
None of this affects what Wolfe believes or how that affects interpretation---only how such data are asserted.
I am indeed arguing for a broader field of potential interpretations than some here seem comfortable with. But I have not argued what you have said. To repeat myself, this has as much to do with forum etiquette as anything else. I don't mind arguments from theology. I object to arguments from authority rather than logic---as I have very clearly stated.
15 quoted lines
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:55:57 +0000
From: Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 53, Issue 59
To: <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <BLU120-W45CA15F795D84A37E7C3B386C20 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
There is wiggle-room for interpretation, but generally interpretation is supposed to stay close to the original intention of the speaker or at least not contradict it without absolute necessity. This may sound nitpicky but without it you get "radical" interpretation where everything can mean anything you want at any time.
I could basically use the same form of argument you used there to say that well, to me in my belief system, calling someone "Christ" or "Christ-like" is the same as saying that they are Richard Nixon. Thus you can't argue that my interpretation of BotNS as a retelling of the Watergate story without privileging an interpretation based on Wolfe's religious beliefs, right?
-- "When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang
Catholicism makes all of this a bit tricky, too. Catholicism, of course, immediately brings up questions of orthodoxy vs. whatever. It's easy to assume that since Wolfe is Catholic, his beliefs are orthodox. It's also easy to assume that since he's comfortable sharing his personal beliefs, that his fictions all ultimately match those beliefs. But to go from Catholic orthodoxy straight to interpretation misses two important mediators: fiction and the author.
My questions are always: why must an author's fiction necessarily match their personal beliefs? Couldn't their fiction explore alternatives, express doubts, raise questions, etc. (With Wolfe, I'm always curious how an engineer might reconceptualize Catholic theology in a completely mechanical way...I see points where Wolfe toys with these ideas that, to me, aren't heretical but certainly aren't orthodox, either.) And just because Wolfe is Catholic, can we assume he's an orthodox Catholic? There's an interview where he discussed converting to Catholicism,* saying that he didn't read a lot of theology but read Chesterton and other Catholic writers. The interview also suggests that he might (and this is of course reading between the lines) have rationalized himself into Catholicism rather than simply accepting it whole cloth in one swoop. (Although what his attitude is now might be incredibly different.) Furthermore, he wrote the books at different times
during his life when his relationship to his faith might have changed. In other words, turning to orthodox theology as a way to interpret the fiction seems to miss a few steps. The point is that knowing a few general things about Wolfe's general relation to Catholic orthodoxy in general never tells us much about specifics.
I'm also never comfortable talking about an author's intentions. An author can, of course, misunderstand him/herself. (Look at the later PKDick, for example...an extreme one since he was losing his mind, but it still applies.) Or maybe an author failed to communicate as he wanted? Or maybe the story was more complex than they intended? You don't have to be a raging postmodernist to recognize that writing and story-telling, no matter how well crafted, are media -- at once communicating but also a barrier between writer-as-person and reader-as-person. (That insight is at least as old as Plato.) While that never means that "anything goes" in interpretation, it also means that authorial intention is only one factor.
Of course Wolfe's religion informs his fiction. You have to be blind not to see that. But it takes textual argument to connect an author's personal beliefs to the words/story in a substantial way. There's never a necessary connection. When interpreters get into discussions about theology or mythology, I'm always skeptical when they want to suggest that because a source puts something one way, Wolfe must as well. Instead, I'm almost most interested in how the details of the text relate to the source material and what they change. After all, isn't that the entire point of the Brown Book: Nothing is ever completely different, but nothing is ever completely the same when filtered through time/culture/writing.
*"About his conversion, Wolfe says: "I was raised in a
rather lax fashion as a Presbyterian. I don't think my
father had any particular religious convictions. My
mother had been raised as a Presbyterian and so I was
nominally a Presbyterian. It was largely an answer to
give when people asked you. . . . I married a Roman
Catholic and had to take instruction in it in order that
we could have a Catholic wedding I became interested
in it, read and studied, and talked to people about
it and so forth, and eventually converted. . . . I didn't
read a lot of theology.... I read Chesterton's book on
St. Thomas Aquinas . . . and ended up reading everything
of Chesterton's that I could find. I had gone
through very much the same thing earlier with C.S.
Lewis.""
(Quoted in John Farrel's "The Distant Suns of Gene Wolfe," First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life; Apr2007 Issue 172, p28.)
----- Original Message ----
From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 9:12:28 AM
Subject: (urth) Wolfean theologies
Perhaps, but I don't see the relevance, or rather the parallels, to the discussion. Following your understanding of these terms, one must always call the Catholic christ-interpretation "Christ" and the "heretical" christ-interpretations "Christ-like." This is or would be patently absurd and useless and irrelevant, and I object. Feel free to adopt that convention, but recognize that it is merely a convention.
None of this affects what Wolfe believes or how that affects interpretation---only how such data are asserted.
I am indeed arguing for a broader field of potential interpretations than some here seem comfortable with. But I have not argued what you have said. To repeat myself, this has as much to do with forum etiquette as anything else. I don't mind arguments from theology. I object to arguments from authority rather than logic---as I have very clearly stated.
15 quoted lines
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:55:57 +0000
From: Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 53, Issue 59
To: <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <BLU120-W45CA15F795D84A37E7C3B386C20 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
There is wiggle-room for interpretation, but generally interpretation is supposed to stay close to the original intention of the speaker or at least not contradict it without absolute necessity. This may sound nitpicky but without it you get "radical" interpretation where everything can mean anything you want at any time.
I could basically use the same form of argument you used there to say that well, to me in my belief system, calling someone "Christ" or "Christ-like" is the same as saying that they are Richard Nixon. Thus you can't argue that my interpretation of BotNS as a retelling of the Watergate story without privileging an interpretation based on Wolfe's religious beliefs, right?
-- "When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang
Dan'l:
I have no desire to be childish or insulting, but obviously I felt a point had to be made, and I have made it.
Yes, you are saying exactly what I think. As only a semiliterate person in these areas, as well as being an atheist, I am naturally leery of a too-theological interpretation. And one could just as well construct an interpretation of TBotNS as a Celtic romance, as I have suggested---and I'd prefer to. But I would not want to set aside any part of Wolfe's vast knowledge, which spans both these literary/historical areas and more. I suspect there are plenty of New Testament/Catholic parallels and references that I can only dimly intuit or follow along when someone more knowledgeable explains them---and I'd like to hear more about these.
Severian as Christ or "a" christ is indeed less interesting in many ways. It would push the work toward some kind of forced theological propaganda, and unless it is of the most subtle sort---too subtle to be propaganda at all---I would object to that. I especially agree with this:
But to make Severian "a Christ" seems to me to require us to seek these parallels everywhere in the text, even where they simply don't exist.
This is exactly what I was thinking when I raised my original questions:
First (long ago), why exactly can't Severian "be" Christ or "another" christ? In other words, can Severian be---within the work, not outside the work---a manifestation of whatever it was that "walked in Galilee," as the Baptists sing. Given enough time, isn't the "universe" big enough for two or fifteen anyway? I got some good answers to this, and I was relieved to hear that no one thought so. Common sense tells the writer to stay away from that third rail, for starters. From there, as you say, it would metastasize to overwhelm the work and its interpretations.
However, outside the work, I personally don't see much difference, because to me they are all characters, and the world is plainly big enough for infinite variations. Christ himself was partly derived from characters who preceded him. I would identify a character with stigmata and a spear wound who carries the Divine Spark as one with a much more specific relation to the Christ than Frodo would have.
That's a fundamental and useful distinction---but not all that fundamental or useful. Draw a black line between them, and you will start finding examples that blur the line. And it's a category of 1, after all---like Earth itself. Not as useful for extrapolation into fiction as for imitation and distortion.
Second, I asked, if Severian experiences in TUotNS, as he relates he does, at least a glimpse of what it's like to be God/a god/a godling/whatever (I don't see support in the text for useful distinctions between these), then what does that mean for the work? To this question, I got John's suggestion that Severian's divinity might have been temporary, and Brunian's. It's still open. Is this passage part of TUotNS's New-Sun-for-Dummies role, or does it tell us something specific, like Severian is divine? is he divine temporarily or inherently? Or am I jumping to conclusions? Perhaps, read properly, it tells us Severian is NOT divine?
Finally, I agree that much of this comes down to the deployment---and thus the enforcement---of terminology. I am less interested in sharp distinctions in this area than some, and I've offered some arguments for that, for which I don't expect universal acceptance. I also am less interested in narrowing the range of the discussion than I perceive some to be.
Brunians:
If you were addressing me---yes, Wolfe is closer to me than most religious writers and indeed most writers. However, it's all relative. And the more Catholic he is as a writer, the less he is like me.
If I understood your answer to my second question above, you were saying this:
-Yes, Severian is divine at that moment at least
-But only Christ is a Divine Man
-and there is only one Christ
-therefore, just ignore that passage.
Am I right? I'm sure you can see why I considered that an abrupt and inadequate answer.
61 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:11:27 -0800
From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 53, Issue 59
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
<1f7617370902031611l2a8ec3d3kf2c94236ec11acdb at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
David,
"Guardian of the Sacred Texts" is childish and insulting.
But I should lay my cards open on the table: I am, like Wolfe, an adult convert to Roman Catholicism.
Independently of this, I believe that the Catholic episteme offers perspectives on Wolfe's work that point, if not to his achievement, at least to his intent.
For example, there are a lot of scenes in the Briah cycle that parallel, parody, or otherwise reflect upon the Eucharist. Reading these scenes with a knowledge of the Eucharist imbues them with a narrative energy that is simply not present without that knowledge.
That doesn't mean that a specifically-Catholic reading of Wolfe is "right" or even "better than others."
But it does make a reading that's aware of Catholic practice and imagery a whole lot more interesting -- at least, to me.
The text is the text and, finally, any reading in good faith is a good reading. (But we are always already in bad faith with this or any text...) A reading that completely ignores the generically Christian and specifically Catholic imagery and ideas can be valid.
Such a reading, however, strikes me as like a reading of "Ulysses"
by someone without (or who doesn't show) the slightest knowledge
of the Odyssey. I've read such readings, and they can be interesting enough, but they lack a dimension.
This is where we disagree: "As a result, it is legitimate to say that Severian is "Christ-like," but not to say that he is "a Christ." "
I overspoke my case by saying "legitimate." I would say however that
a reading that made Severian "a Christ" would be (a) contrary to the author's intent, for what that may matter to you, and (b) less interesting than one where Severian is "Christ-like."
Why less interesting? Well: for one thing, "a Christ" is too far removed from the merely-human for me to find much application to my daily life. (This is a problem for me in my own religious life, you betcha.) A Christ-like person, with the sinfulness and failings that beset all humans but One, is far more interesting to me.
(And, as a side note, Severian is clearly a sinful human himself in need of redemption, not a perfect Redeemer.)
For another, making Severian "a Christ" forces a schema on the book
that I think just doesn't fit. Some of Severian's adventures clearly reflect, refract, distort some of the episodes of the Gospels - probably most obvious, his encounter with Typhon, as a reflection of Christ's temptation in the desert; but there are quite a number of others.
But to make Severian "a Christ" seems to me to require us to seek these parallels everywhere in the text, even where they simply don't exist.
But then ... you seem to mean something different by "a Christ" than what I would mean. It may be that, if we could decode each other properly, "a Christ" in your language might mean something more like what "a Christlike person" does in mine.
Or not?
-- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 21:09:18 -0500 (EST) From: brunians at brunians.org Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 53, Issue 59 To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Message-ID: <3865.67.142.130.16.1233713358.squirrel at brunians.org> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
David,
"Guardian of the Sacred Texts" is childish and insulting.
But I should lay my cards open on the table: I am, like Wolfe, an adult convert to Roman Catholicism.
And politically and culturally and so on you are very much like him, wouldn't you agree? You and he share many attitudes about the individual and society and traditional roles and values etc?
.
------------------------------
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:17 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote: Dan'l:However, outside the work, I personally don't see much difference, because to me they are all characters, and the world is plainly big enough for infinite variations. Christ himself was partly derived from characters who preceded him. I would identify a character with stigmata and a spear wound who carries the Divine Spark as one with a much more specific relation to the Christ than Frodo would have.
I chuckled here because this isn't a great example of your point (which I do take.) Frodo obviously does not have a stigmata or a spear wound in the side (he is stabbed in the side by a spear, but his mithril coat deflects the thrust.) But there is specific imagery from the Stations of the Cross applied to him--he is wounded three times in the text (stabbed in the shoulder, stung by Shelob, and loses his finger) paralleling Christ's three falls carrying the cross. What we're supposed to take from this, of course, is that Frodo partakes of the Christ-nature in a very specific way--he is a type of Christ the Cross-bearer, not Christ the Teacher or the Son of God.
Likewise I think Severian might be an attempt to isolate and examine Christ's career as a miracle worker uninformed by moral teachings. (It is logical that such a figure would at least have pretentions of being an divine figure.) Silk (in Long Sun, anyway) might be said to be the opposite--a great moral teacher and religious/political leader who is not a miracle worker or disguised transcendent being.
1 quoted line
Second, I asked, if Severian experiences in TUotNS, as he relates he does, at least a glimpse of what it's like to be God/a god/a godling/whatever (I don't see support in the text for useful distinctions between these), then what does that mean for the work? To this question, I got John's suggestion that Severian's divinity might have been temporary, and Brunian's. It's still open. Is this passage part of TUotNS's New-Sun-for-Dummies role, or does it tell us something specific, like Severian is divine? is he divine temporarily or inherently? Or am I jumping to conclusions? Perhaps, read properly, it tells us Severian is NOT divine?
I think it tells us that Severian is an instrument of the something far greater than himself--it's his experience, one might say, of being "possessed." I think there are parallel sequences in That Hideous Strength when planetary angels possess mortals--Lewis does not thereby posit that planetary intelligences are equivalent to God, but just that to a human being, the angel is sufficiently above him to induce a numinous experience.
What I think it doesn't tell us is that Wolfe's conception of the divine in compatible with the flaws in Severian's character. That is too wildly implausible for a writer of Wolfe's background to suggest. My biggest issue is not with the idea of interrogating Severian's role as a chosen one, an instrument, or a savior figure--it's with imputing moral sanction to all of his actions and especially the destruction of Urth simply because Wolfe is a Catholic and bestows Christ-like attributes to Severian.
48 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:11:27 -0800
From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 53, Issue 59
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
<1f7617370902031611l2a8ec3d3kf2c94236ec11acdb at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
David,
"Guardian of the Sacred Texts" is childish and insulting.
But I should lay my cards open on the table: I am, like Wolfe, an adult convert to Roman Catholicism.
Independently of this, I believe that the Catholic episteme offers perspectives on Wolfe's work that point, if not to his achievement, at least to his intent.
For example, there are a lot of scenes in the Briah cycle that parallel, parody, or otherwise reflect upon the Eucharist. Reading these scenes with a knowledge of the Eucharist imbues them with a narrative energy that is simply not present without that knowledge.
That doesn't mean that a specifically-Catholic reading of Wolfe is "right" or even "better than others."
But it does make a reading that's aware of Catholic practice and imagery a whole lot more interesting -- at least, to me.
The text is the text and, finally, any reading in good faith is a good reading. (But we are always already in bad faith with this or any text...) A reading that completely ignores the generically Christian and specifically Catholic imagery and ideas can be valid.
Such a reading, however, strikes me as like a reading of "Ulysses"
by someone without (or who doesn't show) the slightest knowledge
of the Odyssey. I've read such readings, and they can be interesting enough, but they lack a dimension.
This is where we disagree: "As a result, it is legitimate to say that Severian is "Christ-like," but not to say that he is "a Christ." "
I overspoke my case by saying "legitimate." I would say however that
a reading that made Severian "a Christ" would be (a) contrary to the author's intent, for what that may matter to you, and (b) less interesting than one where Severian is "Christ-like."
Why less interesting? Well: for one thing, "a Christ" is too far removed from the merely-human for me to find much application to my daily life. (This is a problem for me in my own religious life, you betcha.) A Christ-like person, with the sinfulness and failings that beset all humans but One, is far more interesting to me.
(And, as a side note, Severian is clearly a sinful human himself in need of redemption, not a perfect Redeemer.)
For another, making Severian "a Christ" forces a schema on the book
that I think just doesn't fit. Some of Severian's adventures clearly reflect, refract, distort some of the episodes of the Gospels - probably most obvious, his encounter with Typhon, as a reflection of Christ's temptation in the desert; but there are quite a number of others.
But to make Severian "a Christ" seems to me to require us to seek these parallels everywhere in the text, even where they simply don't exist.
But then ... you seem to mean something different by "a Christ" than what I would mean. It may be that, if we could decode each other properly, "a Christ" in your language might mean something more like what "a Christlike person" does in mine.
Or not?
-- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 21:09:18 -0500 (EST) From: brunians at brunians.org Subject: Re:
This is all very interesting.
I don't understand how there can be only one interpretation of Christ, especially argued by Catholics, who are considered Heretics by the oldest, most traditional and unchanged Christian Church, The Eastern Orthodox.
And even then, Christ's Divinity is EXEGESIS. It's in the Creed, and it's the Catholics that changed the creed and caused the Great Schism.
I don't need to argue it any more though. Severian is as Christ as it gets in New Sun. if that helps me understand it, fine. If one needs to call him Christ Like in deference to dear Jesus, fine. The line from Wolfe outside of BotNS that means the most to me is that he wanted to explore the "implications of his faith" We're supposed to pick up the cross and become Christ-like. Mystic Hermetic Cosmic Christians would say you have to become CHRIST. not "like" him. And between Severian and Horn, you've got two characters who BECAME the myth that inspired and motivated them. talk about exploring the implications of some cosmic event on a personal level.
This is beautiful stuff here, and hair splitting between Christ & Christ-like is sorta off the mark. It's only exegesis. For me, the text renders a sort of temporary divinity to him. but in my view, everyone is always also divine, and Severian just got a real glimpse of it as he was used, by the hand of God, at a much higher level than most of us are. But I think one of the most major points I get from reading between the lines on Jesus's story is that we're all crucified on the crossroads between base & divine.
~SonOfWitz
68 quoted lines
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Brewer [mailto:cnbrewer at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 08:12 AM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
Catholicism makes all of this a bit tricky, too. Catholicism, of course, immediately brings up questions of orthodoxy vs. whatever. It's easy to assume that since Wolfe is Catholic, his beliefs are orthodox. It's also easy to assume that since he's comfortable sharing his personal beliefs, that his fictions all ultimately match those beliefs. But to go from Catholic orthodoxy straight to interpretation misses two important mediators: fiction and the author.
My questions are always: why must an author's fiction necessarily match their personal beliefs? Couldn't their fiction explore alternatives, express doubts, raise questions, etc. (With Wolfe, I'm always curious how an engineer might reconceptualize Catholic theology in a completely mechanical way...I see points where Wolfe toys with these ideas that, to me, aren't heretical but certainly aren't orthodox, either.) And just because Wolfe is Catholic, can we assume he's an orthodox Catholic? There's an interview where he discussed converting to Catholicism,* saying that he didn't read a lot of theology but read Chesterton and other Catholic writers. The interview also suggests that he might (and this is of course reading between the lines) have rationalized himself into Catholicism rather than simply accepting it whole cloth in one swoop. (Although what his attitude is now might be incredibly different.) Furthermore, he wrote the books at different times
during his life when his relationship to his faith might have changed. In other words, turning to orthodox theology as a way to interpret the fiction seems to miss a few steps. The point is that knowing a few general things about Wolfe's general relation to Catholic orthodoxy in general never tells us much about specifics.
I'm also never comfortable talking about an author's intentions. An author can, of course, misunderstand him/herself. (Look at the later PKDick, for example...an extreme one since he was losing his mind, but it still applies.) Or maybe an author failed to communicate as he wanted? Or maybe the story was more complex than they intended? You don't have to be a raging postmodernist to recognize that writing and story-telling, no matter how well crafted, are media -- at once communicating but also a barrier between writer-as-person and reader-as-person. (That insight is at least as old as Plato.) While that never means that "anything goes" in interpretation, it also means that authorial intention is only one factor.
Of course Wolfe's religion informs his fiction. You have to be blind not to see that. But it takes textual argument to connect an author's personal beliefs to the words/story in a substantial way. There's never a necessary connection. When interpreters get into discussions about theology or mythology, I'm always skeptical when they want to suggest that because a source puts something one way, Wolfe must as well. Instead, I'm almost most interested in how the details of the text relate to the source material and what they change. After all, isn't that the entire point of the Brown Book: Nothing is ever completely different, but nothing is ever completely the same when filtered through time/culture/writing.
*"About his conversion, Wolfe says: "I was raised in a
rather lax fashion as a Presbyterian. I don't think my
father had any particular religious convictions. My
mother had been raised as a Presbyterian and so I was
nominally a Presbyterian. It was largely an answer to
give when people asked you. . . . I married a Roman
Catholic and had to take instruction in it in order that
we could have a Catholic wedding I became interested
in it, read and studied, and talked to people about
it and so forth, and eventually converted. . . . I didn't
read a lot of theology.... I read Chesterton's book on
St. Thomas Aquinas . . . and ended up reading everything
of Chesterton's that I could find. I had gone
through very much the same thing earlier with C.S.
Lewis.""
(Quoted in John Farrel's "The Distant Suns of Gene Wolfe," First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life; Apr2007 Issue 172, p28.)
----- Original Message ----
From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 9:12:28 AM
Subject: (urth) Wolfean theologies
Perhaps, but I don't see the relevance, or rather the parallels, to the discussion. Following your understanding of these terms, one must always call the Catholic christ-interpretation "Christ" and the "heretical" christ-interpretations "Christ-like." This is or would be patently absurd and useless and irrelevant, and I object. Feel free to adopt that convention, but recognize that it is merely a convention.
None of this affects what Wolfe believes or how that affects interpretation---only how such data are asserted.
I am indeed arguing for a broader field of potential interpretations than some here seem comfortable with. But I have not argued what you have said. To repeat myself, this has as much to do with forum etiquette as anything else. I don't mind arguments from theology. I object to arguments from authority rather than logic---as I have very clearly stated.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:55:57 +0000
From: Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 53, Issue 59
To: <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <BLU120-W45CA15F795D84A37E7C3B386C20 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
There is wiggle-room for interpretation, but generally interpretation is supposed to stay close to the original intention of the speaker or at least not contradict it without absolute necessity. This may sound nitpicky but without it you get "radical" interpretation where everything can mean anything you want at any time.
I could basically use the same form of argument you used there to say that well, to me in my belief system, calling someone "Christ" or "Christ-like" is the same as saying that they are Richard Nixon. Thus you can't argue that my interpretation of BotNS as a retelling of the Watergate story without privileging an interpretation based on Wolfe's religious beliefs, right?
-- "When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang
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On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote: This is all very interesting. I don't understand how there can be only one interpretation of Christ, especially argued by Catholics, who are considered Heretics by the oldest, most traditional and unchanged Christian Church, The Eastern Orthodox.
Catholics are, I believe, considered schismatics, not heretics, by the Orthodox.
75 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
And even then, Christ's Divinity is EXEGESIS. It's in the Creed, and it's the Catholics that changed the creed and caused the Great Schism.
I don't need to argue it any more though. Severian is as Christ as it gets in New Sun. if that helps me understand it, fine. If one needs to call him Christ Like in deference to dear Jesus, fine. The line from Wolfe outside of BotNS that means the most to me is that he wanted to explore the "implications of his faith" We're supposed to pick up the cross and become Christ-like. Mystic Hermetic Cosmic Christians would say you have to become CHRIST. not "like" him. And between Severian and Horn, you've got two characters who BECAME the myth that inspired and motivated them. talk about exploring the implications of some cosmic event on a personal level. This is beautiful stuff here, and hair splitting between Christ & Christ-like is sorta off the mark. It's only exegesis. For me, the text renders a sort of temporary divinity to him. but in my view, everyone is always also divine, and Severian just got a real glimpse of it as he was used, by the hand of God, at a much higher level than most of us are. But I think one of the most major points I get from reading between the lines on Jesus's story is that we're all crucified on the crossroads between base & divine.
~SonOfWitz
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Brewer [mailto:cnbrewer at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 08:12 AM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
Catholicism makes all of this a bit tricky, too. Catholicism, of course, immediately brings up questions of orthodoxy vs. whatever. It's easy to assume that since Wolfe is Catholic, his beliefs are orthodox. It's also easy to assume that since he's comfortable sharing his personal beliefs, that his fictions all ultimately match those beliefs. But to go from Catholic orthodoxy straight to interpretation misses two important mediators: fiction and the author.
My questions are always: why must an author's fiction necessarily match their personal beliefs? Couldn't their fiction explore alternatives, express doubts, raise questions, etc. (With Wolfe, I'm always curious how an engineer might reconceptualize Catholic theology in a completely mechanical way...I see points where Wolfe toys with these ideas that, to me, aren't heretical but certainly aren't orthodox, either.) And just because Wolfe is Catholic, can we assume he's an orthodox Catholic? There's an interview where he discussed converting to Catholicism,* saying that he didn't read a lot of theology but read Chesterton and other Catholic writers. The interview also suggests that he might (and this is of course reading between the lines) have rationalized himself into Catholicism rather than simply accepting it whole cloth in one swoop. (Although what his attitude is now might be incredibly different.) Furthermore, he wrote the books at different times during his life when his relationship to his faith might have changed. In other words, turning to orthodox theology as a way to interpret the fiction seems to miss a few steps. The point is that knowing a few general things about Wolfe's general relation to Catholic orthodoxy in general never tells us much about specifics.
I'm also never comfortable talking about an author's intentions. An author can, of course, misunderstand him/herself. (Look at the later PKDick, for example...an extreme one since he was losing his mind, but it still applies.) Or maybe an author failed to communicate as he wanted? Or maybe the story was more complex than they intended? You don't have to be a raging postmodernist to recognize that writing and story-telling, no matter how well crafted, are media -- at once communicating but also a barrier between writer-as-person and reader-as-person. (That insight is at least as old as Plato.) While that never means that "anything goes" in interpretation, it also means that authorial intention is only one factor.
Of course Wolfe's religion informs his fiction. You have to be blind not
to see that. But it takes textual argument to connect an author's personal beliefs to the words/story in a substantial way. There's never a necessary connection. When interpreters get into discussions about theology or mythology, I'm always skeptical when they want to suggest that because a source puts something one way, Wolfe must as well. Instead, I'm almost most interested in how the details of the text relate to the source material and what they change. After all, isn't that the entire point of the Brown Book:
Nothing is ever completely different, but nothing is ever completely the same when filtered through time/culture/writing.
*"About his conversion, Wolfe says: "I was raised in a
rather lax fashion as a Presbyterian. I don't think my
father had any particular religious convictions. My
mother had been raised as a Presbyterian and so I was
nominally a Presbyterian. It was largely an answer to
give when people asked you. . . . I married a Roman
Catholic and had to take instruction in it in order that
we could have a Catholic wedding I became interested
in it, read and studied, and talked to people about
it and so forth, and eventually converted. . . . I didn't
read a lot of theology.... I read Chesterton's book on
St. Thomas Aquinas . . . and ended up reading everything
of Chesterton's that I could find. I had gone
through very much the same thing earlier with C.S.
Lewis.""
(Quoted in John Farrel's "The Distant Suns of Gene Wolfe," First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life; Apr2007 Issue 172, p28.)
----- Original Message ----
From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 9:12:28 AM
Subject: (urth) Wolfean theologies
Perhaps, but I don't see the relevance, or rather the parallels, to the discussion. Following your understanding of these terms, one must always call the Catholic christ-interpretation "Christ" and the "heretical"
christ-interpretations "Christ-like." This is or would be patently absurd and useless and irrelevant, and I object. Feel free to adopt that convention, but recognize that it is merely a convention.
None of this affects what Wolfe believes or how that affects
interpretation---only how such data are asserted.
I am indeed arguing for a broader field of potential interpretations than some here seem comfortable with. But I have not argued what you have said.
To repeat myself, this has as much to do with forum etiquette as anything else. I don't mind arguments from theology. I object to arguments from authority rather than logic---as I have very clearly stated.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:55:57 +0000
From: Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 53, Issue 59
To: <urth at lists.urth.net>
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There is wiggle-room for interpretation, but generally interpretation is supposed to stay close to the original intention of the speaker or at least not contradict it without absolute necessity. This may sound nitpicky but without it you get "radical" interpretation where everything can mean anything you want at any time.
I could basically use the same form of argument you used there to say that well, to me in my belief system, calling someone "Christ" or "Christ-like"
is the same as saying that they are Richard Nixon. Thus you can't argue that my interpretation of BotNS as a retelling of the Watergate story without privileging an interpretation based on Wolfe's religious beliefs, right?
-- "When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang
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On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote: This is all very interesting. I don't understand how there can be only one interpretation of Christ, especially argued by Catholics, who are considered Heretics by the oldest, most traditional and unchanged Christian Church, The Eastern Orthodox. And even then, Christ's Divinity is EXEGESIS. It's in the Creed, and it's the Catholics that changed the creed and caused the Great Schism.
Heterodox the RCC may be in Orthodox eyes, but not in its christology. In that, at least, the Catholics & Orthodoxen are in full agreement. And inserting "filioque" into the Creed was just the straw that broke the camel's back; there had been a long series of misunderstandings and strains on fellowship before then, on both sides.
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
Having a sort of mystic bent to my understandings of this stuff, think the Filioque is a huge change. It takes the basic form of the Trinity and turns it into a flat, hierarchical line. Triangles are one of the most fundamental forms in creation, and I think it's no accident that the Trinity is a triangle. It's foundational. Flatten that out and you've done some serious root level damage to the very structure of the message. It's no wonder all of the screwed up situations that follow that change. Inquisition,Crusades, Celibate Clergy, PriestRapists, Vatican II, and now the Oecumenical stuff...
and, I don't know about all of them, but some of the Orthodox I know DEFINITELY consider Catholicism a heresy. I find it a little shrill, but that's just me. I should say for myself I don't consider them heretics. I'm in no position to judge that, my own ideas probably being heretical.
~Witz
15 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Weber [mailto:palaeologos at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 09:44 AM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote:
This is all very interesting.
I don't understand how there can be only one interpretation of Christ, especially argued by Catholics, who are considered Heretics by the oldest, most traditional and unchanged Christian Church, The Eastern Orthodox. And even then, Christ's Divinity is EXEGESIS. It's in the Creed, and it's the Catholics that changed the creed and caused the Great Schism.
Heterodox the RCC may be in Orthodox eyes, but not in its christology. In that, at least, the Catholics & Orthodoxen are in full agreement. And inserting "filioque" into the Creed was just the straw that broke the camel's back; there had been a long series of misunderstandings and strains on fellowship before then, on both sides.
--
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
Whatever.
They will take communion from each other's priests, in emergency. Neither one of them will take communion from your priests.
.
22 quoted lines · 1–3 deep
Having a sort of mystic bent to my understandings of this stuff, think the Filioque is a huge change. It takes the basic form of the Trinity and turns it into a flat, hierarchical line. Triangles are one of the most fundamental forms in creation, and I think it's no accident that the Trinity is a triangle. It's foundational. Flatten that out and you've done some serious root level damage to the very structure of the message. It's no wonder all of the screwed up situations that follow that change. Inquisition,Crusades, Celibate Clergy, PriestRapists, Vatican II, and now the Oecumenical stuff...
and, I don't know about all of them, but some of the Orthodox I know DEFINITELY consider Catholicism a heresy. I find it a little shrill, but that's just me. I should say for myself I don't consider them heretics. I'm in no position to judge that, my own ideas probably being heretical.
~Witz
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Weber [mailto:palaeologos at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 09:44 AM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Son of Witz
<sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote:
This is all very interesting.
I don't understand how there can be only one interpretation of Christ, especially argued by Catholics, who are considered Heretics by the oldest, most traditional and unchanged Christian Church, The Eastern Orthodox. And even then, Christ's Divinity is EXEGESIS. It's in the Creed, and it's the Catholics that changed the creed and caused the Great Schism.
Heterodox the RCC may be in Orthodox eyes, but not in its christology. In that, at least, the Catholics & Orthodoxen are in full agreement. And inserting "filioque" into the Creed was just the straw that broke the camel's back; there had been a long series of misunderstandings and strains on fellowship before then, on both sides.
--
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
-----Original Message-----
From: brunians at brunians.org [mailto:brunians at brunians.org] Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 10:35 AM To: 'The Urth Mailing List' Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
Whatever.
They will take communion from each other's priests, in emergency. Neither one of them will take communion from your priests.
.
Having a sort of mystic bent to my understandings of this stuff, think the Filioque is a huge change. It takes the basic form of the Trinity and turns it into a flat, hierarchical line. Triangles are one of the most fundamental forms in creation, and I think it's no accident that the Trinity is a triangle. It's foundational. Flatten that out and you've done some serious root level damage to the very structure of the message. It's no wonder all of the screwed up situations that follow that change. Inquisition,Crusades, Celibate Clergy, PriestRapists, Vatican II, and now the Oecumenical stuff...
and, I don't know about all of them, but some of the Orthodox I know DEFINITELY consider Catholicism a heresy. I find it a little shrill, but that's just me. I should say for myself I don't consider them heretics. I'm in no position to judge that, my own ideas probably being heretical.
~Witz
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Weber [mailto:palaeologos at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 09:44 AM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Son of Witz
<sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote:
This is all very interesting.
I don't understand how there can be only one interpretation of Christ, especially argued by Catholics, who are considered Heretics by the oldest, most traditional and unchanged Christian Church, The Eastern Orthodox. And even then, Christ's Divinity is EXEGESIS. It's in the Creed, and it's the Catholics that changed the creed and caused the Great Schism.
Heterodox the RCC may be in Orthodox eyes, but not in its christology. In that, at least, the Catholics & Orthodoxen are in full agreement. And inserting "filioque" into the Creed was just the straw that broke the camel's back; there had been a long series of misunderstandings and strains on fellowship before then, on both sides.
--
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 10:35 AM, <brunians at brunians.org> wrote: Whatever.
They will take communion from each other's priests, in emergency. Neither one of them will take communion from your priests.
Whose priests are we talking about? I came into this conversation late, after having been away from urth-l for several years...
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 10:35 AM, <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
Whatever.
They will take communion from each other's priests, in emergency. Neither one of them will take communion from your priests.
Whose priests are we talking about? I came into this conversation late, after having been away from urth-l for several years...
--
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
_______________________________________________
Hello!
On 4 lutego 2009, David Stockhoff wrote:
...
1 quoted line
Yes, you are saying exactly what I think. As only a semiliterate person in these areas, as well as being an atheist, I am naturally leery of a too-theological interpretation.
...
1 quoted line
However, outside the work, I personally don't see much difference, because to me they are all characters, and the world is plainly big enough for infinite variations. Christ himself was partly derived from characters who preceded him. I would identify a character with stigmata and a spear wound who carries the Divine Spark as one with a much more specific relation to the Christ than Frodo would have.
...
1 quoted line
Second, I asked, if Severian experiences in TUotNS, as he relates he does, at least a glimpse of what it's like to be God/a god/a godling/whatever (I don't see support in the text for useful distinctions between these), then what does that mean for the work? To this question, I got John's suggestion that Severian's divinity might have been temporary, and Brunian's. It's still open. Is this passage part of TUotNS's New-Sun-for-Dummies role, or does it tell us something specific, like Severian is divine? is he divine temporarily or inherently? Or am I jumping to conclusions? Perhaps, read properly, it tells us Severian is NOT divine?
...
Since you yourself said that your knowledge of theology is limited, I will try to explain some basic conceptions of that science. They are not exclusive to Christianity BTW, in fact they have been discovered by the Greek philosophy.
God is categorically different from all other things which exists (including gods/divinities/godlings/angels/saints). God is the fundamental ground of all existence, outside the world, space and time. Whatever exists, exists because of God. Moreover, no words which can be used to describe any other things can be rightly used about God. In fact, saying that God exists, is good, wise, powerful etc is in a sense untrue - all those words do not describe God correctly.
For that reason saying that Severian is Christ makes no sense. Even saying that Severian resembles Christ is meaningless if you do not understand that categorical difference.
Here you can find a good description of the problem by Pseudo-Dionysios Areopagita. He is my favourite author when explaining Wolfe, since he is heavily influenced by Neoplatonists. The introduction by translator to "On the Divine Names" is very good and should explain things.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolt/dionysius.iii.ii.htmlhttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm
That fundamental difference is quite clearly explained by Wolfe in the Melito's story in "The Citadel of the Autarch";
""The eagle looked at the angel when he heard what the cock said,
and the angel looked at the eagle. 'The Pancreator is infinitely
far from us,' the angel said. 'And thus infinitely far from me,
though I fly so much higher than you. I guess at his desires?
no one can do otherwise.'"
Note that this is NOT an orthodox position. It a Neoplatonic, not
Christian idea (as is most of the New Sun, of course),
but it clearly shows the difference between the True
God and all other divinities, of which there is so many in the
series.
Best regards,
Stanislaus B.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Pokieruj psem-bohaterem i uratuj Penny! Skaczesz i gryziesz >> zagraj >> http://link.interia.pl/f204f
Wow ... I don't comment much on this list, but ... damn. Do you suppose you could lay off the Catholics for a while? "Priest Rapists" are a result of the Filioque clause? Come on. I didn't subscribe to this list to read crap like this. The conversation was interesting until you felt the need to vomit on the page and share it with the rest of us.
Matt Teel
--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 6:31 PM
Having a sort of mystic bent to my understandings of this stuff, think the Filioque is a huge change. It takes the basic form of the Trinity and turns it into a flat, hierarchical line. Triangles are one of the most fundamental forms in creation, and I think it's no accident that the Trinity is a triangle. It's foundational. Flatten that out and you've done some serious root level damage to the very structure of the message. It's no wonder all of the screwed up situations that follow that change. Inquisition,Crusades, Celibate Clergy, PriestRapists, Vatican II, and now the Oecumenical stuff....
and, I don't know about all of them, but some of the Orthodox I know DEFINITELY consider Catholicism a heresy. I find it a little shrill, but that's just me. I should say for myself I don't consider them heretics. I'm in no position to judge that, my own ideas probably being heretical.
~Witz
18 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Weber [mailto:palaeologos at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 09:44 AM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Son of Witz
<sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote:
This is all very interesting.
I don't understand how there can be only one interpretation of
Christ,
especially argued by Catholics, who are considered Heretics by the oldest, most traditional and unchanged Christian Church, The Eastern Orthodox. And even then, Christ's Divinity is EXEGESIS. It's in the Creed, and it's the Catholics that changed the creed and caused the Great Schism.
Heterodox the RCC may be in Orthodox eyes, but not in its christology. In that, at least, the Catholics & Orthodoxen are in full agreement. And inserting "filioque" into the Creed was just the straw that broke the camel's back; there had been a long series of misunderstandings and strains on fellowship before then, on both sides.
--
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
I'm not harshing on Catholics,
I'm harshing on the Catholic Church. Like I might bag on Iran without offense to Iranians. I've couched any critique with apologies to Catholics who might be offended. I suggested the priest rapists are one step in a chain of errors that result from a doctrinal change. Papal infaliability, Celibate Clergy, these are insertions and distortions and they seem to have led to a lot of problems. I don't think what i wrote is vomit at all, it's what MANY people feel about the Catholic Church's problems. Care to show my how I'm wrong? Lots of people think the Filioque is no big deal, and others think it's The Problem that allows all the others to come in. I'm happy to learn your argument. I'll admit "It's no wonder all that..." should have been stated as "It seems as if all that..."
~SonOfWitz
19 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
On Feb 4, 2009, at 6:08 PM, Matt Teel wrote:
Wow ... I don't comment much on this list, but ... damn. Do you suppose you could lay off the Catholics for a while? "Priest Rapists" are a result of the Filioque clause? Come on. I didn't subscribe to this list to read crap like this. The conversation was interesting until you felt the need to vomit on the page and share it with the rest of us.
Matt Teel
--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote: From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 6:31 PM
Having a sort of mystic bent to my understandings of this stuff,
think the
Filioque is a huge change. It takes the basic form of the Trinity
and turns it
into a flat, hierarchical line. Triangles are one of the most fundamental forms in creation, and I think it's no accident that the Trinity is a triangle. It's foundational. Flatten that out and you've done some serious root level damage to the very structure of the message. It's no wonder all of the screwed up situations that follow that change. Inquisition,Crusades, Celibate Clergy, PriestRapists, Vatican II, and now the Oecumenical stuff...
and, I don't know about all of them, but some of the Orthodox I know DEFINITELY consider Catholicism a heresy. I find it a little shrill, but that's just me. I should say for myself I don't consider them heretics. I'm in no position to judge that, my own ideas probably being heretical.
~Witz
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Weber [mailto:palaeologos at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 09:44 AM
First off : clerical sexual abuse is not confined to the RCC. If it is more prevalent in the Roman Church (which may or may not be true), it might have more to do with the discipline of celibacy attracting men with sexuality issues than it has with the difference between single or double procession.
Second : the jurisdictional chaos whose inhabitants affectionately refer to it as "Orthodoxy" has plenty of its own problems, among them (to quote a friend) "willed ignorance of history, the pretense that things always were as the now-dominant party wanted them to be, and the systematic misrepresentation and exclusion of difference." In the end, no ekklesia is perfect; churches are full of hypocrites, but as Bishop Block once said, "There's always room for one more".
3 quoted lines
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 7:19 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote: I'm not harshing on Catholics, I'm harshing on the Catholic Church. Like I might bag on Iran without offense to Iranians. I've couched any critique with apologies to Catholics who might be offended. I suggested the priest rapists are one step in a chain of errors that result from a doctrinal change. Papal infaliability, Celibate Clergy, these are insertions and distortions and they seem to have led to a lot of problems. I don't think what i wrote is vomit at all, it's what MANY people feel about the Catholic Church's problems. Care to show my how I'm wrong? Lots of people think the Filioque is no big deal, and others think it's The Problem that allows all the others to come in. I'm happy to learn your argument. I'll admit "It's no wonder all that..." should have been stated as "It seems as if all that..."
~SonOfWitz
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
Fair points.
I won't argue, because I don't completely endorse the ideas I mentioned, or very well educated about this. I especially agree with "there's always room for one more". Sorry I offended anyone. I certainly did NOT mean to dismiss anyone's beliefs. I was only trying to talk about it at the Institutional level of Doctrine manipulation, and not what goes on in each believer's heart and soul. My point was that something as seemingly inoffensive as a change of a couple of words in the creed can have disastrous affects. It can be, and seems to be, a big deal. ~witz
15 quoted lines
On Feb 4, 2009, at 7:53 PM, Matthew Weber wrote:
First off : clerical sexual abuse is not confined to the RCC. If it is more prevalent in the Roman Church (which may or may not be true), it might have more to do with the discipline of celibacy attracting men with sexuality issues than it has with the difference between single or double procession.
Second : the jurisdictional chaos whose inhabitants affectionately refer to it as "Orthodoxy" has plenty of its own problems, among them (to quote a friend) "willed ignorance of history, the pretense that things always were as the now-dominant party wanted them to be, and the systematic misrepresentation and exclusion of difference." In the end, no ekklesia is perfect; churches are full of hypocrites, but as Bishop Block once said, "There's always room for one more".
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 7:19 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org wrote: I'm not harshing on Catholics, I'm harshing on the Catholic Church. Like I might bag on Iran without offense to Iranians. I've couched any critique with apologies to Catholics who might be offended. I suggested the priest rapists are one step in a chain of errors that result from a doctrinal change. Papal infaliability, Celibate Clergy, these are insertions and distortions and they seem to have led to a lot of problems. I don't think what i wrote is vomit at all, it's what MANY people feel about the Catholic Church's problems. Care to show my how I'm wrong? Lots of people think the Filioque is no big deal, and others think it's The Problem that allows all the others to come in. I'm happy to learn your argument. I'll admit "It's no wonder all that..." should have been stated as "It seems as if all that..."
~SonOfWitz
--
Matt +
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VII, 537
_______________________________________________
Actually, Son of, as someone who happens to believe in those doctrines (like about a billion others), I do feel like you were "harshing" on me--it seems as though you blame my beliefs for the rape of children.
No doubt you don't mean it. But that is what it sounds like, just a bit.
25 quoted lines · 1–3 deep
On 2/4/09, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
I'm not harshing on Catholics,
I'm harshing on the Catholic Church. Like I might bag on Iran without offense to Iranians. I've couched any critique with apologies to Catholics who might be offended. I suggested the priest rapists are one step in a chain of errors that result from a doctrinal change. Papal infaliability, Celibate Clergy, these are insertions and distortions and they seem to have led to a lot of problems. I don't think what i wrote is vomit at all, it's what MANY people feel about the Catholic Church's problems. Care to show my how I'm wrong? Lots of people think the Filioque is no big deal, and others think it's The Problem that allows all the others to come in. I'm happy to learn your argument. I'll admit "It's no wonder all that..." should have been stated as "It seems as if all that..."
~SonOfWitz
On Feb 4, 2009, at 6:08 PM, Matt Teel wrote:
Wow ... I don't comment much on this list, but ... damn. Do you suppose you could lay off the Catholics for a while? "Priest Rapists" are a result of the Filioque clause? Come on. I didn't subscribe to this list to read crap like this. The conversation was interesting until you felt the need to vomit on the page and share it with the rest of us.
Matt Teel
--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote: From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 6:31 PM
Having a sort of mystic bent to my understandings of this stuff,
think the
Filioque is a huge change. It takes the basic form of the Trinity
and turns it
into a flat, hierarchical line. Triangles are one of the most fundamental forms in creation, and I think it's no accident that the Trinity is a triangle. It's foundational. Flatten that out and you've done some serious root level damage to the very structure of the message. It's no wonder all of the screwed up situations that follow that change. Inquisition,Crusades, Celibate Clergy, PriestRapists, Vatican II, and now the Oecumenical stuff...
and, I don't know about all of them, but some of the Orthodox I know DEFINITELY consider Catholicism a heresy. I find it a little shrill, but that's just me. I should say for myself I don't consider them heretics. I'm in no position to judge that, my own ideas probably being heretical.
~Witz
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Weber [mailto:palaeologos at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 09:44 AM
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Matthew Weber <palaeologos at gmail.com> wrote: First off : clerical sexual abuse is not confined to the RCC. If it is more prevalent in the Roman Church (which may or may not be true), it might have more to do with the discipline of celibacy attracting men with sexuality issues than it has with the difference between single or double procession.
Ephebophilia is quite far removed from pedophilia, and conflating them does no one any good.
Matthew
(Not RC, BTW, FWIW)
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 10:19 PM, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote: On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Matthew Weber <palaeologos at gmail.com> wrote:
First off : clerical sexual abuse is not confined to the RCC. If it is more prevalent in the Roman Church (which may or may not be true), it might have more to do with the discipline of celibacy attracting men with sexuality issues than it has with the difference between single or double procession.
Ephebophilia is quite far removed from pedophilia, and conflating them does no one any good.
Matthew
(Not RC, BTW, FWIW)
I should add that I'm not responding to the other Matthew, but to those who attack the Roman Catholic church. I'll go even farther than he did and say that the discipline of celibacy is not at fault here, but rather the positive and pronounced efforts of some American Roman Catholic priests to recruit men afflicted with sexual attraction to other men. It is also hardly secret that many seminaries harass and discourage men who do not play along.
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote: I'm not harshing on Catholics, I'm harshing on the Catholic Church.
Son, if I may call you that, this is akin to declaring, "I'm not saying you're a son of a bitch, just that your mother is a foul-mouthed whore."
2 quoted lines
Like I might bag on Iran without
offense to Iranians
Most of the rest of the inhabitants of the world have not yet convinced themselves that they are wholly unconcerned with the fate and reputation of their communities. I submit that you would meet much the same reaction in badmouthing Iran to Persians.
sorry I've got some critical things to say about your momma.
It ain't like she's innocent.
resists yo mama joke
No one complained when I bagged on Scientific Materialism.
and "Foul Mouth Whore" is insulting language, which I did not use.
I suggested that one error perhaps led to some real problems.
Just as my mother's drinking led to her neglect of her children and herself. I think the Catholic Church has real, big time issues. sorry if it offends y'all, but how long can you talk about doctrinal differences between sect's interpretations without stepping on some toes?
I'm trying to be thoughtful about my comments, knowing that there are bound to be a lot of Catholics here, as Wolfe is a self-proclaimed "Catholic Writer". I don't think Wolfe's writing is at all orthodox though. I dug the situation with Quetzal because the idea of a vampire at the top of the church is EXACTLY what I've felt about the Pope my ENTIRE life. Fucking Literally. Should I not say that here because some of you are down with the Pope? Surely you all have tougher skin than that. Sorry, if your faith or church can't withstand some tough questions, what is it worth?
I think Satanists are selfish idiots. anyone offended?
~Son
9 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
On Feb 4, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Matthew King wrote:
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org wrote:
I'm not harshing on Catholics,
I'm harshing on the Catholic Church.
Son, if I may call you that, this is akin to declaring, "I'm not saying you're a son of a bitch, just that your mother is a foul-mouthed whore."
Like I might bag on Iran without
offense to Iranians
Most of the rest of the inhabitants of the world have not yet convinced themselves that they are wholly unconcerned with the fate and reputation of their communities. I submit that you would meet much the same reaction in badmouthing Iran to Persians.
_______________________________________________
"Priest rapists", your mother, her drinking habits, and Satanists are - as far as I can tell - immaterial to Wolfe's work.
I'm sure some people probably were offended by what you said. But others probably checked their email, browsed through messages on the list and wondered "why are we talking about priest rapists?" And the answer, as near as I can tell, is "No good reason at all." Digressions happen, but when they're presented in a way that's deliberately designed to an angry (and equally pointless) response for everyone else to read through, it's just trolling.
"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang
28 quoted lines · 1–3 deep
From: sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 23:14:37 -0800
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
sorry I've got some critical things to say about your momma.
It ain't like she's innocent.
resists yo mama joke
No one complained when I bagged on Scientific Materialism.
and "Foul Mouth Whore" is insulting language, which I did not use.
I suggested that one error perhaps led to some real problems.
Just as my mother's drinking led to her neglect of her children and herself. I think the Catholic Church has real, big time issues. sorry if it offends y'all, but how long can you talk about doctrinal differences between sect's interpretations without stepping on some toes?
I'm trying to be thoughtful about my comments, knowing that there are bound to be a lot of Catholics here, as Wolfe is a self-proclaimed "Catholic Writer". I don't think Wolfe's writing is at all orthodox though. I dug the situation with Quetzal because the idea of a vampire at the top of the church is EXACTLY what I've felt about the Pope my ENTIRE life. Fucking Literally. Should I not say that here because some of you are down with the Pope? Surely you all have tougher skin than that. Sorry, if your faith or church can't withstand some tough questions, what is it worth?
I think Satanists are selfish idiots. anyone offended?
~Son
On Feb 4, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Matthew King wrote:
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org wrote:
I'm not harshing on Catholics,
I'm harshing on the Catholic Church.
Son, if I may call you that, this is akin to declaring, "I'm not saying you're a son of a bitch, just that your mother is a foul-mouthed whore."
Like I might bag on Iran without
offense to Iranians
Most of the rest of the inhabitants of the world have not yet convinced themselves that they are wholly unconcerned with the fate and reputation of their communities. I submit that you would meet much the same reaction in badmouthing Iran to Persians.
_______________________________________________
SonOfWitz, as a long standing member of the Church of Odin (I am due to receive my celebratory pair of imitation ravens this weekend in the
Valhalla Restaurant and Public House) I take serious offence to your remarks on Satanists. While the Odinists broke away from the Satanists in
the great schism of 4003 BC (on our first anniversary) in what has since been described as the "Dirty Hanky" scandal (this pivoted on whether cleanliness
was indeed next to godliness - an issue that occupied our immoral philosophers for some time) I still recognise myself as belonging to the greater Satanic church
and so would like you to retract what you said.
Seriously though, I have my private beliefs which I would prefer not to discuss and I have some knowledge of various religions (most particularly Catholicism) having
become very interested in the topic in my early 20s. But I recognise the difference between what I believe and what I understand that other people believe. Instead of
arguing this out with people on the list can we not leave the "Wolfe as Catholic writer" vs "Wolfe as writer with many influences, many of them Catholic" to the realm of
"Are Blue/Green Urth/Lune?" in the camp of intractable Lupine questions?
I would prefer to discuss other items than to argue about beliefs and disappear into tangents on the Church in the world today.
So in that spirit I asked about the following passage in BOTNS a while back and there were no takers:
As I had suspected, the Cumaean was not a woman at all; yet neither was she one of the horrors I had beheld in the gardens of the House Absolute. Something sleekly reptilian coiled about the glowing rod. I looked for the head but found none, though each of the patternings on the reptile's back was a face, and the eyes of each face seemed lost in rapture. Dorcas woke while I looked from one to another.
I have long hoped that this was an Inhumu (Inhumi?) on Urth in the time of Severian. Reasons it is possible:
* Reptilian in nature
* Element of Soul Travel seems to be occurring here
Reasons it may not be an inhumi:
* The description of the faces on the reptile's back does not tie in with BOTSS, unless it is the faces of the Inhumu's victims?
Any takers?
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Amen to that, Chris.
I am full of responses to your idiotic assertions, witz, but I'm going to resist, because this conversation has little-if-anything to do with GENE WOLFE. If that makes you feel like you won the argument, great. If it makes you feel like you lost, then console yourself with how broad-minded and inquisitive you are (and how narrow-minded and thin-skinned those Catholics are) and let's get on with the interpretation of this man's life work.
Matt Teel
--- On Thu, 2/5/09, Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
From: Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Thursday, February 5, 2009, 7:37 AM
#yiv445330995 .hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;padding:0px;}
#yiv445330995 {
font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;}
"Priest rapists", your mother, her drinking habits, and Satanists are - as far as I can tell - immaterial to Wolfe's work.
I'm sure some people probably were offended by what you said. But others probably checked their email, browsed through messages on the list and wondered "why are we talking about priest rapists?" And the answer, as near as I can tell, is "No good reason at all." Digressions happen, but when they're presented in a way that's deliberately designed to an angry (and equally pointless) response for everyone else to read through, it's just trolling.
-- "When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang
28 quoted lines · 1–3 deep
From: sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 23:14:37 -0800
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
sorry I've got some critical things to say about your momma.
It ain't like she's innocent.
resists yo mama joke
No one complained when I bagged on Scientific Materialism.
and "Foul Mouth Whore" is insulting language, which I did not use.
I suggested that one error perhaps led to some real problems.
Just as my mother's drinking led to her neglect of her children and herself. I think the Catholic Church has real, big time issues. sorry if it offends y'all, but how long can you talk about doctrinal differences between sect's interpretations without stepping on some toes?
I'm trying to be thoughtful about my comments, knowing that there are bound to be a lot of Catholics here, as Wolfe is a self-proclaimed "Catholic Writer". I don't think Wolfe's writing is at all orthodox though. I dug the situation with Quetzal because the idea of a vampire at the top of the church is EXACTLY what I've felt about the Pope my ENTIRE life. Fucking Literally. Should I not say that here because some of you are down with the Pope? Surely you all have tougher skin than that. Sorry, if your faith or church can't withstand some tough questions, what is it worth?
I think Satanists are selfish idiots. anyone offended?
~Son
On Feb 4, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Matthew King wrote:
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org wrote:
I'm not harshing on Catholics,
I'm harshing on the Catholic Church.
Son, if I may call you that, this is akin to declaring, "I'm not saying you're a son of a bitch, just that your mother is a foul-mouthed whore."
Like I might bag on Iran without
offense to Iranians
Most of the rest of the inhabitants of the world have not yet convinced themselves that they are wholly unconcerned with the fate and reputation of their communities. I submit that you would meet much the same reaction in badmouthing Iran to Persians.
_______________________________________________
And in any case, the rule doesn't say anything about what you are chaste from, just so long as you are chaste.
If they get rid of all of the gay priests, what are they going to do for priests? There's a lot of gay priests, and I don't think that this is anything new.
.
9 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
automatthew at gmail.com wrote:
Catholic priests to recruit men afflicted with sexual attraction to
"Afflicted"?
Now you've offended me.
Matthew
_______________________________________________
I've checked the archives, but I can't locate very much on the relationship between Wolfe and Edmund Spenser. So I wanted to ask if anyone had any other leads or references they've found. (And, of course, if anyone knows of anywhere Wolfe mentions have read Spenser would be wonderful.) Of course the back of the current editing of Shadow and Claw lists Spenser on the back along with Dickens. And the general allegorical landscape of New Sun in particular immediately asks to be compared to other allegories.
But Spenser specifically?
The closet immediate connection is Talos/Talus. In Book V of the Faerie Queene, the knight of Justice, Artegall, travels with a huge golem who metes out harsh justice. The golem's name is Talus. Of course this brings to mind the taluses of Long Sun, but also Dr. Talos...who, of course, writes his own allegorical play.
Now of course Wolfe could just be referring, like Spenser, to the Talos or bronze giant in Greek myth. But the fact that Dr. Talos is the one who writes the allegory got me thinking whether this was a nod to Spenser. Then, of course, I got to thinking about other possible Spenserianisms in Wolfe. I've always known they were alike in spirit, but now I'd like to know whether there's something more substantive.
Spenser also has a Phaedria, but there are a number of Phaedria's out there, and the resemblances are vague.
And on a note on the recent religious discussion, it would be incredibly interesting to look at how Wolfe integrated a militantly Protestant poet like Spenser...
(The only bit on Spenser I could find in the archives was a wonderful note by Nigel Price here: http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0024/0051.shtml)
my very small tangent did have to do with BotNS, in that people are arguing about the Severian Christ issue as if there is one understanding of Christ, so I pointed out that even the dominant understanding of Christ is considered Heresy by some. It wasn't way off topic. IMO, it was not "No good reason at all". Look at the title of the thread. "Wolfean Theologies" well isn't Wolfe Catholic? can't I talk about Catholicism? Sorry if what I have to say isn't peaches and cream.
Matt,
Win? Lose? what are you talking about? I made some, uh, "idiotic assertions" and people were offended that I expressed what I felt. I certainly don't care to argue about what any of us here believe, but discussing different interpretations of texts, Wolfe's or those that informed Wolfe, are FAIR GAME. I'm not presenting myself as better than any Catholics here. I made a critique about an institution's problems. Can't I? I'll obviously try to refrain since people think I'm talking about THEM when I'm talking about an institutional church decision made in the 12th century. I'd challenge anyone to dig through my messages and find something negative I said about Catholic Worshipers. I don't think it happened.
Tim,
Cleanliness IS next to Godliness.
pick up the hanky.
~Son
46 quoted lines · 1–4 deep
On Feb 5, 2009, at 3:57 AM, Matt Teel wrote:
Amen to that, Chris.
I am full of responses to your idiotic assertions, witz, but I'm going to resist, because this conversation has little-if-anything to do with GENE WOLFE. If that makes you feel like you won the argument, great. If it makes you feel like you lost, then console yourself with how broad-minded and inquisitive you are (and how narrow-minded and thin-skinned those Catholics are) and let's get on with the interpretation of this man's life work.
Matt Teel
--- On Thu, 2/5/09, Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
From: Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Thursday, February 5, 2009, 7:37 AM
"Priest rapists", your mother, her drinking habits, and Satanists are - as far as I can tell - immaterial to Wolfe's work.
I'm sure some people probably were offended by what you said. But others probably checked their email, browsed through messages on the list and wondered "why are we talking about priest rapists?" And the answer, as near as I can tell, is "No good reason at all." Digressions happen, but when they're presented in a way that's deliberately designed to an angry (and equally pointless) response for everyone else to read through, it's just trolling.
-- "When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang
From: sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 23:14:37 -0800
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
sorry I've got some critical things to say about your momma.
It ain't like she's innocent.
resists yo mama joke
No one complained when I bagged on Scientific Materialism.
and "Foul Mouth Whore" is insulting language, which I did not use.
I suggested that one error perhaps led to some real problems.
Just as my mother's drinking led to her neglect of her children and herself. I think the Catholic Church has real, big time issues. sorry if it offends y'all, but how long can you talk about doctrinal differences between sect's interpretations without stepping on some toes?
I'm trying to be thoughtful about my comments, knowing that there are bound to be a lot of Catholics here, as Wolfe is a self-proclaimed "Catholic Writer". I don't think Wolfe's writing is at all orthodox though. I dug the situation with Quetzal because the idea of a vampire at the top of the church is EXACTLY what I've felt about the Pope my ENTIRE life. Fucking Literally. Should I not say that here because some of you are down with the Pope? Surely you all have tougher skin than that. Sorry, if your faith or church can't withstand some tough questions, what is it worth?
I think Satanists are selfish idiots. anyone offended?
~Son
On Feb 4, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Matthew King wrote:
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org wrote:
I'm not harshing on Catholics,
I'm harshing on the Catholic Church.
Son, if I may call you that, this is akin to declaring, "I'm not saying you're a son of a bitch, just that your mother is a foul-mouthed whore."
Like I might bag on Iran without
offense to Iranians
Most of the rest of the inhabitants of the world have not yet convinced themselves that they are wholly unconcerned with the fate and reputation of their communities. I submit that you would meet much the same reaction in badmouthing Iran to Persians.
_______________________________________________
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:14 AM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote:
I certainly don't care to argue about what any of us here believe, but discussing different interpretations of texts, Wolfe's or those that informed Wolfe, are FAIR GAME. I'm not presenting myself as better than any Catholics here. I made a critique about an institution's problems. Can't I?
Well, no, you really shouldn't, because a) your opinion about the historical consequences of the Filioque is irrelevant, as far as I can tell, to anything Wolfe has ever written, and b) it pollutes the list because naturally Catholics will want to defend themselves and their Church. Hair-pulling to get a reaction, well, gets reactions. That's why it doesn't belong.
48 quoted lines · 1–5 deep
On Feb 5, 2009, at 3:57 AM, Matt Teel wrote:
Amen to that, Chris.
I am full of responses to your idiotic assertions, witz, but I'm going to resist, because this conversation has little-if-anything to do with GENE WOLFE. If that makes you feel like you won the argument, great. If it makes you feel like you lost, then console yourself with how broad-minded and inquisitive you are (and how narrow-minded and thin-skinned those Catholics are) and let's get on with the interpretation of this man's life work.
Matt Teel
--- On Thu, 2/5/09, Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
From: Chris P <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Thursday, February 5, 2009, 7:37 AM
"Priest rapists", your mother, her drinking habits, and Satanists are - as far as I can tell - immaterial to Wolfe's work.
I'm sure some people probably were offended by what you said. But others probably checked their email, browsed through messages on the list and wondered "why are we talking about priest rapists?" And the answer, as near as I can tell, is "No good reason at all." Digressions happen, but when they're presented in a way that's deliberately designed to an angry (and equally pointless) response for everyone else to read through, it's just trolling.
-- "When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang
From: sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 23:14:37 -0800
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
sorry I've got some critical things to say about your momma.
It ain't like she's innocent.
resists yo mama joke
No one complained when I bagged on Scientific Materialism.
and "Foul Mouth Whore" is insulting language, which I did not use.
I suggested that one error perhaps led to some real problems.
Just as my mother's drinking led to her neglect of her children and herself. I think the Catholic Church has real, big time issues. sorry if it offends y'all, but how long can you talk about doctrinal differences between sect's interpretations without stepping on some toes?
I'm trying to be thoughtful about my comments, knowing that there are bound to be a lot of Catholics here, as Wolfe is a self-proclaimed "Catholic Writer". I don't think Wolfe's writing is at all orthodox though. I dug the situation with Quetzal because the idea of a vampire at the top of the church is EXACTLY what I've felt about the Pope my ENTIRE life. Fucking Literally. Should I not say that here because some of you are down with the Pope? Surely you all have tougher skin than that. Sorry, if your faith or church can't withstand some tough questions, what is it worth?
I think Satanists are selfish idiots. anyone offended?
~Son
On Feb 4, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Matthew King wrote:
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Son of Witz <
sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org
wrote:
I'm not harshing on Catholics,
I'm harshing on the Catholic Church.
Son, if I may call you that, this is akin to declaring, "I'm not saying you're a son of a bitch, just that your mother is a foul-mouthed whore."
Like I might bag on Iran without
offense to Iranians
Most of the rest of the inhabitants of the world have not yet convinced themselves that they are wholly unconcerned with the fate and reputation of their communities. I submit that you would meet much the same reaction in badmouthing Iran to Persians.
_______________________________________________
That's a very interesting and useful analysis of Frodo---not just the correspondences, which are easy enough to create/find/project/whatever, but the construction of the orthodox or doctrinaire Christ (let's just call him the OTC, or One True Christ, and assume we are talking about the Catholic one).
It did occur to me that even the OTC is an incredibly complex idea with any number of aspects. You point to 3: Cross-bearer, Teacher, and SoG. This last one is the most problematic for any kind of analysis (I can't decide whether it's central or peripheral!), and I almost threw it in with the stigmata etc., but it seemed too big. One could add Healer. One could also add, from medieval literature, Lover. Thus all the high-medieval love songs to Jesus (see a certain episode of South Park as well).
It makes sense that a work of literature would pick at most 2 of these aspects or divisions (I don't know what to call them) to examine. It also makes sense, then, to regard a character that is OTC-like in only 1 or 2 aspects to be incomplete, not whole, NOT an attempt to replicate the OTC entire. And Severian seems to relate most of all to the Crossbearer (but ironically, since he is the Torturer) and to the Healer. He seems to be a Lover too, although
perhaps that can be taken as sci-fi convention. SoG he ain't---but then there is that passage. Nor is he a Teacher. Characters with these limited connections would legitimately be termed "figures."
Thanks, John, this is really useful! For Silk as well, as you suggest.
So I gather you read that passage not as God/Severian suddenly, briefly, being conscious of fitting himself into a tiny human mind, but as Severian getting a "high" off the Increate's doing so to him. Severian therefore is not himself divine, merely "touched by His noodly appendage."
As you say, even this momentary experience of divinity could have huge and problematic implications as far as the Increate's implied approval of Severian, his puppetmasters, his crimes, etc. And the stronger the connection, the bigger the problem. I wouldn't want to bring all that in on the strength of this single passage.
24 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:33:46 -0500
From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
<93d4039f0902040833n8443ab2p994f575480ab07c8 at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:17 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:
Dan'l:However, outside the work, I personally don't see much difference, because to me they are all characters, and the world is plainly big enough for infinite variations. Christ himself was partly derived from characters who preceded him. I would identify a character with stigmata and a spear wound who carries the Divine Spark as one with a much more specific relation to the Christ than Frodo would have.
I chuckled here because this isn't a great example of your point (which I do take.) Frodo obviously does not have a stigmata or a spear wound in the side (he is stabbed in the side by a spear, but his mithril coat deflects the thrust.) But there is specific imagery from the Stations of the Cross applied to him--he is wounded three times in the text (stabbed in the shoulder, stung by Shelob, and loses his finger) paralleling Christ's three falls carrying the cross. What we're supposed to take from this, of course, is that Frodo partakes of the Christ-nature in a very specific way--he is a type of Christ the Cross-bearer, not Christ the Teacher or the Son of God.
Likewise I think Severian might be an attempt to isolate and examine Christ's career as a miracle worker uninformed by moral teachings. (It is logical that such a figure would at least have pretentions of being an divine figure.) Silk (in Long Sun, anyway) might be said to be the opposite--a great moral teacher and religious/political leader who is not a miracle worker or disguised transcendent being.
Second, I asked, if Severian experiences in TUotNS, as he relates he does, at least a glimpse of what it's like to be God/a god/a godling/whatever (I don't see support in the text for useful distinctions between these), then what does that mean for the work? To this question, I got John's suggestion that Severian's divinity might have been temporary, and Brunian's. It's still open. Is this passage part of TUotNS's New-Sun-for-Dummies role, or does it tell us something specific, like Severian is divine? is he divine temporarily or inherently? Or am I jumping to conclusions? Perhaps, read properly, it tells us Severian is NOT divine?
I think it tells us that Severian is an instrument of the something far greater than himself--it's his experience, one might say, of being "possessed." I think there are parallel sequences in That Hideous Strength when planetary angels possess mortals--Lewis does not thereby posit that planetary intelligences are equivalent to God, but just that to a human being, the angel is sufficiently above him to induce a numinous experience.
What I think it doesn't tell us is that Wolfe's conception of the divine in compatible with the flaws in Severian's character. That is too wildly implausible for a writer of Wolfe's background to suggest. My biggest issue is not with the idea of interrogating Severian's role as a chosen one, an instrument, or a savior figure--it's with imputing moral sanction to all of his actions and especially the destruction of Urth simply because Wolfe is a Catholic and bestows Christ-like attributes to Severian.
------------------------------
Right. And for the Man vs Divine crux to really work, we do have to assume the concept of the OTC as Man + Divine, not just Man.
Severian is 99% just Man. And that 1% is plenty enough divinity.
Per my last post, I can now frame some concrete arguments as to why Severian does not even make it to the level of Arian christ. But I still think it's an interesting comparison (it eliminates the awkward SoG factor, for one thing).
He is Man only, and he is a Healer, but he is incomplete (or, plainly, ironic) in other ways. He is a Torturer, not tortured. He considers himself a poor student, not a Teacher, and that seems accurate. He is a King, but not a fisher of men. He is probably even more immoral, especially, than even he admits to being. And so on.
6 quoted lines
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:39:20 +0000
From: "Son of Witz" <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:28 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote: That's a very interesting and useful analysis of Frodo---not just the correspondences, which are easy enough to create/find/project/whatever, but the construction of the orthodox or doctrinaire Christ (let's just call him the OTC, or One True Christ, and assume we are talking about the Catholic one). ....Thanks, John, this is really useful! For Silk as well, as you suggest.
Thanks! I think about this stuff too much.
3 quoted lines
As you say, even this momentary experience of divinity could have huge and problematic implications as far as the Increate's implied approval of Severian, his puppetmasters, his crimes, etc. And the stronger the connection, the bigger the problem. I wouldn't want to bring all that in on the strength of this single passage.
Yes. I've written before that while I find the general critiques others have written of the Hierowhatevers and their motives compelling, I also keep coming back to the notion, which is more fully developed in Long Sun, of evil pretending to be good and advancing the goals of good. Pas is Typhon--he's a false god, briefly plays the role of the Devil in the New Sun and then has a return appearance as Pontius Pilate--pretty much as obviously a Bad Guy as anyone in the entire cycle. But Pas pretends to be a good guy--the creator-god and god most worthy of worship, and the Outsider's plans in the Long Sun series, anyway, dovetail almost entirely with the Plan of Pas. Likewise Quetzal is a vampiric inhumu pretending to be a kindly, well-respected religious leader, but aside from his habit of feeding on children, most of his actions aid the cause of good, and even his final act of "betrayal" may--may--have served the plans of the One True God anyway.
This leads me to suspect that although Severian is a false messiah figure propped up by artificial insectoid lifeforms pretending to be angels in order to advance their eugenic goals, he is also *the instrument of the Increate. This renders the destruction of Urth *not *a perfectly justified, divinely ordained slaughter *but rather *some kind of *felix culpa.
Or so I suspect. I have no idea what the mechanics of such a plot actually are--I can't answer "what's so great about Ushas." I simply assume that there's something deeper going on that I've missed, possibly having to do with the Green Man, possibly (although I'm not convinced of this) having to do with the plot of Short Sun.
30 quoted lines · 1–3 deep
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:33:46 -0500
From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
<93d4039f0902040833n8443ab2p994f575480ab07c8 at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:17 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net wrote:
Dan'l:However, outside the work, I personally don't see much difference, because to me they are all characters, and the world is plainly big enough for infinite variations. Christ himself was partly derived from characters who preceded him. I would identify a character with stigmata and a spear wound who carries the Divine Spark as one with a much more specific relation to the Christ than Frodo would have.
I chuckled here because this isn't a great example of your point (which I do take.) Frodo obviously does not have a stigmata or a spear wound in the side (he is stabbed in the side by a spear, but his mithril coat deflects the thrust.) But there is specific imagery from the Stations of the Cross applied to him--he is wounded three times in the text (stabbed in the shoulder, stung by Shelob, and loses his finger) paralleling Christ's three falls carrying the cross. What we're supposed to take from this, of course, is that Frodo partakes of the Christ-nature in a very specific way--he is a type of Christ the Cross-bearer, not Christ the Teacher or the Son of God.
Likewise I think Severian might be an attempt to isolate and examine Christ's career as a miracle worker uninformed by moral teachings. (It is logical that such a figure would at least have pretentions of being an divine figure.) Silk (in Long Sun, anyway) might be said to be the opposite--a great moral teacher and religious/political leader who is not a miracle worker or disguised transcendent being.
Second, I asked, if Severian experiences in TUotNS, as he relates he does, at least a glimpse of what it's like to be God/a god/a godling/whatever (I don't see support in the text for useful distinctions between these), then what does that mean for the work? To this question, I got John's suggestion that Severian's divinity might have been temporary, and Brunian's. It's still open. Is this passage part of TUotNS's New-Sun-for-Dummies role, or does it tell us something specific, like Severian is divine? is he divine temporarily or inherently? Or am I jumping to conclusions? Perhaps, read properly, it tells us Severian is NOT divine?
I think it tells us that Severian is an instrument of the something far greater than himself--it's his experience, one might say, of being "possessed." I think there are parallel sequences in That Hideous Strength when planetary angels possess mortals--Lewis does not thereby posit that planetary intelligences are equivalent to God, but just that to a human being, the angel is sufficiently above him to induce a numinous experience.
What I think it doesn't tell us is that Wolfe's conception of the divine in compatible with the flaws in Severian's character. That is too wildly implausible for a writer of Wolfe's background to suggest. My biggest issue is not with the idea of interrogating Severian's role as a chosen one, an instrument, or a savior figure--it's with imputing moral sanction to all of his actions and especially the destruction of Urth simply because Wolfe is a Catholic and bestows Christ-like attributes to Severian.
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-----Original Message-----
From: John Watkins [mailto:john.watkins04 at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2009 07:23 AM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:14 AM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote:
I certainly don't care to argue about what any of us here believe, but
discussing different interpretations of texts, Wolfe's or those that
informed Wolfe, are FAIR GAME. I'm not presenting myself as better than any Catholics here. I made a critique about an institution's problems. Can't I?
Well, no, you really shouldn't, because a) your opinion about the historical consequences of the Filioque is irrelevant, as far as I can tell, to anything Wolfe has ever written, and b) it pollutes the list because naturally Catholics will want to defend themselves and their Church. Hair-pulling to get a reaction, well, gets reactions. That's why it doesn't belong.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
You can't critique ANYTHING without SOMEONE getting offended.
B first) "Hair-pulling to get a reaction" what, so you're saying I'm a troll, just spouting BS to get a reaction? Wrong dude. I'm way to earnest to be a troll, and I don't throw things out just for reactions, unless I'm making a joke. I'm genuinely sorry people's feelings are hurt, but I'm not sorry about any of my views.
A) My opinion about the historical consequences of the Filioque may be irrelevant, fair enough, but that was not the meat of my point. The concept of the Filioque (itself, not it's perceived consequences) is relevant to the discussion of Wolfe's writing. I brought up the Filioque because every time I've come to this list with my ideas about Severian and Christ, people here, Catholics and others, have sort of trashed my ideas based on a sort of "official understanding" of Christ. (as a current post said "(let's just call him the OTC, or One True Christ, and assume we are talking about the Catholic one). " Well, that's a fine assumption for some, to assume that you've got the bead on understanding Christ, and I guess everything that doesn't fit that is obviously poppycock.
I brought up the Filioque for two main reasons.
First, to demonstrate that even the Catholic view has been historically questioned, even to the point of being called Heresy, and that the Catholic view has MODIFIED itself over time, changing it's very creed.
Secondly, which no one has touched, that the nature of the Filioque CHANGES the shape of the our understanding of Christ. It changes the Trinity from a triangle into a flat, hierarchical line. A few simple words and an entire foundational structure has been dramatically altered. That foundational structure is the very understanding of who or what Christ is.
Now, I question how much Wolfe's writing should be viewed through the lens of strict Catholicism. He's got the Pope, or Bishop of Viron as a vampire leading people to their doom. Hello? He feeds on children. Hello?
He's got a Torturer as a Christ figure who eventually ends up becoming the myth that shaped him, and to embody and give voice to that myth, he cites a derivative play as his source material. It's almost a farce. He's got a Eucharist that involves exhuming and eating corpses. Real Kosher stuff.
But if that's not relevant enough for you all, I suggest you ignore me and go back to important stuff like "Would there be shadows in the valleys of the Whorl?" and the mechanics of the Shade. Heavy stuff there. deeply relevant.
Go Team.
~SonOfWitz
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 9:17 AM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote: You can't critique ANYTHING without SOMEONE getting offended.
There's a wide space between "critiquing" and (a) calling people heretics and (b) dragging painful stuff like the sexual abuse scandals into the discussion at a point where they aren't relevant.
1 quoted line
B first) "Hair-pulling to get a reaction" what, so you're saying I'm a troll, just spouting BS to get a reaction?
Well, I at least am not calling you a troll. You've made some interesing and useful comments on the list in the past.
But your current contribution is not among them.
1 quoted line
I'm genuinely sorry people's feelings are hurt, but I'm not sorry about any of my views.
To bring things directly into the scope of Godwin's Law:
"I'm sorry all those Jews got killed, but I'm not sorry about my anti-Semitism."
You've been coming across in the recent discussion as someone with
a serious grudge against the Roman church. Well, you're allowed to have one -- but remember that Wolfe attracts Catholic readers, and understand that anti-Catholic rhetoric is going to be hurtful to those people.
And take responsibility for the consequences of your words.
\> A) My opinion about the historical consequences of the Filioque may
1 quoted line
be irrelevant, fair enough, but that was not the meat of my point. The concept of the Filioque (itself, not it's perceived consequences) is relevant to the discussion of Wolfe's writing. I brought up the Filioque because every time I've come to this list with my ideas about Severian and Christ, people here, Catholics and others, have sort of trashed my ideas based on a sort of "official understanding" of Christ. (as a current post said "(let's just call him the OTC, or One True Christ, and assume we are talking about the Catholic one). " Well, that's a fine assumption for some, to assume that you've got the bead on understanding Christ, and I guess everything that doesn't fit that is obviously poppycock.
That wasn't me.
But:
If you want to talk about how Wolfe understands Christ, I believe you have to at least start from a Catholic Christology (as well as soteriology, moral theology, etc.).
That's where he seems to start.
2 quoted lines
I brought up the Filioque for two main reasons.
First, to demonstrate that even the Catholic view has been historically questioned, even to the point of being called Heresy, and that the Catholic view has MODIFIED itself over time, changing it's very creed.
The Catholic church does not deny this. In fact, it's a part of the Magisterium (teaching authority) of the RCC, called "the development of doctrine." The RCC, arrogant as it may be, is not arrogant enough to believe that it knows everything.
Two examples:
1. Yep, the Church condemned Galileo. Later, it admitted that it was wrong, and in fact sponsors some of the most important observatories in the world today (as well as officially accepting evolution as consistent with its theology -- indeed, condemning the view that the Earth must have been made in 7 24-hour days as "trying to constrain God's freedom in how to create" or something like that).
2. All that business about the Inquisition? Well, the Church still believes that heresy and error have no rights. But, and this is an important nuance to the above, those who hold to heresy and error do have rights. Thus, the Inquisition was a mistake in moral theology. Again, this is how the Church views its own history.
So, yes, the Roman church has modified its views and its
theology over time. This is called humility.
4 quoted lines
Secondly, which no one has touched, that the nature of
the Filioque CHANGES the shape of the our understanding of
Christ. It changes the Trinity from a triangle into a flat,
hierarchical line.
All I can say is, that's not the Christology I was taught.
To say that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the
Son" rather than "with the Son" may invert the triangle, so
that it points down instead of up, but it doesn't flatten it.
I'm not a trained theologian, but how I understand it is that
the Father begets the Son, and the Spirit, as the active
and living Love between them, "proceeds from" them.
Or something like that.
Frankly, I think it's arrogant of both Eastern and Western
churches to think they understand the mystery of the
Trinity well enough to call the other's understanding wrong.
1 quoted line
Now, I question how much Wolfe's writing should be viewed through the lens of strict Catholicism. He's got the Pope, or Bishop of Viron as a vampire leading people to their doom. Hello? He feeds on children. Hello?
First, Quetzal is not a Pope figure; his authority is only over the city of Viron, which (despite being the focus of our story) is not, apparently, a particularly special city on the Whorl.
Second, there's a long-standing tradition in the Catholic church that the last Pope will be an anti-Pope who will lead the Church into evil. Quetzal seems to fit that idea.
1 quoted line
He's got a Torturer as a Christ figure
"I bring not peace but a sword..."
2 quoted lines
who eventually ends up becoming the myth that shaped him, and
to embody and give voice to that myth, he cites a derivative play as his source material. It's almost a farce. He's got a Eucharist that involves exhuming and eating corpses. Real Kosher stuff.
Severian is not a Christ. I believe most of us have agreed on that. (Hi, David.)
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:danldo at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2009 09:50 AM
You can't critique ANYTHING without SOMEONE getting offended.
There's a wide space between "critiquing" and (a) calling people heretics and (b) dragging painful stuff like the sexual abuse scandals into the discussion at a point where they aren't relevant.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I didn't call anyone here heretics. I said many Orthodox I've met consider Catholics heretics. I'm not Christian. I've made clear that my own ideas are much more heretical than the Catholic take on things.
I'm very sorry, dear Catholic list members, if I have offended YOU personally while trying to discuss a decision your church made over 800 years ago.
"Dragging painful stuff"... I guess one word about "Priest/Rapists" was one word too much.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
4 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
B first) "Hair-pulling to get a reaction" what, so you're saying I'm a troll, just spouting BS to get a reaction?
Well, I at least am not calling you a troll. You've made some interesing and useful comments on the list in the past.
But your current contribution is not among them.
I'm genuinely sorry people's feelings are hurt, but I'm not sorry about any of my views.
To bring things directly into the scope of Godwin's Law:
"I'm sorry all those Jews got killed, but I'm not sorry about my anti-Semitism."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Um. Give me a break. I haven't HATED on anyone or anything here. I've made a minor critique as a discussion point. To equate that with Anti-Semitism is disgusting and way overblown.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
2 quoted lines
You've been coming across in the recent discussion as someone with
a serious grudge against the Roman church. Well, you're allowed to have one -- but remember that Wolfe attracts Catholic readers, and understand that anti-Catholic rhetoric is going to be hurtful to those people.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I do have issues with the Catholic Church, and thanks for realizing I'm allowed to have them. It should be noted that at almost any comment I've made about the RCC in the past, I've tried to give a nod of respect to the Catholics. I don't conflate worshippers with the church fathers, or whatever they should be properly called.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
1 quoted line
And take responsibility for the consequences of your words.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I do, which is why I'm trying to clarify my points and have apologized for inadvertently offending anyone. I don't mean to drag the subject on, but people got all up in my face about it, so I'm trying to explain myself.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
3 quoted lines
If you want to talk about how Wolfe understands Christ, I believe you have to at least start from a Catholic Christology (as well as soteriology, moral theology, etc.).
That's where he seems to start.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Good if that works for you. I don't think it's necessary to start there. How can anyone START with an understanding they don't have?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
12 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
I brought up the Filioque for two main reasons.
First, to demonstrate that even the Catholic view has been historically questioned, even to the point of being called Heresy, and that the Catholic view has MODIFIED itself over time, changing it's very creed.
The Catholic church does not deny this. In fact, it's a part of the Magisterium (teaching authority) of the RCC, called "the development of doctrine." The RCC, arrogant as it may be, is not arrogant enough to believe that it knows everything.
Two examples:
1. Yep, the Church condemned Galileo. Later, it admitted that it was wrong, and in fact sponsors some of the most important observatories in the world today (as well as officially accepting evolution as consistent with its theology -- indeed, condemning the view that the Earth must have been made in 7 24-hour days as "trying to constrain God's freedom in how to create" or something like that).
2. All that business about the Inquisition? Well, the Church still believes that heresy and error have no rights. But, and this is an important nuance to the above, those who hold to heresy and error do have rights. Thus, the Inquisition was a mistake in moral theology. Again, this is how the Church views its own history.
So, yes, the Roman church has modified its views and its
theology over time. This is called humility.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Or call it "saving face"
I'm certainly glad the Church views the Inquisition as a moral mistake. Wonder what they think about the Crusades. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
5 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
Secondly, which no one has touched, that the nature of
the Filioque CHANGES the shape of the our understanding of
Christ. It changes the Trinity from a triangle into a flat,
hierarchical line.
All I can say is, that's not the Christology I was taught.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I wasn't taught any Christology. This idea is my own, but I think there is something to it.
3 quoted lines
To say that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the
Son" rather than "with the Son" may invert the triangle, so
that it points down instead of up, but it doesn't flatten it.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: I see your point about inversion rather than flattening. Well noted.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
5 quoted lines
I'm not a trained theologian, but how I understand it is that
the Father begets the Son, and the Spirit, as the active
and living Love between them, "proceeds from" them.
Or something like that.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Something like that. I'm no theologian either.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
3 quoted lines
Frankly, I think it's arrogant of both Eastern and Western
churches to think they understand the mystery of the
Trinity well enough to call the other's understanding wrong.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Just make sure you're not lumping me in with that. Pointing out that Party X thinks such and such of Party Y, is not the same as saying "I'm with Party X"
I think ANYONE who says they've got God figured out to the exclusion of other figurings is just completely full of BS.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
2 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
Now, I question how much Wolfe's writing should be viewed through the lens of strict Catholicism. He's got the Pope, or Bishop of Viron as a vampire leading people to their doom. Hello? He feeds on children. Hello?
First, Quetzal is not a Pope figure; his authority is only over the city of Viron, which (despite being the focus of our story) is not, apparently, a particularly special city on the Whorl.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Sorry, he maps to Pope or Bishop of the Church that is in Viron. Maybe it's only a small church, but he's the head of it. The Pope of Rome would still be Pope even if only Rome was in the church, right?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
1 quoted line
Second, there's a long-standing tradition in the Catholic church that the last Pope will be an anti-Pope who will lead the Church into evil. Quetzal seems to fit that idea.
who eventually ends up becoming the myth that shaped him, and
to embody and give voice to that myth, he cites a derivative play as his source material. It's almost a farce. He's got a Eucharist that involves exhuming and eating corpses. Real Kosher stuff.
Severian is not a Christ. I believe most of us have agreed on that. (Hi, David.)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I'm less inclined to read Severian as Christ after discussion here, if only because it's so problematic for "True Believers", but I've not really agreed on the reasons why. I mean, how is Frodo more Christlike than Severian? 3 wounds? or something. That hardly stacks up against Severian's correspondences. Most of the complaints center on Morals and Divinity, which to be sure, aren't really characteristics of Severian.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Dan'l.
~SonOfWitz
On Thu, Feb 05, 2009 at 09:50:50AM -0800, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
To say that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the
Son" rather than "with the Son" may invert the triangle, so
that it points down instead of up, but it doesn't flatten it.
Rotates may be a better term than inverts, due to each corner having its identity :)
Jeff
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over
the man who cannot read them."
-- Mark Twain
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:59 AM, Jeffrey Brent McBeth <mcbeth at broggs.org> wrote: Rotates may be a better term than inverts, due to each corner having its identity :)
True -- and "invert" seems gravitically-bound, which would not be applicable to a Being outside of spacetime. Also, the three "vertices" are coequal, so it doesn't matter which way is "up."
But we digress.
Matthew-
I know this is OT, but I hadn't heard that. I do recall hearing something about an Austrian seminary that was just as you described. If you could provide some kind of source I'd appreciate it. If not, no biggie. I don't want to derail further.
I don't think Witz was trolling, btw. But I do question his divine origin.
Incidentally, the Catholic Church has been called a whore before---and I think it survived.
17 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 22:24:16 -0600
From: Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfean theologies
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
<cdbc18280902042024g27b1fc8r1a2e189d97ec2d6c at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 10:19 PM, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Matthew Weber <palaeologos at gmail.com> wrote:
I should add that I'm not responding to the other Matthew, but to those who attack the Roman Catholic church. I'll go even farther than he did and say that the discipline of celibacy is not at fault here, but rather the positive and pronounced efforts of some American Roman Catholic priests to recruit men afflicted with sexual attraction to other men. It is also hardly secret that many seminaries harass and discourage men who do not play along.
------------------------------
Stanislaus B. wrote:
God is categorically different from all other things which exists (including gods/divinities/godlings/angels/saints). God is the fundamental ground of all existence, outside the world, space and time. Whatever exists, exists because of God. Moreover, no words which can be used to describe any other things can be rightly used about God. In fact, saying that God exists, is good, wise, powerful etc is in a sense untrue - all those words do not describe God correctly.
For that reason saying that Severian is Christ makes no sense. Even saying that Severian resembles Christ is meaningless if you do not understand that categorical difference.
I don't see how this indescribability can extend to Christ; isn't the whole point of Christianity that Christ is the personally accessible part of the Deity?
No doubt Stanislaus meant that Christ's divine nature is in this sense unknowable. As Jeff observes, part of the point of Christianity is that Christ is not simply divine, but possesses two natures. Christ's human nature, in and of itself, is as describable as any other human nature.
11 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
On 2/6/09, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:
Stanislaus B. wrote:
God is categorically different from all other things which exists (including gods/divinities/godlings/angels/saints). God is the fundamental ground of all existence, outside the world, space and time. Whatever exists, exists because of God. Moreover, no words which can be used to describe any other things can be rightly used about God. In fact, saying that God exists, is good, wise, powerful etc is in a sense untrue - all those words do not describe God correctly.
For that reason saying that Severian is Christ makes no sense. Even saying that Severian resembles Christ is meaningless if you do not understand that categorical difference.
I don't see how this indescribability can extend to Christ; isn't the whole point of Christianity that Christ is the personally accessible part of the Deity?
--
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
_______________________________________________
No doubt Stanislaus meant that Christ's divine nature is in this sense unknowable. As Jeff observes, part of the point of Christianity is that Christ is not simply divine, but possesses two natures. Christ's human nature, in and of itself, is as describable as any other human nature.
It's also a pretty sloppy way to do literary analysis. Christ's divinity is attributed to Him and explicated by means of a textual analysis. There is no reason at all that we could not perform a comparison with Severian.
2 quoted lines
In fact, saying that God exists, is good, wise, powerful
etc is in a sense untrue - all those words do not describe God correctly.
This is nutty. I'm not really interested in getting into a theology debate
- we've had enough of that lately - but if we take this to be true, then talking about God simply makes no sense at all. We're doing literary analysis here; ruling out of bounds a discussion based on the ineffability of one of the points of comparison probably means we need to change the point of comparison.
We are comparing Severian to two beings/a being whose nature we grasp primarily through a text. There is nothing the least bit problematic about that.
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Ryan Bonneville
<ryan.bonneville at gmail.com>wrote:
In fact, saying that God exists, is good, wise, powerful
etc is in a sense untrue - all those words do not describe God correctly.
This is nutty. I'm not really interested in getting into a theology debate
- we've had enough of that lately - but if we take this to be true, then talking about God simply makes no sense at all. We're doing literary analysis here; ruling out of bounds a discussion based on the ineffability of one of the points of comparison probably means we need to change the point of comparison.
I broadly agree. The words "in a sense" are doing a lot of lifting in that paragraph. People who talk about God usually simply nod to the fact that the words they use will not be precisely correct and then do the best they can.
John Watkins wrote:
No doubt Stanislaus meant that Christ's divine nature is in this sense unknowable. As Jeff observes, part of the point of Christianity is that Christ is not simply divine, but possesses two natures. Christ's human nature, in and of itself, is as describable as any other human nature.
Not just having a human nature, but bridging the gap between mankind and God; the Outsider's extension into the mortal realm. "God and sinners reconciled."
I'm not sure what the point of the story about the angel and the eagle, etc. really is intended to be. Angel is the English word that takes the place of the Greek angelos, "messenger", and someone bearing a message whose provenance is "I just guessed", is no messenger at all.
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:
I'm not sure what the point of the story about the angel and the eagle,
etc. really is intended to be. Angel is the English word that takes the place of the Greek angelos, "messenger", and someone bearing a message whose provenance is "I just guessed", is no messenger at all.
I take it that that is the point. The so-called "angels" of the story are not angels. They are aliens. Contrast them with the "messengers" in "The Queen" or Michael in The Wizard Knight.
4 quoted lines
--
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
_______________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan Bonneville [mailto:ryan.bonneville at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, February 6, 2009 06:56 AM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: Re: (urth) Indescribable Christ?
No doubt Stanislaus meant that Christ's divine nature is in this sense unknowable. As Jeff observes, part of the point of Christianity is that Christ is not simply divine, but possesses two natures. Christ's human nature, in and of itself, is as describable as any other human nature.
It's also a pretty sloppy way to do literary analysis. Christ's divinity is attributed to Him and explicated by means of a textual analysis. There is no reason at all that we could not perform a comparison with Severian.
In fact, saying that God exists, is good, wise, powerful
etc is in a sense untrue - all those words do not describe God correctly.
This is nutty. I'm not really interested in getting into a theology debate
- we've had enough of that lately - but if we take this to be true, then talking about God simply makes no sense at all. We're doing literary analysis here; ruling out of bounds a discussion based on the ineffability of one of the points of comparison probably means we need to change the point of comparison.
We are comparing Severian to two beings/a being whose nature we grasp primarily through a text. There is nothing the least bit problematic about that.
I completely agree. I've understood it as GOD, the Godhead, is indescribable, but that inaccessibility is the main reason for Jesus to be. To give us a path. This is where the Logos comes in as that which reconciles God and Man. What's Jesus say about finding the Father only through me, or such. The Logos is the bridge. And we've been comparing texts and exegesis about to characters that may or may not be incarnations of the Logos.
But while we can talk and argue about texts and exegesis all day long, as we have, I do agree with the gist of Stanslaus's post. Which is that God is truly indescribable. Anyone not framing their attempts at description with there failure at hitting the mark strikes me as a fraud. I particularly like the practice of using double negatives for God. "God is not impotent" rather than "God is all powerful" there are better examples to be had, but as a mental framing discipline, it seems like good practice.
~witz
"Son of Witz" wrote:
I completely agree. I've understood it as GOD, the Godhead, is indescribable, but that inaccessibility is the main reason for Jesus to be.
To give us a path. This is where the Logos comes in as that which reconciles God and Man. What's Jesus say about finding the Father only through me, or such. The Logos is the bridge. And we've been comparing texts and exegesis about to characters that may or may not be incarnations of the Logos.<<<
--------------------------
This subject is tiresome and has been done to death over the years, and leads nowhere. People are talking past each other, as ever. I should stay out of it. But I will make an appeal to the text.
At issue here is whether or not Severian is in any meaningful sense a manifestation of the Christ, rather than someone who merely has Christ-like, or Christic (as I believe someone here once termed it) qualities. The difference is unimportant to some, but to Christians (which I am not) it is paramount.
In the Christian mythos, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was, and ever will be, a unique event. As such, it can never be replicated--to do so would cheapen the magnitude of the supreme sacrifice. This distinguishes Jesus from the many cyclical dying-and-resurrecting gods we are familiar with.
While it is true that there are correspondences between the lives of Jesus and Severian, it is equally true that Severian manifests the qualities of a -- well, duh! -- generic sun god, but that doesn't make him Mithra, or any of the others.
As for Severian the Conciliator being the same as Jesus, the "bridge" that reconciles Man and God, he is not. He is a conciliator between Man and the Hierogrammates, as the text makes clear.
Shortly after his being returned to Urth in Typhon's era, the villagers complained to Severian about the cold weather (occasioned by the sun's recent decline) that had ruined their crops in recent years, saying "The sky people are angry with us." He explained:
_________________
"The sky people-the Hierodules and Hierarchs-do not hate us. It is only that they are remote from us, and they fear us because of things we did before, long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them." I watched the villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of them would believe me. "I have effected a conciliation-brought them nearer us and us nearer them, I think. They've sent me back." (URTH, chap. XXIX, p.-204)
__________________
It can be argued -- and it has been -- whether or not the Hierogrammates were acting on orders from On High, or even that they only believed they were doing God's will, willingly or unwillingly, but the textual fact of the matter is that Severian, the Conciliator, was a bridge between Man and the Hierogrammates, not Man and God.
-Roy
--- On Fri, 2/6/09, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote: From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> Subject: Re: (urth) Indescribable Christ? To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Friday, February 6, 2009, 6:35 PM
This subject is tiresome and has been done to death over the years, and leads nowhere. People are talking past each other, as ever. I should stay out of it. But I will make an appeal to the text.
At issue here is whether or not Severian is in any meaningful sense a manifestation of the Christ, rather than someone who merely has Christ-like, or Christic (as I believe someone here once termed it) qualities. The difference is unimportant to some, but to Christians (which I am not) it is paramount.
Amen. I disagee only with "to Christians it is paramount." Most Christians are concerned with the message of Christ, not hair-splitting theological arguments.
Best wishes,
Jack
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 4:07 PM, John Smith <jsmith2627 at att.net> wrote:
--- On Fri, 2/6/09, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Indescribable Christ?
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Friday, February 6, 2009, 6:35 PM
This subject is tiresome and has been done to death over the years, and leads nowhere. People are talking past each other, as ever. I should stay out of it. But I will make an appeal to the text.
At issue here is whether or not Severian is in any meaningful sense a manifestation of the Christ, rather than someone who merely has Christ-like, or Christic (as I believe someone here once termed it) qualities. The difference is unimportant to some, but
to Christians (which I am not) it is
paramount.
Amen. I disagee only with "to Christians it is paramount." Most Christians are concerned with the message of Christ, not hair-splitting theological arguments.
Best wishes,
Jack
Jack, you speak of theology as though you think it and the "message" of Christianity (whatever that is supposed to mean; for the Apostles it was the empty tomb) are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, your statement appears to have as its primary object your assertion of superiority over those who engage in "hair-splitting theological arguments".
Christology as a focus of controversy has cooled a great deal since the 5th century, but most Christian bodies consider it an essential part of the faith; the catechisms of the largest Christian churches all address it. Clearly, quite a few people consider it important.
Simple arithmetic suffices for most of my mathematical needs. I find complex geometry obscure, but that's not justification for me to conclude that it's useless. Math, like religion, is bigger than my experience and my special feelings.
Matt +
Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VIII, 558-C
Roy, I wasn't trying to argue Severian as Christ again.
you mention the nature of the Conciliator according to the text. here's one you may have forgotten:
from Chap XXI of Sword:
""Then his task was to forge a peace between humanity and the Increate, and he was called the Conciliator. He left behind a famous relic, a gem called the Claw.""
That explanation comes long before any of the UotNS Hierogrammate explanations, so it sort of sticks in my brain.
and, Matthew Weber wrote:
Jack, you speak of theology as though you think it and the "message" of Christianity (whatever that is supposed to mean; for the Apostles it was the empty tomb) are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, your statement appears to have as its primary object your assertion of superiority over those who engage in "hair-splitting theological arguments".
Christology as a focus of controversy has cooled a great deal since the 5th century, but most Christian bodies consider it an essential part of the faith; the catechisms of the largest Christian churches all address it. Clearly, quite a few people consider it important.
Simple arithmetic suffices for most of my mathematical needs. I find complex geometry obscure, but that's not justification for me to conclude that it's useless. Math, like religion, is bigger than my experience and my special feelings.
Matt +
To which I must reply, "Well said".
~have a nice weekend y'all.
~Witz
31 quoted lines · 1–4 deep
-----Original Message-----
From: Roy C. Lackey [mailto:rclackey at stic.net]
Sent: Friday, February 6, 2009 03:35 PM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Indescribable Christ?
"Son of Witz" wrote:
I completely agree. I've understood it as GOD, the Godhead, is indescribable, but that inaccessibility is the main reason for Jesus to be.
To give us a path. This is where the Logos comes in as that which reconciles God and Man. What's Jesus say about finding the Father only through me, or such. The Logos is the bridge. And we've been comparing texts and exegesis about to characters that may or may not be incarnations of the Logos.<<<
--------------------------
This subject is tiresome and has been done to death over the years, and leads nowhere. People are talking past each other, as ever. I should stay out of it. But I will make an appeal to the text.
At issue here is whether or not Severian is in any meaningful sense a manifestation of the Christ, rather than someone who merely has Christ-like, or Christic (as I believe someone here once termed it) qualities. The difference is unimportant to some, but to Christians (which I am not) it is paramount.
In the Christian mythos, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was, and ever will be, a unique event. As such, it can never be replicated--to do so would cheapen the magnitude of the supreme sacrifice. This distinguishes Jesus from the many cyclical dying-and-resurrecting gods we are familiar with.
While it is true that there are correspondences between the lives of Jesus and Severian, it is equally true that Severian manifests the qualities of a -- well, duh! -- generic sun god, but that doesn't make him Mithra, or any of the others.
As for Severian the Conciliator being the same as Jesus, the "bridge" that reconciles Man and God, he is not. He is a conciliator between Man and the Hierogrammates, as the text makes clear.
Shortly after his being returned to Urth in Typhon's era, the villagers complained to Severian about the cold weather (occasioned by the sun's recent decline) that had ruined their crops in recent years, saying "The sky people are angry with us." He explained:
_________________
"The sky people-the Hierodules and Hierarchs-do not hate us. It is only that they are remote from us, and they fear us because of things we did before, long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them." I watched the villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of them would believe me. "I have effected a conciliation-brought them nearer us and us nearer them, I think. They've sent me back." (URTH, chap. XXIX, p.-204)
__________________
It can be argued -- and it has been -- whether or not the Hierogrammates were acting on orders from On High, or even that they only believed they were doing God's will, willingly or unwillingly, but the textual fact of the matter is that Severian, the Conciliator, was a bridge between Man and the Hierogrammates, not Man and God.
-Roy
_______________________________________________
Matt, I admire the elegance of your phraseology. Thank you.
Bob
42 quoted lines · 1–5 deep
Christology as a focus of controversy has cooled a great deal since the 5th century, but most Christian bodies consider it an essential part of the faith; the catechisms of the largest Christian churches all address it. Clearly, quite a few people consider it important.
Simple arithmetic suffices for most of my mathematical needs. I find complex geometry obscure, but that's not justification for me to conclude that it's useless. Math, like religion, is bigger than my experience and my special feelings.
--
Matt +
To which I must reply, "Well said".
~have a nice weekend y'all.
~Witz
-----Original Message-----
From: Roy C. Lackey [mailto:rclackey at stic.net]
Sent: Friday, February 6, 2009 03:35 PM
To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
Subject: Re: (urth) Indescribable Christ?
"Son of Witz" wrote:
I completely agree. I've understood it as GOD, the Godhead, is indescribable, but that inaccessibility is the main reason for Jesus to be.
To give us a path. This is where the Logos comes in as that which reconciles God and Man. What's Jesus say about finding the Father only through me, or such. The Logos is the bridge. And we've been comparing texts and exegesis about to characters that may or may not be incarnations of the Logos.<<<
--------------------------
This subject is tiresome and has been done to death over the years, and leads nowhere. People are talking past each other, as ever. I should stay out of it. But I will make an appeal to the text.
At issue here is whether or not Severian is in any meaningful sense a manifestation of the Christ, rather than someone who merely has Christ-like, or Christic (as I believe someone here once termed it) qualities. The difference is unimportant to some, but to Christians (which I am not) it is paramount.
In the Christian mythos, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was, and ever will be, a unique event. As such, it can never be replicated--to do so would cheapen the magnitude of the supreme sacrifice. This distinguishes Jesus from the many cyclical dying-and-resurrecting gods we are familiar with.
While it is true that there are correspondences between the lives of Jesus and Severian, it is equally true that Severian manifests the qualities of a -- well, duh! -- generic sun god, but that doesn't make him Mithra, or any of the others.
As for Severian the Conciliator being the same as Jesus, the "bridge" that reconciles Man and God, he is not. He is a conciliator between Man and the Hierogrammates, as the text makes clear.
Shortly after his being returned to Urth in Typhon's era, the villagers complained to Severian about the cold weather (occasioned by the sun's recent decline) that had ruined their crops in recent years, saying "The sky people are angry with us." He explained:
_________________
"The sky people-the Hierodules and Hierarchs-do not hate us. It is only that they are remote from us, and they fear us because of things we did before, long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them." I watched the villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of them would believe me. "I have effected a conciliation-brought them nearer us and us nearer them, I think. They've sent me back." (URTH, chap. XXIX, p.-204)
__________________
It can be argued -- and it has been -- whether or not the Hierogrammates were acting on orders from On High, or even that they only believed they were doing God's will, willingly or unwillingly, but the textual fact of the matter is that Severian, the Conciliator, was a bridge between Man and the Hierogrammates, not Man and God.
-Roy
_______________________________________________
Matthew-
I know this is OT, but I hadn't heard that. I do recall hearing something about an Austrian seminary that was just as you described. If you could provide some kind of source I'd appreciate it. If not, no biggie. I don't want to derail further.
Incidentally, the Catholic Church has been called a whore before---and I think it survived.
I should add that I'm not responding to the other Matthew, but to those who attack the Roman Catholic church. I'll go even farther than he did and say that the discipline of celibacy is not at fault here, but rather the positive and pronounced efforts of some American Roman Catholic priests to recruit men afflicted with sexual attraction to other men. It is also hardly secret that many seminaries harass and discourage men who do not play along.
------------------------------
Not having studied the sociology of the seminary I was unaware, and probably shouldn't have been, of some of this. I am and have been aware that a central theme of most of Dr. Greeley's novels is the regenerative?/comeback/transcendant power of the church to overcome the yukkiness of its selection system. Kind of neat.
Thanks, Roy!
Comments:
---Placing the unique Christ, or a comparison with him, in a context of exactly those cyclic sun-god myths whence he sprang but against which he is distinguished by his very uniqueness, creates a tension that I don't think can be easily dismissed. Wolfe is a mythmaker. He creates this tension in almost everything he writes, when he incorporates mythologies and philosophies (Plato seems to be in Severian's brown book, I notice). All these other myths seem to operate on a mechanical level (Yesod is the apotheosis of this), and often everything is repeated in some way. Note that even the mechanical repetition of entire universes is implied, though not proven. Your quote demonstrates that Severian, even at his highest, lives and operates on this fantastic but mundane level. At least in his understanding.
---Likewise, the sky people seem to have no correspondence in the Christian mythos. They are more like pagan sky gods.
---I forget the name of the story, but others will recall it. Wolfe wrote a story of a miraculous and overtly christlike birth on another world, to another species. This introduces precisely the repetition that the Christian mythos rejects, because the story leaves you with the strong impression that this creature's life will more or less repeat in detail that of the Christ, but differently, of course.
As a story, this is a "figure," but within the universe of the story, it is a plain repetition of That Which Shall Not Be Repeated. So it violates the Trinity (which is now possibly an Infinity) and no doubt all sorts of other things. It seems to say that the Christ myth is just another myth---or does it say that such myths are fragments of the "true myth"? Discuss, ad infinitum. There's no final answer.
To clarify---because I think I continue to be misunderstood on this point---I make no argument one way or the other. I point out the tension and argue that it is elemental to Wolfe's writing. That's why he keeps writing about it.
35 quoted lines · 1–6 deep
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 17:35:43 -0600
From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Indescribable Christ?
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <003e01c988b3$a4e89800$35d24a0c at rclackey>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
"Son of Witz" wrote:
I completely agree. I've understood it as GOD, the Godhead, is
indescribable, but that inaccessibility is the main reason for Jesus to be. To give us a path. This is where the Logos comes in as that which reconciles God and Man. What's Jesus say about finding the Father only through me, or such. The Logos is the bridge. And we've been comparing texts and exegesis about to characters that may or may not be incarnations of the Logos.<<<
--------------------------
This subject is tiresome and has been done to death over the years, and leads nowhere. People are talking past each other, as ever. I should stay out of it. But I will make an appeal to the text.
At issue here is whether or not Severian is in any meaningful sense a manifestation of the Christ, rather than someone who merely has Christ-like, or Christic (as I believe someone here once termed it) qualities. The difference is unimportant to some, but to Christians (which I am not) it is paramount.
In the Christian mythos, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was, and ever will be, a unique event. As such, it can never be replicated--to do so would cheapen the magnitude of the supreme sacrifice. This distinguishes Jesus from the many cyclical dying-and-resurrecting gods we are familiar with.
While it is true that there are correspondences between the lives of Jesus and Severian, it is equally true that Severian manifests the qualities of a -- well, duh! -- generic sun god, but that doesn't make him Mithra, or any of the others.
As for Severian the Conciliator being the same as Jesus, the "bridge" that reconciles Man and God, he is not. He is a conciliator between Man and the Hierogrammates, as the text makes clear.
Shortly after his being returned to Urth in Typhon's era, the villagers complained to Severian about the cold weather (occasioned by the sun's recent decline) that had ruined their crops in recent years, saying "The sky people are angry with us." He explained:
_________________
"The sky people-the Hierodules and Hierarchs-do not hate us. It is only that they are remote from us, and they fear us because of things we did before, long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them." I watched the villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of them would believe me. "I have effected a conciliation-brought them nearer us and us nearer them, I think. They've sent me back." (URTH, chap. XXIX, p.-204)
__________________
It can be argued -- and it has been -- whether or not the Hierogrammates were acting on orders from On High, or even that they only believed they were doing God's will, willingly or unwillingly, but the textual fact of the matter is that Severian, the Conciliator, was a bridge between Man and the Hierogrammates, not Man and God.
-Roy
------------------------------
On Feb 7, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Bob Miller wrote:
I should add that I'm not responding to the other Matthew, but to those who attack the Roman Catholic church. I'll go even farther than he did and say that the discipline of celibacy is not at fault here, but rather the positive and pronounced efforts of some American Roman Catholic priests to recruit men afflicted with sexual attraction to other men. It is also hardly secret that many seminaries harass and discourage men who do not play along.
This is not something I was aware of.
thanks.
you know, it's good sometimes to blurt out your perceptions and misconceptions in public, because people are often forced to educate you. I suppose celibacy isn't really to blame. though I do think repressing our sexual energies usually does more harm than good.
Quasi-Christ works right?
can we agree on that?
you guys have convinced me that, ontologically speaking, Severian ain't Christ. but: "A god's supposed to pull on a man just like a tunic — that's what they say." so i'll settle for QuasiChrist.
~witz
59 quoted lines · 1–7 deep
On Feb 7, 2009, at 7:41 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
Thanks, Roy!
Comments:
---Placing the unique Christ, or a comparison with him, in a context of exactly those cyclic sun-god myths whence he sprang but against which he is distinguished by his very uniqueness, creates a tension that I don't think can be easily dismissed. Wolfe is a mythmaker. He creates this tension in almost everything he writes, when he incorporates mythologies and philosophies (Plato seems to be in Severian's brown book, I notice). All these other myths seem to operate on a mechanical level (Yesod is the apotheosis of this), and often everything is repeated in some way. Note that even the mechanical repetition of entire universes is implied, though not proven. Your quote demonstrates that Severian, even at his highest, lives and operates on this fantastic but mundane level. At least in his understanding.
---Likewise, the sky people seem to have no correspondence in the Christian mythos. They are more like pagan sky gods.
---I forget the name of the story, but others will recall it. Wolfe wrote a story of a miraculous and overtly christlike birth on another world, to another species. This introduces precisely the repetition that the Christian mythos rejects, because the story leaves you with the strong impression that this creature's life will more or less repeat in detail that of the Christ, but differently, of course. As a story, this is a "figure," but within the universe of the story, it is a plain repetition of That Which Shall Not Be Repeated. So it violates the Trinity (which is now possibly an Infinity) and no doubt all sorts of other things. It seems to say that the Christ myth is just another myth---or does it say that such myths are fragments of the "true myth"? Discuss, ad infinitum. There's no final answer.
To clarify---because I think I continue to be misunderstood on this point---I make no argument one way or the other. I point out the tension and argue that it is elemental to Wolfe's writing. That's why he keeps writing about it.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 17:35:43 -0600
From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Indescribable Christ?
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <003e01c988b3$a4e89800$35d24a0c at rclackey>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
"Son of Witz" wrote:
I completely agree. I've understood it as GOD, the Godhead, is
indescribable, but that inaccessibility is the main reason for Jesus to be. To give us a path. This is where the Logos comes in as that which reconciles God and Man. What's Jesus say about finding the Father only through me, or such. The Logos is the bridge. And we've been comparing texts and exegesis about to characters that may or may not be incarnations of the Logos.<<<
--------------------------
This subject is tiresome and has been done to death over the years, and leads nowhere. People are talking past each other, as ever. I should stay out of it. But I will make an appeal to the text.
At issue here is whether or not Severian is in any meaningful sense a manifestation of the Christ, rather than someone who merely has Christ-like, or Christic (as I believe someone here once termed it) qualities. The difference is unimportant to some, but to Christians (which I am not) it is paramount.
In the Christian mythos, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was, and ever will be, a unique event. As such, it can never be replicated-- to do so would cheapen the magnitude of the supreme sacrifice. This distinguishes Jesus from the many cyclical dying-and-resurrecting gods we are familiar with.
While it is true that there are correspondences between the lives of Jesus and Severian, it is equally true that Severian manifests the qualities of a -- well, duh! -- generic sun god, but that doesn't make him Mithra, or any of the others.
As for Severian the Conciliator being the same as Jesus, the "bridge" that reconciles Man and God, he is not. He is a conciliator between Man and the Hierogrammates, as the text makes clear.
Shortly after his being returned to Urth in Typhon's era, the villagers complained to Severian about the cold weather (occasioned by the sun's recent decline) that had ruined their crops in recent years, saying "The sky people are angry with us." He explained:
_________________
"The sky people-the Hierodules and Hierarchs-do not hate us. It is only that they are remote from us, and they fear us because of things we did before, long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them." I watched the villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of them would believe me. "I have effected a conciliation-brought them nearer us and us nearer them, I think. They've sent me back." (URTH, chap. XXIX, p.-204)
__________________
It can be argued -- and it has been -- whether or not the Hierogrammates were acting on orders from On High, or even that they only
believed they
were doing God's will, willingly or unwillingly, but the textual fact of the matter is that Severian, the Conciliator, was a bridge between Man and the Hierogrammates, not Man and God.
-Roy
------------------------------
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_______________________________________________
can we agree on that?
you guys have convinced me that, ontologically speaking, Severian ain't Christ. but: "A god's supposed to pull on a man just like a tunic — that's what they say." so i'll settle for QuasiChrist.<<
--------------------------
In the case of Christ, mere possession and control (like the "gods" in LS) of a man who is a person in his own right won't do. It is contrary to the whole point of the Biblical tradition of Jesus suffering on a cross. It mustn't be done on the sly and it can't be done vicariously. The suffering of the god must be real and must be heralded, otherwise it is all for naught.
I'm getting sucked in, and I know better. <g> Let me try a slightly different tack.
I quoted:
________________
"The sky people-the Hierodules and Hierarchs-do not hate us. It is only that they are remote from us, and they fear us because of things we did before, long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them." I watched the villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of them would believe me. "I have effected a conciliation-brought them nearer us and us nearer them, I think. They've sent me back." (URTH, chap. XXIX, p.-204)
__________________
5 quoted lines
"Son of Witz" wrote:
Roy, I wasn't trying to argue Severian as Christ again.
you mention the nature of the Conciliator according to the text. here's one you may have forgotten: from Chap XXI of Sword: ""Then his task was to forge a peace between humanity and the Increate, and he was called the Conciliator. He left behind a famous relic, a gem called the Claw.""
That explanation comes long before any of the UotNS Hierogrammate explanations, so it sort of sticks in my brain.<<
----------------------------
The two quotes yield different conclusions -- unless one accepts (as I have argued before and don't want to repeat) that the Hierogrammates were acting on express direction from the the Increate, not just guessing, and the Increate is the same as the Christian God. In the earlier quote, Severian could only repeat what he had been told by others of the lore accreted to the person of the New Sun over the centuries. (Such as eventually killing Abaia, for which there is no evidence.) In the later quote, he was speaking
as the Conciliator, fresh from Yesod and at or near the height of his power.
Perhaps, when pressured to write a fifth book and flesh-out his original skeletal conception, Wolfe was forced to change his mind. I can only speculate.
Even while he was the Conciliator, he gave every appearance of near-total ignorance of the Increate. (Yes, Jesus at Gethsemane wondered about that "cup", but it ain't the same.) And after the arrival of the new sun that was the New Sun, Severian went wandering in time, became a primitive solar deity, and eventually ended up on the beach in Ushas as a petty god writing his memoir, not back in Heaven where he never was or would be. But he had been in Yesod, home of the Hierogrammates, which no one could mistake for Heaven.
If Severian the Conciliator believed he, as Epitome of Urth, had effected a conciliation, he ought to know with whom. An incarnation of Christ ought to know and would know, else the sacrifice would be dramatically less meaningful.
And, as I have said before, Severian didn't even make the sacrifice -- the people of Urth did the suffering. In the Christian tradition Jesus, as part of the Godhead, took the sins of humanity on his person and suffered for them. Severian didn't.
-Roy
-----Original Message-----
From: Roy C. Lackey [mailto:rclackey at stic.net]
Sent: Sunday, February 8, 2009 09:37 PM
If Severian the Conciliator believed he, as Epitome of Urth, had effected a conciliation, he ought to know with whom. An incarnation of Christ ought to know and would know, else the sacrifice would be dramatically less meaningful.
And, as I have said before, Severian didn't even make the sacrifice -- the people of Urth did the suffering. In the Christian tradition Jesus, as part of the Godhead, took the sins of humanity on his person and suffered for them. Severian didn't.
-Roy
Yes, I agree in that Severian does not embody the crucifixion theme. He does not make that kind of sacrifice, nor does he know who he ultimately serves, unless he takes Tzadkiel at face value. However, he does fulfill an extreme role, that of wiping the slate clean, and thus allowing a rebirth. This is more in line with a second coming than a crucifixion.
I say Quasi-Christ, because, as the definition goes: "apparently, but not really" or "ostensibly, on the surface".
The frame of mind I had, and I'm sure many had, when pegging Severian as Christ, is not to the level of rigorous exactitude that people have been countering it with. That's fine. But most of the sci fi I've enjoyed has these grand religious themes employed into a little allegorical diorama, with little cardboard characters that represent the elements of an historic or religious character. I think it works to say these little cardboard Heirodudes and cardboard Severian characters do a good job of representing Archangels and Christ. Sure, it's imaginative, and the more skeptical mind will not read it as allegory or metaphor. So, sure, Severian does not intended to map completely to Christ, but he sure comes close enough to argue that he's "ostensibly" the Christ of BotNS, if not actually. Surely comes closer to being Christ than Frodo does, as people have argued.
I don't think Wolfe was truly exploring the moral component of his Christian beliefs as much as he was dealing with the idea of Death and Resurrection, Deities and Beings that transcend that dichotomy, and, especially, the idea of a person becoming the myth that created them. Wolfe's done this twice in the Sun Series. A character doesn't become merely "like" the shaping myth, they become the shaping myth. Severian literally becomes the Conciliator. Horn literally becomes Silk. I think he's really exploring this notion of fully embodying your inspirational archetype, not just "taking up the cross" but actually hanging on it. He does explore morality, with Severian choosing mercy in almost all instances, and generally overcoming his worldly programming as a torturer. The Conciliator may not be Christ, but in the context of the story, he fulfills a similar role, historically, of inspiring people with a hope of an eventual redemption. That the Myth that Severian inherited had legendarily "forged a peace between man and the Increate" doesn't exactly square up with what Severian ultimately learns, doesn't change the fact that that is the MYTH that informed his actions and hopes.
Severian does have a tough sacrifice to make, and he does it as duty, without relishing it. What he does with Urth is mirrored in the Feast of Saint Katherine. The story centers on that moment he has the fake sword raised to behead the Catherine actress. That is key for Severian, his memory of the times always starts there, as he says. Now taking Borksi's idea that this actress is actually Severian's Mother Catherine, it becomes a very striking symbol. He's told to "Strike,and Fear Not" as he has to symbolically behead his Mother. (Mother Earth). It's no small role that he has to fulfill. I'd call it a tough sacrifice indeed. It's not Jesus's sacrifice, sure.
Anyway, I think, with those points in mind, Quasi Christ should be acceptable even to those who don't see him truly as a Christ, which I no longer do either. Close, but no cigar. Definitely close enough for interesting analysis.
~SonOfWitz
Man, I was just coming on to lay out some ideas only to see that you've beaten me to the punch on some of them, Witz.
One of the big points that always roils around in my head with this issue of "Christ", "Quasi-Christ," etc., is the notion that the Catholic or indeed Christian notion of a singular and non repeatable instance of Christ seems to be an entirely and unabashedly geocentric vision. The world of New Sun in an interstellar, and indeed interdimensional one. Are we to believe that Christ, in this world, if he was a part of the history and metaphysics of Briah, would appear in a single instance on a single planet eons in the past, and never have influence as redeemer on any other world? How would a Catholic worldview have to adjust itself to incorporate the reality of a universe teeming with life and intelligence? Hasn't Wolfe tried to tackle this question in New Sun? Why do we not discuss it in the context of this work?
When we argue about "Is Severian a Christ or Christ-instance" it is still soley from the point of view of Urth as the sole center of Christ's influence, or the increates influence (I'm generalizing grossly with the 'we argue' part, as there have no doubt been disucssion to add this dimension in the past).
So, if Severian is not an instance of The Christ (which I am more and more inclined to believe he is not), can there ever have beenany unique instance of "the christ" in Sev's universe, knowning that life is teeming across the universe? Do we have to invent a unique instance of Christ on every planet with intellegent life in order to square this with Catholic theology? Or do we write off the rest of these civilizations as simply damned?
We know "God" exists in the universe of New Sun, because of The Outsider (well, that is how I take it anyway). As does Jesus, who we can recognize through some of Silks visions. How does this square with a much wider, much bigger universe.
How can Christ have been a single instantation, never to be repeated, in a universe like this? And if he WAS, don't we have to completely re-write our understanding of a merciful God?
This isn't as well thought out as I'd like. I'll probably revist it later....
19 quoted lines
Yes, I agree in that Severian does not embody the crucifixion theme. He does not make that kind of sacrifice, nor does he know who he ultimately serves, unless he takes Tzadkiel at face value. However, he does fulfill an extreme role, that of wiping the slate clean, and thus allowing a rebirth.
This is more in line with a second coming than a crucifixion.
I say Quasi-Christ, because, as the definition goes: "apparently, but not really" or "ostensibly, on the surface".
The frame of mind I had, and I'm sure many had, when pegging Severian as Christ, is not to the level of rigorous exactitude that people have been countering it with. That's fine. But most of the sci fi I've enjoyed has these grand religious themes employed into a little allegorical diorama, with little cardboard characters that represent the elements of an historic or religious character. I think it works to say these little cardboard Heirodudes and cardboard Severian characters do a good job of representing Archangels and Christ. Sure, it's imaginative, and the more skeptical mind will not read it as allegory or metaphor. So, sure, Severian does not intended to map completely to Christ, but he sure comes close enough to argue that he's "ostensibly" the Christ of BotNS, if not actually. Surely comes closer to being Christ than Frodo does, as people have argued.
I don't think Wolfe was truly exploring the moral component of his
Christian beliefs as much as he was dealing with the idea of Death and Resurrection, Deities and Beings that transcend that dichotomy, and, especially, the idea of a person becoming the myth that created them.
Wolfe's done this twice in the Sun Series. A character doesn't become merely "like" the shaping myth, they become the shaping myth. Severian literally becomes the Conciliator. Horn literally becomes Silk. I think he's really exploring this notion of fully embodying your inspirational archetype, not just "taking up the cross" but actually hanging on it. He does explore morality, with Severian choosing mercy in almost all instances, and generally overcoming his worldly programming as a torturer. The Conciliator may not be Christ, but in the context of the story, he fulfills a similar role, historically, of inspiring people with a hope of an eventual redemption. That the Myth that Severian inherited
had legendarily "forged a peace between man and the Increate" doesn't exactly square up with what Severian ultimately learns, doesn't change the fact that that is the MYTH that informed his actions and hopes.
Severian does have a tough sacrifice to make, and he does it as duty, without relishing it. What he does with Urth is mirrored in the Feast of Saint Katherine. The story centers on that moment he has the fake sword raised to behead the Catherine actress. That is key for Severian, his memory of the times always starts there, as he says. Now taking Borksi's idea that this actress is actually Severian's Mother Catherine, it becomes a very striking symbol. He's told to "Strike,and Fear Not" as he has to symbolically behead his Mother. (Mother Earth). It's no small role that he has to fulfill. I'd call it a tough sacrifice indeed. It's not Jesus's sacrifice, sure.
Anyway, I think, with those points in mind, Quasi Christ should be acceptable even to those who don't see him truly as a Christ, which I no longer do either. Close, but no cigar. Definitely close enough for interesting analysis.
~SonOfWitz
_______________________________________________
All that depends on whether the Fall occurred on other planets as well; or perhaps whether the Fall on Earth puts all of Creation in the same boat, soteriologically speaking.
C.S. Lewis addressed this issue in the first two books of his Space Trilogy, and comes to a different conclusion from what Wolfe's appears to be. Lewis suggests that a Fall is possible on every planet individually, while Wolfe (as I read him, anyway) seems to be saying that the Fall was creation-wide, and that the one appearance of Christ on Earth suffices for the whole cosmos.
And why not a single instantiation of Christ for the whole universe? If the death of an infinite being suffices for the redemption of all creation, what's the sense of repeating it?
14 quoted lines
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com> wrote: Man, I was just coming on to lay out some ideas only to see that you've beaten me to the punch on some of them, Witz.
One of the big points that always roils around in my head with this issue
of "Christ", "Quasi-Christ," etc., is the notion that the Catholic or indeed Christian notion of a singular and non repeatable instance of Christ seems to be an entirely and unabashedly geocentric vision. The world of New Sun in an interstellar, and indeed interdimensional one. Are we to believe that Christ, in this world, if he was a part of the history and metaphysics of Briah, would appear in a single instance on a single planet eons in the past, and never have influence as redeemer on any other world? How would a Catholic worldview have to adjust itself to incorporate the reality of a universe teeming with life and intelligence? Hasn't Wolfe tried to tackle this question in New Sun? Why do we not discuss it in the context of this work?
When we argue about "Is Severian a Christ or Christ-instance" it is still soley from the point of view of Urth as the sole center of Christ's influence, or the increates influence (I'm generalizing grossly with the 'we argue' part, as there have no doubt been disucssion to add this dimension in the past).
So, if Severian is not an instance of The Christ (which I am more and more inclined to believe he is not), can there ever have beenany unique instance of "the christ" in Sev's universe, knowning that life is teeming across the universe? Do we have to invent a unique instance of Christ on every planet with intellegent life in order to square this with Catholic theology? Or do we write off the rest of these civilizations as simply damned?
We know "God" exists in the universe of New Sun, because of The Outsider (well, that is how I take it anyway). As does Jesus, who we can recognize through some of Silks visions. How does this square with a much wider, much bigger universe.
How can Christ have been a single instantation, never to be repeated, in a universe like this? And if he WAS, don't we have to completely re-write our understanding of a merciful God?
This isn't as well thought out as I'd like. I'll probably revist it later....
Matt +
In the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes everyone whom he meets. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VIII, 566-D
Your point about the fall is an interesting one. I'll have to think about that, as it's a great point.
This though, I don't get at all: "And why not a single instantiation of Christ for the whole universe? If the death of an infinite being suffices for the redemption of all creation, what's the sense of repeating it?"
Isn't part of the Christian faith that one has to come to God through Christ? It's not a simple as "Christ died, everyone is redeemed, case closed." If that were the case, what would the need be for a Catholic Church. One has to come to know Christ, and attempt to live in, through, him. To follow his example, To become "christ" like. How does one do that if you've never had the opportunity to hear of him?
27 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:19 AM, Matthew Weber <palaeologos at gmail.com>wrote: All that depends on whether the Fall occurred on other planets as well; or perhaps whether the Fall on Earth puts all of Creation in the same boat, soteriologically speaking.
C.S. Lewis addressed this issue in the first two books of his Space Trilogy, and comes to a different conclusion from what Wolfe's appears to be. Lewis suggests that a Fall is possible on every planet individually, while Wolfe (as I read him, anyway) seems to be saying that the Fall was creation-wide, and that the one appearance of Christ on Earth suffices for the whole cosmos.
And why not a single instantiation of Christ for the whole universe? If the death of an infinite being suffices for the redemption of all creation, what's the sense of repeating it?
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com>wrote:
Man, I was just coming on to lay out some ideas only to see that you've beaten me to the punch on some of them, Witz.
One of the big points that always roils around in my head with this issue
of "Christ", "Quasi-Christ," etc., is the notion that the Catholic or indeed Christian notion of a singular and non repeatable instance of Christ seems to be an entirely and unabashedly geocentric vision. The world of New Sun in an interstellar, and indeed interdimensional one. Are we to believe that Christ, in this world, if he was a part of the history and metaphysics of Briah, would appear in a single instance on a single planet eons in the past, and never have influence as redeemer on any other world? How would a Catholic worldview have to adjust itself to incorporate the reality of a universe teeming with life and intelligence? Hasn't Wolfe tried to tackle this question in New Sun? Why do we not discuss it in the context of this work?
When we argue about "Is Severian a Christ or Christ-instance" it is still soley from the point of view of Urth as the sole center of Christ's influence, or the increates influence (I'm generalizing grossly with the 'we argue' part, as there have no doubt been disucssion to add this dimension in the past).
So, if Severian is not an instance of The Christ (which I am more and more inclined to believe he is not), can there ever have beenany unique instance of "the christ" in Sev's universe, knowning that life is teeming across the universe? Do we have to invent a unique instance of Christ on every planet with intellegent life in order to square this with Catholic theology? Or do we write off the rest of these civilizations as simply damned?
We know "God" exists in the universe of New Sun, because of The Outsider (well, that is how I take it anyway). As does Jesus, who we can recognize through some of Silks visions. How does this square with a much wider, much bigger universe.
How can Christ have been a single instantation, never to be repeated, in a universe like this? And if he WAS, don't we have to completely re-write our understanding of a merciful God?
This isn't as well thought out as I'd like. I'll probably revist it later....
--
Matt +
In the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes everyone whom he meets. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VIII, 566-D
_______________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Weber [mailto:palaeologos at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 9, 2009 11:19 AM
And why not a single instantiation of Christ for the whole universe? If the death of an infinite being suffices for the redemption of all creation, what's the sense of repeating it?
Matthew,
I'm sure this will illustrate my ignorance in these waters, but...
Isn't the notion of this Redemption that Christ achieved exegesis?
Or is it textual in the NT?
And isn't the notion of him being "Son of God" exegesis? I mean, he doesn't say as much right? Doesn't he say "Son of Man" ?
I'll admit having not grappled with that text very well, every time I get into the Bible, some massive thing throws me off. (Like why is Jesus in the line of David if that bloodline comes via Joseph, according to the begats? If Joseph isn't his father, how is he in the line of David? Lot's of questions like that come up every time I enter into the bible, and no one I ask has ever had a good answer. Hence I through it to you here, in the hopes that my tangent isn't totally unwelcome.)
I ask these questions in the spirit of understanding, not to be argumentative or to debunk.
~sonofwitz
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Weber [mailto:palaeologos at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 9, 2009 11:19 AM
And why not a single instantiation of Christ for the whole universe? If the death of an infinite being suffices for the redemption of all creation, what's the sense of repeating it?
Matthew,
I'm sure this will illustrate my ignorance in these waters, but... Isn't the notion of this Redemption that Christ achieved exegesis? Or is it textual in the NT? And isn't the notion of him being "Son of God" exegesis? I mean, he doesn't say as much right? Doesn't he say "Son of Man" ?
Do you mean the New Testament or the Gospels? In the Gospel of John Jesus obliquely lays claim to divinity twice. In the other Gospels he is reticent. It is fairly clear the the historical Jesus, if there was such a person, did not go around trumpeting himself as a divine being.
In the remainder of the New Testament, however, both the redemptive effect of the crucifixion and Jesus's divine nature are regularly discussed.
8 quoted lines
I'll admit having not grappled with that text very well, every time I get into the Bible, some massive thing throws me off. (Like why is Jesus in the line of David if that bloodline comes via Joseph, according to the begats?
If Joseph isn't his father, how is he in the line of David? Lot's of questions like that come up every time I enter into the bible, and no one I ask has ever had a good answer. Hence I through it to you here, in the hopes that my tangent isn't totally unwelcome.)
I ask these questions in the spirit of understanding, not to be argumentative or to debunk.
~sonofwitz
_______________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: John Watkins [mailto:john.watkins04 at gmail.com]
Matthew,
I'm sure this will illustrate my ignorance in these waters, but... Isn't the notion of this Redemption that Christ achieved exegesis? Or is it textual in the NT? And isn't the notion of him being "Son of God" exegesis? I mean, he doesn't say as much right? Doesn't he say "Son of Man" ?
Do you mean the New Testament or the Gospels? In the Gospel of John Jesus obliquely lays claim to divinity twice. In the other Gospels he is reticent. It is fairly clear the the historical Jesus, if there was such a person, did not go around trumpeting himself as a divine being.
In the remainder of the New Testament, however, both the redemptive effect of the crucifixion and Jesus's divine nature are regularly discussed.
I'm actually not sure of the difference.
thanks for your explanation.
1 quoted line · depth 2
I'll admit having not grappled with that text very well
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 23:37:48 -0600
From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <000b01c98a78$8e5c6be0$29cf4a0c at rclackey>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
Son of Witz wrote:
Quasi-Christ works right?
can we agree on that?
you guys have convinced me that, ontologically speaking, Severian ain't Christ. but: "A god's supposed to pull on a man just like a tunic — that's what they say." so i'll settle for QuasiChrist.<<
--------------------------
In the case of Christ, mere possession and control (like the "gods" in LS) of a man who is a person in his own right won't do. It is contrary to the whole point of the Biblical tradition of Jesus suffering on a cross. It mustn't be done on the sly and it can't be done vicariously. The suffering of the god must be real and must be heralded, otherwise it is all for naught.
--------------------------
---In addition, since the biblical tradition allows room for demonic possession, there must be some difference between them. Wolfe is not usually concerned with demons per se, but rather what might be called false gods: Gods, but false.
--------------------------
I'm getting sucked in, and I know better. <g> Let me try a slightly different tack.
I quoted:
________________
"The sky people-the Hierodules and Hierarchs-do not hate us. It is only that they are remote from us, and they fear us because of things we did before, long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them." I watched the villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of them would believe me. "I have effected a conciliation-brought them nearer us and us nearer them, I think. They've sent me back." (URTH, chap. XXIX, p.-204)
__________________
"Son of Witz" wrote:
Roy, I wasn't trying to argue Severian as Christ again.
you mention the nature of the Conciliator according to the text. here's
one you may have forgotten:
from Chap XXI of Sword:
""Then his task was to forge a peace between humanity and the Increate,
and he was called the Conciliator. He left behind a famous relic, a gem called the Claw.""
That explanation comes long before any of the UotNS Hierogrammate
explanations, so it sort of sticks in my brain.<<
----------------------------
The two quotes yield different conclusions -- unless one accepts (as I have argued before and don't want to repeat) that the Hierogrammates were acting on express direction from the the Increate, not just guessing, and the Increate is the same as the Christian God. In the earlier quote, Severian could only repeat what he had been told by others of the lore accreted to the person of the New Sun over the centuries. (Such as eventually killing Abaia, for which there is no evidence.) In the later quote, he was speaking
as the Conciliator, fresh from Yesod and at or near the height of his power.
Perhaps, when pressured to write a fifth book and flesh-out his original skeletal conception, Wolfe was forced to change his mind. I can only speculate.
--------------------------
---Either theory makes sense. We don't want to give Severian too much knowledge, but if he were the SoG, etc., he ought to know. He might not, but that would require more explanation, not less. Holy amnesia, perhaps.
--------------------------
Even while he was the Conciliator, he gave every appearance of near-total ignorance of the Increate. (Yes, Jesus at Gethsemane wondered about that "cup", but it ain't the same.) And after the arrival of the new sun that was the New Sun, Severian went wandering in time, became a primitive solar deity, and eventually ended up on the beach in Ushas as a petty god writing his memoir, not back in Heaven where he never was or would be. But he had been in Yesod, home of the Hierogrammates, which no one could mistake for Heaven.
--------------------------
---Although it does read like a Hollywood/The Jetsons version of Heaven, with billions of humanoids swishing self-importantly through the air. I can't read that part without wondering how many would fit on the head of a pin.
--------------------------
If Severian the Conciliator believed he, as Epitome of Urth, had effected a conciliation, he ought to know with whom. An incarnation of Christ ought to know and would know, else the sacrifice would be dramatically less meaningful.
And, as I have said before, Severian didn't even make the sacrifice -- the people of Urth did the suffering. In the Christian tradition Jesus, as part of the Godhead, took the sins of humanity on his person and suffered for them. Severian didn't.
-Roy
------------------------------
First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the TBotNS universe---only Powers like the Cumean, Inire, Tzadkiel, etc. (The Inhumi are different, and look at how closely Wolfe examines their moral potential, and how he ties it to humans'.)
We can't speculate on their histories because we don't meet more than one of them---their societies and histories are closed to us. But for all we know, every one of their "species" did indeed have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment. The Increate could have an infinity of sons he sent off to die horribly, but we don't need to know about it. TBotNS is not really an "interstellar" or galactic SF novel.
Second, I agree that it would be a basic unfairness to all the other interstellar races to have the only OTC in the universes land on Earth in 0 AD, and I'm sure this has occurred to Wolfe. But that's not what TBotNS is about. Perhaps the LS/SS novels pay a bit more attention to that problem, but still in a necessarily anthropocentric manner.
I don't think the Pope has ruled yet on whether space aliens have souls.
23 quoted lines
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 11:11:45 -0800
From: Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
<273409710902091111u11fb6593vfb36585d6b87cfae at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Man, I was just coming on to lay out some ideas only to see that you've beaten me to the punch on some of them, Witz.
One of the big points that always roils around in my head with this issue of "Christ", "Quasi-Christ," etc., is the notion that the Catholic or indeed Christian notion of a singular and non repeatable instance of Christ seems to be an entirely and unabashedly geocentric vision. The world of New Sun in an interstellar, and indeed interdimensional one. Are we to believe that Christ, in this world, if he was a part of the history and metaphysics of Briah, would appear in a single instance on a single planet eons in the past, and never have influence as redeemer on any other world? How would a Catholic worldview have to adjust itself to incorporate the reality of a universe teeming with life and intelligence? Hasn't Wolfe tried to tackle this question in New Sun? Why do we not discuss it in the context of this work?
When we argue about "Is Severian a Christ or Christ-instance" it is still soley from the point of view of Urth as the sole center of Christ's influence, or the increates influence (I'm generalizing grossly with the 'we argue' part, as there have no doubt been disucssion to add this dimension in the past).
So, if Severian is not an instance of The Christ (which I am more and more inclined to believe he is not), can there ever have beenany unique instance of "the christ" in Sev's universe, knowning that life is teeming across the universe? Do we have to invent a unique instance of Christ on every planet with intellegent life in order to square this with Catholic theology? Or do we write off the rest of these civilizations as simply damned?
We know "God" exists in the universe of New Sun, because of The Outsider (well, that is how I take it anyway). As does Jesus, who we can recognize through some of Silks visions. How does this square with a much wider, much bigger universe.
How can Christ have been a single instantation, never to be repeated, in a universe like this? And if he WAS, don't we have to completely re-write our understanding of a merciful God?
This isn't as well thought out as I'd like. I'll probably revist it later....
Exactly. Not all that different from you-know-who ...
13 quoted lines
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 15:13:08 -0500
From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
<93d4039f0902091213o7401a4das801034df01a3ccdc at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Do you mean the New Testament or the Gospels? In the Gospel of John Jesus obliquely lays claim to divinity twice. In the other Gospels he is reticent. It is fairly clear the the historical Jesus, if there was such a person, did not go around trumpeting himself as a divine being.
In the remainder of the New Testament, however, both the redemptive effect of the crucifixion and Jesus's divine nature are regularly discussed.
I'll have to go back to the books to find the quotes I'm looking for, but although they don't appear in the text as such, there are, from what I remember, references to other sentient races. Races that were subjugated by Typhon, and in reference to all of the other Islands on the Yesod, and other references to other civilizations mentioned in some of those Apheta/Sev conversations. Again, I don't have the books in front of me, so I could be compeltely misremmembering.
However, what of the being on Sirius who the Cumaen 'contacts' to remember Apu Punchau? That is at least one explicit reference.
I don't see how you can say that the novel must simply rule out all other sentient species. Is there evidence for this? And to say "powers" like Cumaen, Inire...that seems like a cop out. What are Powers then. Divine? You don't seem to take that position. So, what are they? Oh, and you mention the Inhumu. Well, what about the Neighbors? They seem more salient here. They are not human, and they first fed on the Neighbors. Are you saying the neighbors are human? I sure missed that part. I guess there are arguments for that (if you buy the whole Blue/Gree is Ushas/Lune thing, which I don't think I do).
What are Abai and Erebus? Aren't they most likely alien beings who landed on Urth and are attempting to take it over? I suppose that isn't necessarily the case, but it seems likely from some evidience.
I can't expect you to deal thoroughly with such a really strange question, but I think you haven't really thought through your answer. I can't blame you for that though.
And if every 'species" did have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment, then that would seem to me to be against the Catholic doctrine.
But I'm really splitting hairs here, and seem to have lost track of the point I was trying to make!
5 quoted lines
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 1:42 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote: First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the TBotNS universe---only Powers like the Cumean, Inire, Tzadkiel, etc. (The Inhumi are different, and look at how closely Wolfe examines their moral potential, and how he ties it to humans'.) We can't speculate on their histories because we don't meet more than one of them---their societies and histories are closed to us. But for all we know, every one of their "species" did indeed have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment. The Increate could have an infinity of sons he sent off to die horribly, but we don't need to know about it. TBotNS is not really an "interstellar" or galactic SF novel.
Second, I agree that it would be a basic unfairness to all the other interstellar races to have the only OTC in the universes land on Earth in 0 AD, and I'm sure this has occurred to Wolfe. But that's not what TBotNS is about. Perhaps the LS/SS novels pay a bit more attention to that problem, but still in a necessarily anthropocentric manner.
I don't think the Pope has ruled yet on whether space aliens have souls.
Well there's simply not a lot to go on, is there? Consider the central importance of Urth/Ushas to the whole Hierogrammatic Plan, and you can see that a one-size-fits-all Christ is a simpler theory than infinite ones, but as I explicitly commented, those aren't ruled out either. We just don't know.
As I said, we know absolutely nothing about the Cumaean and the being on Sirius. We know almost nothing about Abaia and Erebus. Is there more than one Tzadkiel? His son is another pseudo-Christ, but that's all we are told. Do you know of any sentient beings in TBotNS that are not singular? We know of 2 Hierodules for sure, maybe 3 but I don't think Apheta counts (not sure what she is).
The Neighbors are another matter, but we know almost as little about them.
Without knowing the histories of their societies, we don't know whether they have converted to Wolfean Catholicism or any other flavor, or indeed to anything we could call a religion. We don't know how aliens regard the Increate in general.
Keep in mind that I am specifically referring to alien religion and alien Messiahs. Someone else noted that CS Lewis considered multiple Christs to be kosher, so to speak, and Wolfe has touched on that approach elsewhere. But in TBotNS, not a word.
30 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 14:02:38 -0800
From: Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
<273409710902091402j76b72eb8r10900f006df8ceba at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I'll have to go back to the books to find the quotes I'm looking for, but although they don't appear in the text as such, there are, from what I remember, references to other sentient races. Races that were subjugated by Typhon, and in reference to all of the other Islands on the Yesod, and other references to other civilizations mentioned in some of those Apheta/Sev conversations. Again, I don't have the books in front of me, so I could be compeltely misremmembering.
However, what of the being on Sirius who the Cumaen 'contacts' to remember Apu Punchau? That is at least one explicit reference.
I don't see how you can say that the novel must simply rule out all other sentient species. Is there evidence for this? And to say "powers" like Cumaen, Inire...that seems like a cop out. What are Powers then. Divine? You don't seem to take that position. So, what are they? Oh, and you mention the Inhumu. Well, what about the Neighbors? They seem more salient here. They are not human, and they first fed on the Neighbors. Are you saying the neighbors are human? I sure missed that part. I guess there are arguments for that (if you buy the whole Blue/Gree is Ushas/Lune thing, which I don't think I do).
What are Abai and Erebus? Aren't they most likely alien beings who landed on Urth and are attempting to take it over? I suppose that isn't necessarily the case, but it seems likely from some evidience.
I can't expect you to deal thoroughly with such a really strange question, but I think you haven't really thought through your answer. I can't blame you for that though.
And if every 'species" did have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment, then that would seem to me to be against the Catholic doctrine.
But I'm really splitting hairs here, and seem to have lost track of the point I was trying to make!
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 1:42 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:
First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the TBotNS universe---only Powers like the Cumean, Inire, Tzadkiel, etc. (The Inhumi are different, and look at how closely Wolfe examines their moral potential, and how he ties it to humans'.) We can't speculate on their histories because we don't meet more than one of them---their societies and histories are closed to us. But for all we know, every one of their "species" did indeed have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment. The Increate could have an infinity of sons he sent off to die horribly, but we don't need to know about it. TBotNS is not really an "interstellar" or galactic SF novel.
Second, I agree that it would be a basic unfairness to all the other interstellar races to have the only OTC in the universes land on Earth in 0 AD, and I'm sure this has occurred to Wolfe. But that's not what TBotNS is about. Perhaps the LS/SS novels pay a bit more attention to that problem, but still in a necessarily anthropocentric manner.
I don't think the Pope has ruled yet on whether space aliens have souls.
David Stockhoff wrote:
First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the TBotNS universe---only Powers like the Cumean, Inire, Tzadkiel, etc. (The Inhumi are different, and look at how closely Wolfe examines their moral potential, and how he ties it to humans'.)
We can't speculate on their histories because we don't meet more than one
of them---their societies and histories are closed to us. But for all we know, every one of their "species" did indeed have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment. The Increate could have an infinity of sons he sent off to die horribly, but we don't need to know about it. TBotNS is not really an "interstellar" or galactic SF novel.
Second, I agree that it would be a basic unfairness to all the other interstellar races to have the only OTC in the universes land on Earth in 0 AD, and I'm sure this has occurred to Wolfe. But that's not what TBotNS is about. Perhaps the LS/SS novels pay a bit more attention to that problem, but still in a necessarily anthropocentric manner.<<<
_______________________
The Urth Cycle is definitely anthropocentric. I don't want to touch off a debate about alien sentient beings and whether or not they have souls that need saving, or Original Sin, or the question of dogs going to Heaven and such. But there are other intelligent beings of a sort in Briah.
This from CITADEL, chapter XXXIV:
------------------------------
"As the flower that comes is like the flower from which it came, so the universe that comes repeats the one whose ruin was its origin; and this is as true of its finer features as of its grosser ones: The worlds that arise are not unlike the worlds that perished, and are peopled by similar races, though just as the flower evolves from summer to summer, all things advance by some minute step.
"In a certain divine year (a time truly inconceivable to us, though that cycle of the universes was but one in an endless succession), a race was born that was so like to ours that Master Malrubius did not scruple to call it human. It expanded among the galaxies of its universe even as we are said to have done in the remote past, when Urth was, for a time, the center, or at least the home and symbol, of an empire.
"These men encountered many beings on other worlds who had intelligence to some degree, or at least the potential for intelligence, and from them-that they might have comrades in the loneliness between the galaxies and allies among their swarming worlds-they formed beings like themselves."
----------------------------------
And the beings thus formed were the Hierogrammates, of course. Still, this passage seems to me to draw a distinction between humans and all other natural beings, regardless of intelligence. Humans seem to be the only natural beings in the universe who matter in the story, which is in keeping with the Christian idea that Christ was both Man and God. All humans seem to have originated on Urth. The lower beings from whom the humans formed the Hierogrammates seem to be on the level of animals on Earth. So I don't think they need a Savior -- in this story.
-Roy
Bingo. Thanks!
I was trying to find that quote during the multiple-universe discussion. This certainly makes it sound like universes might be grown and harvested like crops of wheat, succeeding one another in time even without much connection between them. And Ushas is a second cutting/late harvest. Hmmm, where's my book of biblical allusions ...
26 quoted lines
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:15:48 -0600
From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <00a701c98b57$cd2465a0$03d24a0c at rclackey>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
The Urth Cycle is definitely anthropocentric. I don't want to touch off a debate about alien sentient beings and whether or not they have souls that need saving, or Original Sin, or the question of dogs going to Heaven and such. But there are other intelligent beings of a sort in Briah.
This from CITADEL, chapter XXXIV:
------------------------------
"As the flower that comes is like the flower from which it came, so the universe that comes repeats the one whose ruin was its origin; and this is as true of its finer features as of its grosser ones: The worlds that arise are not unlike the worlds that perished, and are peopled by similar races, though just as the flower evolves from summer to summer, all things advance by some minute step.
"In a certain divine year (a time truly inconceivable to us, though that cycle of the universes was but one in an endless succession), a race was born that was so like to ours that Master Malrubius did not scruple to call it human. It expanded among the galaxies of its universe even as we are said to have done in the remote past, when Urth was, for a time, the center, or at least the home and symbol, of an empire.
"These men encountered many beings on other worlds who had intelligence to some degree, or at least the potential for intelligence, and from them-that they might have comrades in the loneliness between the galaxies and allies among their swarming worlds-they formed beings like themselves."
----------------------------------
And the beings thus formed were the Hierogrammates, of course. Still, this passage seems to me to draw a distinction between humans and all other natural beings, regardless of intelligence. Humans seem to be the only natural beings in the universe who matter in the story, which is in keeping with the Christian idea that Christ was both Man and God. All humans seem to have originated on Urth. The lower beings from whom the humans formed the Hierogrammates seem to be on the level of animals on Earth. So I don't think they need a Savior -- in this story.
-Roy
------------------------------
I'm not a Catholic, so this could be wrong, but someone mentioned it on the list once before, and I remember being floored by it then.
Didn't the Second Vatican Council (1965) rule that even "those who have not yet received the Gospel" can go to heaven if they've discerned the nature of God through their own religion? Here's what Wikipedia says:
"Perhaps the most famous and most influential product of the council is the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.
In its first chapter, titled "The Mystery of the Church," is
the famous statement that "the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed
we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour,
after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the
other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected
for all ages as 'the pillar and mainstay of the truth.' This Church,
constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in
the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by
the bishops in communion with him" (Lumen Gentium, 8). The document
immediately adds: "Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of
truth are found outside its visible confines."
In the second chapter, titled "On the People of God", the
Council teaches that God wills to save people not just as individuals
but as a people. For this reason God chose the Israelite people to be
his own people and established a covenant with it, as a preparation and
figure of the covenant ratified in Christ that constitutes the new
People of God, which would be one, not according to the flesh, but in
the Spirit and which is called the Church of Christ (Lumen Gentium,
9). All human beings are called to belong to the Church. Not all are
fully incorporated into the Church, but "the Church knows that she is
joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of
Christ, but who do not however profess the Catholic faith in its
entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor
of Peter" (Lumen Gentium, 15) and even with "those who have not yet received the Gospel," among whom Jews and Muslims are explicitly mentioned (Lumen Gentium, 16).
Doesn't this make multiple Christs unnecessary, so long as the sentient aliens came to an understanding of God through their own gods? Being a dogmatic Catholic, I'm sure Wolfe would have been aware of this.
-Joe
--- On Mon, 2/9/09, Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com> wrote: From: Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com> Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ? To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Monday, February 9, 2009, 4:02 PM
I'll have to go back to the books to find the quotes I'm looking for, but although they don't appear in the text as such, there are, from what I remember, references to other sentient races. Races that were subjugated by Typhon, and in reference to all of the other Islands on the Yesod, and other references to other civilizations mentioned in some of those Apheta/Sev conversations. Again, I don't have the books in front of me, so I could be compeltely misremmembering.
However, what of the being on Sirius who the Cumaen 'contacts' to remember Apu Punchau? That is at least one explicit reference.
“I don't see how you can say that the novel must simply rule out all other sentient species. — Is there evidence for this?” And to say "powers" like Cumaen, Inire...that seems like a cop out. What are Powers then. Divine? You don't seem to take that position. So, what are they? Oh, and you mention the Inhumu. Well, what about the Neighbors? They seem more salient here. They are not human, and they first fed on the Neighbors. Are you saying the neighbors are human? I sure missed that part. I guess there are arguments for that (if you buy the whole Blue/Gree is Ushas/Lune thing, which I don't think I do).
What are Abai and Erebus? Aren't they most likely alien beings who landed on Urth and are attempting to take it over? I suppose that isn't necessarily the case, but it seems likely from some evidience.
I can't expect you to deal thoroughly with such a really strange question, but I think you haven't really thought through your answer. I can't blame you for that though.
And if every 'species" did have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment, then that would seem to me to be against the Catholic doctrine.
But I'm really splitting hairs here, and seem to have lost track of the point I was trying to make!
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 1:42 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the TBotNS universe---only Powers like the Cumean, Inire, Tzadkiel, etc. (The Inhumi are different, and look at how closely Wolfe examines their moral potential, and how he ties it to humans'.)
We can't speculate on their histories because we don't meet more than one of them---their societies and histories are closed to us. But for all we know, every one of their "species" did indeed have some sort of "unique-intervention" moment. The Increate could have an infinity of sons he sent off to die horribly, but we don't need to know about it. TBotNS is not really an "interstellar" or galactic SF novel.
Second, I agree that it would be a basic unfairness to all the other interstellar races to have the only OTC in the universes land on Earth in 0 AD, and I'm sure this has occurred to Wolfe. But that's not what TBotNS is about. Perhaps the LS/SS novels pay a bit more attention to that problem, but still in a necessarily anthropocentric manner.
I don't think the Pope has ruled yet on whether space aliens have souls.
On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:34 AM, Joe Riley <whamdoodler at yahoo.com> wrote: I'm not a Catholic, so this could be wrong, but someone mentioned it on the list once before, and I remember being floored by it then.
Didn't the Second Vatican Council (1965) rule that even "those who have not yet received the Gospel" can go to heaven if they've discerned the nature of God through their own religion? Here's what Wikipedia says:
"Perhaps the most famous and most influential product of the council is the
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, *Lumen Gentium<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumen_Gentium>
*.
In its first chapter, titled "The Mystery of the Church," is the famous
statement that "the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to
be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His
Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles
to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as 'the
pillar and mainstay of the truth.' This Church, constituted and organized as
a society in the present world, subsists in<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Subsistit_in%22_in_Lumen_Gentium>the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the
bishops in communion with him" (Lumen Gentium, 8). The document immediately
adds: "Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found
outside its visible confines."
In the second chapter, titled "On the People of God", the Council
teaches that God wills to save people not just as individuals but as a people. For this reason God chose the Israelite people to be his own people and established a covenant with it, as a preparation and figure of the covenant ratified in Christ that constitutes the new People of God, which would be one, not according to the flesh, but in the Spirit and which is called the Church of Christ (Lumen Gentium, 9). All human beings are called to belong to the Church. Not all are fully incorporated into the Church, but "the Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christ, but who do not however profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter" (Lumen Gentium, 15) and even with "those who have not yet received the Gospel," among whom Jews and Muslims are explicitly mentioned (Lumen Gentium, 16).
Doesn't this make multiple Christs unnecessary, so long as the sentient aliens came to an understanding of God through their own gods? Being a dogmatic Catholic, I'm sure Wolfe would have been aware of this.
-Joe
It's a strikingly humble stance, compared to earlier positions, but yes. Lumen Gentium is probably what I was thinking of in my earlier response.
Going back (again) to C.S. Lewis, there's a passage in *The Last Battle *that addresses this. Aslan (Narnia's Christ) receives a Calormene (the Calormenes are Narnia's Muslims, more or less) into his kingdom, and says that though Tash is a false god, the Calormene has served him in the same spirit of charity and justice as Narnians are to serve Aslan; and so the good that the Calormene did in Tash's name has been counted as good done in Aslan's name (just as wickedness done in Aslan's name will be counted as wickedness done in the service of Tash). All this, btw, is in the context of a book-long controversy over where Aslan and Tash are the same god--some of the characters even start referring to this hybrid as "Tashlan".
Matt +
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), The Republic, bk. VIII, 566-E
Doesn't this make multiple Christs unnecessary, so long as the sentient aliens came to an understanding of God through their own gods? Being a dogmatic Catholic, I'm sure Wolfe would have been aware of this.
Multiple Christs.
I don't come to this from the current discussion of many worlds, many beings to be saved, but from the idea that there are subsequent, serial creations of a universe. If Briah keeps going through similar evolutions to similar ends, it's viable to think that there would be similar theophanies, and similar incarnations of eternal principals and deities. It's very unclear if Urth is in Earth's cycle, or before or after. I think these incarnations would be similar, but not exactly the same, and the roles they play, and "salvation" or Apocatastasis that they enact would not necessarily be the same, but would have at least strong similarities. And so, the Conciliator/New Sun could very well be a different incarnation of the same deity. I understand the notion of Christ being "unique in history" but we're talking about a setting where history RESETS, where there is a succession of beginnings and endings.
anyway, I don't think it's out of line to suggest the possibility. It's an extrapolation of our ideas into a setting that sort of explodes there potentials into ways that may not have been previously explored, so there is no reason to view it rigidly through one particular lens of belief.
~witz
It's a strikingly humble stance, compared to earlier positions, but yes. Lumen Gentium is probably what I was thinking of in my earlier response.
Going back (again) to C.S. Lewis, there's a passage in *The Last Battle *that addresses this. Aslan (Narnia's Christ) receives a Calormene (the Calormenes are Narnia's Muslims, more or less) into his kingdom, and says that though Tash is a false god, the Calormene has served him in the same spirit of charity and justice as Narnians are to serve Aslan; and so the good that the Calormene did in Tash's name has been counted as good done in Aslan's name (just as wickedness done in Aslan's name will be counted as wickedness done in the service of Tash). All this, btw, is in the context of a book-long controversy over where Aslan and Tash are the same god--some of the characters even start referring to this hybrid as "Tashlan".
--
Matt +
I'm gonna have to read that. I was thinking, as I read, "hello, Allah is Yahweh" even though many don't realize it. then you mentiond the controversy of Tashian. Sounds like great stuff. I think I only read one of those books as a kid who would not have been sensitive to the symbolic elements.
Well, that clears that up nicely!
We don't need evidence of multiple resurrections, and we don't have any. They would only make the whole Christ scheme feel more mechanical anyway, when it is the Hieros' schemes that Wolfe wants to have a mechanical feel.
The Mystery quote is also relevant to the other discussion. I always assumed that the Torturers had a mystery simply because ALL guilds had mysteries---most of them fairly mundane, basically secret handshake-type stuff. But here it is explicitly related to the earthly authority of the Church.
This also supports the idea of the Commonwealth as representing humanity as a whole even though it controls only a fraction of its territory. And Severian becomes more like the Pope than Christ, especially considering Roy's quote about the Conciliator's conciliation as a mundane and semipolitical one, as opposed to one with the Increate.
44 quoted lines
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:34:04 -0800 (PST)
From: Joe Riley <whamdoodler at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <42301.4716.qm at web38508.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I'm not a Catholic, so this could be wrong, but someone mentioned it on the list once before, and I remember being floored by it then.
Didn't the Second Vatican Council (1965) rule that even "those who have not yet received the Gospel" can go to heaven if they've discerned the nature of God through their own religion? Here's what Wikipedia says:
"Perhaps the most famous and most influential product of the council is the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.
In its first chapter, titled "The Mystery of the Church," is
the famous statement that "the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed
we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour,
after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the
other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected
for all ages as 'the pillar and mainstay of the truth.' This Church,
constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in
the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by
the bishops in communion with him" (Lumen Gentium, 8). The document
immediately adds: "Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of
truth are found outside its visible confines."
In the second chapter, titled "On the People of God", the
Council teaches that God wills to save people not just as individuals
but as a people. For this reason God chose the Israelite people to be
his own people and established a covenant with it, as a preparation and
figure of the covenant ratified in Christ that constitutes the new
People of God, which would be one, not according to the flesh, but in
the Spirit and which is called the Church of Christ (Lumen Gentium,
9). All human beings are called to belong to the Church. Not all are
fully incorporated into the Church, but "the Church knows that she is
joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of
Christ, but who do not however profess the Catholic faith in its
entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor
of Peter" (Lumen Gentium, 15) and even with "those who have not yet received the Gospel," among whom Jews and Muslims are explicitly mentioned (Lumen Gentium, 16).
Doesn't this make multiple Christs unnecessary, so long as the sentient aliens came to an understanding of God through their own gods? Being a dogmatic Catholic, I'm sure Wolfe would have been aware of this.
-Joe
On Tue, 10 Feb 2009, Roy C. Lackey wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote:
First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the TBotNS universe
I have to be pedantic ;). "Sentient" (contrary to most use in SF) means "feeling" (and therefore capable of suffering), so all mammals are sentient. What we should say is "sapient" if we refer to intelligence.
Cheers, David Duffy.
-----Original Message-----
From: David Stockhoff [mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 01:45 PM
And Severian becomes more like the Pope than Christ, especially considering Roy's quote about the Conciliator's conciliation as a mundane and semipolitical one, as opposed to one with the Increate.
this insistence that the "Conciliator's conciliation" is mundane and political is strange to me. Can't we see it as metaphor, and not as mundane plot. In the microcosm of this metaphor, he's effected a salvation of humanity in the eyes of those who serve God. That the text could be read to imply that the Hierogrammates had no real connection to God, doesn't mean that it is so. Even Angels serve God without understanding him completely. Can't we accept these characters as serviceable metaphors for Archangels and Angels, and see the scifi trappings for what they are, dressings on a metaphor?
Hopefully that's clear. maybe I can boil it down more.
The microcosm of a metaphor need not encompass the whole macrocosm it's illustrating. The map is NOT the territory. it's a limited, scaled down representation of the territory.
~SonOfWitz
here's a telling bit I like, that led me to have form ideas about Sev/Christ:
Claw I, first paragraph:
"Morwenna's face floated in the single beam of light, lovely and framed in hair dark as my cloak; blood from her neck pattered to the stones. Her lips moved without speech. Instead I saw framed within them (as though I were the Increate, peeping through his rent in Eternity to behold the World of Time) the farm, Stachys her husband tossing in agony upon his bed, little Chad at the pond, bathing his fevered face."
since I can't bold it:
(as though I were the Increate, peeping through his rent in Eternity to behold the World of Time)
I read Severian as "his rent in Eternity" here.
~sonofwitz
Point taken.
Although, funnily enough, if we are wondering whether alien races/species can have crucificial theophanies---whether across a universe or across a succession of universes---then in fact it may be more relevant to ask whether a Heechee or a Puppeteer or a Neighbor can suffer on an analogue of the cross than whether it can think. Presumably both abilities are ideal, but the first is critical, no pun intended.
If we follow the Lumen Gentium, however, sapience may be more useful for an alien race that will never have its own theophany. (And this makes me think of the Hieros, who strike me far more as thinkers than feelers, as well as the various individuals I've called Powers.)
But this is for whoever is Pope at First Contact in 2150 AD to worry about.
20 quoted lines · 1–6 deep
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 07:47:08 +1000 (EST)
From: David Duffy <David.Duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0902110741490.11637 at orpheus.qimr.edu.au> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
On Tue, 10 Feb 2009, Roy C. Lackey wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote:
First, I'd say that the novel simply must rule out all other sentient
species. In fact, there don't seem to be any other sentient species in the TBotNS universe
I have to be pedantic ;) . "Sentient" (contrary to most use in SF) means "feeling" (and therefore capable of suffering), so all mammals are sentient. What we should say is "sapient" if we refer to intelligence.
Cheers, David Duffy.
------------------------------
Fine with me. I only meant to contrast it with "divine."
But I still see it as half political. Feudal, almost. As it would be if the sky gods came to us and said, OK, if you talk about how great we are and support us against the earth gods, we'll make sure it rains at the appropriate times and protect your human governments. Deal?
Nothing could be less divine than that. Whether the Hieros serve the Increate or not, they must deal with humans in ways that are roughly comprehensible to at least some humans.
23 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:39:36 +0000
From: "Son of Witz" <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quasi Christ?
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <W509624387252111234305576 at webmail32>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
-----Original Message-----
From: David Stockhoff [mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 01:45 PM
And Severian becomes more like the Pope than Christ, especially considering Roy's quote about the Conciliator's conciliation as a mundane and semipolitical one, as opposed to one with the Increate.
this insistence that the "Conciliator's conciliation" is mundane and political is strange to me. Can't we see it as metaphor, and not as mundane plot. In the microcosm of this metaphor, he's effected a salvation of humanity in the eyes of those who serve God. That the text could be read to imply that the Hierogrammates had no real connection to God, doesn't mean that it is so. Even Angels serve God without understanding him completely. Can't we accept these characters as serviceable metaphors for Archangels and Angels, and see the scifi trappings for what they are, dressings on a metaphor?
Hopefully that's clear. maybe I can boil it down more.
The microcosm of a metaphor need not encompass the whole macrocosm it's illustrating. The map is NOT the territory. it's a limited, scaled down representation of the territory.
~SonOfWitz
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Urth Net