(urth) Oannes

[David Stockhoff]

On 3/17/2012 7:10 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> David Stockhoff: What is it [Jurupari], then? A monstrous mouth? A fish sign..
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> Sorry I didn't meant to be oblique. Summing up the evidence, I think Jurupari is
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> a reference to Abaia and generally signifies (like the chicken with needles through
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> the eyes) an allegiance to the forces trying to prevent the coming of the New Sun.
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> Given the village name "Murene" and the lake name "Diuturna" I find sufficient
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> evidence to suspect Oannes also is associated with Abaia. Yes, Abaia is supposed to
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> be in the ocean but, as for Tzadkiel and Greek gods, I think we are dealing with
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> asexually reproducing, plural beings who can be in more than one place at once.
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> At the end of UotNS, when Severian says he has become the Oannes of these people I
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> think it signifies that he has (as The Sleeper) replaced Abaia to become the ruling
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> pagan god of the planet. (and if that sets up the potential for an unusual
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> relationship with Juturna, so much the better to match the filial confusion of pagan
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> mythological pantheons, like, say Zeus and Dionysus or Pas and Silk)

OK, but what about the sign itself?
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>> Andrew Mason: Later, in _Urth_, Severian says that he has become the Oannes of  his
>> people. Might this be a clue to what Wolfe means by saying that Severian is a form of the Outsider?
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> Yep. I think so. But I think it only works if The Outsider is recognized as a paganish,
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> gnostic sort of god. Approaching the Christian ideal of God but not quite there yet.
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SO the Outsider is not the Increate, but a godling?
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> I have suggested that the God of the OT seems to be rather pagan by our modern Christian
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> standards. I think the prevalence of the fish motif in the Sun Series is a recognition that
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> the earliest Christians (including the ones who used the fish symbol) were still pretty damn
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> gnostic in their beliefs and actions by modern Christian standards. 		 	   	

I'm not sure what this means. Does "pagan" mean one-dimensional, in the 
sense of "representational" art, where there is a one-to-one 
correspondence with the thing represented? Does it mean a god who says, 
I prefer long beards and Tuesdays and cocker spaniels and the smell of 
roast pig on Mount Tippytop, vs a god of all things and times and places?

Does "gnostic" mean "fearful and suspicious of the demiurge" and 
"seeking union with a higher divinity"? Because I really don't think 
early Christian beliefs included Satan or considered God to be distant. 
At all. He was here and now, always.

If anything, Caesar (who was after all worshiped as a god) was 
mistrusted as a local authority, but even if they organized their world 
in a superficially similar way (Caesar's things to Caesar and God's 
things to God), Caesar was no demiurge.