Tag Archives: Tolkien

The Silmarillion and Christian Cosmology – October 4, 2021

J.R.R. Tolkien created a parallel universe.  It reimagines the Biblical story of Creation, but with the same tragedy of the Fall, including the fall of the angels, the fall of man, and the epistemological struggle of good and evil.  

The Silmarillion is a deeply Christian cosmology, albeit an imaginary one.  It explains the mythic truths of Christianity without ever mentioning them explicitly.  The same is true, of course, of The Lord of the Rings.  The Silmarillion is the pre-history of The Lord of the Rings.  It is Middle Earth’s Book of Genesis, and the Old Testament.  The Silmarillion is the Old and the Lord of the Rings is the New, but much like the Hebrew Bible and the Gospel, they are intimately connected.  One necessarily leads to the next. 

The Silmarillion begins with the beatific vision of Eru, who is called Iluvatar – a type of God the Father.  He establishes the original order and harmony of the Tolkien universe.  The harmony is created together in Great Music of life.  Iluvatar created the Ainur, the Holy Ones, who were the offspring of Iluvatar’s thought and sang music before him.  These were a type of the angels that reflect the glory of God, and also the heavenly saints of men to come.   

Yet, among the Ainur was Melkor, who had the greatest gifts of power and knowledge.  He sought to bring into being things of his own.  The discord of Melkor spread over the spread of the harmonious melodies before Iluvatar.  The melodies ceased, and Iluvatar pronounced judgment upon Melkor: 

“And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite.”  

And, Iluvatar revealed all things that were in store for future ages of the world to come.  

“And they saw with amazement the coming of the Children of Iluvatar, and the habitation that was prepared for them; and they perceived that they themselves in the labor of their music had been busy with the preparation of this dwelling, and yet knew not that it had any purpose beyond its own beauty.  For the Children of Iluvatar were conceived by him alone.” 

And, Iluvatar made the world, a new thing, called Ea – this, the habitation of the world, the Elves called Arda, that is, the Earth.  This is the primordial past of Earth, and of men, the preternatural Eden.  But, Melkor, the fallen Lucifer figure, the Middle Earth Satan, sought to dominate the world.  

“When therefore Earth was yet young and full of flame Melkor coveted it, and he said to the other Valar: ‘This shall be my own kingdom.'”  The envy of Melkor led to the battles of Middle Earth, first against the Elves, and later, men too.  

Yet, “slowly nonetheless the Earth was fashioned and made firm.  And thus was the habitation of the Children of Iluvatar established at the last in Deeps of Time and amidst innumerable stars.”  

Melkor, the name Elves dare not speak, they called Morgoth.  From Morgoth came all foul and fell things upon the Earth, including the Balrogs, the demon of terrors.  The greatest of Morgoth’s servants was a spirit called Sauron, who “after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth, and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.”  

This set the stage for the struggle and wars for Middle Earth in this first age at the beginning of days.  

This is reminiscent of the Fall of Man in Eden and being cast out of the Garden after Original Sin.  Satan the tempter tricked Adam and Eve into disobeyed God, and sin entered the world.  Death and destruction followed soon after.  So, it is in the world of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. 

Early in the first age of the world, the Ring of Doom is forged.  So too, are the Silmarils, which are the three ancient gems that contain the light of the Trees of Valinor, and the most precious things of the Eldar, forged by Feanor, of the original Children of Iluvatar.  

Of course, Melkor lusted for the Simarils, “the very memory of their radiance was a gnawing fire in his heart.”  The fallen Elves sent to Middle Earth seek to retain the fire of the radiance of the Edenic home in the West.  

The dwarves dwell in Khazad-dum in the latter times called Moria, beyond the Misty Mountains.  Moria is, also, Tolkiens inserting the truths and even names of Scripture into his grand tale, as Christ was crucified on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.  

Tolkien also introduces “new tidings” to Middle Earth with the arrival of Feanor and Men to Middle Earth.  The new tidings are also reminiscent of Scripture, in the words of the prophet Isaiah: 

“Get you up to a high mountain,
    O Zion, herald of good tidings; 
lift up your voice with strength,
    O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, 
    lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
    “Behold your God!”
Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
    and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense before him.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd,
    he will gather the lambs in his arms,
he will carry them in his bosom,
    and gently lead those that are with young.”

                                                                        (Isaiah 40:9-11)

Elrond and Galadriel, part of the original Eldar of the Elves were there, and the race of Eagles, who were sent forth “to dwell in the crags of the North, and to keep watch upon Morgoth.”  Galadriel is a type of the Virgin Mary helping guide and protect Middle Earth from the enmity of Morgoth and Sauron and the forces of evil.

Lembas is another type.  It is the Elven waybread, “a wafer of white wax shaped as a single flower of Telperion.”  It was holy to the Eldar, “for the Eldar had never before allowed Men to use this waybread, and seldom did so again.”  Lembas helped them through their journey, “and he took also the lembas of Melian to strengthen them in the wild.”  It was their manna from Heaven, as the Israelites on their journey and Exodus through the desert wilderness wandering of forty years, and as King David wrote in the psalms, “Man ate the bread of Angels.”  (Psalm 77:25)  And so, now too, in the new and greater dispensation, man again eats the bread of angels, or in our case, Catholics consume the Body and Blood, and Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the most Holy Eucharist.  

Elves, and even Men, set sail on ships to the West, into the eternity of their immortal shores: “gazing from afar upon the light of the Silmaril, and it was very great.  Then Earendil, first of living Men, landed on the immortal shores.”  “In those days there was a great building of ships upon the shores of the Western Sea; and thence in many a fleet the Eldar set sail into the West, and came never back to the lands of the weeping and of war.”  Those who take the shores to the immortal shores of the West break the circular cycles of life and death, and arrive, alas, into the peace of eternity.  

Men fell quickly under the power and sway of Morgoth, or that is, Satan.  “It is said by the Eldar that Men came into the world in the time of the Shadow of Morgoth, and they fell swiftly under his dominion.” 

It is under this dark dominion that Sauron wielded the One Ring of power and of doom.  In that, Saruon the Deceiver forged Nine Rings to ensnare the kings of Men.  These became the Ring Wraiths, the Nazgul haunting Middle Earth in service to Sauron and the One Ring.  

And Melkor and Sauron set up a new religion to worship the Darkness.  Yet, there remained “a remnant of the Faithful,” who refused to bow down to the Darkness.  Leading the remnant of the Faithful was the King of Numenor, and his sons including Isildur.  

“The days are dark, and there is no hope for Men, for the Faithful are few.”  Such was the situation that Men found themselves in the darkness of Middle Earth under Morgoth and Sauron.  It was in these dark times that the spirit of Sauron took on a new form: 

“There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dur, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure.”  Sauron forged the One Ring of Power in the Mountain of Fire in the Land of Shadow.   And, Sauron destroyed the land of Men in Numenor and burned the White Tree.  

Yet, the exiles of Numenor established themselves in the realm of Gondor, and Sauron prepared himself for a great war against the Eldar and Men of the West.  By way of necessity, there was established a great alliance between Elves and Men.  

During the last siege “Sauron himself came forth; and he wrestled with Gil-galad and Elendil, and they both were slain, and the sword of Elendil broke under him as he fell.  But Sauron also was thrown down, and with the hilt-shard of Narsil Isildur cut the Ruling Ring from the hand of Sauron and took it for his own.  Then Sauron was for that time vanquished, and he forsook his body, and his spirit fled far away and his in waste places; and he took no visible shape again for many long years.”  

Yet, the Ring betrayed Isildur and the Ring was lost to history for a time.  “For the blood of the Numenoreans became mingled with that of other men, and their power and wisdom diminished, and their life-span was shortened, and the watch upon Mordor slumbered.”  

It was in this diminished state that Sauron was allowed to return again in the third age of Men.  “But the Dominion of Men was preparing and all things were changing, until at last the Dark Lord arose in Mirkwood again.”  

It was in these dire times that the Lords of the West sent messengers – in reality, a type of the prophets of Old – back to Middle Earth to contest the power of Sauron, and “if he should arise again, and to move Elves and Men and all living things of good will to valiant deeds.”  Chief among the messengers was Mithrandir, who the Men of the North called Gandalf.  And, Elrond prophesied to Gandalf, “Nonetheless I forebode that the One will yet be found, and then war will arise again, and in that war this Age will be ended.”  

These are the wars and rumors of wars of the Antichrist, and the siege of Christendom and every faithful remnant of Christian.

Yet, in this dark hour, arose the return of the King, the Heir of Isildur, Aragorn, the son of Arathorn, in the line of Elendil, tall in stature, part of the ancient heroes of old of Men, Elf friends to the Eldar.  

However, it was the small in stature, a Halfling, Frodo the Hobbit, who would carry the burden of destroying the One Ring of Power.  The smallest and humblest of creatures would take the evil ring into the Fires of Mount Doom for its ultimate destruction.  

Christ and the Return of the King will ultimately destroy the power of Satan forever casting him back into the pit of fire from whence he came.  The humble and the faithful will thence rest forevermore in the Kingdom Come in peaceful bliss.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away.”                                                                   

                                                                                                (Revelation 21:4)

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Pilgrimage to the Holy Land – Dec. 23, 2018

I was privileged recently to go on a pilgrimage with Fr. Dwight Longenecker and forty-eight other pilgrims to the Holy Land.  We were retracing the steps of the Magi from Jordan into Israel.  The pilgrimage was based on the historical detective work that Fr. Longenecker produced in his book Mystery of the Magi: The Quest to Identify the Three Wise Men. One of the main points of this intriguing book is to demythologize the story of the Magi and root them in history.  Why does this story need demythologizing?  There is nothing overtly harmful to the faith in the present-day retelling of the “three kings,” typically named “Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar,” who come from distant countries like “Persia, Babylonia, and India.”  The only issue is that parts of it are fable.  It is these fable-parts that are used to attack the faith, calling it just another made-up myth of the Church.  Fr. Longenecker’s book blunts this attack by placing the Magi in a historical context.

Modern secularists like to cast a wide net, portraying not only Christmas, but also the life of Christ as fable.  They say there was no virgin birth, no miracles, and no resurrection.  According to them, we can know very little about the historical Jesus, what he did or said, or even if he existed at all.  God becoming man is just another made-up story, falling into the genre of ancient Near East mystery religions.  In short, Jesus is a myth.  Worse yet, the people who believe the myth are foolhardy and weak of mind.  Marx and Lenin called religion the ‘opium for the people.’  Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins even goes so far as to write children’s books trying “to save kids” from the perils of religion.  Christmas is scary!  

In one sense, they are right.  Christianity is myth.  Christianity highlights the themes of good and evil, tragedy and triumph, supernatural feats and ordinary failings.  The archetypal hero with a thousand faces can be seen in the Bible.  These profound undercurrents of truth run deeply through the human soul.  Christianity is a myth, but it is, as C. S. Lewis called, a ‘true myth:’ “a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.”  God’s myth is greater than man’s myth, as it is incarnational in nature.

C.S. Lewis’ good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, penned a modern-day mythic tale in his Lord of the Rings books, weaving in Catholic themes about heroes, truth, death and redemption.  G.K. Chesterton spoke about Christianity as the fulfillment of myth as well: “The Catholic faith is the reconciliation because it is the realization both of mythology and philosophy.  It is a story and in that sense one of a hundred stories; only it is a true story.” God’s true story is revealed to us in the events of the life of Christ.    

Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton used myth in the truest and most profound sense of the word.  That is, all the spiritual truths that percolated up into ancient man’s mind found their realization in the person of Christ. The use of myth today is more of the petty, slanderous kind, with accusations of “untruth.” Think of the ancient Christian “Icthys”fish symbol (“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” used by 1st century Christians to mark secret meeting spots in the time of pagan persecutions), which is now mocked on cars with the labels “science” or “Darwin.”  The irony is that the more science digs into Christianity, the more evidence of its truth is discovered.  This has been no more evident than in recent Biblical archeological discoveries.  

Fr. Longenecker’s book establishes the Magi in history, just as many of the archeological sites we visited on our pilgrimage fix Judaism and Christianity in history.  There are the caves at Qumran near the shores of the Dead Sea where nearly a thousand scrolls or fragments of scrolls were discovered beginning in 1947.  These are the writings from the Jewish religious sect known as the Essenes, contemporaries of Jesus.  The archeological discovery found copies, in part or in whole, for nearly all the books of the Hebrew Bible, except Esther. More importantly, the 2,000-year-old scrolls show only minor divergences from modern translations of the Old Testament. This proves the many textual critics of the Bible wrong.  The text of the Bible has remained intact and substantially unchanged throughout its history. 

The pilgrimage also allowed us to see first-hand that we are now in a ‘golden age’ of biblical archeology.  Ironically (to some), this golden age is powered by scientific advancements and new disciplines; things like archaeoastronomy, Lidar studies, and ground penetrating radar, to name just a few.  There are examples of new discoveries everywhere you go in Israel and Jordan. In 1986, two fisherman and amateur archeologists uncovered the “Jesus boat” in the muddy lakebed in the Sea of Galilee during a severe drought.  The fishing boat was radiocarbon-dated to between 120 B.C.-40 A.D., or roughly the time of Christ.  The Apostles would have fished in a boat exactly like this one.  In 2004, the “Pool of Siloam” was discovered, where Jesus cured a blind man by having him wash mud out of his eyes. (Jn. 9:7)  A drainage repair crew working on pipe maintenance uncovered large stone steps down into the pool.  In 2007, archeologists discovered the long-lost tomb of Herod at his Herodium fortress.  In 2009, while building a retreat house along the northern side of the Sea of Galilee, crews unearthed the remains of a first century synagogue at Magdala (home of Mary Magdalene).  This discovery is now the oldest synagogue in the Galilee, with the oldest known representation of the Temple on the “Magdala Stone,” and is likely one of the hallowed grounds where Jesus frequented and taught.  

In October 2016, a renovation project funded by National Geographic was done at the tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Some historians had previously believed that the original cave was not there, not that old, or doubted that this was the actual site of Christ’s burial (and resurrection) at all.  An archeologist using ground-penetrating radar, however, proved them wrong.  He was able to determine that the original cave walls were, in fact, still present. The simple cave is still there underneath the millennium of marble, icons and incense of the ornate Edicule shrine. 

Mortar samples, taken from between the limestone cave-surface and the marble slab of the tomb, carbon-dated to about 345 A.D.  This is exactly the right time frame when the Emperor Constantine would have discovered the tomb and built the current shrine around it.  The Emperor Hadrian had built a pagan temple to Venus over the Christian holy site, as a means to cover up Christ’s burial spot, and presumably to stop Christian worship there.  Constantine subsequently destroyed the pagan shrine and excavated the site around 326 A.D., nearly matching the 345 A.D. date, and lending credence to this being the actual location of Christ’s tomb.  Modern science again proved the historical veracity of Christianity.  

At no place in the pilgrimage did Old Testament typology burst forth more into New Testament history than at “Shepherd’s Field,” an eastern suburb of Bethlehem.  It is the site traditionally where the angel announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds tending to their sheep.  The shepherds were the precursors to the Magi in worshiping the Christ child.  The prophet Micah had made an ancient prophecy (8th century B.C.) of the birthplace of the Messiah in the city of David, Bethlehem: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.”(Micah 5:2)  The Messiah, “the Son of David,” would be born in Bethlehem, like King David before him. 

This is the prophecy that was cited to king Herod by his wise men, when the Magi came looking for the newborn king of the Jews.  Herod also perverted this into his maniacal slaughter of the innocence in Bethlehem.  At Shepherd’s Field, the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds, saying: “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”(Lk. 2:12) This “sign” would be the fulfillment of Micah’s prophecy.  The shepherds and the location were not coincidental either.  

These were no ordinary sheep and no ordinary shepherds.  Shepherd’s Field is where thousands of lambs were born and used for the daily sacrifices, and more importantly, the Passover sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem, as intimated in the ancient Jewish oral tradition of the Mishnah(e.g., Shekalim, 7.4) and Alfred Edersheim’s The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Bk.2, Ch.6).  The “shepherds” were not ordinary shepherds either, but most likely Levite priests.  They were specifically stationed there at Shepherd’s Field to pasture the sheep and preserve the newborn lambs ‘without blemish’or ‘broken bone,’ to meet the requirements of the Law for Temple sacrifices.  The unblemished lambs were then chosen from Shepherd’s Field in Bethlehem and kept for the annual Passover sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Shepherd’s Field and Bethlehem highlight the convergence of Christ, biblical prophecy, God’s true myth, and archeology.  Jesus was the fulfillment of the angel’s announcement to the shepherd-priests. It is fitting that when the shepherds came to the manger, they found not a baby lamb, but the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  Jesus is the true ‘Lamb of God,’who was the fulfillment of the Passover sacrifice of the lamb, in order to take away sin and keep us from death.  John the Baptist knew Jesus fulfilled this typology of the Passover lamb, saying: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”(Jn. 1:29)  Like many of the Christian sites in the Holy Land, the scriptures, Old Testament typology, and history come together to reveal the divine plan in the person of Jesus Christ.

Diving even deeper into the Old Testament symbology, Jesus is the Passover lamb who must be eaten. He is the fulfillment of God’s true myth rooted in history.  The little town of Bethlehem means ‘house of bread’ in Hebrew and ‘house of meat’ in Arabic. Bethlehem intimates the ‘bread and flesh’ of Jesus in the Eucharist.  Jesus was also placed in a manger (i.e., a feeding trough), symbolism hinting that he is food that gives life.  It is no wonder that when the shepherd-priests found the newborn Christ-child, as the angel had announced, “all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.”(Lk. 2:18) This same wonder is with us still in the ongoing afterglow of the birth of Christ.

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The Lord of the Rings and the Eucharist

As J.R.R. Tolkien declared, “The Lord of the Rings is, of course, a fundamentally religious and Catholic work… the religion is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.” This is possibly no more obvious than in Tolkien’s description of lembas. As Tolkien introduced them into The Lord of the Rings, “The food was mostly in the form of very thin cakes, made of a meal that was baked a light brown on the outside, and inside was the colour of cream. Gimli took up one of the cakes and looked at it with a doubtful eye.” It was a special, almost supernatural, bread-like food given by the Elves of Lothlorien to the hobbit members of the fellowship on their journey. The elves describe the lembas to them saying, “..we call it lembas or waybread, and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant then cram, by all accounts. … Eat little at a time and only at need. For these things are given to serve you when all else fails.” Lembas, or the “waybread,” is meant to sustain them in their deepest and darkest trials.

The Eucharistic tones and parallels are undeniable. The Eucharist has been called the “food of angels,” or as in Tolkien terms, the food of Elves. Gimli, the dwarf, initially even looked at it with a “doubtful eye” thinking it was just ordinary bread made by men, harkening the disbelief in the Eucharist among many, especially in the modern world. He quickly realizes this is not any ordinary bread. The unique and special qualities of lembas are depicted throughout the tale. As Merry and Pippin talk of it at one particularly stressful moment in the journey while trying to escape Orcs, “The cakes were broken, but good, still in their leaf wrappings. The hobbits each ate two or three pieces. The tasted brought back to them the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days, heedless of the cries and sounds of battle nearby.” They continue saying, “Lembas does put heart into you! A more wholesome sort of feeling, too, than the heat of that orc-draught. I wonder what it was made of.”

As the hobbits journey deeper into danger and to the very epicenter of evil, Mount Doom, the lembas play an increasingly significant role. Sam and Frodo are following their path of self-sacrifice, even to the possible end of laying down their lives for the love of their friends, for which, in Christian terms, “there is no greater love.” They are analogously on their way of the Cross. On the contrary, the evil characters find the lembas repulsive. Tolkien describes the Orcs’ reactions saying, “But I guess they disliked the very look and smell of the lembas, worse than Gollum did. It’s scattered about and some of it is trampled and broken, but I’ve gathered it together.” When the two hobbits reached the point when there was “no hope anymore” came Tolkien’s most poignant description of the lembas: “The lembas had a virtue without which they would long ago have lain down to die. It did not satisfy desire, and at times Sam’s mind was filled with the memories of food, and the longing for simple bread and meats. And yet this waybread of the Elves had a potency that increased as travellers relied on it alone and did not mingle it with other foods. It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind.” The lembas sustained the two hobbit sojourners in their darkest hour, not by feeding them necessarily physically but by feeding their will. The waybread also evokes the viaticum, “a provision for the journey,” that is, the Communion given to people on their deathbed. It is the Eucharist for the journey, or the “waybread,” home towards one’s death. There are differences however. For one, lembas are not described as having any divine qualities, whereas the Eucharist is the divine sacrament of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Additionally, the Eucharist is not just meant for times when all else fails, as lembas are described, but rather for our daily journeys. The two hobbits on their way fraught with death and destruction relied completely upon this waybread.

We too are all on our journeys to our inevitable deaths. Christ has left us His Body and Blood in the heavenly sacrament of the Eucharist.  It is our sustenance in this life. It is our waybread. Like the humble and seemingly weak hobbits, we must take our waybread in order to heroically, and against all odds, ascend the Mount Dooms in all our lives and complete our missions. As Tolkien confessed, he at first unconsciously, and later consciously, wove Catholic ideas and themes into the story. Tolkien was not out to re-create a Christian world or myth. Rather, he tried to create a literary myth to point towards the truths of the real world. The primary thrust of the story, as Tolkien said in one of his letters, is “about death and the desire for deathlessness,” two notions central to mythology and Christianity. As G.K. Chesterton spoke of Christianity as the fulfillment of myth, “The Catholic faith is the reconciliation because it is the realization both of mythology and philosophy. It is a story and in that sense one of a hundred stories; only it is a true story.”

We are the real-life Sam’s and Frodo’s. They are metaphors of us, as Christians, taking up our crosses, amidst our tribulations, while being sustained by the Eucharist. Though we are “weak” and “ordinary” people (hobbits if you will), we can achieve great and heroic ends by staying on the narrow paths of our simple faith journeys. Our lembas, the Eucharist, strengthens our wills and spirits, and presses us up the mountain, even when we would rather turn back and give up. But, it is up to us to choose: to give up or to not give up; to follow Christ or to not follow Christ. Tolkien’s literary myth spells out the lucid choice each one of us is to make of our own freewill between life and death, and good and evil. As Frodo laments the fact that the evil ring has come into his possession and the apparent hopelessness of the situation, Gandalf says to him: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” And so it is with each one of us to decide. Yet, as Tolkien slowly reveals Aragorn, the Christ-King archetype, he repeatedly declares to Sam and Frodo, “be not afraid.” In the end, even if, as Frodo, after our long journeys into the darkness, we remain faithful, but seemingly fall short in our mission, God’s grace can still save us.

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