(urth) Thecla's "Identity"

Mon Apr 8 10:13:33 PDT 2013

Awesome! Thanks!

R

On Apr 8, 2013, at 12:08 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

> The Vulgate is online, with interlineal translations, at http://vulgate.org/
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 10:04 AM, Ross Arlen Tieken <ross.a.tieken at gmail.com 
> > wrote:
> 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.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Urth Mailing List
>>> To post, write urth at urth.net
>>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Urth Mailing List
>> To post, write urth at urth.net
>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>> _______________________________________________
>> Urth Mailing List
>> To post, write urth at urth.net
>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
> Ross Arlen Tieken
> Religious Studies
> Rice University
> ross.a.tieken at gmail.com
> (361) 407-0100
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
>
>
> -- 
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net

Ross Arlen Tieken
Religious Studies
Rice University
ross.a.tieken at gmail.com
(361) 407-0100

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20130408/7f812890/attachment-0004.htm>