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Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 00:46:00 +0000 (GMT)
From: Josh Geller 
Subject: Re: (urth) Gnostic Wolfe



On Thu, 10 Oct 2002 DSG20001@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 10/10/2002 9:43:11 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> straight@email.unc.edu writes:

> If Whorl=Garden and Pas=God,

Pas == Demiourgos

>                               then Outsider=???

Outsider == God

> The view that religion and politics aren't subjects for polite conversation
> doesn't appear to be a view Gene Wolfe fans can casually adopt. (Which may
> account for a great deal of his appeal.)

> I don't know nearly enough about the various Gnostic doctrines, but the more
> I do learn about them, the more affinities I notice between certain of those
> doctrines and the BotLS.

> I suppose readers must take Wolfe at his word when he confesses that he's an
> orthodox Catholic--while keeping in mind that at least some elements of his
> theology are decidedly nonorthodox. For example, his belief in the (prior?)
> existence of pagan gods and goddesses.

That's in the Bible.

'Prior', that's a loaded term. We're working with two entirely different
ways of looking at Time.

> I'll leave to the theologians on this remarkable list the question of whether
> Wolfe's additions lean toward the heretical or merely the eccentric.

Wolfe's orthodox.

He communicates, you know?

He's learned. He knows many of the more poorly documented features
of the religion and the picture of the World associated with it.

>                                                            But in
> appraising his works, particularly the BotLS, it might be useful to
> pursue in a little more depth what appear--at first blush, anyway--to be
> striking similarities between Wolfe and Gnostic thought.

Wolfe's gnostic only in the sense that Catholic or Orthodox Christianity
is a subset of gnosticism.

But in fact the name and concept of gnosticism was invented by the
Orthodox ("correct-believing") to seperate themselves from the heterodox
("different-believing").

Before what became the Orthodox church got into bed with the Roman state,
there were just different kinds of Christians and such arguing amongst
each other.

After the 330's, the Orthodox owned the cops, and enthusiastically
employed them suppressing everyone who 'believed different'.

> The online Gnostic Library (http://www.webcom.com/~gnosis/library.html)

www.enemies.com is my favorite.

































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