Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:13:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Thomas Bates 
Subject: (urth) Black Sun

In all this talk of the different suns, what about the Black Sun?
In _The Sword of the Lictor_, when Severian is in Thrax with the sick
children, he says that the Conciliator is the Black Sun.

"That night in the jacal it [the Claw] was not brilliant, but it
glowed with so deep a blue that the light itself seemed almost a
clearer darkness.  Of all the names of the Conciliator, the one that
is, I believe, least used, and which has always seemed the most
puzzling to me, is that of the Black Sun.  Since that night, I have
felt myself almost to comprehend it."  (Volume III, Chapter VIII,
TBotNS)

"Black Sun" makes me think of a black hole, but I don't see what that
has to do with the Conciliator.  Maybe someone else does?

The only thing I can think of is the darkness at the crucifixion of
Christ, which is thought to have resulted from an eclipse:

Luke 23:44-45
And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all
the earth until the ninth hour.  
And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the
midst.

Mat 27:45
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the
ninth hour.


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