I assume that Gavin himself penned that beauty. Of course it applies only to
the Big "G" of Xtn. But we shouldn't despair that there is not a similar
summation for the big "G" of the Jews or Big "Y" in their case. In reading
Pound's essay on Allen Upward and THE DIVINE MYSTERY I ran across this
statement, "He (Upward) has derived the word God from the word Goat, which
will be a satisfaction to many." Now the thought crossed my mind that if
this were taken in the context of The Atonement, a ceremony in which the
sins of the tribe were put upon the head of a goat which was then banished
to the wilderness one might adapt Gavin's statement to read, God created the
world just so he'd have a place in which to exile himself".

> From: CENTRONE <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 12:39:03 -1000
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Big "G" and the orthodox heresy /Re: Pound panel(s) at the ALA?
> 
> god created the world just so he'd have a place to kill himself
> 
> I"d never heard that one before.  Can you tell me who said it?
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Francis Gavin" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 11:50 PM
> Subject: Big "G" and the orthodox heresy /Re: Pound panel(s) at the ALA?
> 
> 
>> And a neat trick too, Charlie, since Hallaj was executed by Mutawwakil in
>> Baghdad in 922 and Avicenna wasn't born until 980. Hallaj, like Servitus
> was
>> also burned alive, not hanged.
>> 
>> Apparently despite all the serene comforts of Sufism,  Hallaj did not die
>> well. There is a lineage out of all of that too -- Christians weren't
> burned
>> alive for heresy until after the Crusades were well under way and they got
>> to see the Muslims execute their heretics that way.
>> 
>> Kind of like the way the Romans admired crucifixion so much they just had
> to
>> steal it from the Carthaginians. Borges once suggested that god created
> the
>> Punic wars just so the Romans would adopt crucifixion and be his
> instrument
>> of suicide some two centuries later -- a narrowing down of the notion that
>> god created the world just so he'd have a place to kill himself. And if
> that
>> ain't heresy, I don't know what is.
>> 
>> GAVIN
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> on 1/13/06 5:15 AM, Charles Moyer at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> Avicenna's main work, PHILOSOPHIA ORIENTALIS, in which he may have
> clarified
>>> his rationalizations for big "G" further is lost, probably the last copy
> was
>>> used to light the fire that burned Michael Servitus or kicked out from
> under
>>> the feet of the hanging Mansur ibn al-Hallaj.