(urth) Indescribable Christ?

[Roy C. Lackey]

"Son of Witz" wrote:
>>> I completely agree.  I've understood it as GOD, the Godhead, is
indescribable, but that inaccessibility is the main reason for Jesus to be.
To give us a path.  This is where the Logos comes in as that which
reconciles God and Man. What's Jesus say about finding the Father only
through me, or such. The Logos is the bridge. And we've been comparing texts
and exegesis about to characters that may or may not be incarnations of the
Logos.<<<
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This subject is tiresome and has been done to death over the years, and
leads nowhere. People are talking past each other, as ever. I should stay
out of it. But I will make an appeal to the text.

At issue here is whether or not Severian is in any meaningful sense a
manifestation of the Christ, rather than someone who merely has Christ-like,
or Christic (as I believe someone here once termed it) qualities. The
difference is unimportant to some, but to Christians (which I am not) it is
paramount.

In the Christian mythos, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was, and
ever will be, a *unique* event. As such, it can never be replicated--to do
so would cheapen the magnitude of the supreme sacrifice. This distinguishes
Jesus from the many cyclical dying-and-resurrecting gods we are familiar
with.

While it is true that there are correspondences between the lives of Jesus
and Severian, it is equally true that Severian manifests the qualities of
a -- well, duh! -- generic sun god, but that doesn't make him Mithra, or any
of the others.

As for Severian the Conciliator being the same as Jesus, the "bridge" that
reconciles Man and God, he is *not*. He is a conciliator between Man and the
Hierogrammates, as the text makes clear.

Shortly after his being returned to Urth in Typhon's era, the villagers
complained to Severian about the cold weather (occasioned by the sun's
recent decline) that had ruined their crops in recent years, saying "The sky
people are angry with us." He explained:
_________________
"The sky people-the Hierodules and Hierarchs-do not hate us. It is only that
they are remote from us, and they fear us because of things we did before,
long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them." I watched the
villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of them would believe
me. "I have effected a conciliation-brought them nearer us and us nearer
them, I think. They've sent me back." (URTH, chap. XXIX, p.-204)
__________________

It can be argued -- and it has been -- whether or not the Hierogrammates
were acting on orders from On High, or even that they only *believed* they
were doing God's will, willingly or unwillingly, but the textual fact of the
matter is that Severian, the Conciliator, was a bridge between Man and the
Hierogrammates, not Man and God.

-Roy