HFQ Official Snippet #3 (sort of)

Still think SYED is on very thin ice with his assertions that 'it stands to reason' that the Inquisition must have preserved secret copies of every heretical text. I think they were much more likely to have destroyed them, even in more liberal times on Safehold. Paityr Wylsynn is well enough connected in the Inquisition that he ought to, at least, know about any such secret archives, but no mention of any such thing from him.

I can only think of 2 reasons for keeping such an archive. One is educational, you want to teach priests why these heresies are wrong so they can better guide their congregations (as happens in every Christian theological college) but then, of course they are not secret. Or you have an index of banned books and you need the archive to check if any book is really the banned one or just something with an unhappily chosen title, say, but we have no textev of any Index Expurgatorius on Safehold - and, again, for a banned book list to be effective in protecting the faithful you have to publish the actual list.

I agree totally. More, there is no textev yet that any public heresy exist today.

In fact, with a such revealed religion with seemingly non contestable proof (with the testimonies) and after victory in the war of the fallen, heresies are facing a very steep threeshold to exist and last longer than a New-york minute. Public feud or opposition to the temporal power within the church is another thing, but
then, there is no need for secret archives.

Both heresies we know of solely exist because they have proof stating a different truth.

Catholic church heresies are historically linked to different interpretations of texts that were translated several times with various accuracy. No room for that on Safehold, the books are litterally word of God.

Randomiser wrote:Still think SYED is on very thin ice with his assertions that 'it stands to reason' that the Inquisition must have preserved secret copies of every heretical text. I think they were much more likely to have destroyed them, even in more liberal times on Safehold. Paityr Wylsynn is well enough connected in the Inquisition that he ought to, at least, know about any such secret archives, but no mention of any such thing from him.

I can only think of 2 reasons for keeping such an archive. One is educational, you want to teach priests why these heresies are wrong so they can better guide their congregations (as happens in every Christian theological college) but then, of course they are not secret. Or you have an index of banned books and you need the archive to check if any book is really the banned one or just something with an unhappily chosen title, say, but we have no textev of any Index Expurgatorius on Safehold - and, again, for a banned book list to be effective in protecting the faithful you have to publish the actual list.

Joat42 wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:I'm glad that I was mistaken about what you meant.

As I told alj-sf, those archives make sense.

And every time someone goes ga-ga over some document from 14th century I cry a little over what was lost in Alexandria.

And all the other libraries that have burned over the years.

alj_sf wrote:I agree totally. More, there is no textev yet that any public heresy exist today.

In fact, with a such revealed religion with seemingly non contestable proof (with the testimonies) and after victory in the war of the fallen, heresies are facing a very steep threeshold to exist and last longer than a New-york minute. Public feud or opposition to the temporal power within the church is another thing, but
then, there is no need for secret archives.

Both heresies we know of solely exist because they have proof stating a different truth.

Catholic church heresies are historically linked to different interpretations of texts that were translated several times with various accuracy. No room for that on Safehold, the books are litterally word of God.

Safehold also has no need for translations - every one speaks a variant of the same language, though linguistic drift gave us Spanish, French and Portuguese in a similar period of time after the fall of the Roman empire (Italian took a little longer, with good Latin being spoken in some parts of northern Italy into the mid 1800's).

alj_sf wrote:Brown in addition to have a bad style imo is not even able to have the various parts of the puzzle fit properly.
I forced myself to finish davinci

One author was able to use properly this kind of mysteries, because he is himself a scholar, and it is Umberto Eco. "The Name of the Rose" subject is even about forbidden libraries, but not the Vatican one unfortunately. "Foucault's Pendulum" is even better.

After I read "The Davinci Code", I made a remark about the conspiracy connections Brown could find in any 3rd grader's finger painting. He stretched the "Sacred Feminine" symbol so far by the end of the book, pretty much everybody in the world but the reader and the protagonists had to be in on the plot, knowingly or unknowingly.

In the follow on books, I was waiting for something akin to that symbol to be discussed, like "the Holy Circle" or "the Sacred Dotted Line" so that the characters could find clues on consipring boxes of breakfast cereal.

There are many commentaries written by the sainst, adams and eves, adn church men. WHat if some of them were disapproved of and quitly pushed out? THE charis priest cant have been the first to upset the church.

SYED wrote:There are many commentaries written by the sainst, adams and eves, adn church men. WHat if some of them were disapproved of and quitly pushed out? THE charis priest cant have been the first to upset the church.

I think that's a valid point. It doesn't have to be outright heresy, just different interpretations could be enough for the Inquisition to react.
And I can imagine them being saved in some archive but they could instantly be destroyed too. There isn't any banned books list but these bans never work like they should anyway. Paityr has never spoken of banned books which are used in training the Inquisition but that doesn't mean they don't exist...

Boronian wrote:

SYED wrote:There are many commentaries written by the sainst, adams and eves, adn church men. WHat if some of them were disapproved of and quitly pushed out? THE charis priest cant have been the first to upset the church.

I think that's a valid point. It doesn't have to be outright heresy, just different interpretations could be enough for the Inquisition to react.
And I can imagine them being saved in some archive but they could instantly be destroyed too. There isn't any banned books list but these bans never work like they should anyway. Paityr has never spoken of banned books which are used in training the Inquisition but that doesn't mean they don't exist...

Or just plain gone missing. The books of Mary Magdelene and Judas Iscariot tend to spring to mind...

Caliban wrote:

Boronian wrote: I think that's a valid point. It doesn't have to be outright heresy, just different interpretations could be enough for the Inquisition to react.
And I can imagine them being saved in some archive but they could instantly be destroyed too. There isn't any banned books list but these bans never work like they should anyway. Paityr has never spoken of banned books which are used in training the Inquisition but that doesn't mean they don't exist...

Or just plain gone missing. The books of Mary Magdelene and Judas Iscariot tend to spring to mind...

Don't forget Maya and Aztec works - missionaries of the Catholic church burned all but 4 or 5 of the thousands of codices written in Mezo-America before Columbus. Whether a sanctioned Church practice or not, the missionaries and priests on the spot did it to destroy the old, pagan religions.

A local Safehold priest, having tripped across such a writen heresy could have taken it upon himself to destroy said works without approval or permission from the greater church, since it's mere existance contradicts every proof of the Writ and Teachings, it must be the work of Shan Wei and it's further existance poisonous to the soul.

Whether he informed someone or not, the matter may not have gone much further. No one wants to admit they had evil growing under their noses, it's bad for business (Unless you are part of the Inquision, then finding the evil is your business), so it is possible that "someone" in the chain of command could have hidden the knowledge of the hidden knowledge and/or commanded it's destruction - all WITHOUT it being "offically" Church sanctioned.

Or said priest could take it upon himself to hide it... Luck of the draw... human nature can't be boiled down to cookie cutter responses no matter how the inquisition might wish it was otherwise.

Don