(urth) The Wizard

[Gerry Quinn]

From: Nick Lee 


  Gerry Quinn wrote:

> > Clear references to Jesus of Nazareth are not ?quasi-Christian symbols and concepts?. And did
> > those societies have the Sign of the Cross? Did they have rosary beads?


> The cross dates back to the stone age. 

I didn’t refer to the cross.  I referred to the *Sign* of the Cross.

> Rosary beads are not native to Christianity. They were
> borrowed from the East. Most symbolism in Christianity can be traced directly to Mithraism.

Prayer beads and knotted cords etc. existed before Christianity.  Silk’s beads, however, have a cross and the beads come in decades.  Do Mithraic beads have the same characteristics?


> > Allah is referred to in the character name lists as ?A forgotten god.  (Perhaps an alternative
> > name for the Outsider.)?  How direct do you want Wolfe to be?\

> As for Allah, that was not originally a reference to the god of the Israelites, as I'm sure you know.

Certainly.  But do you accept that Islam at least must have existed in Urth’s past?  If so, it is hard to imagine a history that would have produced Islam but not Christianity.

  It may be pagan, but it is set in the future of a universe resembling our own.  Nor is it a matter of a few random symbols, but a lot of very specific ones.  And Jesus is very clearly referenced.  Allah is even mentioned by name, and Quetzal gives us a mutated version of Genesis.
  Ignoring all this stuff won?t make it go away.

> Genesis also predated Christianity, as I am also sure you know. 

And Islam came after it.  And everything before and after seems to be the same.  Except you and others claim Christianity didn’t exist.  And there seems to be no evidence for it whatsoever except vague speculations on what Wolfe would find theologically acceptable.

> When Silk glimpses Christ, could it be he is seeing a vision of the future, 
> of a universe following his own?

Why should it be so?  Are we given any indications whatsoever Besides, if such visions can come from the future, clearly the Incarnation has some potency in Silk’s universe anyway.   

Furthermore, that is only one reference to Jesus Christ.  Consider the following (a pretty clear reference to the scourging of the moneylenders):
“Remind them that the Outsider was known to esteem them last among men already, that according to the Writings he had once (having possessed and enlightened a fortunate man) beaten them severely in person.”

That doesn’t come from Silk’s enlightenment.  It comes straight from the Chrasmological Writings.  It comes, therefore, from Urth’s past.

- Gerry Quinn



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