(urth) An Old mystery ...

[David Stockhoff]

It would be pretty crazy to have a photo of Neil Armstrong survive the gazillions of years, but not Christianity and its imagery. Especially since Nessus is Byzantium, and Severian is clearly describing Byzantine icon imagery. The Pantocrator is the typical Byzantine image of Christ we all have seen. (I'm not sure about the Lexicon's definition---it seems to conflate pantocrator and pankration in a way Wolfe might approve of but is not indicated here.) I'd read it more or less literally.

But unlike in Byzantium, Christianity is not the state religion of the Commonwealth---not quite. God is the Outsider there, and whoever the people worship, they locate temporal power in the person of the Autarch and the cacogens who prop him up. The Increate is spoken of by the people, but is almost a gnostic or at least anti-state figure in TBotNS. He doesn't openly run things by "His" will (the way he does for GWB and some of my Baptist relatives).

See http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/hypostas.html for a text referencing hypostasis, the other word your passage indicates, and see if it rings a bell. (It does for me.)

The Black Sun is the true divine power who is so distant from us that the light of day hides him (just as in the Whorl, he cannot be seen because he is outside the hull.) The Archons are the rulers of "near space," if you will. I'd guess they correspond to the Heirodules. They have nothing to do with the Increate---they serve him as slaves, no less than do Abaia's lords.

Wolfe seems to appreciate alternative theologies. This goes along with the Pelasgian idea of Christ being not a Big Deal but merely the Best Example (i.e., Epitome) of Man. So there are pantocrators, not The Pantocrator. It's kind of like having a deck of cards celebrating 100,000 years of messiahs, and Number 12 is Jesus.

David


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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:32:28 +0000
From: "Son of Witz" <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Subject: (urth) Pantocrator
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
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One detail from the book suggests the possibility of an actual Jesus figure in the history of Urth.  The Green Book.
Shadow VI:
"A green book hardly larger than my hand and no thicker 
than my index finger appeared to be a collection of devotions, full of enameled pictures of ascetic pantocrators and hypostases with black halos and gemlike robes."

"Pantocrator"
The Lexicon has an entry:
"those who have mastered the physical. Also, incarnations of the Pancreator.  Those fit for spiritual and philosophical 'wrestling'. Originally, the word designated what we would call all around athletes; but it's figurative meanings have overwhelmed it's literal one"

but everything I can find online has a much different definition.

OrthodoxWiki is as good an example of the stuff I'm finding:
"The word Pantocrator is of Greek origin meaning "ruler of all". Christ Pantocrator is an icon of Christ represented full or half-length and full-faced. He holds the book of the Gospels in his left hand and blesses with his right hand.

The icon portrays Christ as the Righteous Judge and the Lover of Mankind, both at the same time. The Gospel is the book by which we are judged, and the blessing proclaims God's loving kindness toward us, showing us that he is giving us his forgiveness.

Although ruler of all, Christ is not pictured with a crown or scepter as other kings of this world. The large open eyes look directly into the soul of the viewer. The high curved forehead shows wisdom. The long slender nose is a look of nobility, the small closed mouth, the silence of contemplation.

It is the tradition of the Church to depict "God is with us" by having the a large Pantocrator icon inside of the central dome, or ceiling of the church.

The oldest known Pantocrator icon was written in the sixth century. It was preserved in the monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert. This remote location enabled the image to survive the iconoclastic era in Byzantine history (726-815) when most icons were destroyed. "

(I would emphasize those St. Catherine and Byzantine words if I could, if only for tangental coincidence)

I think the "Ruler and Judge of All" is probably more apt than "master of the physical".  The Green book contains "ascetic pantocrators". Look up Byzantine icons of Christ Pantocrator. he's very aesetic indeed.  Byzantine art is FULL of gilded and enamel Pantocrators with Christ as the visage.

In addition, the Lexicon mentions "incarnations of the Pancreator".
Pancreator is a common word in the Urth cycle, found in each book, but Pantocrator is only used that once.  Pancreator obviously means Creator of All.  So, Pantocrator is a hypostasis of the Creator of All.  Much more than just a spiritual wrestling ascetic.  
So, then Pantocrator would seemingly be better understood as the Creator of All as Judge of All.  And with that we come to the apocalyptic aspect of Christ. he must bring about judgment in one instance, and must advocate for humanity in another instance.

Anyway, all this is to show that there is an analogue to the Christ myth present in the culture of Urth. 

also,
Sword VIII
"That night in the jacal it 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 Black Sun. Since that night, I have felt myself almost to comprehend it."

"Black Sun".  "Midnight Sun" sun is a concept that comes up in estoteric works and is usually described as a symbol for Christ.  I can't source that though, just something I've gathered over the years. 

~SonOfWitz




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