(urth) Oannes

[David Stockhoff]

On 3/19/2012 12:04 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>> David Stockhoff: SO the Outsider is not the Increate, but a godling?
>
> Like Pig? Argh, surely not so low on the totem pole. Unlike our modern
> Christian world where only God and Man exist, the Sun Series seems to
>
> have a rather well-stocked hierarchy of beings between Man and The Increate.
> Size seems to have something to do with one's level. Exultants are taller
> than armgers. B, F and O are taller than exultants. Tzadkiel, in full glory,
> is taller than B, F and O and is as big as an island in the largest form
> we encounter.
>
>
> Given that The Outsider never incarnates into a material form, I would guess
> that he is at a higher level than Tzadkiel. But is the Outsider imbued in
> every person and everything, everywhere across all time and all universes?
>
> I get the sense he is more limited than that (though he has potential).

I see. In essence, you are saying the Outsider is not God, but 
Dionysius. Right?
>
>>>> David Stockhoff: What is it [Jurupari], then? A monstrous mouth? A fish sign..?
>
>
>>> Summing up the evidence, I think Jurupari is a reference to Abaia
>
>> OK, but what about the sign itself?
>
>
> Not sure what sign you mean. The sign Agia scratches? Like the chicken for the jungle sorcerers, I think it is a sign that she is working against the coming of the New Sun.
What I was getting at was whether you saw any parallel between ANY sign 
(Agia's in particular) and the fish sign.
>
>
> Do you mean the Christian fish symbol? I think it is no shock to learn that it likely has its roots in earlier pagan symbolism. I can imagine that simple wordplay on "Christ" might not give the symbol the potency it had at the time. An excerpt from an article on the Christian fish symbol origin:
>
>
>> In pagan beliefs, Ichthys was the offspring of the ancient Sea goddess Atargatis, and was known in various mythic systems as Tirgata, Aphrodite, Pelagia, or Delphine. The word also meant "womb" and "dolphin" in some tongues, and representations of this appeared in the depiction of mermaids.
Interesting---it makes sense that "fish" would connect with numerous 
cults, but I did not know they would be such prominent ones.
> . . . The fish also appears in another sacred iconograph, the Avatars of Vishnu, where the deity "is represented as emerging from the mouth of a fish, and being a fish himself; the legend being that he was to be the Saviour of the world in a deluge which was to follow..."
>   
Nor this!
>
> In writing the Sun Series I suspect Wolfe was aware of all this. Severian replaces Abaia,
> He is the new Oannes...etc.
>
>
>>> I have suggested that the God of the OT seems to be rather pagan by our modern Christian
>>> standards.
>
>
>> I'm not sure what this means.
>
>
>
> I mean the God of the OT recognizes the existence of rival gods, seems to have human emotions and faults, demands burnt offering sacrifices, toys with the idea of human sacrifice, is tolerant even approving of polygamy, engages in genocide of innocents if they are Hebrew enemies, etc. He isn't much like the God most Christians know and love today. He is more like all the other gods of His time. His main distinction (as I see it) is that He is One God
> (allowing him to avoid the sin of incest committed by all the other pagan pantheons).
OK---that is what I was suggesting. Setting aside polygamy, which 
doesn't seem relevant, are you observing that the OT God stands apart 
from His local contemporaries because he lacks a sister? You may be 
right---certainly it shows he was not Egyptian.
>
>> Does "gnostic" mean "fearful and suspicious of the demiurge"
>
>
> I've been using the word gnostic in the broader sense for a couple years here but I suppose I still need to qualify it now and then. I mean it to refer to the broad swath of religious beliefs which came to exist in the time period between Alexander and Christ. Alexander's empire allowed
> the blending and cross-polination of eastern and western religion and mythology to happen. Judaism may have been something of an oasis in the midst of it but, of course, it was not unaffected.
Yes, that's probably not a precise use of the term. I think the term you 
may want to use is "mystical" or maybe "syncretist" or "esoteric." 
Generally that is taken to mean "oriental" in the older vocabulary, 
where it signifies anything non-Roman or Greek: Mithraism and so on. 
Note however that Egypt used to be included in that category, and thus 
two "oriental" traditions, the Persian and the Egyptian, combined with 
the Greek cults during the Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods. As has been 
discussed here many times, the early Christian cult drew heavily from 
all three, but at an early point the truly gnostic contingent, with its 
gospels, went underground.