(urth) Thecla's "Identity"

Mon Apr 8 15:03:25 PDT 2013

Well, "settled" works also when you consider that redemption is all about
buying back; one of the common soteriological models of the early Church
was the idea of the ransom, that the value of Christ so far outweighed the
value of the rest of the departed that Satan was willing to trade all those
imperfect men's souls for the one perfect soul.

And then, of course, when Satan finds out that Jesus is not just a really
good man but God Himself, the joke's on him--since God can't be held
captive by Hell, the devil winds up with nothing after all.

On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 2:59 PM, António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>wrote:

> The original Greek has Τετελεσται (tetelestai), as does John 19:28, which
> IMHO can be translated as '[it Is] settled' (but I'm not a scholar of Greek
> nor a native speaker of English). The word is a verbal noun and is said to
> be found in contemporary receipts, if memory serves. The root tele- has to
> do with end, hence most Protestants chose to translate it as 'finished',
> but there is no denying that it was a root of choice for
> objective/purpose/fulfilment/completion and other such meanings of 'end'.
>
>
>
> No dia 08/04/2013, às 18:04, Ross Arlen Tieken <ross.a.tieken at gmail.com>
> escreveu:
>
> Oh and thanks for the Latin--I was translating backwards from the English,
> I don't have a copy of the Vulgate, unfortunately.
>
>
> On Apr 8, 2013, at 11:57 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>
> Rose:
>
> Some wonderful insights, with which I would pick but two nits:
>
> The feast in the forest is specifically a _perversion_ of the Eucharist,
> which Severian by his nature purifies (this is why his "copy" of Thecla's
> memories is more powerful than is usual for these feasts -- indeed she
> seems to be resurrected in him).
>
> And second, Jesus' last words in John (second-to-last by Tradition: we
> Catholics have a traditional view of the Seven Words from the Cross, and
> say that His very last words were "Father, into Your hands I commend my
> spirit") were not "Summatum est" but "Consummatum est," it is completed.
>
> --Dan'l
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 9:46 AM, Ross Arlen Tieken <ross.a.tieken at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> You're more than welcome!
>> I would study good 'ol Julius, but he's doing something different with
>> occultism by incorporating a strange un-Hindu Hinduism a la Blavatsky.
>> Also, talk about career suicide. I'm already skirting sudden death by
>> studying anyone who was involved with nationalism... or Catholicism which
>> is almost as bad to the post-modern academy. Evola would be a highway to
>> hell in a handbag.
>> I also personally do not share his worldview and social critique although
>> I recognize its power. I think too much self-reflexive occultism &
>> esotericism is not a good thing; Orthodoxy is esoteric enough without
>> pulling arcane antics. Again, Pound didn't see that--Eliot certainly did,
>> and so did the Catholic liturgical theologian Odo Casel. You should check
>> out *The Mystery of Christian Worship*.
>> If I didn't know better, I'd say Wolfe had read Casel--that Severian,
>> when he takes Thecla's body and the Autarch's body, is participating in the
>> Christian Eucharist, along with Horn/Silk when he sacrifices at the Altar
>> of the Neighbors in *On Green's Jungles* (of bread and wine?! Could you
>> be any more clear, Gene?).
>> Wolfe has said that Severian "is a Christian," *not* an allegorical
>> Christ figure. But it seems that Severian is so Christ-like... a savior, he
>> carries a cross (Terminus Est; in English "It is the end." Christ's last
>> words: Summatum Est "It is finished" [John 19:30]). But Severian, if he is
>> a Christian (according to Odo Casel, Gregory Dix, and other orthodox
>> Catholic Eucharistic theology), he *is a member of Christ's mystical body
>> *! This, I think could help us understand Wolfe's assertion: Christ only
>> came once, but His mystical body lasts for all time. Wolfe accidentally (or
>> not accidentally, I can't decide which) engages with an ancient
>> understanding of Christian worship *constantly* throughout the Solar
>> Cycle. I actually don't see how it's possible to understand the Solar Cycle
>> without looking at Wolfe's Catholic Modernist bent.
>> But anyway, Evola's not playing the same card game. Or at least , he's
>> got some cards up his sleeve from a different deck.
>>
>> Also, don't steal this without attributing me, please. I'm sharing this
>> with y'all because this mailing list is such a wonderful idea. I'm writing
>> something about this as we speak--and I'll give y'all a link when I'm
>> finished.
>>
>> R
>>
>> Ross Arlen Tieken
>> Religious Studies
>> Rice University
>>
>> On Apr 8, 2013, at 9:57 AM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>>
>>  No dia 06/04/2013, às 00:36, Ross Arlen Tieken <ross.a.tieken at gmail.com>
>> escreveu:
>>
>>  When I spoke of the Catholic modernists, I should have been more
>> precise. The modernists all have weird spiritual proclivities. Eliot wasn't
>> technically a Catholic either. I should have clarified what I meant: They
>> all have a mystical bent, believe in strong authority, and are inspired by
>> myth, myths, and mythic worldviews, and the middle ages. This leads to the
>> accusation of fascism (correct in Pound's case, dubious in Eliot and
>> Tate's, completely inappropriate in the case of Tolkien and Lewis) and to
>> the strong stroke of nationalism and ethnic myth-making in these authors.
>> Wolfe definitely shares these preoccupations. See
>> http://www.thenightland.co.uk/MYWEB/wolfemountains.html; an essay on the
>> importance of Tolkien which begins with the sentence "There is one very
>> real sense in which the Dark Ages were the brightest of times, and it is
>> this: that they were times of defined and definite duties and freedoms." In
>> this, he echoes a Chestertonian defense of the Middle Ages and Catholic
>> civilization. I also see in Wolfe an implicit defense of Neo-Feudalism and
>> a strongly relgion-centric worldview.
>> Pound was a bad fascist; he didn't understand that it depended upon the
>> same assumptions that modernity did, and paid the price for it--he failed
>> to see the 'real' problem on which his contemporaries easily picked up; not
>> just any mythos is good enough, there has to be real sticking power and it
>> has to based in some kind of transcendent truth/experience and allow also
>> for the intuitive human good. Fascism of course fails utterly at providing
>> this, but Tolkien & Eliot's strong ethnic (non-racial) Traditionalism and
>> mystical monarchism worked fine.
>>
>>
>>  Interesting. Do you analyze Evola as well?
>>
>>   This is what I'm writing on for my dissertation, and I thought about
>> including Wolfe although he's a little out of the time period. It's coming
>> back though, these mystical traditional neo-feudal myth-making monarchist
>> distributist Catholic artists.
>>
>>  On Dan'l Danehy-Oakes note: Distributism is the Catholic economic
>> theory; Marxism's assumptions about "the way stuff works" are absolutely
>> not compatible with the Catholic vision of humanity--nor is fascism, or
>> hyper-capitalism for that matter. Both depend on a pseudo-scientific
>> reading of humans--Catholics sort of aren't up for that.
>>
>>
>>  Precisely (whether one admits to the pseudo or not, which I do of
>> course).
>>
>>   Distributism (championed by Chesterton and Belloc, later by Eliot and
>> the Southern Agrarians in America) fulfills the requirements of Catholic
>> anthropology while seeking to correct the culture-killing nature of
>> transnational corporate capitalism. Look it up, tell me what you think.
>>
>>  Also, Wolfe is probably aware of Distributism and is a Catholic in good
>> standing with the Church.
>> http://ironicalcoincidings.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/inheriting-tolkien-pt-2-gene-wolfe/
>>
>>
>>  Thank you for the link.
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>
>
>
> --
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
> _______________________________________________
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>
> Ross Arlen Tieken
> Religious Studies
> Rice University
> ross.a.tieken at gmail.com
> (361) 407-0100
>
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-- 
Matt +

In the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite,
that held a fair sword in that hand.
    Sir Thomas Malory (d. 1471), *Le Morte d'Arthur [1485], bk. I, ch. 25*
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