Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 20:36:07 -0500
From: Andrew Reeves 
Subject: (urth) Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is the Holy Trinity

Hello again.  I was just thinking of the events in the _Short_ and
_Long_ sun books.  One thing that I've found fairly interesting is the
fact that by the end of the _Short Sun_ it's pretty obvious that the
Outsider is the Holy Trinity, especially with the (re) introduction of
the eucharist.  That aside, this leaves some concerns...

During his enlightenment, Silk sees what one could well assume is Jesus
being taken down from the cross.  Now, if this is the case, it seems
that He has taken his time about returning, to say the least.  After
all, it's been going on close to a million years with no parousia in
sight.  Indeed, it also appears that the sacraments and Church have
lapsed, and it seems rather unlike the Nicene God to allow His Church to
fade out for several hundred thousand years.

Furthermore, it seems that at the end of _Urth of the New Sun_, he's
somewhat violating His promise never again to destroy the world again by
water.  I guess one could weasel out of this by saying that it's
Severian who did it, but since the Hierodules (who serve Tzadkiel, who
being an angel is under the Increate) at least twice had to slap
together a new body for Severian when he was out of range of the New
Sun, then it seems that it was the Increate who was flooding the
continents.  So it rather seems that God is going back on His word.

Just some random thoughts.

Andrew


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