(urth) Severian as reverse Christ (or something)

[John Watkins]

Naturally it's applicable to Severian.  Wolfe makes it pretty clear, I
think, that he finds Severian's profession to be repugnant.

Severian's journey, unlike the journey of Christ, is out of great sin into,
well, maybe not exactly virtue, but into lesser sin.  He's a better person
at the end than at the beginning.


On 11/20/08, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Recent lurker, first-time poster. Please excuse any formatting offenses!
>
> As part of blog discussion on another topic, someone sent me a link
> regarding the historical development of Catholic positions on torture:
>
> http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html
>
> And the following caught my eye (the middle part):
>
>
> *A1. Tertullian (3rd century).* This early representative of patristic
> thought follows the radically pacifist tendency of not a few Christians at
> that time who tended to take the Gospel's 'counsels of perfection' as
> universally binding precepts. Certainly, in Tertullian's judgment, any
> complicity in torture – either ordering it or personally applying it – is
> definitely ruled out for a disciple of Jesus. Arguing that no soldier, after
> converting to Christianity, should continue in the army, especially given
> its pagan character, he asks rhetorically,
>
> "[S]hall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become
> him even to sue at law? And shall *he* apply the chain, and the prison, *and
> the torture*, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own
> wrongs?"*1 <http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html#FN_1>*
>
> In similar vein, discussing "what offices a Christian man may hold", he
> refers to a recent case wherein a Church member had the opportunity to
> receive high public office as a magistrate. Tertullian argues that it would
> be morally impossible for this man to satisfy both the Gospel's demands and
> those of Roman law, for that would require him to abstain not only from all
> public pagan sacrifices, oaths, etc., but also from "sitting in judgment on
> anyone's life or character, . . . neither condemning nor fore-condemning;
> binding no one, imprisoning *or torturing no one*".*2<http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html#FN_2>
> * These are the earliest known explicit Christian statements on the
> morality of torture.
>
>
> I have no argument to make here---I merely find the references to binding
> etc.very applicable to Severian. It's almost a summary of his daily routine.
> (Recall that "lictor" means "he who binds.")
>
> Can Christ not be a Christian?
>
> David Stockhoff
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:21:06 -0500
> From: "John Watkins" <john.watkins04 at gmail.com> <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Shadow, Chapter X
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID:
> 	<93d4039f0811191221o759bc72eo76de8f2db47db650 at mail.gmail.com> <93d4039f0811191221o759bc72eo76de8f2db47db650 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>
>
>
>   B) many Christians would also find the notion of an Exucutioner Christ to be beyond the pale of heresy and think this book was some sort of evil perversion.
>
> I agree.  I think, actually, that that's one of the more beautiful and
> Christian notions of the book--Severian is very much the Stone That
> Was Rejected.
>
>
>
> And if he's not an analogue Christ, Why is he carrying a cross around for 3 1/2 books?  No one has addressed the ideas about this that I posted in October.http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2008-October/010121.html
>
> ~sonofwitz
>
>
> Well, I'll have to look at that posting more closely, but Christ
> Himself tells his followers that they all must take up the cross.
> Severian carrying the cross makes him a "Christian" figure.
>
> It's not unlike Tolkien's work, really. Frodo is clearly a "Christ
> figure" in a limited sense--he carries the Ring, which is more or less
> the Cross, his three woundings correspond with Christ's wounds or
> three falls, he makes a great sacrifice, he too is the Stone the Was
> Rejected, etc.  But no one thinks that Frodo is meant to BE Christ in
> the sense that Aslan is meant to be Christ.  I think Severian is much
> more like Frodo than Aslan.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   ------------------------------
>
> avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com/>: Outbound message clean.
>
> Virus Database (VPS): 081120-0, 11/20/2008
> Tested on: 11/20/2008 2:49:40 PM
> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2008 ALWIL Software.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20081120/c31c9e25/attachment-0005.htm>