From: CRCulver@aol.com
Subject: Re: (urth) Father Inire and the Deluge
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 19:24:48 EDT

In a message dated 4/21/99 2:25:20 AM EST, orik@sprint.ca writes:

<< Unless I've forgotten or misread TBONS, which is of course emminently 
possible, the Hierodules and their masters are not angels or cherubim come 
down from Heaven;  they are a genetically altered "master" species 
sufficiently advanced to be able to travel throuh time and space to the nth 
degree. >>

Well, kind of sort of. In "The Key to the Universe" Severian mentions that 
the Hieros are the master species, the ones created by man and who escaped to 
Yesod. The Hierodules were "found" by the Hieros and are their servants. 
Famulimus and Barbatus appear to be Hieros, while I would assume that many of 
the watchers of "Eschatology and Genesis" at the House Absolute were 
Hierodules.


<<Despite this great power, they are material, and I believe fallible and 
wrongheaded, creatures, no different from any other "superior" alien species 
in science fiction with political or strategic interests in the Terran 
sphere.>>

I think that the "judge" version of Tzadkiel, analogous to the Archangel 
Michael, would be certainly be divine. Whether of not he receives 
communication directly from the Pancreator is one of the more interesting 
mysteries of _Urth_.


<<They have interfered with Urth's sun for their own purposes (which possibly 
include hobbling the ability of Urrth's tyrants  -- or more importantly, her 
extra-solar "guests" -- to wage wars of interstellar conquest>>

Refer to "The Key to the Universe" again. Severian explains that the Hieros 
are shaping us as they were formed, a payback (but not necessarily negative), 
and the appearance of the New Sun would mean that "at least the earliest 
operations of this shaping are complete." It means Severian is a puppet, but 
there is no such thing as free will when dealing with the Divine, I would 
guess.


<<"'The Pancreator is infinitely far from us,' the angel said.  'And thus 
infinitely far from me, though I fly so much higher than you.  I guess at his 
desires -- no one can do otherwise.'">>

This is preceded in "Eschatology and Genesis" in the dialogue between Gabiel 
and Nod.
Also, there is the story of how the Pancreator was behind a curtain, but when 
one peaked behind this curtain, he saw open space, because the Pancreator is 
infinite (and perhaps thus infinitely remote).
I wonder in what other Wolfe works this idea that God is infinitely remote is 
mentioned.

Christopher R. Culver <crculver@aol.com>

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/