Of another world

[Glirdan]

Ooo!! Finally! Someone else who sees the biblical representation!! YAY!! Here's a link to the thread I started up awhile back. It was basically devoted to talk about any symbolic representations that you could find in any of the books. Now I and many others have already stated our thoughts on any of these subjects, so feel free to start it back up again.

[littlemanpoet]

I remember reading magazine articles way back in the early 1970s about how Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn were "Christ figures". So it seemed to many of us in that first heady rush way back when the books really took off for the first time in America. And so it often seems to many who come to Tolkien for the first time these days.

I used to think it was obvious that they were Christ figures. But I've learned a lot about myths and myth making since I first read those articles, and I've discovered that, even though such connections can be drawn, it doens't tell us the whole story about these characters.

Gandalf is an incarnated angel. The Sil tells us that. He dies while killing a Balrog, then Eru brings him back to life and reassigns him the same task he had, only at a higher level. So far so good. But Gandalf is not saying, "I am the way".

Frodo carries the burden of the Ring. This reminds us of the burden of our sins that Jesus carried on the cross. But Frodo in the end said "I will not do what I came to do." One cannot (honestly) conceive of Jesus saying that! It takes Gollum biting Frodo's finger off to get the Ring into the Fires. Frodo is thus wounded for life and does not experience resurrection; rather, he must go to Tol Eressëa to receive healing.

Aragorn is the promised and expected King who will take back his throne. He is virtually a chosen one. But he dies in the end and passes his crown to a son.

Sauron is the Dark Lord, the mover of great evils in the world. However, he is not responsible for every evil in the world. Nor is he a spirit who puts tempting thoughts in the minds of ordinary folks.

So yes, there are many harmonies between LotR and Christian faith. This is no surprise, since Tolkien was a Christian. But they are harmonies only, not direct linkages.

The Silmarillion, it seems to me, is a different kind of story. Eru resembles the Christian God in every way except for (1) the Trinity; (2) being directly involved with a chosen people. If Tolkien had included these two specific things in his story, it would have ceased to be a story unto itself, and would have been a mere retelling of biblical history. Obviously, Tolkien didn't want that. Nevertheless, there are even more harmonies between Christianity and the Sil than there are between Christianity and LotR.

Other members of the Downs will contend with great erudition that the Sil and LotR are no more Christian than they are Buddhist, Pagan, or what have you. I think they have a difficult case, though, seeing as Tolkien himself was Christian, and stated that LotR was consciously Christian in the revision.

[Aiwendil]

Littlemanpoet wrote:

The Silmarillion, it seems to me, is a different kind of story. Eru resembles the Christian God in every way except for (1) the Trinity; (2) being directly involved with a chosen people.

True, but I would point out:

1. I think it is possible to find a Trinity in the Legendarium:

Father = Eru
Son = Eventual incarnation hinted at in "Athrabeth"
Holy Spirit = Flame Imperishable

This has been touched on before, for example here.

2. The events depicted in the Silmarillion and LotR are apparently supposed to be pre-Judaic. It seems quite plausible that we are merely seeing in the Legendarium a stage in history before Eru establishes his covenant with a chosen people.

[goldfinger]

Very good points. We as Christians don't wish to die we just simply can't wait to get Heaven. Like a kid on Christmas Eve.

[davem]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Other members of the Downs will contend with great erudition that the Sil and LotR are no more Christian than they are Buddhist, Pagan, or what have you. I think they have a difficult case, though, seeing as Tolkien himself was Christian, and stated that LotR was consciously Christian in the revision.

I've stated before that the whole 'consciously so in the revision' thing, its simply not sustainable. I'm not saying Tolkien was lying - I'm sure he believed that - but if you can find any examples in HoM-e vols 6-9 where the revised LotR is more obviously Christian in form or content than the earlier drafts please show me them. In the Letters in particular we see Tolkien on the defensive a great deal of the time, being challenged by Christian readers on the orthodoxy of many elements of the story. Tolkien is clearly thinking in his feet in many of those letters & attempting to convince himself as much as his correspondents of the Christianity of his story.

As to finding clear & obvious 'Christian' elements/themes in the story. I suppose you can, but only if you know nothing of myth & fairy story. Incarnate spiritual/magical beings who die & are resurrected are legion - Odin, Osiris, Leminkainen, Llew Llaw Gyffes. The victory of the small insignificant youngest son achieved through an act of kindness to another, the lost King who returns to save his people - all these themes are commonplace in non-Christian traditions.

I'm reminded of an anecdote in 'The People's Guide to Tolkien'. The writer relates seeing a grandmother with her grandson in a bookshop, pointing out LotR & telling him he should read it, because it was a Christian book & would do him good.

[Lalwendë]

If you want to find elements of Christianity in Tolkien's work, then you can find them there, yes. You can also find a lot of other elements too. I think its all too easy to find a situation or character that reminds us of a biblical situation or character and put that together with Tolkien's own Catholicism and make the claim that this is a Christian book. We also have to remember that LotR is not an allegory, and that the world Tolkien created is a secondary world, a world which stands thoroughly on its own. There really is little other work like Tolkien's - he managed to create not only a world but a cosmology, and one which has logic and meaning outside our own world. If you wish to apply Christianity to it, then there is nothing to prevent this, but I think it is best appreciated and understood within itself.

The text does not exist within a vacuum and nor did Tolkien write it that way - not only was he a Catholic but he was also steeped in thoroughly Pagan mythology, and all these elements inevitably find their way into the text at points. So we can and should consider the text against those backgrounds, but ultimately, as this is its own world, final answers can only come from the text.

Tolkien was not always the devout Catholic; he created much of his myth when he was not a regular worshipper, and the evidence can be found in the oddities like Ungoliant who was conceived as a being who came from outside Eru's control. It is when we start to consider these kinds of elements that applying Real World religion can become problematic.

I would also seriously question what Tolkien's intentions were for the Silmarillion. He did not leave us with a final version, what we have now is someone else's version, and as you look through HoME you see just how many different versions there were, the later ones becoming ever more theologically tangled.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by davem

In the Letters in particular we see Tolkien on the defensive a great deal of the time, being challenged by Christian readers on the orthodoxy of many elements of the story. Tolkien is clearly thinking in his feet in many of those letters & attempting to convince himself as much as his correspondents of the Christianity of his story.

This is how you choose to interpret the Letters. I don't find this in them at all. I'm not surprised by this; it shows that you and I view these issues through different lenses.

Originally Posted by davem

As to finding clear & obvious 'Christian' elements/themes in the story. I suppose you can, but only if you know nothing of myth & fairy story.

This is a rather objectionable statement. I do happen to know plenty about myth and fairy story, as you should know; yet because I view these issues through different lenses than you, I see things that you don't see, and vice versa. The lens through which I see these things is that the myths to which you refer are not unlike the "unknown god" on the Acropolis in the book of Acts that the apostle Paul uses to present the Christian gospel to the Greeks. In like manner, the myths are dim, altered, sometimes shattered, often debased and diffused, reflections of the truth as presented in the Christian bible. That is my lens.

[davem]

Originally Posted by LMP

This is a rather objectionable statement. I do happen to know plenty about myth and fairy story, as you should know; yet because I view these issues through different lenses than you, I see things that you don't see, and vice versa. The lens through which I see these things is that the myths to which you refer are not unlike the "unknown god" on the Acropolis in the book of Acts that the apostle Paul uses to present the Christian gospel to the Greeks. In like manner, the myths are dim, altered, sometimes shattered, often debased and diffused, reflections of the truth as presented in the Christian bible. That is my lens.

Joseph Campbell pointed out the irrationality of Paul's action re the Unknown God. Saying 'I know something you don't know about your own Gods' was at best ignorant & at worst insulting. I don't recall him going to any of the Athenians & asking them to explain their beliefs, or what the statue symbolised. To claim that he was revealing the hidden truth to them simply showed that he had not the faintest grasp of philosophy. The 'Unknown God' symbolised the mystery of God, the Cloud of Unknowing, those things about Deity which cannot be known, & ultimately a humble & very public statement on the part of the Greeks that there are mysteries beyond human understanding. Paul coming along & claiming to know those mysteries was tantamount to telling them he knew the whole mystery of God (ie that he could explain what God was). The reaction of the majority of Athenians was quite understandable.

In like manner, the myths are dim, altered, sometimes shattered, often debased and diffused, reflections of the truth as presented in the Christian bible.

I suspect that our forefathers would find that statement quite 'objectionable'. I think our 'pre-Christian' ancestors saw their religious traditions (which is what myths were) as quite 'whole'. The idea that because Christianity contains elements that can be identified with aspects of other religious traditions it is Christianity which has the 'true' version & the others are all the result of ignorant savages struggling to get at the 'Truth' simply displays the same kind of hubris & ignorance as Paul displayed.

Plus, I think you'll find that to the extent that myths are 'dim, altered, sometimes shattered, often debased and diffused' it is pretty much down the early Christians destructive hatred of anything non-Christian. The great artworks of Antiquity lost, destroyed, defaced, the stories, the sacred places, twisted, corrupted & made to serve the 'new religion' is both beyond count & almost beyond mourning. For Christians (including Lewis & Tolkien) whose forerunners revelled in that very destruction to effectively look on what had survived & say 'Well, look at that confused mess! Its all quite hopeless, but there are sure signs there that they were struggling to be like us.' merely adds insult to injury. Is it not equally possible that it is Christianity that is a 'dim, altered, sometimes shattered, often debased and diffused, reflection of the truth as presented in the Pagan traditions - after all any objective observer can find more of Hellenism (where demi-gods, virgin births & the like abound) than Judaism in the Christian story?

Sorry to rant - but I hope, as G. K. Chesterton said that one should “never let a quarrel get in the way of a good argument.”

[Legolas in spandex]

[QUOTE=davem] To claim that he was revealing the hidden truth to them simply showed that he had not the faintest grasp of philosophy.
QUOTE]

I should have something to say about that. The problem with philosohpy is that it is by all means unstable. Philosophy can contradict istelf by taking on double, triple, even many more meanings. It is not ignorance to simply find yourself believing something and then want to share it. It is actually the way of a human concept. Fighting by means of philosophy can be productive as well as destructive. Paul was not out to fight by means of philosophy, he was shown a way of life and a higher power. It was real to him. It wasn't something he manifested in his mind and came to prove he was right about. He wanted to prove a real thing should be real to all. Agree with me or not, you can't deny that half of what the world exists on is by theory or philosophy. We find a real thing and try to explain it. That is philosophy. Paul wasn't trying to "explain" so much as he was trying to show that it was real. If we sat around and explained everything to everyone and never told them about it, then they'd never get to experience it and explanation is pointless without experience or the promise of experience.(Laughs) and here I am being philosophical about the instability of philoshophy. This world trips me out I tell you. Anywhosit , all I'm saying is that a grasp of reality is far more valuable than a grasp of philoshophy at times.

[davem]

Well, he didn't have the faintest grasp of theology either.

The 'Unknown God' is a symbol - like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. If someone came along & said, 'Look guys, I know who this guy was - he was Private First Class Joe Bloggs, so you can put his name on the gravestone & forget all this 'unknown' malarky. There, I've solved your problem - I hope you're grateful' we'd seriously wonder about his grasp of symbolism (not to mention his IQ). Both the 'Unknown God' & the 'Unknown Soldier' have a meaning & relevance in & of themselves & don't mean that some ignorant fool simply forgot the name of the dedicatee.

[Anguirel]

Originally Posted by davem

- after all any objective observer can find more of Hellenism (where demi-gods, virgin births & the like abound) than Judaism in the Christian story?

While I agree entirely with the case you are making, I feel moved to intervene with a point of information. Comparison to Danae and the golden rain may seem vaguely Annunciationesque, but the virgin births really came from Persian tradition-probably via the Jews, who were influenced in important ways by Zoroastrianism.

As for your example of demi-gods, Herakles and co. don't show remotely Christ like characteristics-with the glaring exception of Dionysus, who is certainly a god, not a demi-god, and a great and terrible one at that after a reading of the Bacchae. Demi-gods is a rather misleading term I think unless we're dealing with the Arian heresy.

So...in short...Hellenic similarities come down to coincidence and fundamental motifs in myth and legend. Persian influence on Judaism and Christianity is more hirstorically traceable; it must be remembered that Christianity is a religion of the east.

There's my quarrel to sidetrack the argument, in which I am entirely of davem's view.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Anguirel

So...in short...Hellenic similarities come down to coincidence and fundamental motifs in myth and legend. Persian influence on Judaism and Christianity is more hirstorically traceable; it must be remembered that Christianity is a religion of the east.

Point taken, though I think there was a good deal of 'Eastern' influence on the Hellenic world. Certainly the Eastern influence on the Roman Empire was profound. A major influence on Christianity was Mithraism. The following words from the Mithraic Rite may strike a chord:

"He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation."