(urth) This week in Google Alerts

[Gerry Quinn]

From: Lee Berman 

> >Gerry Quinn: The question of whether Urth had a Christ is one that you find significant, 
> > but it is only in your theory that it has any relevance to the which cycle of the universe 
> >Urth exists in. There is plenty of textual evidence, particularly in Long Sun, suggesting 
> >that Urth did indeed have a Christ.
> As has been noted in the past, I think the evidence is more for a Jesus than a Christ.
> I think you understand the difference.
What is the evidence other than it fitting your theological-cosmological framework?  I think there is much evidence for a Jesus Christ.  If Urth’s Mohammed preached of Allah, things seem to have gone much as they have on Earth.  It is indicated to Silk that the Outsider possessed and enlightened Jesus – in Silk’s terms that is as close as we can come. 
And what would be the point of Silk being sent visions of what would appear to be some kind of failed Jesus? 
I also don’t think the Outsider’s iconography is exceptionally dark, except insofar as it appears to Silk for circumstantial reasons, in that the Outsider is god of the world outside the Whorl, which in our case starts with sunshine and blue skies, but in Silk’s case starts with the vacuum of outer space.  As I’ve noted, the descriptions of the Outsider in the casts of characters seem to resemble in some ways the Persons of the Trinity.
>Maytera Marble: "When we were outside like him [The Outsider], living in the Short Sun Whorl 
> before this one was finished and peopled, we worshipped him. No doubt you knew that already, 
> Patera...."It wasn't called manteion, either. Something else."
  
> > Gerry Quinn: In Typhon’s empire, Christianity has retreated to the downtrodden and disparaged: 
> > that is to say, it is mainly to be found among the chems.
 
> That is a reasonable theory, Gerry. I respect it even while finding it less probably than other 
> theories. As previously noted, The Outsider is persistently presented as a dark (not evil) god. 
> Wolfe has said Severian is an aspect of The Outsider and Severian himself has become a dark 
> (though not evil) god by the end of UotNS. (and when the dark gods don't come, their "place is
> taken by a demon.")
 
A White Fountain seems like the very opposite of darkness to me! 
The God of All Things (at least outside the Whorl) is the god of Light and Dark. of outer space and of the blazing stars.


> Unless Severian is Jesus or his second coming, I can't see the Outsider as our Jehovah. 

I can see him quite easily as a future concept of the Christian God, and thus derived from Jehovah, albeit not understood precisely as Jehovah initially was. 

- Gerry Quinn
 
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