(urth) Father Inire as Dionysus

[Andrew Mason]

Lee Berman wrote:

>
>>Andrew Mason: 'Abraxas' does seem to be a gnostic word, but apparently it's
>
>>unclear whether it is a name of  the Archon or of the true God, so it's
>>uncertain what we should.
>
>
>
> I think it is more important to focus on how that word is used in the text first.
>
> The Cumaean uses it to refer to someone who would seem to be her associate but
>
> one who may be more wise or knowlegeable than she, at least in some areas.


Having checked the passage, it seems to me that Merryn , who is the
one who actually uses the name, is most naturally read as referring to
a divine or somehow spiritual being: 'Those who, like the Mother, have
learned to enter the same state while waking live surrounded by their
own lives, even as the Abraxas perceives all of time as an eternal
instant' (something frequently said about God).

Now, it's interesting that just a few pages earlier we get what I
think is the only actual use of the word 'gnostic' in the cycle, where
Severian says that the wall of the Witches' Tower were decorated with
gnostic designs. I had previously taken this to mean just something
like 'esoteric', but perhaps we are meant to conclude that the witches
do preserve something like gnosticism in the first-millennium sense;
this would not be altogether surprising when we consider that the
bear-handlers seem to be Mithraists. So it seems likely to me that the
use of the name 'Abraxas' here is meant to reveal something
specifically about the witches.