David Stockhoff- On the use of the word "cognates":
I think this is a standard low-grade Wolfean riddle. If a Wolfe character says to a narrator, "I once met a man very like you, who had the same look and carried himself the same way, and held his cigarette just like that, but he called himself by a different name then," how would you interpret that?
"Once upon a time, there was a race of beings with two arms and two legs who called themselves Men. They were very like you, with the same hopes and dreams, but they lived far away from here, both in space and in time." How would you interpret that?
I read both as strong hints of the obvious, with a dash of doubt.
Interestingly, I just made a very similar comment responding to a different poster:
1 quoted line
Lee Berman- Wolfe could have made it crystal clear that it was Severian's race in Briah which created the Hierogrammates and it is Severian that he reveres, but at every turn he doesn't, using language which simultaneously provides us a conclusion and casts doubt upon it. It could be said that he does this in all his work. We are meant to be kept off balance.
We must be careful or risk being accused of being the same person. Stockberm? David Lee Hoff? ;- ) nevermind. brunians is gone.
Speaking of SilkHorn, isn't that a prime example of what we are speaking of? We have a guy who keeps insisting he is Horn, searching for Silk, while everyone around him keeps saying, "Uh, dude, you are a tall, slender guy with white hair and a black bird named Oreb on your shoulder".
In that case (like the Dorcas riddle), I think most readers figure it out. Other Wolfean riddles are more difficult to solve, as we've seen.
On Aug 12, 2010, at 10:35 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
We must be careful or risk being accused of being the same person. Stockberm? David Lee Hoff? ;- ) nevermind. brunians is gone.
I'll take up the mantle for a moment...
I believe a better hybrid would be Dale Stockman. Either that or Liev Bermoff.
...ryan
David Stockhoff- On the use of the word "cognates":
I think this is a standard low-grade Wolfean riddle. If a Wolfe
character says to a narrator, "I once met a man very like you, who had the same look and carried himself the same way, and held his cigarette just like that, but he called himself by a different name then," how would you interpret that?
"Once upon a time, there was a race of beings with two arms and two legs who called themselves Men. They were very like you, with the same hopes and dreams, but they lived far away from here, both in space and in time." How would you interpret that? I read both as strong hints of the obvious, with a dash of doubt.
If it is a Wolfe novel, it is almost certainly not a 1 to 1 mapping. I
the other fellow might have been a phyiscal or psychic clone. Or
software epitome that was created long ago. It might be a potential
future version that will never enter into the story. Or it might have
been someone else in possession of the same body. Or it might have been
an impostor who didn't realize that he was a psychic clone. Much of
Wolfe's writing career has been picking away at the foundations of Identity.
3 quoted lines
Lee Berman - Speaking of SilkHorn, isn't that a prime example of what we are speaking of? We have a guy who keeps insisting he is Horn, searching for Silk, while everyone around him keeps saying, "Uh, dude, you are a tall, slender guy with white hair and a black bird named Oreb on your shoulder".
In that case (like the Dorcas riddle), I think most readers figure it out. Other Wolfean riddles are more difficult to solve, as we've seen.
This is an excellent example. I'm not convinced most people do understand what is going on. Silk is dead. He slashed his wrists and killed himself in front of Hyacinth's casket. Silk's body and memories are present. But Horn's memories are present as well. Wolfe would say they are both truly there. And then there is that "other" who communes with the face on his staff and can initiate dream-travels across Time and Space. Yeah, Silk is there. But I contend he not the way people seem to think he is.
Surely he is as much a "cognate" as a race of beings in a universe whose history and individuals are almost the same as another race of beings in another universe.
Wolfe is not just adding a dash of doubt. He is probing what it means to be the "I am". The cognate race is as much humanity as Jahlee was the Rajan's sister. As much as Silk was Tussah's son.
ᚹ
Exactly.
--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:
8 quoted lines
From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Subject: (urth) Standard Wolfean riddle
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 10:35 AM
David Stockhoff- On the use of the word "cognates":
I think this is a standard low-grade Wolfean riddle. If a Wolfe character says to a narrator, "I once met a man very like you, who had the same look and carried himself the same way, and held his cigarette just like that, but he called himself by a different name then," how would you interpret that?
"Once upon a time, there was a race of beings with two arms and two legs who called themselves Men. They were very like you, with the same hopes and dreams, but they lived far away from here, both in space and in time." How would you interpret that?
I read both as strong hints of the obvious, with a dash of doubt.
Interestingly, I just made a very similar comment responding to a different poster:
1 quoted line
Lee Berman- Wolfe could have made it crystal clear that it was Severian's race in Briah which? created the Hierogrammates and it is Severian that he reveres, but at every turn he doesn't, using language which simultaneously provides us a conclusion and casts doubt upon it. It could be said that he does this in all his work. We are meant to be kept off balance.
We must be careful or risk being accused of being the same person. Stockberm? David Lee Hoff? ;- ) nevermind. brunians is gone.
Speaking of SilkHorn, isn't that a prime example of what we are speaking of? We have a guy who keeps insisting he is Horn, searching for Silk, while everyone around him keeps saying, "Uh, dude, you are a tall, slender guy with white hair and a black bird named Oreb on your shoulder".
In that case (like the Dorcas riddle), I think most readers figure it out.
Other Wolfean riddles are more difficult to solve, as we've seen. ??? ???????? ?????? ??? ?
That's exactly right. If the difference ever goes beyond just a shadowy past or a disguise and an assumed name, then it's always something outside the bounds of ordinary reality, and therefore one requiring assembly by the reader. And it's always a key to the narrative.
In this case, the relation between one universe and another is unknowable and almost magical; therefore, the relation between men of one creation and men of another is indefinable.
I personally have a hard time seeing the difference between a universe that is perpetually restarted in time and one that is infintely reborn under closely guided and identical conditions. In such a context, one can conclude that the race who made the Hieros were human beings like ourselves with our physiology and history---but whether they are in "our" future is unknowable. Whether they were in our iteration or a 99.9999999% identical one, past or future, is unknowable.
And this is why it is satisfying to consider which universe holds the Hieromakers, which holds Jesus, and which Severian, and the relation among them, and wonder if all three aren't the same---because if they aren't at least "cognate," then none of it matters.
Side topic---is Yesod merely what we know of as subspace?
--- On Thu, 8/12/10, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
10 quoted lines · depth 2
From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Standard Wolfean riddle
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 11:09 AM
David Stockhoff- On the use of the word "cognates":
I think this is a standard low-grade Wolfean riddle. If a Wolfe
character says to a narrator, "I once met a man very like you, who had the same look and carried himself the same way, and held his cigarette just like that, but he called himself by a different name then," how would you interpret that?
"Once upon a time, there was a race of beings with two arms and two legs who called themselves Men. They were very like you, with the same hopes and dreams, but they lived far away from here, both in space and in time." How would you interpret that? I read both as strong hints of the obvious, with a dash of doubt.
? ? ?
If it is a Wolfe novel, it is almost certainly not a 1 to 1 mapping. I the other fellow might have been a phyiscal or psychic clone. Or software epitome that was created long ago. It might be a potential future version that will never enter into the story. Or it might have been someone else in possession of the same body. Or it might have been an impostor who didn't realize that he was a psychic clone. Much of Wolfe's writing career has been picking away at the foundations of Identity.
3 quoted lines
Lee Berman - Speaking of SilkHorn, isn't that a prime example of what we are speaking of? We have a guy who keeps insisting he is Horn, searching for Silk, while everyone around him keeps saying, "Uh, dude, you are a tall, slender guy with white hair and a black bird named Oreb on your shoulder".
In that case (like the Dorcas riddle), I think most readers figure it out. Other Wolfean riddles are more difficult to solve, as we've seen. ??? ???
This is an excellent example. I'm not convinced most people do understand what is going on. Silk is dead. He slashed his wrists and killed himself in front of Hyacinth's casket. Silk's body and memories are present. But Horn's memories are present as well. Wolfe would say they are both truly there. And then there is that "other" who communes with the face on his staff and can initiate dream-travels across Time and Space. Yeah, Silk is there. But I contend he not the way people seem to think he is.
Surely he is as much a "cognate" as a race of beings in a universe whose history and individuals are almost the same as another race of beings in another universe.
Wolfe is not just adding a dash of doubt. He is probing what it means to be the "I am". The cognate race is as much humanity as Jahlee was the Rajan's sister. As much as Silk was Tussah's son.
ᚹ
We must be careful or risk being accused of being the same person. Stockberm? David Lee Hoff? ;- ) nevermind. brunians is gone.
Ryan Dunn- I'll take up the mantle for a moment...
I believe a better hybrid would be Dale Stockman. Either that or Liev Bermoff. ...ryan
LMAO! Thanks Ryan. You made my day.
(...) one can conclude that the race who made the Hieros were human beings like ourselves with our physiology and history---but whether they are in "our" future is unknowable. Whether they were in our iteration or a 99.9999999% identical one, past or future, is unknowable.
I think it's only that:
- Urth is similar but not quite like Earth:
+ the name
+ the apparent history
+ the geography
(some of those may be explained by being far in the future, but to me it rings more of a parallel though very similar universe)
- Wolfe presents Urth as a possible, bleak future for Earth. I don't want Earth's future to be Urth; I think the presentation is a warning - see what may happen - and that warning is given in the form of what happened to some who started off pretty much like us.
Possibly. Or, depending on exactly how the universes relate, maybe the Conciliator is in one possible future, along with Master Ash and so on with other sub-possibilities, and the Hieromakers are in another. Both futures happened somewhere, and one future transcended Briah entirely. Their creatures bring Severian to Yesod, where the lack of time as we know it allows them to meet.
Again, I am not sure the explanation of universes as "blooming" (or any other metaphor that has been used) requires that we ignore the fact that all possible futures exist until they are no longer possible. And they are all Briah.
Jeff mentioned (IIRC) that for narrative reasons Yesod's being before Severian was born in Briah doesn't mean that Yesod is before Briah. That's obviously true but it's not mechanically helpful in terms of how the multiverses are constructed.
Yesod may be before Briah only in the sense that it is in some way outside time and therefore is the way it was at its birth. All the Briahs have fallen to time and are therefore always after Yesod.
Alternatively, it is simply on a plane where time is negligible, and the Ship's travels back and forth easily pass any Yesodi time point.
These seem the same, but in one, all the Briahs are more or less the same (blooms), and in the other, Severian's Briah runs alongside Yesod, which makes no sense to me. I prefer the first, which fits the description of Yesod as "higher."
Aphet's remark, therefore, may not have required her to check the universal clock, or take up the study of Severian's life, or run a time conversion to know. She knew Severian was unborn in Briah no matter how far or fast the Ship moved, because she's in Paradise and he's from Out There.
--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Standard Wolfean riddle
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 2:03 PM
DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote (12-08-2010 18:41):
1 quoted line
(...) one can conclude that the race who made the Hieros were human beings like ourselves with our physiology and history---but whether they are in "our" future is unknowable. Whether they were in our iteration or a 99.9999999% identical one, past or future, is unknowable.
I think it's only that:
- Urth is similar but not quite like Earth:
? + the name
? + the apparent history
? + the geography
— (some of those may be explained by being far in the future, but to me it rings more of a parallel though very similar universe)
- Wolfe presents Urth as a possible, bleak future for Earth. I don't want Earth's future to be Urth; I think the presentation is a warning - see what may happen - and that warning is given in the form of what happened to some who started off pretty much like us.
Jeff mentioned (IIRC) that for narrative reasons Yesod's being before Severian was born in Briah doesn't mean that Yesod is before Briah. That's obviously true but it's not mechanically helpful in terms of how the multiverses are constructed.
The concepts of before and after are meaningless across universes. Time is a property of each universe, like space. Any other universe isn't in Briah's future any more than it is behind or west or south of it. This much is axiomatic physics, not something someone like Wolfe would not understand or leave aside.
1 quoted line
Possibly. Or, depending on exactly how the universes relate, maybe the Conciliator is in one possible future, along with Master Ash and so on with other sub-possibilities, and the Hieromakers are in another.
From the Yesod perspective, there is no future nor past Briah. Briah, a 4-dimensional universe, is somehow a blob open to the Hiero* for observation and travel to and fro. But not necessarily all of Briah, and that means time and space.
From such a perspective there aren't possible futures in Briah, there's only Briah from east to west, north to south, back to forth, start to end.
If you're in an unfamiliar building, you don't know what rooms and corridors lie ahead. You can say there are 'possible' rooms and corridors ahead. It doesn't mean the possible rooms are all really possible. It just means you don't know them. Ditto for time. You really need multiple universes to have alternate futures, not a multiple-possibility one.
Below.
--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Ant?nio Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Standard Wolfean riddle
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 3:54 PM
DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:>
1 quoted line
Jeff mentioned (IIRC) that for narrative reasons Yesod's being before Severian was born in Briah doesn't mean that Yesod is before Briah. That's obviously true but it's not mechanically helpful in terms of how the multiverses are constructed.
The concepts of before and after are meaningless across universes. Time
is a property of each universe, like space. Any other universe isn't in Briah's future any more than it is behind or west or south of it. This much is axiomatic physics, not something someone like Wolfe would not understand or leave aside.
---Exactly. Apheta said Severian's friends were yet unborn. Why?
4 quoted lines
Possibly. Or, depending on exactly how the universes relate, maybe the Conciliator is in one possible future, along with Master Ash and so on with other sub-possibilities, and the Hieromakers are in another.
From the Yesod perspective, there is no future nor past Briah. Briah, a
4-dimensional universe, is somehow a blob open to the Hiero* for observation and travel to and fro. But not necessarily all of Briah, and that means time and space.
From such a perspective there aren't possible futures in Briah, there's only Briah from east to west, north to south, back to forth, start to end.
---Right.
If you're in an unfamiliar building, you don't know what rooms and
corridors lie ahead. You can say there are 'possible' rooms and
corridors ahead. It doesn't mean the possible rooms are all really
possible. It just means you don't know them. Ditto for time. You really need multiple universes to have alternate futures, not a multiple-possibility one.
---Um, somebody better explain that to Wolfe before he makes this mistake again!
As I basically, said, if we already have multiple universes, they may branch. They may be branching universes. Wolfe proposes such branches. There must be other branches. They may not be important, but they may be important.
On 8/12/2010 1:03 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
- Wolfe presents Urth as a possible, bleak future for Earth. I don't want Earth's future to be Urth; I think the presentation is a warning
- see what may happen - and that warning is given in the form of what happened to some who started off pretty much like us.
eh...It could be worse. Urth's future for humanity is at least better than what HG Wells foresaw The Time Machine.
ᚹ
Aw, it wouldn't be so bad to be a morlock. Swanky caves to live in, all the eloi you can eat...
LH
6 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 3:21 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote: On 8/12/2010 1:03 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
- Wolfe presents Urth as a possible, bleak future for Earth. I don't want Earth's future to be Urth; I think the presentation is a warning - see what may happen - and that warning is given in the form of what happened to some who started off pretty much like us.
eh...It could be worse. Urth's future for humanity is at least better than what HG Wells foresaw The Time Machine.
ᚹ
_______________________________________________
All that future wants for is a bonfire and some drawn butter.
LH
6 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 3:46 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote: On 8/12/2010 3:27 PM, Lane Haygood wrote:
Aw, it wouldn't be so bad to be a morlock. ?Swanky caves to live in, all the eloi you can eat...
I was thinking of the giant crabs wandering on the beach that the protagonist encountered much later in in the Future. :-)
u+16
_______________________________________________
The concepts of before and after are meaningless across universes. Timeis a property of each universe, like space. Any other universe isn't in Briah's future any more than it is behind or west or south of it. This much is axiomatic physics, not something someone like Wolfe would not understand or leave aside.
---Exactly. Apheta said Severian's friends were yet unborn. Why?
I'm also perplexed by this statement but I am certain that it doesn't mean that Yesod is the mantavara immediately after Briah.
Could it be that Tzadkiel was already traveling in Briah at a Time in the distant Briahtic past so that the light of the far-away newborn White Fountain would reach Urth at its appointed time in the relative Future?
ᚹ
Hopefully, some portion of mankind evolved into Cajun restaurants. u+16b9
16 quoted lines · 1–3 deep
On 8/12/2010 4:07 PM, Lane Haygood wrote:
All that future wants for is a bonfire and some drawn butter.
LH
On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 3:46 PM, James Wynn<crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
On 8/12/2010 3:27 PM, Lane Haygood wrote:
Aw, it wouldn't be so bad to be a morlock. Swanky caves to live in, all the eloi you can eat...
I was thinking of the giant crabs wandering on the beach that the protagonist encountered much later in in the Future. :-)
u+16
_______________________________________________
It would be really nice if you'd get an e-mail client that understood quoting. (This is not a jab; I really think the world would be a better place if everyone followed the perfectly simple and understandable old standard.)
20 quoted lines
--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Marques /<entonio at gmail.com>/ wrote:
From: Ant?nio Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Standard Wolfean riddle
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 3:54 PM
DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:>
> Jeff mentioned (IIRC) that for narrative reasons Yesod's being
> before Severian was born in Briah doesn't mean that Yesod is before
> Briah. That's obviously true but it's not mechanically helpful in
> terms of how the multiverses are constructed.
The concepts of before and after are meaningless across universes. Time
is a property of each universe, like space. Any other universe isn't
in Briah's future any more than it is behind or west or south of it.
This much is axiomatic physics, not something someone like Wolfe
would not understand or leave aside.
---Exactly. Apheta said Severian's friends were yet unborn. Why?
Doesn't really have to mean anything. Are you suggesting Yesod is the same universe as Briah? (I think someone's suggesting that Yesod and Briah 'overlap in time' or something like that. That's just not tenable.)
30 quoted lines
> Possibly. Or, depending on exactly how the universes relate, maybe
> the Conciliator is in one possible future, along with Master Ash and
> so on with other sub-possibilities, and the Hieromakers are in
> another.
From the Yesod perspective, there is no future nor past Briah. Briah, a
4-dimensional universe, is somehow a blob open to the Hiero* for
observation and travel to and fro. But not necessarily all of Briah,
and that means time and space.
From such a perspective there aren't possible futures in Briah, there's
only Briah from east to west, north to south, back to forth, start
to end.
---Right.
If you're in an unfamiliar building, you don't know what rooms and
corridors lie ahead. You can say there are 'possible' rooms and
corridors ahead. It doesn't mean the possible rooms are all really
possible. It just means you don't know them. Ditto for time. You
really need multiple universes to have alternate futures, not a
multiple-possibility one.
---Um, somebody better explain that to Wolfe before he makes this
mistake again!
As I basically, said, if we already have multiple universes, they
may branch. They may be branching universes. Wolfe proposes such
branches. There must be other branches. They may not be important,
but they may be important.
Ok, so now explain to us what a branching universe is. This is a rhetorical demand, but an honest one.
James Wynn wrote:
On 8/12/2010 1:03 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
- Wolfe presents Urth as a possible, bleak future for Earth. I don't want Earth's future to be Urth; I think the presentation is a warning
- see what may happen - and that warning is given in the form of what happened to some who started off pretty much like us.
eh...It could be worse. Urth's future for humanity is at least better than what HG Wells foresaw The Time Machine.
Well, evil is more distributed on Urth, hence more diluted, but so is good.
That's a good question. All I can do is point to Ash and the Green Man, who clearly were born in futures far ahead of Severian's. Since their futures are presumably incompatible, they represent a branching.
As for Yesod being before Briah, I don't think so. I understand Yesod to be "higher" than Briah; but what that means is not entirely clear. I generally agree with Roy's position that this means exactly what it seems to mean: a higher plane with no intersection with Briah. Madregot or FTL is needed to bridge them.
By saying she was in a time before the birth of Severian, Apheta seems to contradict this scheme. It needs to be explained away.
59 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
Ant?nio Marques wrote:
DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:
Below.
It would be really nice if you'd get an e-mail client that understood quoting. (This is not a jab; I really think the world would be a better place if everyone followed the perfectly simple and understandable old standard.)
--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Marques /<entonio at gmail.com>/ wrote:
From: Ant?nio Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Standard Wolfean riddle
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 3:54 PM
DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:>
> Jeff mentioned (IIRC) that for narrative reasons Yesod's being
> before Severian was born in Briah doesn't mean that Yesod is before
> Briah. That's obviously true but it's not mechanically helpful in
> terms of how the multiverses are constructed.
The concepts of before and after are meaningless across
universes. Time
is a property of each universe, like space. Any other universe isn't
in Briah's future any more than it is behind or west or south of it.
This much is axiomatic physics, not something someone like Wolfe
would not understand or leave aside.
---Exactly. Apheta said Severian's friends were yet unborn. Why?
Doesn't really have to mean anything. Are you suggesting Yesod is the same universe as Briah? (I think someone's suggesting that Yesod and Briah 'overlap in time' or something like that. That's just not tenable.)
> Possibly. Or, depending on exactly how the universes relate, maybe
> the Conciliator is in one possible future, along with Master Ash and
> so on with other sub-possibilities, and the Hieromakers are in
> another.
From the Yesod perspective, there is no future nor past Briah. Briah, a
4-dimensional universe, is somehow a blob open to the Hiero* for
observation and travel to and fro. But not necessarily all of Briah,
and that means time and space.
From such a perspective there aren't possible futures in Briah, there's
only Briah from east to west, north to south, back to forth, start
to end.
---Right.
If you're in an unfamiliar building, you don't know what rooms and
corridors lie ahead. You can say there are 'possible' rooms and
corridors ahead. It doesn't mean the possible rooms are all really
possible. It just means you don't know them. Ditto for time. You
really need multiple universes to have alternate futures, not a
multiple-possibility one.
---Um, somebody better explain that to Wolfe before he makes this
mistake again!
As I basically, said, if we already have multiple universes, they
may branch. They may be branching universes. Wolfe proposes such
branches. There must be other branches. They may not be important,
but they may be important.
Ok, so now explain to us what a branching universe is. This is a rhetorical demand, but an honest one.
_______________________________________________
I'm also perplexed by this statement but I am certain that it doesn't mean that Yesod is the mantavara immediately after Briah.
Could it be that Tzadkiel was already traveling in Briah at a Time in the distant Briahtic past so that the light of the far-away newborn White Fountain would reach Urth at its appointed time in the relative Future?
The recent discussed inspired me to recheck the relevant text on the origin of Hierogrammates. I think this sequence is a good example of what David Stockhoff and I mean by Wolfe giving an answer with one hand and doubt in the other:
7 quoted lines
Apheta- "They (Hierogrammates) are those of who you spoke, those who were made in your image by a race cognate to your own"
Apheta- "we must go masked...with the appearance of your own race, the race that our parents, the Hierogrammates, first set forth to follow"
Tzadkiel- "I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatastasis, Were you not told they had shaped us in their image?"
Severian- "The Hierarchs and their Hierodules-- and the Hierogrammates..they bring us through the pain we brought them through and..."
Apheta- "....you in turn will make us go through what you did....Your race and ours are, perhaps, no more than each other's reproductive mechanisms."
Apheta- "Tzadkiel..had examined the future and found the chance high that you would bring a fresh sun to your Urth and thus save the strand of your race so that it might produce ours in your Briatic universe.
Apheta- "it may be that from your ancient Urth, reborn, that the Hieros will come. I believe it to be so."
So, did Urth's race of humans create the Hierogrammates or some other, cognate race? Is it possible to say? Is one more answer more likely than another?
So, did Urth's race of humans create the Hierogrammates or some other, cognate race? Is it possible to say? Is one more answer more likely than another?
I don't even think it matters much.
Certainly the whole purpose of the New Sun is to give Urth's humans a chance to create some kind of Hierogrammates. But whether those Hierogrammates or others is another matter. Generally, 'Human', 'Hiero', 'Hieorgrammate' seem to refer to roles rather than specific races in specific settings. But they can also be used to refer to specific races in specific settings, given context. Some answers are mor elikely than others, but I don't think they will come out of a discussion of these passages.
On Aug 13, 2010, at 10:18 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
Lee Berman wrote (13-08-2010 07:52):
So, did Urth's race of humans create the Hierogrammates or some other, cognate race? Is it possible to say? Is one more answer more likely than another?
I don't even think it matters much.
Certainly the whole purpose of the New Sun is to give Urth's humans a chance to create some kind of Hierogrammates.
But whether those Hierogrammates or others is another matter.
Generally, 'Human', 'Hiero', 'Hieorgrammate' seem to refer to roles rather than specific races in specific settings. But they can also be used to refer to specific races in specific settings, given context.
Some answers are mor elikely than others, but I don't think they will come out of a discussion of these passages.
I thought it was pretty clear that (as far as Severian knows and can guess), and as far as Apheta's words and Malrubius's, that the hierogrammates were NOT created by Urthlings.
As I mentioned earlier, the most "poetic" interpretation, and still plausible, is that Earthlings created the hierogrammates, meaning Earthlings were the Hierarchs. The reason this is appealing is because it suggests that with the bringing of the New Sun, Severian may have imploded and rebirthed Briah all together, and in Apheta's own words... "It may be that from your ancient Urth, reborn, that the Hieros will come. I believe it to be so."
If the anvil the hierogrammates strike against is the need for life, then we sense a dependency on Severian and his actions, with relation to the hierogrammates and their future perhaps.
Furthermore, can we guess whether Severian fathers a child with Apheta? And if so, back to poetry, might that child be the creature the hierogrammates were aiming to procreate all along? Which means, is Severian the ideal Urthling sent to Yesod to bring the New Sun, and give the hierogrammates new life in a very literal sense?
...ryan
"I thought it was pretty clear that (as far as Severian knows and can guess), and as far as Apheta's words and Malrubius's, that the hierogrammates were NOT created by Urthlings."
That's far from settled---at least around these here parts, mister!
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Ryan Dunn wrote:
On Aug 13, 2010, at 10:18 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
Lee Berman wrote (13-08-2010 07:52):
So, did Urth's race of humans create the Hierogrammates or some other, cognate race? Is it possible to say? Is one more answer more likely than another?
I don't even think it matters much.
Certainly the whole purpose of the New Sun is to give Urth's humans a chance to create some kind of Hierogrammates.
But whether those Hierogrammates or others is another matter.
Generally, 'Human', 'Hiero', 'Hieorgrammate' seem to refer to roles rather than specific races in specific settings. But they can also be used to refer to specific races in specific settings, given context.
Some answers are mor elikely than others, but I don't think they will come out of a discussion of these passages.
I thought it was pretty clear that (as far as Severian knows and can guess), and as far as Apheta's words and Malrubius's, that the hierogrammates were NOT created by Urthlings.
As I mentioned earlier, the most "poetic" interpretation, and still plausible, is that Earthlings created the hierogrammates, meaning Earthlings were the Hierarchs. The reason this is appealing is because it suggests that with the bringing of the New Sun, Severian may have imploded and rebirthed Briah all together, and in Apheta's own words... "It may be that from your ancient Urth, reborn, that the Hieros will come. I believe it to be so."
If the anvil the hierogrammates strike against is the need for life, then we sense a dependency on Severian and his actions, with relation to the hierogrammates and their future perhaps.
Furthermore, can we guess whether Severian fathers a child with Apheta? And if so, back to poetry, might that child be the creature the hierogrammates were aiming to procreate all along? Which means, is Severian the ideal Urthling sent to Yesod to bring the New Sun, and give the hierogrammates new life in a very literal sense?
...ryan
_______________________________________________
"I thought it was pretty clear that (as far as Severian knows and can guess), and as far as Apheta's words and Malrubius's, that the hierogrammates were NOT created by Urthlings."
That's far from settled---at least around these here parts, mister!
I can appreciate the never-say-die attitude, but I think that part surely must be settled. As Ryan pointed out in an earlier post, Malrubius says he is not sure but thinks the Hieros were close enough to the race of humanity to be called that. If there can be any question about that, then surely they are not Briahlings.
Perhaps it can be argued that Wolfe reconsidered this question in UotNS. It might be argued (unsatisfactorily for me) that he retconned this question. But if there is genuine mapping between BookotNS and UrthotNS then the Hieros were not from Briah.
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On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 11:20 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote: But if there is genuine mapping between BookotNS and UrthotNS then the Hieros were not from Briah.
More specifically, the Hierogrammates were note. There is a reasonable case that the Hierodules are from Briah.
Ok, so now explain to us what a branching universe is. This is a rhetorical demand, but an honest one.
That's a good question. All I can do is point to Ash and the Green Man, who clearly were born in futures far ahead of Severian's. Since their futures are presumably incompatible, they represent a branching.
I have my doubts that Master Ash belongs in the same universe or at least planet. His explanation of why he daren't leave the house surely points to quantical branching. But he's supposed to be only a few liftimes after Severian. Where did he get such scientific understanding? (Of course select people have science, but he seems to explain it in terms much more familiar to our own time than to Severian's.)
Otoh, if true branching were at work, his 'probability' shouldn't be determinable in Severian's time, at least not so definitely. And who's Vine? I was going to say branching implied a 5th dimensional universe, but Ash's disappearance and the odd way he talks about Severian's suggest to me that he is not a future of that Severian, possible or otherwise.
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As for Yesod being before Briah,
What would that mean?
What would its opposite mean?
I suppose you mean Yesod having 'gnabed into' Briah or a 'predecessor' of Briah. But I don't think it can be put that way. Even if in our analogies there is a succession A -> B -> C, the '->' isn't really temporal, so it's more of something we use for our benefit than something which has true significance - i.e., A -> B doesn't really connect A to B.
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I don't think so. I understand Yesod to
be "higher" than Briah; but what that means is not entirely clear. I generally agree with Roy's position that this means exactly what it seems to mean: a higher plane with no intersection with Briah. Madregot or FTL is needed to bridge them.
By saying she was in a time before the birth of Severian, Apheta seems to contradict this scheme. It needs to be explained away.
Well, it could mean that at the point in Yesod's time in which they were there was yet no passage to Briah.
So then, supposedly OUR universe is some Briah (n+)? Do I have this right
Well, if we take Wolfe at his word when he says that Urth is a
previous version of Earth, then, yes, that follows -- in particular
ours is the one into which the Increate is actually born as the Theanthropos
I hope I can be forgiven for this heretical question...but if the
Increate is born as the Theantropos in Briah (n+19), what is the
situation with the Christ figure of Briah (n+20)? Is he better than
Jesus? Or is Jesus perfect so all Briahs above (n+19) have the same
Christ-figure? Or perhaps the perfection of Jesus requires that we are in the universe Briah (n+infinity)?
I find these questions difficult.
As I have said before, I think it is a mistake to analyze these stories to see how their settings (as opposed to their themes) conform to systematic theology. However, I'll play along.
I presume that Severian is the Christ of Briah (n). There was no Jesus of Nazareth. If one asks, well how could there be all these parallels...some having to do with the RCC...if there was no Jesus? Wolfe addressed that question in There Are Doors.
In that novel, the parallel worlds*** remain sync with each other by virtue of being in approximation to each other.
(***The parallel worlds, from Green's perspective, might be inscrutable from a cycle of expanding and collapsing universe iterations since such iterations are not divided by Time--because Time also collapses along with each universe iteration)
The parallel worlds are like strings on a guitar that are strung to the same note...strike one and those next to it vibrate along with it. Therefore in Lara's world, grooms wear black at their weddings because men die after having sex. In Green's world (ours), grooms wear black too. It's just a formality for us, but we actually do it here only because they do it there. The parallel worlds have the same languages and very similar customs differing only in minor and peculiar ways (such as no ice trays in Lara's world).
Presumably, the Briahs (n -/+) remain in sync because they are compelled to by their approximation to each other. So there will be similarities between Briah (n -/+) that make no internal sense. There might well have been a Catholic Church with nearly the same rituals (and an American moon landing as well) even though there was no Jesus to influence the next 2000 years of history.
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So then, supposedly OUR universe is some Briah (n+)? Do I have this right
Well, if we take Wolfe at his word when he says that Urth is a previous version of Earth, then, yes, that follows -- in particular ours is the one into which the Increate is actually born as the Theanthropos
I hope I can be forgiven for this heretical question...but if the Increate is born as the Theantropos in Briah (n+19), what is the situation with the Christ figure of Briah (n+20)? Is he better than Jesus? Or is Jesus perfect so all Briahs above (n+19) have the same Christ-figure? Or perhaps the perfection of Jesus requires that we are in the universe Briah (n+infinity)?
I find these questions difficult.
As I have said before, I think it is a mistake to analyze these stories to see how their settings (as opposed to their themes) conform to systematic theology. However, I'll play along.
I presume that Severian is the Christ of Briah (n). There was no Jesus of Nazareth. If one asks, well how could there be all these parallels...some having to do with the RCC...if there was no Jesus? Wolfe addressed that question in There Are Doors.
In that novel, the parallel worlds*** remain sync with each other by virtue of being in approximation to each other.
(***The parallel worlds, from Green's perspective, might be inscrutable from a cycle of expanding and collapsing universe iterations since such iterations are not divided by Time--because Time also collapses along with each universe iteration)
The parallel worlds are like strings on a guitar that are strung to the same note...strike one and those next to it vibrate along with it. Therefore in Lara's world, grooms wear black at their weddings because men die after having sex. In Green's world (ours), grooms wear black too. It's just a formality for us, but we actually do it here only because they do it there. The parallel worlds have the same languages and very similar customs differing only in minor and peculiar ways (such as no ice trays in Lara's world).
Presumably, the Briahs (n -/+) remain in sync because they are compelled to by their approximation to each other. So there will be similarities between Briah (n -/+) that make no internal sense. There might well have been a Catholic Church with nearly the same rituals (and an American moon landing as well) even though there was no Jesus to influence the next 2000 years of history.
ᚹ
Antonio Marques- I don't think you need worry about the heretical thing. For a professed non-believer, you are impeccable in discussion religious hypotheses.
Thanks Antonio. Reminds me of a verse in a song called Walking in Memphis by a jewish guy named Marc Cohn:
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And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would --
Play a little number
And I sang with all my might
And she said --
"Tell me are you a Christian child?"
And I said "Ma'am I am tonight"
James Wynn wrote:
Presumably, the Briahs (n -/+) remain in sync because they are compelled to by their approximation to each other. So there will be similarities between Briah (n -/+) that make no internal sense. There might well have been a Catholic Church with nearly the same rituals (and an American moon landing as well) even though there was no Jesus to influence the next 2000 years of history.
I'll just repeat what I said earlier: I think there's a Jesus in any universe, and I think it's as good a Jesus no matter where. The Jesuses will differ in their accidentals because the universes are different, but there will be good enough Jesuses for all. In this view, of ourse, the Conciliator is no Jesus, rather a red herring (combined with the stated fact that some universes are better than others) to make believe some universes' Jesuses are better than other universes' Jesuses. They aren't. The Jesuses are all good. It's the universes that may not always live up to their Jesuses.
And each Jesus said something equivalent to 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build by church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it'. But in some universes the original church may have disappeared from sight. And any other attempt at building a church won't be endowed with the same grace.
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote (13-08-2010 01:52):
Ant?nio Marques wrote:
Ok, so now explain to us what a branching universe is. This is a rhetorical demand, but an honest one.
That's a good question. All I can do is point to Ash and the Green Man, who clearly were born in futures far ahead of Severian's. Since their futures are presumably incompatible, they represent a branching.
I have my doubts that Master Ash belongs in the same universe or at least planet. His explanation of why he daren't leave the house surely points to quantical branching. But he's supposed to be only a few liftimes after Severian. Where did he get such scientific understanding? (Of course select people have science, but he seems to explain it in terms much more familiar to our own time than to Severian's.)
Otoh, if true branching were at work, his 'probability' shouldn't be determinable in Severian's time, at least not so definitely. And who's Vine? I was going to say branching implied a 5th dimensional universe, but Ash's disappearance and the odd way he talks about Severian's suggest to me that he is not a future of that Severian, possible or otherwise.
That's why his tower disappears.
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As for Yesod being before Briah,
What would that mean?
What would its opposite mean?
I suppose you mean Yesod having 'gnabed into' Briah or a 'predecessor' of Briah. But I don't think it can be put that way. Even if in our analogies there is a succession A -> B -> C, the '->' isn't really temporal, so it's more of something we use for our benefit than something which has true significance - i.e., A -> B doesn't really connect A to B.
I'm not sure why I'm being asked to explain something I don't think is true.
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I don't think so. I understand Yesod to
be "higher" than Briah; but what that means is not entirely clear. I generally agree with Roy's position that this means exactly what it seems to mean: a higher plane with no intersection with Briah. Madregot or FTL is needed to bridge them.
By saying she was in a time before the birth of Severian, Apheta seems to contradict this scheme. It needs to be explained away.
Well, it could mean that at the point in Yesod's time in which they were there was yet no passage to Briah.
_______________________________________________
David Stockhoff wrote:
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote (13-08-2010 01:52):
As for Yesod being before Briah,
What would that mean? What would its opposite mean?
I suppose you mean Yesod having 'gnabed into' Briah or a 'predecessor'
of Briah. But I don't think it can be put that way. Even if in our analogies there is a succession A -> B -> C, the '->' isn't really temporal, so it's more of something we use for our benefit than something which has true significance - i.e., A -> B doesn't really connect A to B.
I'm not sure why I'm being asked to explain something I don't think is true.
This shift in focus to the universes might be a way out from a sticky problem, but you seem to propose that each Jesus is identically Jesus-like but not necessarily identically effective. Why are some Jesuses less effective? Why do some fail utterly? Do some die before the age of 5? Are some run over by a chariot while chasing a ball into the street?
Also, if each universe gets one Jesus, and the Conciliator is not one of them (but rather an attempt to fill a void where there should be one), this brings back the question of whether there was one in Severian's Briah, does it not?
7 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
James Wynn wrote:
Presumably, the Briahs (n -/+) remain in sync because they are compelled to by their approximation to each other. So there will be similarities between Briah (n -/+) that make no internal sense. There might well have been a Catholic Church with nearly the same rituals (and an American moon landing as well) even though there was no Jesus to influence the next 2000 years of history.
I'll just repeat what I said earlier: I think there's a Jesus in any universe, and I think it's as good a Jesus no matter where. The Jesuses will differ in their accidentals because the universes are different, but there will be good enough Jesuses for all. In this view, of ourse, the Conciliator is no Jesus, rather a red herring (combined with the stated fact that some universes are better than others) to make believe some universes' Jesuses are better than other universes' Jesuses. They aren't. The Jesuses are all good. It's the universes that may not always live up to their Jesuses.
And each Jesus said something equivalent to 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build by church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it'. But in some universes the original church may have disappeared from sight. And any other attempt at building a church won't be endowed with the same grace.
_______________________________________________
James Wynn -Presumably, the Briahs (n -/+) remain in sync because they are compelled to by their approximation to each other. So there will be similarities between Briah (n -/+) that make no internal sense. There might well have been a Catholic Church with nearly the same rituals (and an American moon landing as well) even though there was no Jesus to influence the next 2000 years of history.
Antonio - I'll just repeat what I said earlier: I think there's a
Jesus in any universe,
and I think it's as good a Jesus no matter where. [snip] And each Jesus said something equivalent to 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build by church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it'. But in some universes the original church may have disappeared from sight. And any other attempt at building a church won't be endowed with the same grace.
David Stackhoff- This shift in focus to the universes might be a way out from a sticky problem, but you seem to propose that each Jesus is identically Jesus-like but not necessarily identically effective. Why are some Jesuses less effective? Why do some fail utterly?
I said before that I don't think the settings (as opposed to the themes) of the Sun Cycle should be scrutinized theologically. For that reason, I don't really like the idea of a Jesus for every Briah...in part, for the very reasons David offers. Antonio's model pulls the setting ineluctably into theological questions. I think "There Are Doors" nicely resolved the question "What happened to Christianity in on Urth?" Answer: There was a Catholic Church and there were saints, but there was no Jesus. Urth is in a gnostic iteration of Briah and Severian is its Christ.
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James Wynn: "What happened to Christianity in on Urth?" Answer: There was a Catholic Church and there were saints, but there was no Jesus. Urth is in a gnostic iteration of Briah and Severian is its Christ.
This is essentially my view also. I'm not sure if I would have included the Catholic Church on Urth, but Dorcas does mention a "rood".
I think it is an interesting thought experiment to consider what the Catholic Church would be like without any Jesus. Perhaps Wolfe also.
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From a Christian perspective I find it pretty depressing to think that after tens of thousands of years of Christ influence Earth would turn out as bleak as Urth.
This shift in focus to the universes might be a way out from a sticky problem, but you seem to propose that each Jesus is identically Jesus-like but not necessarily identically effective. Why are some Jesuses less effective? Why do some fail utterly?
It's not a problem with the Jesuses, it's the world that doesn't live up to them. The idea is that ultimately there is free will, and God's creatures may will themselves into damnation. It's not like we're not going down that route ourselves. At a certain point, the responsibility of salvation becomes the creatures'.
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Do some die before the
age of 5? Are some run over by a chariot while chasing a ball into the street?
No, because then their mission wouldn't be accomplished.
1 quoted line
Also, if each universe gets one Jesus, and the Conciliator is not one of them (but rather an attempt to fill a void where there should be one),
No, I'm saying that "parallel worlds different in detail" + "conciliator" = red herring suggesting "conciliator is the local Jesus", but in my view not even a very convincing one. I find it obviously red and herring-like. Of course, Wolfe could give an interview tomorrow and say things that show I'm completely wrong.
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this brings back the question of whether there was one in Severian's Briah, does it not?
I said there was one. The church he built disappeared from sight. Whether that means that it went underground or is trapped in some unknown corner of Urth is open to question. The issue is that Jesus promised the church he was founding would not fail, so it just can't be the cult of the Conciliator. It is open to debate what 'not fail' means here, but it certainly isn't a guarantee of immediate permanent worlwide triumph.
I can't see why God would send a 'better' Jesus to a given universe. Also, I think Severian comes too late in History to be the local Jesus.
On Aug 16, 2010, at 9:18 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote: David Stockhoff wrote (16-08-2010 12:49):
This shift in focus to the universes might be a way out from a sticky problem, but you seem to propose that each Jesus is identically Jesus-like but not necessarily identically effective. Why are some Jesuses less effective? Why do some fail utterly?
It's not a problem with the Jesuses, it's the world that doesn't live up to them. The idea is that ultimately there is free will, and God's creatures may will themselves into damnation. It's not like we're not going down that route ourselves. At a certain point, the responsibility of salvation becomes the creatures'.
What if, in the fiction of BotNS, Wolfe made his own history, mythology, etc. Where we have analogies to things like Christianity, but there never actually was a Jesus per se.
That way, Severian's can be the savior without any heretical concern, and instead of being sacrilege, Wolfe can have established a parable for his and our real world. Severian can be the Conciliator, Apu Punchau, the Autarch, and Bringer of the New Sun, as many Urth Cycles as Wolfe pleases.
Seems cleaner.
...ryan
I think it is an interesting thought experiment to consider what the Catholic Church would be like without any Jesus. Perhaps Wolfe also.
The short answer is that there wouldn't be a Catholic Church. But if for the sake of the argument one were possible, then I think it would be an interesting exercise, but not in this multiverse, where there is at least one universe with a real Jesus. Why and how could God send a redeemer to Earth but not to other parts of his creation which are in as much need of one? What would even be the point of a universe without Incarnation?
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From a Christian perspective I find it pretty depressing to think that after tens of thousands of years of Christ influence Earth would turn out as bleak as Urth.
Aren't we heading straight there, only after 2 thousand years?
On Aug 16, 2010, at 9:18 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com <mailto:entonio at gmail.com>> wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote (16-08-2010 12:49 <x-apple-data-detectors://0>):
This shift in focus to the universes might be a way out from a sticky problem, but you seem to propose that each Jesus is identically Jesus-like but not necessarily identically effective. Why are some Jesuses less effective? Why do some fail utterly?
It's not a problem with the Jesuses, it's the world that doesn't live up to them. The idea is that ultimately there is free will, and God's creatures may will themselves into damnation. It's not like we're not going down that route ourselves. At a certain point, the responsibility of salvation becomes the creatures'.
What if, in the fiction of BotNS, Wolfe made his own history, mythology, etc. Where we have analogies to things like Christianity, but there never actually was a Jesus per se.
That way, Severian's can be the savior without any heretical concern, and instead of being sacrilege, Wolfe can have established a parable for his and our real world. Severian can be the Conciliator, Apu Punchau, the Autarch, and Bringer of the New Sun, as many Urth Cycles as Wolfe pleases.
My problem isn't heresy. If there weren't parallel universes to Briah, one of which supposedly is our own, then it would all be more than ok. But since Jesus does enter the story, since we do and he enters ours, then I think it makes no sense at all to have the Increate incarnate in one universe and some vague miracle-worker in others. (I have yet to see what philosophy did the Conciliator bring. What philosophy his followers have is not from him. In fact, theologically speaking, what's Christ-like about the Conciliator?)
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Seems cleaner.
What's dirty about having a Jesus in every world?
What's clean about having a Jesus in one world and only a thematic echo in the others?
Jesus in the Briah with Urth makes Severian something of a false figure.
He is Christlike and yet nearly the opposite in Wolfe's embodiment of him.
He saves the world from dying by purging it of countless thousands of people in a massive flood.
I know there is the spaceship yard turned Citadel, the image if a Moon man, and many other references to Earth, but this is Urth aka "similar but different".
I see Severian as similar but different to Christ. And I don't see Christ in Severian's divine year of Briah.
...ryan
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On Aug 16, 2010, at 9:53 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote: What's dirty about having a Jesus in every world? What's clean about having a Jesus in one world and only a thematic echo in the others?
Jesus in the Briah with Urth makes Severian something of a false figure.
Why?
If a Severian-like fellow appears here on our Earth some one hundred thousand years from now, in what way will he be a fake Jesus?
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He is Christlike and yet nearly the opposite in Wolfe's embodiment of him.
Again, what's Christ-like about him?
1 quoted line
He saves the world from dying by purging it of countless thousands of people in a massive flood.
But that was the new sun, brought by Severian. Not the historical Conciliator.
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I know there is the spaceship yard turned Citadel, the image if a Moon man, and many other references to Earth, but this is Urth aka "similar but different".
Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little different from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without a redeemer.
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I see Severian as similar but different to Christ. And I don't see Christ in Severian's divine year of Briah.
...because the story takes place at least tens of thousands of years after Christ.
Antonio Marques: I read James's effort, but I just don't find it is a possible reading of what's there.
Is understanding Wolfe a scientific or Sherlock Holmesian process, where the most minimally possible answer is taken as the best working hypothesis. Or is it a religious process in which we must be be convincingly converted or immersed in the gospel from childhood to develop faith? Different for different people?
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Why and how could God send a redeemer to Earth but not to other parts of his creation which are in as much need of one? What would even be the point of a universe without Incarnation?
Is this the explanation for Silk and/or SilkHorn?
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From a Christian perspective I find it pretty depressing to think that after tens of thousands of years of Christ influence Earth would turn out as bleak as Urth.
Aren't we heading straight there, only after 2 thousand years?
Not in my opinion. Our human penchant for pessimism and the mass media's compulsion to feed that penchant paints a very bleak picture of our current Earth. Our daily conversations are peppered with warnings and complaints about how bad things are "these days".
To me it is a false picture. More people are living on earth free from hunger, free from
war, free from pestilence, free from torture than has ever been true in the history of our planet. In the past to see such things one had only to peek out of one's doorway. Now, with relatively few exceptions, we need to hire teams of reporters chasing around the nation and the globe to feed our appetite for the best/worst examples of such nastiness.
Okay, political speech over, soapbox put away. bsharp out ;- )
Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little different from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without a redeemer.
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory? even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? ~ Romans 9:20-24
Fortunately, though, Wolfe is the true Increate of Urth, and no one actually went to Hell in the making of this Ushas.
ᚹ
On Aug 16, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote: Ryan Dunn wrote (16-08-2010 15:03):
Jesus in the Briah with Urth makes Severian something of a false figure.
Why?
If a Severian-like fellow appears here on our Earth some one hundred thousand years from now, in what way will he be a fake Jesus?
See below.
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He is Christlike and yet nearly the opposite in Wolfe's embodiment of him.
Again, what's Christ-like about him?
He performs miracles due to the power of something cosmic in the heavens. He saves the world.
2 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
He saves the world from dying by purging it of countless thousands of people in a massive flood.
But that was the new sun, brought by Severian. Not the historical Conciliator.
See above.
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I know there is the spaceship yard turned Citadel, the image if a Moon man, and many other references to Earth, but this is Urth aka "similar but different".
Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little different from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without a redeemer.
Don't ask a Pantheistic that question. We agree though that Earth != Urth, yes?
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I see Severian as similar but different to Christ. And I don't see Christ in Severian's divine year of Briah.
...because the story takes place at least tens of thousands of years after Christ.
Christ is supposed to come back in the end, why wouldn't his name come up even once in any of the five volumes set in this world? We get plenty of Saint names.
...ryan
From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
James Wynn: "What happened to Christianity in on Urth?" Answer: There was a Catholic Church and there were saints, but there was no Jesus. Urth is in a gnostic iteration of Briah and Severian is its Christ.
This is essentially my view also. I'm not sure if I would have included the Catholic Church on Urth, but Dorcas does mention a "rood".
I think it is an interesting thought experiment to consider what the Catholic Church would be like without any Jesus. Perhaps Wolfe also.
From a Christian perspective I find it pretty depressing to think that after tens of thousands of years of Christ influence Earth would turn out as bleak as Urth.
By the standards of SF dystopias it - or the Commonwealth at least - might be regarded as almost pleasant!
But in any case, surely Catholicism has never promised an urthly paradise? Times are hard at the moment, largely because there is a black hole at the centre of the Sun. And in the past there have been tyrants. But hard times have often come to Earth or parts of it over the last 2000 years, and probably will again.
- Gerry Quinn
From: "Ant?nio Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
I can't see why God would send a 'better' Jesus to a given universe. Also, I think Severian comes too late in History to be the local Jesus.
It may not be truly late in the history of Urth. Although there is some contradictory evidence with regard to geological processes, my personal view is that Severian's time is perhaps fifty to a hundred thousand years from now. If so, there are still hundreds of millions of years to go (and if the Sun gets too hot, as astrophysicists say it eventually will, perhaps we can then ask for the black hole to be put back!).
- Gerry Quinn
On Aug 16, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques<entonio at gmail.com> wrote:
Ryan Dunn wrote (16-08-2010 15:03):
Jesus in the Briah with Urth makes Severian something of a false figure.
Why?
If a Severian-like fellow appears here on our Earth some one hundred thousand years from now, in what way will he be a fake Jesus?
See below.
I don't think anything below answers it.
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He is Christlike and yet nearly the opposite in Wolfe's embodiment of him.
Again, what's Christ-like about him?
He performs miracles due to the power of something cosmic in the heavens. He saves the world.
He does resurrect some people, but not as part of a ministry. He doesn't even know that he's doing soemthing. He doesn't 'save' the world in the same sense Christ does.
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He saves the world from dying by purging it of countless thousands of people in a massive flood.
But that was the new sun, brought by Severian. Not the historical Conciliator.
See above.
I don't think anything above answers it.
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I know there is the spaceship yard turned Citadel, the image if a Moon man, and many other references to Earth, but this is Urth aka "similar but different".
Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little different from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without a redeemer.
Don't ask a Pantheistic that question. We agree though that Earth != Urth, yes?
Again, that is not the problem. It's noe thing to be different, another to be damned. People are all different, but they are equal before God.
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I see Severian as similar but different to Christ. And I don't see Christ in Severian's divine year of Briah.
...because the story takes place at least tens of thousands of years after Christ.
Christ is supposed to come back in the end, why wouldn't his name come up even once in any of the five volumes set in this world?
That's a good point. He certainly vanished from common knowledge - as did ebrtything that pertains to our history, even though bits are there as a vague memory.
1 quoted line
We get plenty of Saint names.
Not even one. The only memory of a saint that we get is Holy Katharine. I see no St Dorcas in the text.
Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little different from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without a redeemer.
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory? even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? ~ Romans 9:20-24
Fortunately, though, Wolfe is the true Increate of Urth, and no one actually went to Hell in the making of this Ushas.
From: "Ant?nio Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
I can't see why God would send a 'better' Jesus to a given universe. Also, I think Severian comes too late in History to be the local Jesus.
It may not be truly late in the history of Urth. Although there is some contradictory evidence with regard to geological processes, my personal view is that Severian's time is perhaps fifty to a hundred thousand years from now. If so, there are still hundreds of millions of years to go (and if the Sun gets too hot, as astrophysicists say it eventually will, perhaps we can then ask for the black hole to be put back!).
Yeah, not terribly late in geological terms, and the drowning of Urth and the new beginning makes it perhaps not too late in cultural terms.
But it's late in that it let so much of history go by without it. In our universe, Christ came just at the earliest time possible. A little earlier and his followers would not have had such a good opportunity to spread across the earth.
So why tens of thousands of years with the possibility of a Jesus and no Jesus?
Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little different from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without a redeemer.
~ Romans 9:20-24
Fortunately, though, Wolfe is the true Increate of Urth, and no one actually went to Hell in the making of this Ushas.
Not answering back, only asking.
My point, snarkily formed, was that humanity had a redeemer, just not in Sev's iteration of Briah.
That's tenable, but I don't see God leaving so many of his creatures to waste. (It's the catholic God I'm thinking of, because we are explicitly told our universe enters the picture. If we weren't told that, then I'd gladly accept God to be very different.)
On 8/16/2010 10:11 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
My point, snarkily formed, was that humanity had a redeemer, just not in Sev's iteration of Briah.
That's tenable, but I don't see God leaving so many of his creatures to waste. (It's the catholic God I'm thinking of, because we are explicitly told our universe enters the picture. If we weren't told that, then I'd gladly accept God to be very different.)
Well, remember that in the Book of the Long Sun, the Outsider...the Increate of all Briahs...reaches out to Silk with the image of Jesus on the cross. if Sev's iteration of Briah is gnostic, one where humanity is redeemed through enlightenment, then it is irrelevant whether the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us in Briah (n) or Brian (n+20). The sacrifice is applicable across all cycles.
In fact, it is theologically secure...one sacrifice for all.
ᚹ
From: "Ant?nio Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
Gerry Quinn wrote (16-08-2010 15:48):
From: "Ant?nio Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
I can't see why God would send a 'better' Jesus to a given universe. Also, I think Severian comes too late in History to be the local Jesus.
It may not be truly late in the history of Urth. Although there is some contradictory evidence with regard to geological processes, my personal view is that Severian's time is perhaps fifty to a hundred thousand years from now. If so, there are still hundreds of millions of years to go (and if the Sun gets too hot, as astrophysicists say it eventually will, perhaps we can then ask for the black hole to be put back!).
Yeah, not terribly late in geological terms, and the drowning of Urth and the new beginning makes it perhaps not too late in cultural terms.
But it's late in that it let so much of history go by without it. In our universe, Christ came just at the earliest time possible. A little earlier and his followers would not have had such a good opportunity to spread across the earth.
So why tens of thousands of years with the possibility of a Jesus and no Jesus?
If Urth is Earth, or like Earth, Jesus came at the time he is known to have come. Perhaps Christianity exists underground on Urth. Severian doesn't tell us much about current religious beliefs.
- Gerry Quinn
From: "Ant?nio Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
Gerry Quinn wrote (16-08-2010 15:48):
From: "Ant?nio Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
I can't see why God would send a 'better' Jesus to a given universe. Also, I think Severian comes too late in History to be the local Jesus.
It may not be truly late in the history of Urth. Although there is some contradictory evidence with regard to geological processes, my personal view is that Severian's time is perhaps fifty to a hundred thousand years from now. If so, there are still hundreds of millions of years to go (and if the Sun gets too hot, as astrophysicists say it eventually will, perhaps we can then ask for the black hole to be put back!).
Yeah, not terribly late in geological terms, and the drowning of Urth and the new beginning makes it perhaps not too late in cultural terms.
But it's late in that it let so much of history go by without it. In our universe, Christ came just at the earliest time possible. A little earlier and his followers would not have had such a good opportunity to spread across the earth.
So why tens of thousands of years with the possibility of a Jesus and no Jesus?
If Urth is Earth, or like Earth, Jesus came at the time he is known to have come. Perhaps Christianity exists underground on Urth.
I find that likely, but apparently moist others don't.
On 8/16/2010 10:11 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
My point, snarkily formed, was that humanity had a redeemer, just not in Sev's iteration of Briah.
That's tenable, but I don't see God leaving so many of his creatures to waste. (It's the catholic God I'm thinking of, because we are explicitly told our universe enters the picture. If we weren't told that, then I'd gladly accept God to be very different.)
Well, remember that in the Book of the Long Sun, the Outsider...the Increate of all Briahs...reaches out to Silk with the image of Jesus on the cross. if Sev's iteration of Briah is gnostic, one where humanity is redeemed through enlightenment, then it is irrelevant whether the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us in Briah (n) or Brian (n+20). The sacrifice is applicable across all cycles.
In fact, it is theologically secure...one sacrifice for all.
That's interesting. But how are the mudball creatures from Briah(2i) going to be enlightened by a human Christ? Well, one might posit no civilised creatures in any Briah are muuuch different from humans.
On Aug 16, 2010, at 11:03 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
If a Severian-like fellow appears here on our Earth some one hundred thousand years from now, in what way will he be a fake Jesus?
See below.
I don't think anything below answers it.
- You don't think a man walking the Earth performing miracles would be perceived as Christlike? And you honestly think that in this future, Christ is completely forgotten? I find it much more plausible to believe that Christianity never existed on Urth, though it definitely is implied that it DID or DOES exist on another iteration of Briah, in another divine year either forward or backward from the one where Urth exists.
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Again, what's Christ-like about him?
He performs miracles due to the power of something cosmic in the heavens. He saves the world.
He does resurrect some people, but not as part of a ministry. He doesn't even know that he's doing soemthing. He doesn't 'save' the world in the same sense Christ does.
- Christ wasn't part of a ministry during many of his miracles, was he? And no, I'm not saying Severian is Christ. I'm saying he is Christlike. The fact that he is not as good as Christ, if you think that way, or if he is better than Christ, if that is your feeling, would play into the rant Severian gives about each divine year producing advancements in the next blossoming of the Universe that died.
It's the same species of flower, but a different flower. It has the same color petals, but different striped patterns on each one. It has the same stem, but maybe an extra leaf, and they are better formed. It has a savior, but the Butterfly Effect might produce a wholly different kind of savior.
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He saves the world from dying by purging it of countless thousands of people in a massive flood.
But that was the new sun, brought by Severian. Not the historical Conciliator.
See above.
I don't think anything above answers it.
- My point is being Christlike, not being Christ. And my argument posits that this divine year contains nobody by the name of Jesus, with the last name Christ. That is what I have deduced from the text, and from some of the extra-cirricular statements from Gene in interviews. Wolfe rejects that Severian represents Jesus. But he does not say that he is this divine year's savior.
After all, the hierogrammates select Severian to be the bringer of the New Sun, above all else. Meaning he is essentially the most valuable human being on Urth. He is special, different, and better than the rest in their eyes, and he is qualified to carry out this task. And he survives it.
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Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little different from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without a redeemer.
Don't ask a Pantheistic that question. We agree though that Earth != Urth, yes?
Again, that is not the problem. It's noe thing to be different, another to be damned. People are all different, but they are equal before God.
- Why isn't Severian the redeemer? Urth is a dying planet, a projection to Earthlings reading Gene's book of what might happen to our own planet. In Wolfe's metaverse, Severian represents the empirical center of the Universe (Urth) and he restores the sun, which means that Urth will flourish again, at least that is the inference of the text.
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I see Severian as similar but different to Christ. And I don't see Christ in Severian's divine year of Briah.
...because the story takes place at least tens of thousands of years after Christ.
- Gene doesn't provide dates, and neither does Severian. They certainly don't provide dates representing the distance from our real Earth. Do we assume that a painting of a moon man will live in a picture gallery for tens of thousands of years, but a painting of Jesus Christ would not? Or that a spaceship from the 1960's would still be standing and inhabited by a Guild of Torturers tens of thousands of years into the future?
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Christ is supposed to come back in the end, why wouldn't his name come up even once in any of the five volumes set in this world?
That's a good point. He certainly vanished from common knowledge - as did ebrtything that pertains to our history, even though bits are there as a vague memory.
- See below regarding vague memories and the use of ancient Saint names. By that logic, there should be a character in the text named Jesus, in honor of the savior who forgave all of humanity for their sins on the orders of his Father, the Increate.
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We get plenty of Saint names.
Not even one. The only memory of a saint that we get is Holy Katharine. I see no St Dorcas in the text.
- Even more to my point. These saint names are used, however obscure they might be. And yet you claim that the Urthian society has long since forgotten the name of Jesus? Most of the Catholics I know wouldn't know half the saint names Wolfe uses in his text.
...ryan
On 8/16/2010 10:35 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
That's interesting. But how are the mudball creatures from Briah(2i) going to be enlightened by a human Christ? Well, one might posit no civilised creatures in any Briah are muuuch different from humans.
If the beings in another iteration are sufficiently different from humanity that they could not be called human, then I suppose different rules would apply just as they do for in our world for whales and angels.
Perhaps in some iteration humanity is unfallen and innocent. In others, they are wise as gods but lacking any self-consciousness. Once you get to that point, the bets are off.
(Not that I suppose Wolfe ever considered such a question)
ᚹ
From: "Ryan Dunn" <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
- Gene doesn't provide dates, and neither does Severian. They certainly don't provide dates representing the distance from our real Earth. Do we assume that a painting of a moon man will live in a picture gallery for tens of thousands of years, but a painting of Jesus Christ would not? Or that a spaceship from the 1960's would still be standing and inhabited by a Guild of Torturers tens of thousands of years into the future?
The spacecraft are not from the '60s. As for the picture, there may be many pictures of Jesus, for all we know.
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Christ is supposed to come back in the end, why wouldn't his name come up even once in any of the five volumes set in this world?
That's a good point. He certainly vanished from common knowledge - as did ebrtything that pertains to our history, even though bits are there as a vague memory.
- See below regarding vague memories and the use of ancient Saint names. By that logic, there should be a character in the text named Jesus, in honor of the savior who forgave all of humanity for their sins on the orders of his Father, the Increate.
Ah Lah is mentioned in BotLS, as "a forgotten god, perhaps another name for the Outsider".
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We get plenty of Saint names.
Not even one. The only memory of a saint that we get is Holy Katharine. I see no St Dorcas in the text.
- Even more to my point. These saint names are used, however obscure they might be. And yet you claim that the Urthian society has long since forgotten the name of Jesus? Most of the Catholics I know wouldn't know half the saint names Wolfe uses in his text.
In Ireland people are often named after saints, but never after Jesus.
- Gerry Quinn
On Aug 16, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
The spacecraft are not from the '60s
Fair enough, but even if these are the last space shuttles ever flown with the "propulsion chambers" we've come to associate with the current technology (as described by Severian in his passage about the examination room), when do you estimate that this shipyard was abandoned and then reinhabited to be the Citadel?
...ryan
On Aug 16, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
- Even more to my point. These saint names are used, however obscure they might be. And yet you claim that the Urthian society has long since forgotten the name of Jesus? Most of the Catholics I know wouldn't know half the saint names Wolfe uses in his text.
In Ireland people are often named after saints, but never after Jesus.
Yes, but what about the use of Jesus in Hispanic cultures? Jes’s is quite common in countries like Venezuela, Colombia, etc.
...ryan
From: "Ryan Dunn" <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
On Aug 16, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
The spacecraft are not from the '60s
Fair enough, but even if these are the last space shuttles ever flown with the "propulsion chambers" we've come to associate with the current technology (as described by Severian in his passage about the examination room), when do you estimate that this shipyard was abandoned and then reinhabited to be the Citadel?
A few chiliads before Severian, i.e. many chiliads from now. Just because solar sail technology is often used in Severian's time doesn't mean that other propulsion systems don't exist. The Whorl doesn't seem to have sails, though I suppose they could have been furled on reaching the system containing Blue and Green.
The ships seem to have gun emplacements, something not known to have been installed on US or Soviet spacecraft even at the height of the Cold War!
- Gerry Quinn
On Aug 16, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
- Even more to my point. These saint names are used, however obscure they might be. And yet you claim that the Urthian society has long since forgotten the name of Jesus? Most of the Catholics I know wouldn't know half the saint names Wolfe uses in his text.
In Ireland people are often named after saints, but never after Jesus.
Yes, but what about the use of Jesus in Hispanic cultures? Jes’s is quite common in countries like Venezuela, Colombia, etc.
Certainly that is the case. I'm just saying it's not particularly strange that the name is not used in Severian's culture. (The saints' names may be artefacts of translation anyway.)
- Gerry Quinn
James Wynn: "What happened to Christianity in on Urth?" Answer: There was a Catholic Church and there were saints, but there was no Jesus. Urth is in a gnostic iteration of Briah and Severian is its Christ.
This is essentially my view also. I'm not sure if I would have included the Catholic Church on Urth, but Dorcas does mention a "rood".
I think it is an interesting thought experiment to consider what the Catholic Church would be like without any Jesus. Perhaps Wolfe also.
From a Christian perspective I find it pretty depressing to think that after tens of thousands of years of Christ influence Earth would turn out as bleak as Urth.
I thought about this after the "recent" DR WHO episode, "Gridlock." IIRC, the old show dodged comments on earthly religion, but the new show refers to it fairly often, and in this episode, humans and cat people are shown following Christianity in the year 5 Billion and change, singing hymns together in their grid-locked flying cars on a planet in the Magellanic Cloud IIRC.
I was not able to decide if this was a pro-Christian statement, that the faith would endure for billions of years and become omnipresent in he galaxies, or anti-Christian in the implied lack of a Second Coming. Another episode later in the season has the Dr traveling to the bitter end of time only to find that the only other surviving time lord is The Master, who has exploited the last humans' naive wish to take a spaceship to heaven into becoming his own form of Daleks.
So perhaps Urth is merely post-Rapture, and the bleakness is due to the selection for people who didn't have faith.
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >
It would be acceptable for Urth to only have Sev and not Christ if Urth is an echo of Earth. That would mean Urth's fall is only an echo of The Fall and therefore the mechanics of salvation would be preserved.
If you've been reading this thread carefully, yes.
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Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote:
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote (13-08-2010 01:52):
As for Yesod being before Briah,
What would that mean? What would its opposite mean?
I suppose you mean Yesod having 'gnabed into' Briah or a 'predecessor'
of Briah. But I don't think it can be put that way. Even if in our analogies there is a succession A -> B -> C, the '->' isn't really temporal, so it's more of something we use for our benefit than something which has true significance - i.e., A -> B doesn't really connect A to B.
I'm not sure why I'm being asked to explain something I don't think is true.
So we know what it is that you think is not true?
_______________________________________________
'So THAT we know what it is that you think is not true?'. It was an answer to your question of why you're being asked to explain something you don't think it is true.
David Stockhoff wrote (17-08-2010 12:29):
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If you've been reading this thread carefully, yes.
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote:
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote (13-08-2010 01:52):
As for Yesod being before Briah,
What would that mean? What would its opposite mean?
I suppose you mean Yesod having 'gnabed into' Briah or a 'predecessor' of Briah. But I don't think it can be put that way. Even if in our analogies there is a succession A -> B -> C, the '->' isn't really temporal, so it's more of something we use for our benefit than something which has true significance - i.e., A -> B doesn't really connect A to B.
I'm not sure why I'm being asked to explain something I don't think is true.
So we know what it is that you think is not true?
_______________________________________________
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
'So THAT we know what it is that you think is not true?'. It was an answer to your question of why you're being asked to explain something you don't think it is true.
David Stockhoff wrote (17-08-2010 12:29):
If you've been reading this thread carefully, yes.
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote:
Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote (13-08-2010 01:52):
As for Yesod being before Briah,
What would that mean? What would its opposite mean?
I suppose you mean Yesod having 'gnabed into' Briah or a 'predecessor' of Briah. But I don't think it can be put that way. Even if in our analogies there is a succession A -> B -> C, the '->' isn't really temporal, so it's more of something we use for our benefit than something which has true significance - i.e., A -> B doesn't really connect A to B.
I'm not sure why I'm being asked to explain something I don't think is true.
So we know what it is that you think is not true?
_______________________________________________
Urth Mailing List
Fair enough. I'm with James on this, but what you say seems valid.
However, while Severian comes late, the Conciliator does not.
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Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
David Stockhoff wrote (16-08-2010 12:49):
This shift in focus to the universes might be a way out from a sticky problem, but you seem to propose that each Jesus is identically Jesus-like but not necessarily identically effective. Why are some Jesuses less effective? Why do some fail utterly?
It's not a problem with the Jesuses, it's the world that doesn't live up to them. The idea is that ultimately there is free will, and God's creatures may will themselves into damnation. It's not like we're not going down that route ourselves. At a certain point, the responsibility of salvation becomes the creatures'.
Do some die before the
age of 5? Are some run over by a chariot while chasing a ball into the street?
No, because then their mission wouldn't be accomplished.
Also, if each universe gets one Jesus, and the Conciliator is not one of them (but rather an attempt to fill a void where there should be one),
No, I'm saying that "parallel worlds different in detail" + "conciliator" = red herring suggesting "conciliator is the local Jesus", but in my view not even a very convincing one. I find it obviously red and herring-like. Of course, Wolfe could give an interview tomorrow and say things that show I'm completely wrong.
this brings back the question of whether there was one in Severian's Briah, does it not?
I said there was one. The church he built disappeared from sight. Whether that means that it went underground or is trapped in some unknown corner of Urth is open to question. The issue is that Jesus promised the church he was founding would not fail, so it just can't be the cult of the Conciliator. It is open to debate what 'not fail' means here, but it certainly isn't a guarantee of immediate permanent worlwide triumph.
I can't see why God would send a 'better' Jesus to a given universe. Also, I think Severian comes too late in History to be the local Jesus.
_______________________________________________
Actually, early Christianity certainly did offer an earthly paradise in Christian community. But, you're right---once it became the state religion and became Catholic, it deferred paradise until after death.
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Gerry Quinn wrote:
From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
James Wynn: "What happened to Christianity in on Urth?" Answer: There was a Catholic Church and there were saints, but there was no Jesus.
Urth is in a gnostic iteration of Briah and Severian is its Christ.
This is essentially my view also. I'm not sure if I would have included the Catholic Church on Urth, but Dorcas does mention a "rood".
I think it is an interesting thought experiment to consider what the Catholic Church would be like without any Jesus. Perhaps Wolfe also.
From a Christian perspective I find it pretty depressing to think that after tens of thousands of years of Christ influence Earth would turn out as bleak as Urth.
By the standards of SF dystopias it - or the Commonwealth at least - might be regarded as almost pleasant!
But in any case, surely Catholicism has never promised an urthly paradise? Times are hard at the moment, largely because there is a black hole at the centre of the Sun. And in the past there have been tyrants. But hard times have often come to Earth or parts of it over the last 2000 years, and probably will again.
- Gerry Quinn
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Urth Net