Meme 194: Touchstone: Stratford Caldecott: The Lord & Lady of the Rings
Premise Checker
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=15-01-051-f
sent 9.8.5
This article changed my thinking about Roman Catholicism, and I thank Sarah for
finding it. I am the product of a Protestant culture and had heard that
Catholics treat Mary as a god and that (snicker) their saints are really pagan
polythesism. The underlying idea is that Catholicism became corrupt and the
Protestant Re-Form-Ation was an effort to get back to the true teachings of
Christ. Besides, and this really resonates with me, it is up to each to decide
what the Bible means, not some "tradition," that any backwoods Baptist preacher
knows as much about first and last things as the Pope. (An atheist, I agree:
both know exactly nothing.)
I know enough history to realize that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther did not
believe in religious freedom, that he wanted to supplant a corrupt church with
truly this time the one true church (his).
And I absorbed from my favorite book, The Might of the West, by Lawrence R.
Brown (1963) that Aquinas used Aristotle to hammer the Levantine elements out
of Christianity and also that Western civilization is the loneliest and the
most difficult to bear. This being too hard for Luther, he did not chuck
religion altogether but instead wanted to recover a simpler one.
My temperament is too Protestant and individualist to really accept Brown. Now
comes along this article, about Catholic symbolism pervading The Lord of the
Rings. I had thought the article would be entertaining, but it was much more.
NOW I grasp how (at least a little) the whole business about the Virgin Mary
fits into a whole structure of religious thought, namely Western Christianity.
My Protestant literalism knows that Mary's virginity is not scriptural
(Catholics admit as much) but that the business of her perpetual virginity is
highly disputable. There are references to "Jesus and his brothers," which
Catholics insist is really "Jesus and *the* brothers." The Greek word here is
not the unambiguous word for "his" but a word that can mean either "his" or
"the." So, I reasoned, this particular piece of Catholicism would not have
gotten off the ground, had it flatly contradicted the Bible.
There are no differences of any theological importance among the NT MSs
different factions use. Or so I thought until I read Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus
(2005). He says that most of the 300K differences among the MSs are indeed
trivial, but not all. He argues that the orthodox (in retrospect) chose the
variants that suited them most. I don't recall what he said about Jesus'
brothers, but there is solid manuscript support even for the idea that Jesus is
not divine but rather was adopted by God to fulfill His mission. Erdman says
that antiadoptationists (there's a new word for you) may even have forged MSs.
Forget all this. Instead, appreciate what a fabulous structure Europeans have
fleshed out as you read, as have for the first time, how intricate the
Perpetual Virgin Mary became when Christianity was Europeanized. I am busily
investigating the world's other religions and will report on what I find,
whether there is anything remotely comparable to Aquinas's Summa Theologica.
And maybe what the Protestants have done in their own theologies. But even if
they have done as good a job, their efforts are little known. They do not
infuse the practice of the religion anything like Catholic theology does.
Do I judge religions by their theological elaborations and how wonderful they
are? Mostly, partly? What about music, painting, and moral consequences?
No, the article did not make a Catholic out of me, or even a theist. My
fundamental objections remain. If I were to become a Christian again, would I
prefer Catholicism? As I explained before, I prefer not just a Europeanized
Christianity but that eminently Americanized one called Mormonism. And after
much prayerful reflection, I have concluded that, if Christianity is true, the
Mormonism is true and that God does not answer my prayers because I fit better
into His purposes if I remain outside and see that, not only does God evolve,
but that He wants mankind to do what He did, become a God himself. Believing in
Him would ruin the necessary detachment. I conclude my reward will be meeting
Sarah in the highest reaches of the Celestial Kingdom.
And, I now conclude, Joseph Smith was not exactly right when he said that the
Church fell into the Great Apostasy with the death of the last Apostle. It
matters little whether the Trinity is true (the textual justification of it is
weak and the quote passages of dubious authenticity). What matters is that
there was an increasing tempo of human agency from the Greeks to the Fourth
Lateran Council of 1215 that mandated annual confession to an agency so robust
in the wilds of America that the Moroni spoke to Joseph. The religion, in other
words, had to go through a European phrase before it went into an American one.
What also matters, and this is new to my thinking thanks to the review below,
is grasping how religion evolves and that earlier forms are not to be condemned
but to be understood. Now I grasp how the Mary profoundly fits in to one
elaboration. Am I guilty of forgetting that Catholicism has continued to evolve
after Luther's Theses and that Protestantism evolves after Joseph? I am.
Premise Checking involves a lot of work. Later.
+++
The Hidden Presence of Tolkien's Catholicism in The Lord of the Rings
by Stratford Caldecott
With the release in December 2001 of The Fellowship of the Ring, the
first of a three-movie series based on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord
of the Rings, public interest in the Oxford don whose private hobby
has entranced millions has been rekindled. Yet how many of those who
see the film will detect its original author's Christian
inspiration?
For once, this is not a criticism that can be directed against
Hollywood for having bowdlerized the text. The author himself,
though no admirer of popular American culture, did his best long
before his own death in 1973 (as we know from his published Letters)
to disguise or extirpate virtually all references to religious
practice, and most to religious belief, in his imaginary world. And
yet there remains a strong religious presence throughout the written
work. Whatever we may think of the movie (and I have not seen it at
the time of writing), this hidden Christian presence is worth
investigating.
Tolkien's friend, drinking partner, and fellow "Inkling" C. S. Lewis
is well known as a Christian convert and a writer of apologetics.
J. R. R. Tolkien's Roman Catholicism is less familiar to us, partly
because he did not see himself as a religious writer in the same
sense. He did not feel called to enter the lists as a writer on
Christian themes, let alone as a theologian or philosopher of
religion. Nevertheless, with the posthumous publication in 1981 of
his Letters, this side of his life was exposed to view, and it
became clear that Catholic belief and sensibility permeated every
aspect of his life1--including the writing of the fantasies that
were so derided by many of his academic colleagues and that have
proved so enduringly popular.
The Letters make interesting reading, also, because of the close
integration that is evident there between the author's faith and his
intelligence. Pope John Paul II once famously said, "A faith that
does not become culture is a faith that has not been accepted in its
fullness, which has not been totally reflected upon, or faithfully
lived." Tolkien may not have been a professional theologian, may not
even have seen himself as a religious thinker, but in him we see
faith becoming culture, as I hope to demonstrate.
Creation & Temptation
The Lord of the Rings is not a book about religion, but it is the
expression of a religious soul working under God. It is an act of
"sub-creation," as Tolkien put it in his famous essay "On
Fairy-stories": It involves the creation of an imaginary world as
much as possible along the lines God might have used, had he decided
to create it.2 At one point Tolkien describes this as "a tribute to
the infinity of [God's] potential variety."3
Creativity is indeed one of the major themes of Tolkien's fiction,
including many of the minor stories such as "Leaf by Niggle," which
will not be examined in this essay. The vast, rambling literary
tapestry that forms the backdrop for Tolkien's major work, much of
which was only published posthumously in The Unfinished Tales, The
Silmarillion, and the multi-volume History of Middle Earth after
collation and editing by his son Christopher Tolkien, begins with a
creation myth: the "Ainulindalë." The creation of the Ainur (Angels)
by Ilúvatar, the One God, is followed by the proposal of a "musical
theme," which the Ainur then embellish. One of their number, Melkor,
jealous of the creative powers of the One, attempts to subvert the
theme. Ilúvatar shows the music to the Ainur in the form of a vision
of earthly history, and finally brings it into actuality. Entering
into it, the Ainur become Valar--gods or guardians--and descend to
play the parts they have chosen within it, contending from the
outset against the chaos introduced by the dark Angel.
In an unfinished letter,4 Tolkien describes this as "differing"
somewhat from most Christian accounts of the Creation, in that the
Angelic Fall takes place before the creation of the material world,
and consequently a tendency to evil is able to enter into the world
"already when the Let it Be was spoken" by Ilúvatar. However,
Tolkien has no intention of writing in contradiction to Christian
orthodoxy. He is a devout and well-instructed Catholic, a daily
communicant. Whether the Angelic Fall takes place before or after
the creation of matter (and the Christian tradition is, after all,
ambiguous or silent on this point), Tolkien has no doubt that evil
is the result of free decisions by a created nature that was good at
the outset. Furthermore, while the evil that is done by Melkor may
destroy the original design of the Creator and mar the creation at
every level, the eventual victory of Ilúvatar is certain, for even
the work of the Fallen will somehow prove "a part of the whole and
tributary to its glory."5 In Tolkien's perspective, history is a
"long defeat," but it ends in a great healing, when "the themes of
Ilúvatar shall be played aright."
The motif of creation and temptation continues within the history of
Arda (the Earth). After the coming into the world of the Firstborn
of Ilúvatar, the Elves, a second great Fall takes place. The elvish
craftsman Fëanor fashions three great jewels called "Silmarils" and
places within them a portion of the light from the two Trees that at
that time illuminate the world. The Trees are subsequently destroyed
by the Evil One, but Fëanor refuses to yield up the jewels, which
alone can heal the Trees and restore their light. Subsequent history
revolves around the fate of the Silmarils. They are stolen by
Morgoth, who is pursued by Fëanor and his sons. The quest for the
jewels and the conflicts it creates among the Elves themselves are
the engine that drives much of the early history. The events of
subsequent ages, after the jewels themselves are lost in the fires
of the earth, in the deeps of the sea, and among the stars, are an
echo and a consequence of these great events--the continuation (as
Sam observes to Frodo near the end of their particular adventure) of
one story that goes on and on, as the free will of creatures is
caught up in a music that was conceived before the beginning of
time.
Obviously, the story is fiction. Yet the texture of it is somehow
faithful to reality. Tolkien wanted to write realistically, in the
sense that he was imitating and describing, not the way the world
is, but the way God works in the world. Furthermore, while Tolkien's
aversion to allegory is well known, he definitely viewed the
symbolism of the story as a way of communicating truth. He did not
want to invent something entirely original, but to discover and
explore a possible world; and he knew that for a world to be
possible it has to reflect in its own substance and design, under
whatever marvelous and unexpected forms, the same divine Wisdom and
Goodness that we find in this one.6
Beyond the Circles of the World
In 1971, near the end of his life, Tolkien wrote of The Lord of the
Rings that "It was written slowly and with great care for detail,
and finally emerged as a Frameless Picture: a searchlight, as it
were, on a brief period in History, and on a small part of our
Middle-Earth, surrounded by the glimmer of limitless extensions in
time and space." On one level he was consciously inventing things;
on another he was discovering the nature of the real world, "our"
Middle-earth, as he says here. And he was continually puzzling about
the relationship between the two.
I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world had
been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost
forgotten sunlight had poured down again. As if indeed the horns
of Hope had been heard again, as Pippin heard them suddenly at
the absolute nadir of the fortunes of the West. But How? And
Why?7
In Tolkien's vision, time flows ever downward, and successive Golden
Ages are lost in the mists of memory. The Elves manage to preserve
islands of unfallen beauty for awhile only by the power of the Three
Rings, forged in an age after the loss of the Simarils. Their hearts
draw them towards their true home in the Far West, and the time of
Men is fast approaching. Yet The Lord of the Rings does, as Tolkien
says, evoke a sense of hope, and perhaps even the Christian virtue
of hope.
The book is set in a prehistoric period long before the Incarnation,
yet because Tolkien had tried to construct his world in a way that
would faithfully echo the wisdom of the true Creator, and although
"the Incarnation of God is an infinitely greater thing than anything
I would dare to write,"8 he had to ensure that the Incarnation of
the Son of God would make sense within such a world. He even at one
time constructed a fragmentary prophecy to this effect. The prophecy
states that Ilúvatar will one day enter personally into his creation
and heal it from within. It may be found in the "Debate of Finrod
and Andreth," which turns precisely on the question of hope.9 Finrod
speaks of a kind of hope called Estel.
It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come
from experience, but from our nature and first being. If we are
indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not
suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not
even by ourselves. This is the last foundation of Estel, which we
keep even when we contemplate the End: of all His designs the
issue must be for His Children's joy.
Estel, then, means trust in God.10
Of the beginnings of things Tolkien wrote a great deal more than of
their ending. I have mentioned the creation myth he constructed,
which is extremely beautiful. It is more elaborate than the biblical
account, but not in conflict with it. I suppose even the central
importance he gives to song and music (as does C. S. Lewis, if you
recall Aslan "singing" Narnia into existence in The Magician's
Nephew) may have been suggested to him by those famous lines in the
Book of Job: "Where were you . . . when the morning stars sang
together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" (Job 38:4-7) in
the Authorized Version, or "when the morning stars praised me
together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody" in the
Douay-Rheims.
The Gift of Death
But one important divergence from the Christian description of
reality should be noted here, for it may appear to undermine the
novel's "implicit orthodoxy." Writing in 1954, Tolkien himself is
not sure whether or not it could be construed as heretical.11 It is
the idea that death is not a punishment for sin, but a great gift
and an inherent part of the nature of Man. In The Silmarillion
(which may be viewed as an extension of the Appendices of The Lord
of the Rings and essential to its deeper appreciation), Tolkien
gives an account of the Creator's thoughts as he plans the destiny
of Men and Elves. He wills "that the hearts of Men should seek
beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should
have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of
the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all
things else. . . ." And
It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men
dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to
it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not. . . . wherefore
they are called the Guests, or the Strangers. Death is their
fate, the gift of Ilúvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers
shall envy.12
By 1958 he had come up with this justification for his apparent
departure from the traditional intepretation of the Genesis account
of the origin of death, which might at first sound rather feeble:
But it must be remembered that mythically these tales are
Elf-centered, not anthropocentric, and Men only appear in them,
at what must be a point long after their Coming. This is
therefore an "Elvish" view, and does not necessarily have
anything to say for or against such beliefs as the Christian that
"death" is not part of human nature, but a punishment for sin
(rebellion), a result of the "Fall."
But then he goes on to make a deeper point, which for me illustrates
the way his fiction, though not consciously constructed according to
a theological template, becomes a medium for the uncovering of
theological and spiritual truth. He writes:
It should be regarded as an Elvish perception of what death--not
being tied to the "circles of the world"--should now become for
Men, however it arose. A divine "punishment" is also a divine
"gift" if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and
the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make "punishments"
(that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be
attained: a "mortal" Man has probably (an Elf would say) a higher
if unrevealed destiny than a longeval one.13
The Order of Grace & the Virgin's Humility
I have argued that The Lord of the Rings is fundamentally orthodox
in intention and spirit. It is permeated with a sense of eternity,
of the objective order of good and evil, and of an all-wise
Providence: This is all part of that "forgotten sunlight" that
serves to awaken us from the sleep of materialism. The spirit of
courtesy that we see in Aragorn and Faramir, the respect for women
and the determination to protect the weak, the virtues of courage
and fortitude and prudence and justice that shine in these noble
characters, are patterns of goodness that were learned from the
gospel.
This is a world, therefore, in which the Incarnation makes glorious
sense. It is a world in which the action of divine grace is very
evident: as much so, one might argue, as in the very different
fictional works of Flannery O'Connor.
It would be easy, of course, to point out, as many have already (and
rightly) done, types and symbols of Christ himself in The Lord of
the Rings. Aspects of Christ are present in Frodo (who sacrifices
himself for the sake of his world), in Gandalf (who dies and returns
from death), and in Aragorn (the true and hidden king).
But Tolkien was also a Roman Catholic Christian, and in this final
part of my essay I want to explore another theme that is
characteristic of that Roman Catholicism which was so dear to him.
It is an aspect of Roman Catholicism that many (including Tolkien's
friend C. S. Lewis) find alienating, namely, its veneration of the
Virgin Mary. But as Tolkien's Catholic faith was profound and
instinctive, it would have been as hard for him to separate the
Virgin Mary's presence from Christ's as to separate Our Lord from
Scripture or the Church.
"I think I know exactly what you mean by the order of Grace,"
J. R. R. Tolkien wrote to his Jesuit friend Robert Murray in 1953,
just before the first volume of The Lord of the Rings appeared, "and
of course by your references to Our Lady, upon which all my own
small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is
founded."14 If this statement is accurate, it is somewhat
remarkable. Tolkien's novel is permeated with beauty, from the
natural beauties of landscape and forest, mountains and streams, to
the moral beauty of heroism and integrity, friendship and honesty.
In what sense could "Our Lady" (to use her Catholic title) be the
foundation of Tolkien's perceptions and understanding of these
things? Would this in any case not detract from his relationship to
Our Lord, who is surely the true foundation of beauty, as he is of
truth and goodness? The Letters themselves do not help us much with
this question, except indirectly. It is clear that Tolkien's
devotion to Our Lord was also profound, and in his mind there could
be no conflict between the two. But he did not reflect here
explicitly on points that might concern an Evangelical reader, for
he took the lack of conflict for granted.15
How may we best approach this theme? One way is by first recalling
some words the Virgin Mary sings in the Gospel of Luke (1:52): "He
hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low
degree." Tolkien's novel is about many things--including, as we have
seen, the fearful mystery of death, the nostalgia for paradise, and
the temptations associated with power. But as he himself states, it
is particularly about "the ennoblement (or sanctification) of the
humble."16 The Hobbits are the representatives of this humility, and
they are raised through adventure and self-sacrifice into the
company of princes.17 In his essay "On Fairy-stories," Tolkien cites
with approval Andrew Lang's comment: "He who would enter into the
Kingdom of Faerie should have the heart of a little child."
This quality of innocence and childlikeness, which was reintroduced
into the world by Christ and taught in the Sermon on the Mount, is
one of the most marked characteristics of the good Hobbits in
Tolkien's tale. It is perhaps one of the main reasons for their
universal appeal, and for the wholesomeness and gentleness that
makes the book so continually refreshing to the spirit--so much so
that many of us return to it year after year, to wash away the
encrusted grime of an older, wearier, and more cynical age.
The first way in which "Our Lady" of Tolkien's Catholicism is
present in The Lord of the Rings is, therefore, in the form of
humility, which occupies the central place in the hierarchy of
virtues within Tolkien's cosmos. In the Catholic tradition, the
spirit of childlikeness and innocence is associated particularly
with the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is not because she was its
source, since innocence (like existence itself) clearly comes from
God, and even the human possibility of it has to be won back for us
by Christ on the Cross. It is associated with her in Catholic
teaching because she is its primary vessel: the human container, the
sacred "chalice" as it were, into which the waters of grace were
poured, once they had been released by the sacrificial Passion of
Our Lord. She is thus viewed as more than a symbol or biblical
"type" of the Church; she is its first member, and indeed its most
perfect member, having been preserved (by anticipation of her freely
accepted role in the Incarnation) from all stain and damage of sin,
in order to become a suitable Mother to the divine Child and all the
subsequent sons and daughters of the Church.18
Feminine Reflections
There is a second way in which the Virgin Mary is present, and that
is through her reflections in certain feminine characters,
specifically Galadriel and Elbereth.19 Galadriel is one of the
pivotal elvish characters: Bearer of one of the three Rings and
preserver of the land of Lothlorien, Tolkien himself calls her
"unstained" (a word that Catholics normally only use of the Virgin
Mary), adding that "she had committed no evil deeds."20 In another
letter he wrote: "I think it is true that I owe much of this
character to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about
Mary."21
Yet the workings and reworkings of his manuscript reveal an
ambiguity, or an evolution, for in earlier drafts Galadriel was a
leader in the rebellion of the Elves against the Valar, the world's
angelic guardians. From this rebellion Tolkien obviously later felt
the need to absolve her. In the Unfinished Tales, we find a chapter
containing the "History of Galadriel and Celeborn," in which
Christopher Tolkien records the "late and partly illegible note"
that is "the last writing of my father's on the subject . . . set
down in the last month of his life." In this revised history, which
he intended to incorporate in the next version of The Silmarillion,
Galadriel is not at all involved in the rebellion of the Elves but
indeed opposed it, and was caught up in the departure from Aman to
Middle-earth through no fault of her own. Thus she was morally as
well as "physically" equipped to be the elvish leader in
Middle-earth of resistance to Sauron. We see here, I think, the
pressure of the Marian archetype in Tolkien's imagination on the
development of the character of Galadriel.
Not quite "immaculate" (without sin), then, in the official version,
but to the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings, and even to the Dwarf
Gimli (who asks for the parting gift of a hair from her head, which
he intends to enshrine within imperishable crystal), Galadriel is
nevertheless a vision of wisdom, beauty, and grace, of light
untarnished.
Galadriel, however, remains an earthly figure. In Roman Catholic
devotion and dogma, Mary, having been assumed into heaven at the end
of her earthly life, has long been venerated as Queen of Heaven and
"Star of the Sea." We find this cosmic aspect of the Marian
archetype expressed in the person of Galadriel's own heavenly
patroness, Elbereth, Queen of the Stars, who plays the role in
Tolkien's legendarium of transmitting light from the heavenly
places. It is to Elbereth that the Elves sing the following
invocation:
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western seas!
O light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy Starlight on the Western seas.
Tolkien would have been familiar with one of the most popular
Catholic hymns from his childhood, the tone and mood of which are
markedly close to those of Tolkien's song to Elbereth:22
Hail, Queen of Heaven, the ocean star,
Guide of the wand'rer here below:
Thrown on life's surge, we claim thy care--Save us from peril and from woe.
Mother of Christ, star of the sea,
Pray for the wanderer, pray for me.
Light & Incarnation
There is a third way in which the Virgin Mary's presence would be
clearly noticed by Catholics in The Lord of the Rings, and it is
under the symbol of light. Galadriel's parting gift to Frodo is a
phial containing light from the Morning Star. As one might expect,
from the key role this gift is to play in the story, it is a highly
symbolic gesture. Not only does it create a further link between
Galadriel and Elbereth the "Star-Kindler," but it also establishes
an important connection to the great saga of the Silmarils, which I
mentioned earlier. For the Morning Star, in Tolkien's cosmos, is the
light shining from the Silmaril bound upon the brow of Eärendil, the
father of Elrond, after he is sent by the Valar to sail the heavens
and "keep watch upon the ramparts of the sky" following the defeat
and exile of Morgoth.23 It is this light, from an age before the Sun
and Moon, that shines in the phial that Frodo carries away from
Lothlorien, and which aids him in the conflict with the giant spider
Shelob, a creature of darkness who is herself a descendant of
Ungoliant, the destroyer of the Two Trees.
Light shining in darkness, representing the life, grace, and
creative action of God, is a theme we find in the Prologue of St.
John's Gospel, and it is at the very heart of Tolkien's writing.24
To a Catholic such as Tolkien, who believes Mary to be the universal
mediatrix of that grace, she is present implicitly wherever her Son
is present; that is, wherever grace is present in the world. For
Tolkien, then, the light of the Silmaril, which beautifies whoever
wears it, and which is carried by Frodo into the darkness of Mordor,
is a reminder of the beauty of the "first creation" before the Fall,
and a symbolic anticipation of the new creation that would begin
with the Incarnation. For Catholics, the Virgin Mary has all the
beauty lost by Eve, the "Mother of the living," and is therefore the
Mother of the world to come.
To a puzzled non-Christian, who tells him that he has created a
world "in which some sort of faith seems to be everywhere without a
visible source, like light from an invisible lamp,"25 Tolkien
replies:
Of his own sanity no man can securely judge. If sanctity inhabits
his work or as a pervading light illumines it then it does not
come from him but through him. And neither of you would perceive
it in these terms unless it was with you also. Otherwise you
would see and feel nothing, or (if some other spirit was present)
you would be filled with contempt, nausea, hatred. "Leaves out of
the elf-country, gah!" "Lembas--dust and ashes, we don't eat
that."26
The final example of Mary's presence in The Lord of the Rings comes
close to the end of the book, when the Ring has been destroyed and
Sauron's work undone. The Ringbearer has fulfilled his mission. As
Frodo lies in bed recovering from the ordeal, Gandalf happens to
mention the date on which the world's salvation was achieved and the
Dark Lord destroyed. In Gondor, he says, "the New Year will always
now begin upon the twenty-fifth of March when Sauron fell, and when
you were brought out of the fire to the King. He has tended you, and
now he awaits you. You shall eat and drink with him. When you are
ready I will lead you to him."
In our world, Tolkien's "Primary World," March 25 is the Christian
feast day of the Annunciation. It used to be called Lady Day, and
was indeed the first day of the year. It is, of course, exactly nine
months before Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity, December
25--itself the date on which The Fellowship of the Ring is said to
have set out from Rivendell. In our world, March 25 is the day when
Christ was conceived, celebrated with readings that describe the
Virgin Mary's "yes" to God (Luke 1:38).27
Why choose this date for the destruction of the Ring? Well, think
what the Ring represents. The Ring of Power exemplifies the dark
magic of the corrupted will, the assertion of self in disobedience
to God. It appears to give freedom, but its true function is to
enslave the wearer to the Fallen Angel. It corrodes the human will
of the wearer, rendering him increasingly "thin" and unreal; indeed,
its gift of invisibility symbolizes this ability to destroy all
natural human relationships and identity.
You could say the Ring is sin itself: tempting and seemingly
harmless to begin with, increasingly hard to give up and corrupting
in the long run. Its destruction, therefore, is a type or figure of
the great reversal of sin begun at the Annunciation when Mary
welcomed the Word of God into our world. Her fiat, "Let it be to me
according to your word," overturns the human refusal of God's will
that we call Original Sin.28 That sin also resulted in a kind of
invisibility, as Adam hid from the Lord in the garden of Eden: "And
the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, 'Where art thou?'"
(Gen. 3:9).
Beatitudes & Magnificat
In the National Gallery in London is a small panel painting known as
the Wilton Diptych. Commissioned by Richard II, it is one of the
most precious and mysterious works of art in England. It shows the
king kneeling, surrounded by saints, offering the nation to the
Virgin Mary, or perhaps to the baby Jesus who is in her arms,
reaching out to receive it. The king is surrounded by a barren and
forbidding landscape; but at the feet of the Madonna and Child the
ground is green with grass and bright with flowers, just as the air
around her is thronged with angels.
This is the Mary who is ever-present to Tolkien, at the center of
his imagination, who in Catholic teaching is mantled by all natural
beauty, the most perfect of God's creatures, the treasury of all
earthly and spiritual gifts. What Elbereth, Galadriel, and other
characters, such as Lúthien and Arwen, surely express is precisely
what Tolkien said he had found in the Blessed Virgin: beauty both in
majesty and simplicity. Majesty, for here we see beauty crowned with
all the honors that chivalry can bestow; and as for simplicity,
well, what is more simple than starlight?
I have argued that, in addition to the obvious types and symbols of
Christ, the Virgin Mary is present in a hidden, implicit way
throughout The Lord of the Rings. The way the fragrance of the Our
Lord's Beatitudes and the Magnificat of the Blessed Virgin Mary
permeates Tolkien's great work of fiction is typical of the
authentic products of a Christian civilization. Works of the
imagination are works of the spirit as well as the hand of the
artist, and they are "true" to the extent that they convey a sense
of the realities of virtue and of grace that determine the pattern
of our lives. This is something that The Lord of the Rings achieves,
by the literary device of filtering the sagas and epics of northern
Europe through a Christian consciousness.
No human work of art is perfect, but it can reach for perfection,
and it may be worthy of being assumed into the Kingdom when God
raises us up and completes our labor. I have no doubt that Tolkien's
great tale will be one of those we will hear told, or sung, by the
golden fireside in that longed-for Kingdom.
Notes:
1. Tolkien's Catholicism has been explored in Joseph Pearce's
literary biography, Tolkien: Man and Myth (HarperCollins, 1998).
2. "On Fairy-stories" is published in a number of anthologies of
Tolkien's writing.
3. Letters, p. 188 (153). The page number refers to the British
edition published by Allen & Unwin (1981) later reprinted by
HarperCollins. Since the US edition by Houghton Mifflin may have
different page numbers, I have placed in parentheses the number of
the letter in question, throughout these notes.
4. Letters, p. 286 (212).
5. The Silmarillion (Allen & Unwin, 1977), p. 17.
6. See the footnote in Letters, pp. 193-194 (153), for more detail
about the role of religion in the imaginative world of The Lord of
the Rings. The famous letter to Robert Murray, S.J., in which he
explains why he has cut out most references to religion, to cults or
practices, so that "the religious element" may be "absorbed into the
story and the symbolism," is found on p. 172 (142) of the same book.
7. Letters, pp. 412-413 (328).
8. Letters, p. 237 (181).
9. J. R. R. Tolkien, Morgoth's Ring (HarperCollins, 1994), pp.
303-366.
10. There is no explicit mention of this prophecy in The Lord of the
Rings, although the wiser characters (Bombadil and Gandalf) do drop
hints about an eventual "healing" of the world at the end of time.
11. "It might or might not be 'heretical,' if these myths were
regarded as statements about the actual nature of Man in the real
world: I do not know" (Letters, footnote p. 205 [156]).
12. Silmarillion, pp. 41-42. But he adds of this gift that "Melkor
has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and
brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope."
13. Letters, pp. 286-287 (212). In "The Debate of Finrod and
Andreth," which Christopher Tolkien dates around this time or
slightly later (1959), Andreth refers to the fact that Men had known
"that in our beginning we had been born never to die." A large part
of the discussion revolves around the question of what this might
mean, given the nature of Man as a being composed of body and soul.
14. Letters, p. 172 (142).
15. For Tolkien's discussion of the "sins of the Church" and of his
devotion to the Eucharist, however, see Letters, pp. 336-340 (250).
16. Letters, p. 237 (181).
17. In my view, Sam Gamgee is the real hero of the book (Tolkien
himself says this in Letter no. 131). He is the humblest of all, the
closest to the earth, and the one who heals the devastated little
world of the Shire with Galadriel's gift of magic soil when the
Quest is achieved.
18. It could be argued that her freedom to consent to the
Incarnation would itself have been flawed and weakened if she had
not been first exempted from the stain of sin.
19. As, one might argue, the Virgin Mary is present in other,
non-Catholic works of fantasy literature, such as George MacDonald's
The Princess and the Goblin (as the figure of the
great-great-great-great grandmother).
20. Letters, p. 431 (353).
21. Letters, p. 407 (320).
22. This has also been noted by Charles Coulombe, in his helpful
essay, "The Lord of the Rings--A Catholic View," in Joseph Pearce
(ed.), Tolkien: A Celebration (HarperCollins, 1999). Of course,
people had already pointed it out to Tolkien in his lifetime: see
Letters, p. 288 (213).
23. Silmarillion, p. 255.
24. On this subject see Verlyn Flieger, Splintered Light: Logos and
Language in Tolkien's World (Eerdmans, 1983).
25. Letters, p. 413 (328).
26. Ibid.
27. The significance of these dates is also noted by Tom Shippey in
his recent book, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
(HarperCollins, 2000), p. 208. John Saward's Mysteries of March:
Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Incarnation and Easter (Collins, 1990)
examines the relationship of all the Christian mysteries associated
with this date. For ancient authors such as Tertullian, it was also
the date of the Crucifixion, and of the creation and fall of Adam.
28. As for the Enemy, the Serpent in Eden, it is striking that the
name of Sauron is derived from the Greek sauros, meaning lizard. (It
is the same word that gives us "dinosaur.")
Stratford Caldecott is the founder and co-director of the Centre for
Faith & Culture in Oxford, and one of the editors of the journal
Second Spring.
"The Lord & Lady of the Rings" first appeared in the
January/February, 2002 issue of Touchstone.
[I am sending forth these memes, not because I agree wholeheartedly with all of
them, but to impregnate females of both sexes. Ponder them and
spread them.]
Lincoln Cannon
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Christian Schumann-Curtis
Frank, so far as I'm concerned, authentic Mormonism is not only a transhumanism, but also a neo-paganism.I had learned to call thee Father,Thru thy Spirit from on high,But, until the key of knowledgeWas restored, I knew not why.In the heav’ns are parents single?No, the thought makes reason stare!Truth is reason; truth eternalTells me I’ve a mother there.
Eliza Snow was the best!
--
Christian Schumann-Curtis
4300 SE 51st Ave.
Portland, OR 97206
503.774.3568
Premise Checker
neo-paganism (what's "neo") and not gnostic. My surfing has led me to
Mormons who, not being bound by Creedism, say the gnostic Christian
writings should be re-examined.
(Jesus actually laughs in the recently unearthed Gospel of Judas. I find
it awful the way certain "liberal" promoters of this gospel underplay the
gnosticism that runs throughout it, in hopes that the inerrancy of the NT
will be further undermined so that the non-"liberal" inconveniences will
go away.)
This is fine speculation, but remember that we are trying to promote
transhumanism and don't want to turn away good Mormons by gaining a
reputation for being weird.
On 2010-02-08, Lincoln Cannon opined [message unchanged below]:
> Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:52:54 -0700
> From: Lincoln Cannon <lin...@metacannon.net>
> Reply-To: transf...@googlegroups.com
> To: transf...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [mta] Meme 194: Touchstone: Stratford Caldecott: The Lord & Lady
> of the Rings
>
> Frank, so far as I'm concerned, authentic Mormonism is not only a
> transhumanism, but also a neo-paganism.
>
> I had learned to call thee Father,
> Thru thy Spirit from on high,
> But, until the key of knowledge
> Was restored, I knew not why.
> In the heav?ns are parents single?
> No, the thought makes reason stare!
> Truth is reason; truth eternal
> Tells me I?ve a mother there.
[snip]
Christian Schumann-Curtis
I really don't undestand the poem, but never mind.
The poem is the 3rd verse of a hymn "O My Father" written by prominent early LDS leader Eliza R. Snow. It's likely the most prominent reference to a "Mother in Heaven" in the LDS "canon" (if hymns can be counted as such, and many people do). Eliza R. Snow was an outspoken LDS prophetess who provides a profound and extensive resource for LDS thinking both generally and specifically on women's issues. While this hymn cycles in through LDS meetings fairly regularly, the subject of "Mother in Heaven" doesn't get a lot of air time in LDS meetings anymore.
Lincoln Cannon
MTA should emphasize these things - and it certainly has no official
position on these things. I'm expressing my personal perspective.
John Grigg
>>
Christian Schumann-Curtis
I have heard there are actually "Pagan Mormons" who practice a mixture of both faiths. Does anyone here know much about these folks and their practices?
I saw a byline in a Sunstone Magazine where the author was credited as a Mormon Mystic. I think I want to learn how to be one of those. I sent the guy and email, but I never heard back. I'm pretty sure it was the same issue that introduced me to Mormon Transhumanism,
Mormonism is about the right age for a religion to develop its mystic sect(s).
buraianto
mormonapologetics.org/) by the handle Tsuzuki who is both Mormon and a
practitioner of magick (or however they spell it nowadays.) Last I'd
checked in on the boards he was still there, and he was always
friendly and evangelical about his dual belief systems. I don't know
how similar he is to anyone else or any particular group, but he'd be
one to talk to about it.
Bryant
Carl Youngblood
John Grigg
Mormonism is about the right age for a religion to develop its mystic sect(s).
David Foster
I am actually on the yahoo groups mail list for both mormon mystics and LDS tarot. The tarot group is not highly active, but the mormon mystics has generally been just very disappointing. They don't seem very attatched to the church and most just believe whatever they want. As much as I am a mystic at heart, I have less and less patience with that group.
As for how to reconcile my faith -- easy. We have seer stones, urim, the sword of Laban, Liahona, and many other physical objects in our "mythology" that would count as mystical. Usings lots to decide things persisted enough into the NT that an apostle was picked using it. Likewise, we have similarities to Kaballah.... Jewish mysticism. Now I will hasten to add that there is no true divination without the spirit of the Lord. But that does not constrain His methods.
On Feb 11, 2010 6:00 PM, "John Grigg" <possible...@gmail.com> wrote:
Christian Schumann-Curtis <cu...@q.com> wrote:
Mormonism is about the right age for a religion to de...
An interesting thought. But they would have to walk a very tenuous tightrope to not be expelled from the Church (depending on how vocal & public they were). I admit to viewing mystics as at least mildly religious dissidents, in comparison to the mainstream institutions.But then again I believe that the Church *does* encourage members to seek direct experience/personal revelation from God. But such teaching does not negate the strong emphasis on doctrine and hierarchy.Hey, could the MTA actually be considered, "Techno-Mystics?" lolJohn : )
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Carl Youngblood
revelation if not mystical? I would say that mysticism can be very
orthodox and a very natural and welcome part of Mormon discourse.
Christian Schumann-Curtis
Premise Checker
fell that man might be" (2 Nephi 2:25) and Jesus like the lovely
intergration of Mary in Roman Catholicism, as described in the article.
On 2010-02-11, Carl Youngblood opined [message unchanged below]:
> Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:32:24 +0100
> From: Carl Youngblood <ca...@youngbloods.org>
> Reply-To: transf...@googlegroups.com
> To: transf...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [mta] Meme 194: Touchstone: Stratford Caldecott: The Lord & Lady
Doe Daughtrey
Doe
Doe