From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan@gnt.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Theodicy
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 17:43:45 


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

At 09:23 AM 7/1/97 -0400, you wrote:


NUTRIA: 	Gimmeabreak! Was Shakespeare writing tracts instead of plays,
because he
>> had messages for the monarchs? 
>
ALGA:>This does not parse.

	I took you as writing that if Wolfe had an anti-idolatry polemic in his
works, they would not be literature. 


ALGA: >Almost certainly, Agia's Theoanthropos does refer to JC, though
probably
>not consciously. (If it were conscious, and she a believer, that would be
>interesting, considering her character.) But he's not the only hero with
>such claims. Gilgamesh was 2/3 god and only 1/3 human; Herakles was 1/2
>god. And so on. Urth is very old, and ancient stories tend to conflate, as
>the Brown Book shows us again and again. The Theoanthropos could be taken
>as a composite figure, as indeed Silk's Outsider seems to be. In any case,
>he doesn't seem to register with Severian.

	Well, I agree about Agia as a person. And I cannot gainsay your other
points as well. But I don't think Wolfe believes that Christianity will
disappear in the far future, so the assumption that Christianity is simply
unknown at that time does not "parse." Silk's religion certainly has a good
deal of it in the background, and his enlightenments clearly show Christ.

>
>As for Severian's being a Christian, well, let's agree to differ. Your idea
>(and perhaps Wolfe's) of what constitutes a Christian, even allegorically
>(whatever that may mean in this context), is not mine, nor, it seems, that
>of many of the rest of this group.  

	Sure. We can lay it to rest, FOR NOW!!!!!!

The Rat