<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><div>There is, of course, the "secret" of the Guild which Palaemon and Gurloes tell Severian when he's made journeyman. Some people on the list have, interestingly enough, speculated that this "secret" is that the Torturer's Guild used to be the Catholic Church itself. The speculation that they used to be the Inquisition would fit rather well with that. As far as I recall, Severian never says anything else about this "secret," although he does claim to have broken his promise never to tell it.<br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Chris
<rasputin_@hotmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> urth@lists.urth.net<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, November 22, 2008 2:02:46 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) Severian as reverse Christ (or something)<br></font><br>
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I don't have any textual basis for this, but I thought of the Torturers as tracing their lineage back to Typhon. This is sort of the reverse of your impression; the institution would have started out as secular, and then acquired its mystical aspects in order to maintain its cohesion over time.<br><br>--
"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang<br><br><br><br>> From: sonofwitz@butcherbaker.org<br>> To: urth@lists.urth.net<br>> Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:44:16 -0800<br>> Subject: Re: (urth) Severian as reverse Christ (or something)<br>> <br>> <br>> On Nov 22, 2008, at 10:19 AM, Dave Tallman wrote:<br>> <br>> > David Stockhoff wrote:<br>> >> In similar vein, discussing "what offices a Christian man may <br>> >> hold", he refers to a recent case wherein a Church member had the <br>> >> opportunity to receive high public office as a magistrate. <br>> >> Tertullian argues that it would be morally impossible for this man <br>> >> to satisfy both the Gospel's demands and those of Roman law, for <br>> >> that would require him to abstain not only from all public pagan <br>> >> sacrifices, oaths, etc., but also
from "sitting in judgment on <br>> >> anyone's life or character, . . . neither condemning nor fore- <br>> >> condemning; binding no one, imprisoning /or torturing no one/".^*2 <<a target="_blank" href="http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html#FN_2">http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html#FN_2</a> <br>> >> >* These are the earliest known explicit Christian statements on <br>> >> the morality of torture.<br>> >><br>> > Wolfe may have drawn some ideas from Tertullian, but he surely <br>> > wouldn't consider him to be the last word on Christian morality. A <br>> > couple of centuries later St. Augustine wrote on the idea of a "just <br>> > war," which could be fought by righteous Christian soldiers. <br>> > Tertullian ended up being declared a heretic (not about pacificism, <br>> > but about whether a new prophecy could have the same force as <br>> >
scripture).<br>> ><br>> > Tertullian had the luxury in the third century of belonging to a <br>> > persucuted group that could stand outside and condemn the system. <br>> > But later the Church became the accepted state religion, and took <br>> > over a great deal of power in the Middle Ages. At that point, <br>> > soldiers, magistrates, and even torturers were at least nominally <br>> > Christians. It's a difficult moral dilemma and one that Wolfe <br>> > doesn't shrink from presenting in all its horror.<br>> <br>> <br>> On that note, I've taken the Torturer's Guild as a sort of Inquisition <br>> that's become a more or less secular institution of the State. As if <br>> the State absorbed them and gradually became more and more ashamed of <br>> the Guild, yet kept it around in diminished form for their dirty work. <br>> but it's lost it's original purpose. Of course that's
all <br>> speculation, but it works for me.<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Urth Mailing List<br>> To post, write urth@urth.net<br>> Subscription/information: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.urth.net">http://www.urth.net</a><br><br><hr>Windows Live Hotmail now works up to 70% faster. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://windowslive.com/Explore/Hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_hotmail_acq_faster_112008">Sign up today.</a></div></div></div><br>
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