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My attempt at clarification may have gotten lost because I mistitled my
second post. I'll try one more time. <br>
<br>
I've read very little about Wolfe, or Wolfe's ideas about Wolfe, or
other people's ideas about Wolfe---I have only read all of Wolfe. So I
am happy to be corrected or told that I don't have a new idea. I'll
assert it more forcefully this time:<br>
<br>
Tertullian is a direct source of the character Severian. (See the
footnotes I added below.)<br>
<br>
Wolfe did not come up with a torturer Christ (and let's face it, Christ
is a fictional character, so it makes little difference whether
Severian IS or IS NOT "Christ" although it makes for an interesting
discussion) because he was reading Hannah Arendt about the banality of
evil, or about the Nuremburg trials, or the crimes of Beria or Stalin
or Tiberius or whoever. He came up with the torturer Christ in part
because he read these passages of Tertullian.<br>
<br>
That is my theory and it is mine. (Wish I knew how to apply formatting.)<br>
<br>
David<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre wrap="">*A1. Tertullian (3rd century).* This early representative of patristic
thought follows the radically pacifist tendency of not a few Christians at
that time who tended to take the Gospel's 'counsels of perfection' as
universally binding precepts. Certainly, in Tertullian's judgment, any
complicity in torture ? either ordering it or personally applying it ? is
definitely ruled out for a disciple of Jesus. Arguing that no soldier, after
converting to Christianity, should continue in the army, especially given
its pagan character, he asks rhetorically,
"[S]hall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become
him even to sue at law? And shall *he* apply the chain, and the prison, *and
the torture*, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own
wrongs?"*1
In similar vein, discussing "what offices a Christian man may hold", he
refers to a recent case wherein a Church member had the opportunity to
receive high public office as a magistrate. Tertullian argues that it would
be morally impossible for this man to satisfy both the Gospel's demands and
those of Roman law, for that would require him to abstain not only from all
public pagan sacrifices, oaths, etc., but also from "sitting in judgment on
anyone's life or character, . . . neither condemning nor fore-condemning;
binding no one, imprisoning *or torturing no one*".*2
* These are the earliest known explicit Christian statements on the
morality of torture.
</pre>
<p class="note"><a name="FN_1">1. <i>De Corona,</i> 11, emphasis added.</a></p>
<p class="note"><a name="FN_2">2. <i>De Idololatria</i>, 17, emphasis
added.</a></p>
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:mailman.1.1227218986.14328.urth-urth.net@lists.urth.net"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:15:08 -0500
From: David Stockhoff <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net"><dstockhoff@verizon.net></a>
Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 51, Issue 44
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net">urth@lists.urth.net</a>
Message-ID: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:4925D35C.1040409@verizon.net"><4925D35C.1040409@verizon.net></a>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
Let me clarify my thought.
I meant that it's almost as though Wolfe read Tertullian (or the debate
he was part of) and and responded to him by deliberately constructing a
character according to those severe Christian prohibitions /as though
they were precise specifications/: a Christ figure who is everything
Christ's followers cannot be. Why these specifications and not others?
I think this goes beyond "sin" and repugnance, neither of which is
mentioned here. It's a question of temporal authority vs spiritual
authority, at least. But we knew that.
</pre>
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