(urth) An Old mystery ...

Son of Witz sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org
Thu Dec 4 09:13:08 PST 2008


>That's the essence of what I meant, that in Christian thought the birth,
>life, death and resurrection of a god who was God was a one-time event, a
>Big Deal, unlike the many "pagan" dying-and-resurrected gods before him. 
...
>-Roy

Is "Christian Thought" the only reading of the Christian myth?  One can stand outside the tradition of the church and still make interpretations of this STORY.  It is a fiction.  It may be TRUE, but it is still a fiction, as all histories truly are.  One can interpret myths from Greek, Hindu, Persian, etc without having a perspective truly from their perspectives. Sure some of the hairsplitting of theology could get wonky, but the essence and spirit would not necessarily be far from the mark.

I'm not asking Christians to accept that Severian is Christ, LITERALLY.
that would counter their Christian thought, and, well, heaven forbid...

It does seem OBVIOUS that the abstracted notion of Christ is the template for the Messiah of the New Sun. No one is suggesting a one to one mapping of all the plot elements, NOR all of the official interpretations.  It would seem wolfe wanted to write a story that dealt with Death and Resurrection on a personal, societal, and cosmic level, and in doing so, he took the Christ myth as an inspiration and tossed that essence of a symbol into his story.  There are so many parallels that it seems really obstinate and close minded not to accept it. 

By 'close-minded', I don't mean to insult anyone, just that if your ONLY looking at this potential from within Correct Christian Thought, you will probably be closed off to abstraction and recombination of the symbols that inspire Christian Thought.  I've hardly seen anyone argue that Inire couldn't be Daedalus because it doesn't truly fit the perspective of Greek thought. Or that Daedalus was not a bent alien wearing a mask, so it just doesn't compare.

I'm curious as to your thoughts as to they deeper symbolic meanings, Roy, as you've obviously parsed out the plot in a fairly watertight way. But what does that plot all add up to you?  What level, besides plotting, do you engage with this material on?

~SonOfWitz








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