Biblical and Theological Commentary on The Silmarillion, Part 2

Quenta Silmarillion (First Half)

Part 1

Part 3

Part 4

(avg. read time: 43–86 mins.)

With this part, we begin the “Quenta Silmarillion.” Since it is the central section and by far the longest one, I have divided my commentary for it in two. The first twelve chapters are addressed here and the other twelve are addressed in the next part. And since there are multiple chapters, my text references will be according to the chapter numbers, rather than the titles.

The Valar Reign Without Lasting Peace

The narrative now revisits the Valar and Maiar entering the world and their extensive work in forming and shaping it. Naturally, Melkor and the servants he gathers do what they can to ruin their work. After Melkor destroys the Two Lamps the Valar crafted to light all of Arda, they recede into the western lands of Aman and more or less cede the eastern lands of Middle-earth to Melkor. They did this for fear of what further tumult might do to the world before they knew where the Children of Ilúvatar were to be born. Their realm of Valinor in the land of Aman became the most beautiful in all of Arda, being the dwelling of the Valar and Maiar, being fortified by the encircling mountains the Valar raised, and being lit by the full radiance of the light of the Two Trees wrought by Yavanna and grown with the help of Nienna. But from his fortress in the North, Melkor often went out and corrupted the world around him in his efforts to bend it to his will.

However, that did not mean that the Valar utterly forsook the lands outside of Aman. Manwë’s responsibility was to be the vicegerent of Ilúvatar (1) and to rule all to peace, and so he could not forsake the other lands of Arda. He regularly looked out upon them in his efforts to find Melkor, but he could not pierce the shadows Melkor had woven about himself. Yavanna had also gone out attempting to heal the hurts of Melkor because of her love for all growing things. Oromë, the Huntsman of the Valar, would hunt the monsters and fell beasts of Melkor, and he would cause others to flee before him with the blast of his horn.

Then there was Ulmo, the Valar whose dominion was the seas and all the waterways of Arda. He is said to have made music like the Third Theme in its blend of joy and sorrow, which echoes in the sorrows of the deep and the joys of the springs welling up out of the earth. He would remain the most vigilant of the Valar for ages thereafter, and it was said of his work in these dark times of Middle-earth that “it was by the power of Ulmo that even under the darkness of Melkor life coursed still through many secret lodes, and the Earth did not die; and to all who were lost in that darkness or wandered far from the light of the Valar the ear of Ulmo was ever open; nor has he ever forsaken Middle-earth, and whatsoever may since have befallen of ruin or of change he has not ceased to take thought for it, and will not until the end of days” (1).

Aside from the interesting eschatological note offhandedly made here, this description highlights Ulmo as one of the chief instruments of Providence. He will prove to be especially prominent in one of the great tales, which will be mentioned later and discussed more extensively in the next part. Thus it is, as we have seen on many occasions in the LOTR commentary, that vigilance in being dutiful can make one a crucial instrument of Providence.

In these days, that vigilance was particularly concerned with the coming of the Children of Ilúvatar. Only Ilúvatar had appointed the times and places they would emerge, and even the most knowledgeable of the Valar did not know such matters for certain, as they were part of “Goddes privitee.” The narrator further says of the relationship of the Children with the Valar that they are to them, “rather their elders and their chieftains than their masters; and if ever in their dealings with Elves and Men the Ainur have endeavoured to force them when they would not be guided, seldom has this turned to good, howsoever good the intent” (1). Tolkien has said before that although the Valar take the imaginative place of gods in ancient mythology, they do not occupy the theological place as such, and this is further evidence of that. This first comment on their relationship is reiterated in various ways in Letters #153, #181, and #212. The last point is stated more strongly in Letter #257 as saying that the Valar were “forbidden to try and dominate by fear or force” the Children of God. This is consistent with how the Valar must approach the matter of asking Fëanor for the Silmarils to restore the light of the Two Trees, rather than forcing him to hand them over much later in the story (9). Similarly, the Valar themselves defined the mission of the Istari/Wizards in the Third Age (Letter #156). It is also consistent with how Ilúvatar himself was so dedicated to upholding free will, as Tolkien articulated elsewhere. Domination of wills is against his creative will at the most fundamental level, and it is no more acceptable when the more powerful one truly believes that it is what is best for those they wish to dominate.

The Children of Ilúvatar

The chapter then ends with extensive commentary on the Children of Ilúvatar, Elves (also called the Quendi) and Men (also called the Atani). The former are said to be more like the Ainur, and the Valar and Maiar had more dealings with them, but the latter are said to have been given “strange gifts” by Ilúvatar (1). We are then told something he said after the Valar and Maiar had chosen to enter the world:

Behold I love the Earth, which shall be a mansion for the Quendi and the Atani! But the Quendi shall be the fairest of all earthly creatures, and they shall have and shall conceive and bring forth more beauty than all my Children; and they shall have the greater bliss in this world. But to the Atani I will give a new gift.’ Therefore he willed 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 of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest. (1)

This is not to say that the Elves or the Ainur do not have volition, but the degree of freedom for Men is greater, and that is due to their spirits not being bound to the world like the Valar, Maiar, and Elves are. In the same way, God’s utter freedom as an agent surpasses the degree of freedom for their faculty of will, as Tolkien himself stated (Letter #156). Their freedom is also incorporated as an essential—and, for the Ainur, unpredictable—element to the completion of God’s plan, even beyond what was articulated in the Music, and this by creatures that might have been considered “lesser” compared to the Ainur and the Elves. Such is the benefit of creatures whose desire extends beyond the world as it is to the world that is still to come, as they can be better prepared for their participation in the Second Music for the new creation.

Of course, with this freedom of will comes the capacity for great good, if one lives by estel, and the capacity for great evil. This too was anticipated, as we are informed:

But Ilúvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony; and he said: ‘These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.’ Yet the Elves believe that Men are often a grief to Manwë, who knows most of the mind of Ilúvatar; for it seems to the Elves that Men resemble Melkor most of all the Ainur, although he has ever feared and hated them, even those that served him. (1)

This is a statement about God’s providence on par with what Ilúvatar spoke to Melkor, with even the terminology being reminiscent thereof. We see again his dedication to guaranteeing free will, whatever betides, but his will is supreme, and he can take up even evil deeds in ways that will redound to his glory when good beyond expectation emerges therefrom by the unfathomable orchestrations of the One.

The final paragraph in the chapter then provides important theological framing for the different fates of the Two Kindreds of Ilúvatar’s Children:

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. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days, and their love of the Earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore, and as the years lengthen more sorrowful. For the Elves die not till the world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief (and to both these seeming deaths they are subject); neither does age subdue their strength, unless one grow weary of ten thousand centuries; and dying they are gathered to the halls of Mandos in Valinor, whence they may in time return. But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world; 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. But Melkor has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope. Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Ilúvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World’s end, and Melkor has not discovered it. (1)

We will have more to say about the contrasting fates of Elves and Men at various points in the following commentary, especially in Part 4, as there is a long excerpt of dialogue from the “Akallabêth” on that subject. What is important to note for now is how in each of these ways, Ilúvatar has defined creaturely limitations that the Children must come to terms with. This is something I noted quite extensively, especially in regard to the Ring, in my LOTR commentary. In view of the fallenness of the world, death for Men is presented as a gift that permits escape therefrom, to return only (with rare exceptions, like Beren) when Arda is remade through their participation in the Second Music. Of course, one should remember that this is an Elvish tale presenting commentary on these matters from Elvish perspectives, as Tolkien himself clarifies (Letter #212). But again, we must hold off on further framing of this matter until later.

On the other hand, Ilúvatar’s grace-gift to the Elves is reincarnation. This is a path distinct from that of Men, and Tolkien does not imagine anything like various Indian religions or the philosophies of Pythagoras and Plato as the framework for understanding Elves becoming re-embodied after a purgatorial time in the Halls of Mandos. Rather, it is a gift given to the Elves as a result of their life being tied to the life of creation. It is not something to be liberated from, at least within the scope of history, unlike cycles of reincarnation in Primary World belief systems.

The last two sentences of this text are also especially interesting. They illustrate how estel is needed for both Men and Elves as they face their creaturely limitations and what fate awaits each of them beyond the cloud of unknowing. The last sentence in particular is remarkable for how it stands in some tension with the hope expressed in the “Ainulindalë” that the Children of Ilúvatar, without qualification of referring only to one kindred, would participate in the Second Music. The tension seems to imply that the declaration in that other chapter is not a certitude or something that the Elves heard from the Valar. It is a statement of estel that Ilúvatar will have a part for them in the world to come to achieve their ultimate good.

Tolkien once wrote of the central matter of LOTR, which just as well applies to parts of his Silmarillion like this: “The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race ‘doomed’ to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race ‘doomed’ not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete” (Letter #186). Understandably, Men have often envied the Elves’ immortality. Even one of our earliest tales, The Epic of Gilgamesh, concerns how Gilgamesh sought immortality and could not keep it, and so many stories since then have shown the wish for immortality. Men must ultimately depend on faith/trust/hope (i.e., estel) that God has something beyond death for them.

But eventually the Elves and even the Valar come to envy mortality, known as the Gift of Ilúvatar to Men. Their being bound to the circles of the world, unlike Men, means that they must endure change in ways their mortal counterparts can scarcely imagine. If they befriend mortals, they will live to see many generations of them live and die, enduring the pain of loss again and again and again. Their immortality binds them to the life of the world, and this world is marred, broken, corrupt, and decaying. This, too, the Elves must endure. Their attachment to the world brings them greater love and appreciation for the loveliness of creation, but inevitably they also must endure loss in this as the things they love change—not always for the better—and die. They were thus tempted to become embalmers (Letters #131 and #154), attempting to slow change and decay for as long as possible. And this became the way of temptation for Sauron to reveal to the Elves how to make the Rings of Power to accomplish their ends (though his secret end was to enslave their wills through these Rings). While he did not participate in making any of the Three, their crafting nevertheless partook of the arts that Sauron taught, and their fate is ultimately tied with the fate of Sauron’s Ring. In the end, then, the Elves’ wish to embalm is in vain. Their place is ultimately either to journey to the Uttermost West (if permitted) or to fade and give way to the Dominion of Men until the eschaton, although their wisdom passed on to Men was to help in their sanctification,¹ and that is the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is, of course, that Melkor (in this story) or Sauron (in later stories) would gain mastery and subjugate them anyway, forcing them to watch as the Evil One destroyed all that they loved, even if only out of spite.

Of course, the ultimate hope for both Elves and Men is for the new creation where they trust/hope that the All-Father will have a place for them in the Second Music (the Valar do not know that they will or will not, but this is the hope of the Elves), and that all the Children of Ilúvatar will thus be brought together in and have their lives tied to a world where death is no more. In the end, both Men and Elves must live by estel that the One has designs for their good beyond the regular course of history. Only from the One will they receive the everlasting life that fulfills both of them, as that life will be tied to the new creation that is not subject to marring and decay like this one is.

The Origin of the Dwarves and the Near-Fall of Aulë

Another instance in which it is important to remember that these stories are told from an Elvish perspective is the story of the origin of the Dwarves (Letter #212). This is not necessarily to throw doubt on everything about the account itself, though it would be interesting to have seen how the Dwarves’ own account(s) might differ (and this account does have a tendency to validate how Elves think of Dwarves). But the narrator’s uncertainty about the fate of the Dwarves and the consequent lack of conviction in his statements illustrates that it is an Elf who is supposed to be relaying this story. Still, he does report a summary of what the Dwarves say, which will be important to reckon with later.

As for the story itself, we are told that Aulë became impatient in waiting for the Children of Ilúvatar to come at the time when Ilúvatar deemed it fitting. And so his central positive qualities of his love for making and his generosity of spirit in sharing and in teaching become a source of temptation for him when not tempered with patience. And so Aulë makes the Dwarves. This is not to say Aulë could give them independent being as such, which we will see later, but he had sought to imitate such creative activity in making them, as he was trying to anticipate what Ilúvatar would bring forth. He wanted students he could share his vast knowledge with, not slaves to serve his will, but unwittingly he had only made puppets who could reflect and imitate life without being independent living creatures. This puppetry was not for the purpose of dominating and subjugating creatures with other wills, for he had no other will to give them. Tolkien even said of his motive that he “had done this thing not out of evil desire to have slaves and subjects of his own, but out of impatient love, desiring children to talk to and teach, sharing with them the praise of Ilúvatar and his great love of the materials of which the world is made” (Letter #212; emphases original). Still, he had some sense of the impropriety of what he was doing, and so he kept it secret from the other Valar, even his wife Yavanna.

Yet, he could not keep this action secret from Ilúvatar:

Now Ilúvatar knew what was done, and in the very hour that Aulë’s work was complete, and he was pleased, and began to instruct the Dwarves in the speech that he had devised for them, Ilúvatar spoke to him; and Aulë heard his voice and was silent. And the voice of Ilúvatar said to him: ‘Why hast thou done this? Why dost thou attempt a thing which thou knowest is beyond thy power and thy authority? For thou hast from me as a gift thy own being only, and no more; and therefore the creatures of thy hand and mind can live only by that being, moving when thou thinkest to move them, and if thy thought be elsewhere, standing idle. Is that thy desire?’ (2)

This dialogue illustrates yet again that only God has the power of creation. Only God can give being as such. Aulë is supremely skilled among all of Ilúvatar’s creations, but he only has his own life to give, which he received from another, meaning that he cannot give independent existence to other beings. Aulë is a master of sub-creation, but that is far as he can go. This action risked being transgressive in attempting, though inevitably failing, to cross that line for him to act as Creator of others. He cannot be, but in this act of making the Dwarves in anticipation of Ilúvatar’s Children, he inevitably made creatures who were dependent on him in ways that he did not anticipate, so that they were inevitably subjects of his will.

Obviously, Aulë has some sense of the wrongness of this action, even if his intentions were good. The concealment combined with Ilúvatar seeking him out and interrogating him is reminiscent of the famous scene in Gen 3. The outcome is not the same, of course, but the resemblance of the dynamics of a fall illustrate how transgressive this action was and how much it threatened Aulë’s integrity and holiness should he continue on this course of action unabated.

But the interrogation does give Aulë a chance both to repent of his impropriety and to explain himself:

Then Aulë answered: ‘I did not desire such lordship. I desired things other than I am, to love and to teach them, so that they too might perceive the beauty of Eä, which thou hast caused to be. For it seemed to me that there is great room in Arda for many things that might rejoice in it, yet it is for the most part empty still, and dumb. And in my impatience I have fallen into folly. Yet the making of things is in my heart from my own making by thee; and the child of little understanding that makes a play of the deeds of his father may do so without thought of mockery, but because he is the son of his father. But what shall I do now, so that thou be not angry with me for ever? As a child to his father, I offer to thee these things, the work of the hands which thou hast made. Do with them what thou wilt. But should I not rather destroy the work of my presumption?’ (2)

Aulë’s first statement works on two levels. Most immediately, he did not desire to make puppets who are this dependent on him and so subservient to his will. He wanted genuine others, not mere extensions of himself. But on another level, he did not desire to usurp the lordship that comes with being the Creator, even if this action would functionally lead to such an end specifically for his Dwarves (Letter #212).

While Aulë admits his folly born of impatience, his explanation of his motive once again shows how well he embodies the purer spirit of sub-creation. At its most fundamental level the desire to use the faculties of sub-creation comes from imitation of God, as a child might imitate a father. Tolkien had said in his earliest written reflections on sub-creation in “Mythopoeia,”

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with elves and goblins, though we dared to build

gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sow the seed of dragons, ‘twas our right

(used or misused). The right has not decayed.

We make still by the law in which we’re made.²

He said similarly in “On Fairy-Stories,” “Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”³

In the Primary World, humans draw on the resources provided by God, whether realizing it or not. In the act of mythopoeia, humans recall God’s creative activity by imitation. This stream of thought has an identifiable source in the Bible’s picture of humans as the image-bearers of God who thus bear the capacity to represent God. One of the most basic ways of representing God is imitation of one of the most basic modes in biblical theology of understanding God’s identity: as Creator. In fact, in the opening chapter of Genesis what the audience first learns about this God is primarily that he is the sovereign Creator, and that sovereignty and creatorship go hand in hand. Sovereignty is the explicit charge to humans as image-bearers, to reflect the divine rule into creation. Just as humans derive their sovereignty from God—and thus could be considered “sub-sovereign” as vicegerents—the implication would be that humans derive something of God’s creativity, since it is essential to God’s unique sovereignty, which he bequeaths in some measure to humanity. Because sub-creation, especially expressed in mythopoeia, is so basic to the capacities of humans as image-bearing creatures, it was not lost in the estrangement from God. Sin could corrupt but not dislodge this sub-creative capacity that is tied into the human identity of being bearers of the image and likeness of God. Hence, humans keep the rags of their lordship.

Thus it is also in the Secondary World with Aulë. He is not a human made to bear the image and likeness of God. But he is an angelic Ainur created from the thought of Eru Ilúvatar, and he is one particularly attuned to imitating his action in making things. But unlike Melkor, he is still humble enough to recognize that he is a sub-creator and cannot be the Creator. He is subordinate to the Creator and came into the world to implement his will even while making his particular contributions to the world. He thus submits his work to the One.

But again in his haste he seeks to make amends as swiftly as possible. Thus, he takes it upon himself to try to destroy these offspring of his making. He takes up his hammer to smite them, weeping at the thought. But Ilúvatar has compassion on him because of his humility, for he would not withhold even these most beloved creatures who were as children to him from Ilúvatar, and in that moment the Dwarves show fear for the first time and bow before Aulë, begging for his mercy. This is something they could have never done before, being so derivative of Aulë and his life so as to be puppets. But this action demonstrates that Ilúvatar has hallowed Aulë’s sub-creation and raised it to the level of creation by action that only he could perform. This is something of a wish-fulfillment for Tolkien, given that part of his eschatological hope, as expressed in both “Mythopoeia” and “On Fairy-Stories,” is that the Creator will hallow sub-creative work and take it up into the new creation. In this case, Ilúvatar shows that Aulë’s offering up of his work was accepted even as it was made, as he tells Aulë, “Dost thou not see that these things have now a life of their own, and speak with their own voices? Else they would not have flinched from thy blow, nor from any command of thy will” (2). In this way, they were enflamed by the Secret Fire.

The Dwarves as Ilúvatar’s Adopted Children

Aulë rejoices at the salvation of his children and asks Eru to bless his work and amend as he sees fit. Eru responds, “Even as I gave being to the thoughts of the Ainur at the beginning of the World, so now I have taken up thy desire and given to it a place therein; but in no other way will I amend thy handiwork, and as thou hast made it, so shall it be” (2). He maintains the integrity of what Aulë did while giving life to his work. But he will not bless it so as to reward Aulë’s impatience or allow him to subvert his appointed time for when the Firstborn would arrive. He thus says that they will all sleep until after the emergence of the Elves, “But when the time comes I will awaken them, and they shall be to thee as children; and often strife shall arise between thine and mine, the children of my adoption and the children of my choice” (2).

This is the clearest statement on the status of the Dwarves as Ilúvatar’s adopted children. But the Elves had difficulty coming to terms with such an idea. They believed that the Dwarves returned to the earth and stone whence they came when they died. But the narrator tells us that the Dwarves had a different expectation:

For they say that Aulë the Maker, whom they call Mahal, cares for them, and gathers them to Mandos in halls set apart; and that he declared to their Fathers of old that Ilúvatar will hallow them and give them a place among the Children in the End. Then their part shall be to serve Aulë and to aid him in the remaking of Arda after the Last Battle. They say also that the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves return to live again in their own kin and to bear once more their ancient names: of whom Durin was the most renowned in after ages, father of that kindred most friendly to the Elves, whose mansions were at Khazad-dûm. (2)

This uncertainty makes sense on the level of the Secondary World, but it also reflects how Tolkien himself never wrote a definitive conclusion about the fate of the Dwarves. This is an indirect statement about their beliefs written by a narrator who is not a Dwarf, but it does at least comport with the notion that they are proper Children of Ilúvatar and will have a place alongside the others in the Second Music and the subsequent new creation.

Other statements by Elvish narrators are not so generous. In the tale of “The Nauglafring: The Necklace of the Dwarves,” the narrator says, “The Nauglath [Dwarves] are a strange race and none know surely whence they be; and they serve no Melko nor Manwë and reck not for Elf or Man, and some say that they have not heard of Ilúvatar, or hearing disbelieve.”⁴ Section 9 of “The Quenta” in The Shaping of Middle-earth mentions that the sons of Fëanor made war against the Dwarves, “but they did not discover whence that strange race came, nor have any since. They are not friend of Valar or of Eldar or of Men, nor do they serve Morgoth; though they are in many things more like his people, and little did they love the Gnomes.”⁵ Various texts preserved in The Lost Road and Other Writings likewise present less friendly views about the Dwarves:

But the Dwarves have no spirit indwelling, as have the Children of the Creator, and they have skill but not art; and they go back into the stone of the mountains of which they were made.⁶

But the Dwarves have no spirit indwelling, as have Elves and Men, the Children of Ilúvatar, and this the Valar cannot give. Therefore the Dwarves have skill and craft, but no art, and they make no poetry.⁷

Wherefore the Dwarfs are like the Orcs in this, that they come of the wilfulness of one of the Valar; but they were not made out of malice and mockery, and were not begotten of evil purpose. Yet they derive their thought and being after their measure from only one of the Powers, whereas Elves and Men, to whomsoever among the Valar they chiefly turn, have kinship with all in some degree. Therefore the works of the Dwarfs have great skill, but small beauty, save where they imitate the arts of the Eldar, and the Dwarfs return unto the earth and the stone of the hills of which they were fashioned.⁸

Beyond The Silmarillion, we have a direct statement from a Dwarf on the matter from Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit. After the Battle of Five Armies and Thorin’s redemptive, heroic, yet doomed final charge, he lies on his deathbed and wishes to part with Bilbo in friendship after wishing to kill him earlier. For Thorin had learned that Bilbo hid the Arkenstone from him and gave it to his enemies as an attempt to end the impasse of conflict. During this reconciliation, Thorin tells Bilbo what he expects for himself, “I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers, until the world is renewed” (18). The Dwarves expect that they will have a part in the renewed world alongside Aulë. No one, not even the Valar, knows when that time of renewal will come, except for Eru Ilúvatar himself. Until such a time, the dead wait. When the time does arrive, the expectation, left implicit in this text, is for resurrection in order to partake of the renewed world.

This is also consistent with the belief of the Dwarves that at least the seven Fathers bodily reemerge periodically. They do not appear to apply such beliefs for Dwarves’ fate after death more broadly, but it would be surpassingly strange to think that the intermediate fate of these revered Fathers would be bodily, but the final fate of them all would be something other than bodily. Indeed, the Song of Durin that Gimli sings would indicate otherwise:

The shadow lies upon his tomb

In Moria, in Khazad-dûm.

But still the sunken stars appear

In dark and windless Mirrormere;

There lies his crown in water deep,

Till Durin wakes again from sleep. (II/4)⁹

As noted, Dwarves believe that Durin and the rest of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarf kindreds are reborn at various times.¹⁰ The recognition of this rebirth for Durin would be a Dwarf taking on the name of Durin. By the time of this story, Durin VI had been dead for over a thousand years, and Durin VII would not be born until long afterwards. But it is not said that the crown emerges or is reclaimed whenever Durin is thought to be reborn. Rather, the indication is that Durin waking again from sleep signifies resurrection. This is an eschatological hope.

It should be noted that this presentation of resurrection as awakening befits the language of resurrection in both the Hebrew of the OT and the Greek of the NT (see here, here, and here). If death is presented as sleep, as it often is in the OT and the NT, as is also the case with Durin, then resurrection is appositely presented as awakening from sleep and arising. I do not know that Tolkien intended for this consonance or had it in mind, but I would suggest that it is a result of his formation as a Christian and a lover of languages (as he learned Greek and Latin at a young age and would have known of the shades of meaning for the various terms for “resurrection,” though he did not immerse himself as much in Hebrew until much later for his work on Jonah for the Jerusalem Bible after his initial translation from the French).

In sources where something more than the predominant Elvish perspective is presented, including where we get both Elvish and Dwarvish perspectives in The Silmarillion, we see allowances for the possibility that the Dwarves will still be as Ilúvatar’s adopted children in taking part with his other Children in the new creation, and thus that their fate will be an embodied one (i.e., a resurrected one). The fact that Gimli’s end features him being united with the Elves is a further hint in this direction. For it is said that he left Middle-earth with Legolas and went into the Uttermost West to see Galadriel before he died, “and it may be that she, being mighty among the Eldar, obtained this grace for him” (Appendix A.III). Again, it would be surpassingly strange for Gimli to be allowed to spend his last days in the Undying Lands if his ultimate fate with the rest of his Dwarven brethren is to be sundered from the other Children of Ilúvatar.

The implicit expectation of resurrection and the explicit expectation of a new creation/renewed world both fit with Tolkien’s beliefs in the Primary World. They are part of creeds he regularly recited in worship, and he clearly reflected on them, as seen in the structure of his overall fictional narrative culminating in a new creation far off in the future, his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” his letters, and even in an introduction to the medieval poem Pearl, where he shows his awareness of discussions about the details of resurrection. This picture of hope with resurrection and new creation is what the Bible builds towards in its grand narrative, as highlighted by texts like Rom 8; 1 Cor 15; Revelation; and many others besides. Despite popular expectations of our final state being that of disembodied souls in heaven, the Bible consistently shows that God has no interest in abandoning his creation or in abandoning his design for his image-bearers to be embodied in the renewed creation. The various texts that suggest the place of the Dwarves that is apropos to their being the adopted children of Ilúvatar are suitably not detailed in their description of this hope, for in this setting well before even the time of Israel, they could not yet know of God as being characterized as the God who raises the dead (save in rare exceptions), nor had they heard of the risen Christ, nor were they familiar with the Holy Spirit as the one who gives life, nor do they have a picture of the final judgment in view, nor do they have a developed understanding of the link between resurrection and the kingdom of God like we see in the NT. But for as much as they can know, they pass on what they have heard of the hope for the world’s renewal, and for their own place within it, and they hold fast to that hope with trust in what Aulë has told them of Ilúvatar. The connection between resurrection and new creation in Scripture carries over into Tolkien’s sub-creation as something he held fast to as part of his faith in the Primary World, although it is again not identical to its Primary World form.

Yavanna’s Wish and the Dominion of the Children

Yavanna, being Aulë’s wife, is the first to hear of what Aulë had done and how Eru responded. She remarks on Eru’s mercy, but she also expresses trepidation for how, since the Dwarves were hidden from her and did not learn to love those living and growing things that are of her particular dominion, they will ultimately not heed these other parts of creation, and they will fell many trees. But Aulë acknowledges that the same will be true for the other Children of Ilúvatar. All of them will need wood and other natural resources, “And though the things of thy realm have worth in themselves, and would have worth if no Children were to come, yet Eru will give them dominion, and they shall use all that they find in Arda: though not, by the purpose of Eru, without respect or without gratitude” (2). This is consistent with Tolkien’s Primary World theology informed by texts like Gen 1:26–31; 9:1–7; and Ps 8. Humans, as with other Children of Ilúvatar in this tale, are not to bring desolation to the earth and destroy God’s creation, since they are to be stewards and vicegerents representing God to the rest of creation as bearers of his image and likeness. Still, because of what they are and where God has placed them in the order of creation, humans have dominion, preeminence, and priority, albeit with a dominion that should be tempered by the awareness of bearing the image and likeness of the Creator and of this world as God’s creation.

But Yavanna speaks for the trees, and so she goes to Manwë to express her concerns. She notes how the kelvar, the animals, can flee or defend themselves if put to it by either Melkor’s servants or the Children, yet the olvar, the plants, have no such abilities. She worries what might happen to the trees and voices her thought, “would that the trees might speak on behalf of all things that have roots, and punish those that wrong them” (2). She even reminds Manwë that this was part of the Music, as some of the trees within the Music “sang to Ilúvatar amid the wind and the rain” (2).

This causes Manwë to reflect and see the Song and the Vision once more as a lucid memory. He realizes that he is looking at the whole Vision as one within it, “and yet he saw that all was upheld by the hand of Ilúvatar; and the hand entered in, and from it came forth many wonders that had until then been hidden from him in the hearts of the Ainur” (2). This language of “upholding” is reminiscent of what we have seen in this series about God as Creator sustaining his creation (also see here). It further implies that if not for this “upholding” or sustaining, the world could not be. In the biblical vision, and as articulated in subsequent theological tradition, God is not one who simply started creation and let it go like a clock he wound up. He sustains it at every moment of its existence.

At the same time, Manwë also envisions the hand of Ilúvatar entering into the Vision. As we have seen, this imagery refers to both unpredictable miraculous deeds and to the mysterious works Ilúvatar has kept to himself. The most prominent such entrance of his hand into history thus far has been concerning the Children of Ilúvatar. Given his explicit involvement in the origin of the Dwarves, that also would represent an entrance of his hand into history to hallow this sub-creation to make it creation and to make the Dwarves independent living beings. And now another such event is about to happen.

Eru promises that when the Firstborn emerge, he will also take up Yavanna’s thought and by it bring spirits who will dwell among the kelvar and the olvar, saying that they will “be held in reverence, and their just anger shall be feared” (2). From this promise will come the Great Eagles, the servants of Manwë, and the Shepherds of the Trees, later known as the Ents. This work of Ilúvatar’s hand shows his regard for all of creation, like we see most vividly in Job 38–41.

We have observed previously that the Ents have an expectation of partaking in the eschatological hope to come. This is an expression of estel on their part. Tolkien also said that they were devoted, presumably in a manner similar to patron saints, to the Valar. The male Ents were devoted to Oromë and the Entwives were devoted to Yavanna (Letter #247). Already, we have seen that they sang in worship to Ilúvatar, so this is not a way of saying that they worshiped these Valar as such.

The Elves Arrive

After such a long time of vigilance, and after Varda sets the stars in the sky to provide light in anticipation of the Firstborn, the long ages of vigilance finally come to an end. Oromë had once again been journeying east in his hunt. His horse Nahar then suddenly alerted him, and he sat silently to discern what got his horse’s attention. That is when he heard the singing of many voices, and thus he came upon those who called themselves the Quendi (“those that speak with voices”), for they had not yet conversed with any other creatures who spoke. And so the narrator says, “Thus it was that the Valar found at last, as it were by chance, those whom they had so long awaited” (3).

Thus we see Providence subtly invoked. I have noted previously in my commentaries on The Hobbit and LOTR that this is a major theme evoked by a number of terms. Key words to watch for include uses of “fate,” “fortune,” “luck,” “chance,” and so on, which can function as references to divine providence by other names. In general, for whatever differences they have in precise nuance, these various terms share the sense of referring to what is beyond one’s control that can have positive or negative effects on one’s capability to achieve an end.¹¹

Tolkien’s particular choices in terminology were influenced not only by parlance (since one of the conceits of his storytelling is that he is translating ancient works), but also by the medieval stories he knew well. Perhaps the most remarkable is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a text about a supposedly pre-Christian time which is nevertheless suffused with explicit Christianity, wherein we see a direct parallel between referring to “luck” and referring to God’s action. In stanza 38, when Gawain arrives at a castle, the narrator says that the lord of the castle learns “whom luck had brought him,” but the lord says more specifically a little later, “God has given us of His goodness His grace now indeed, / who such a guest as Gawain has granted us to have” (38).¹² Likewise, in Beowulf, a text Tolkien knew thoroughly and which impacted him deeply, the Christian poet telling a story from a pre-Christian time refers to God’s providence as “fate,” “fortune,” and even by the name of Metod (Ordainer/Arbiter/Maker; cf. also the Old English Exodus poem that Tolkien translated).¹³ These authors were not reluctant to refer to God, nor were they imagining that some other benefactor was acting besides God, but uses of such terms highlight how they incorporated parlance in their theological expressions. They exemplify declarations like that found in Prov 16:33: “Into the lap the lot is cast, but from the Lord is its every decision” (personal translation).

In this case, the timing of the meeting appears to be by chance, but something more is at work. Eru has taken up Oromë’s faithful vigilance, which Oromë was not explicitly expecting would lead him to the Firstborn on this trip, and he has directed it to the end of the Valar’s discovery of the Elves. This will be the motivation they will need to deal with Melkor in answer to the pleas of Yavanna earlier in the chapter.

Melkor’s Most Hateful Sin

However, Oromë’s first meeting with the Elves is not immediately joyful on their part. They thought him to be the one who had been haunting them for some time. Melkor had already discovered them, and he had taken away those who strayed from the larger community, never to be seen again. Melkor himself or his servants had even come in dark mockery of Oromë to sow such fear and doubt among the Elves as to, according to Melkor’s designs, estrange them from the Valar. We see again the dark cunning of Melkor and his willingness to corrupt all things for his purposes.

This is vaguely similar to what Justin Martyr claimed the devil had done. Although the Logos had sown seeds of himself in the world long before his incarnation both to guide people in anticipation and to prepare the world for the gospel (1 Apol. 46). But the devil had counterfeited the story in anticipation through the myths of the pagans (Dial. 69; cf. Origin, Cels. 2.16). That Tolkien might have had such a notion in mind would also make sense of other correspondences with Justin that we have seen in his theology of sub-creation (see here and here). This is obviously not a one-to-one correspondence, but it illustrates the common principle of the devil acting in counterfeit to sow doubt and aversion towards God and his agents.

But that is not the worst of it. Melkor also commits what might his most hateful sin against Ilúvatar by what he did with those Elves he captured:

But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Ilúvatar. (3)

This matches what Tolkien says in Letter #144 and what we have already noted from Letter #153. The latter letter in particular shows Tolkien’s conviction that Eru Ilúvatar so values volition as to allow even this grievous sin:

They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote ‘irredeemably bad’; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making – necessary to their actual existence – even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.) But whether they could have ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’ seems a different question; and since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power to the Valar, as a possible ‘delegation’, I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them. That God would ‘tolerate’ that, seems no worse theology than the toleration of the calculated dehumanizing of Men by tyrants that goes on today. There might be other ‘makings’ all the same which were more like puppets filled (only at a distance) with their maker's mind and will, or ant-like operating under direction of a queen-centre.

As Tolkien says elsewhere, “I don’t feel under any obligation to make my story fit with formalized Christian theology, though I actually intended it to be consonant with Christian thought and belief, which is asserted somewhere … where Frodo asserts that the orcs are not evil in origin” (Letter #269). This is a point of consonance with orthodox Christian ontology that we have noted previously. Still, this perversion of creation demonstrates how far gone Melkor is and how dedicated he is to his rebellion against his Creator and all that he loves.

A Fateful Decision

Now that the Firstborn have appeared, the Valar wage war against Melkor and take him captive. Unfortunately, they do not search out all the vastness of his fortress. Some of Melkor’s minions and monsters escaped, and Sauron was not found, allowing him to bide his time, should his master return. Melkor himself was bound and imprisoned in the fastness of Mandos for three ages before the Valar would be willing to listen to his pleas once more.

While the Valar had been united in their determination and effort to do something about Melkor, they were divided in what to do with the Elves/Quendi. Some, most prominently Ulmo, wanted to let the Elves roam free, find lands fitting for habitation, and use their gifts for healing the hurts Melkor had brought there. The majority, though, were fearful of the dangers the Elves would face in Middle-earth with so many monsters and minions at large. And so in an attempt to overcorrect for their initial policy towards Middle-earth that allowed for some to be taken and made into Orcs, as well in show of love for the Elves, the majority ruled in favor of summoning them to Valinor to dwell with them. The narrator says forebodingly, “From this summons came many woes that afterwards befell” (3).

This decision is never presented as consciously disobeying the will of Eru. But it is also not clearly said that Manwë specifically sought out Eru’s will. The Valar rather seem to be relying on their own judgment, and this narrative would seem to show that they commit an error of judgment. This is further confirmed in a statement from Tolkien’s “Words, Phrases and Passages in Various Tongues in The Lord of the Rings” published in Parma Eldalamberon 17 (178–79), the pertinent portion of which has been republished in The Nature of Middle-earth:

This is said because the invitation given to the Eldar to remove to Valinor and live unendangered by Melkor was not in fact according to the design of Eru. It arose from anxiety, and it might be said from failure in trust of Eru, from anxiety and fear of Melkor, and the decision of the Eldar to accept the invitation was due to the overwhelming effect of their contact, while still in their inexperienced youth, with the bliss of Aman and the beauty and majesty of the Valar. It had disastrous consequences in diminishing the Elves of Middle-earth and so depriving Men of a large measure of the intended help and teaching of their ‘elder brethren’, and exposing them more dangerously to the power and deceits of Melkor. Also since it was in fact alien to the nature of the Elves to live under protection in Aman, and not (as was intended) in Middle-earth, one consequence was the revolt of the Noldor.¹⁴

Indeed, it is difficult to think of any benefit that came from this decision—great though the benefits certainly were for the Elves and their descendants who would reside in Aman—that could not have been achieved by allowing the Elves to roam free, and either abiding with or visiting them in Middle-earth. But most of the Valar, with Ulmo being an obvious exception, had become too comfortable with dwelling in Valinor and preserving it as something of an everlasting monument to Arda Unmarred, neglecting that the greater thing still will be Arda Healed/Remade, which they could have better prepared the rest of the world for.

At least, that is what this note would indicate. In fact, Tolkien was not entirely settled on this. In another late version of this same passage, the narrator frames the action as follows: “For of this summons came many woes that after befell; yet those who hold that the Valar erred, thinking rather of the bliss of Valinor than of the Earth, and seeking to wrest the will of Ilúvatar to their own pleasure, speak with the tongues [read tongue] of Melkor.”¹⁵ In a similarly late essay, not speaking in the mode of a narrator, he likewise tries to mollify such an impression of the Valar

This appearance of selfish fainéance in the Valar in the mythology as told is (though I have not explained it or commented on it) I think only an ‘appearance’, and one which we are apt to accept as the truth, since we are all in some degree affected by the shadow and lies of their Enemy, the Calumniator. It has to be remembered that the ‘mythology’ is represented as being two stages removed from a true record: it is based first upon Elvish records and lore about the Valar and their own dealings with them; and these have reached us (fragmentarily) only through relics of Númenórean (human) traditions, derived from the Eldar, in the earlier parts, though for later times supplemented by anthropocentric histories and tales. These, it is true, came down through the ‘Faithful’ and their descendants in Middle-earth, but could not altogether escape the darkening of the picture due to the hostility of the rebellious Númenóreans to the Valar.¹⁶

This appears to be Tolkien trying to describe the Valar in a way that is more in line with angels in Christian angelology and reflecting reverence of the same. Of course, since there was a difference of opinion among the Valar themselves, I am not sure that Tolkien has entirely covered over the issues here, and we cannot be entirely sure within the world of the story of what would have happened in the world of the story if the Valar had done otherwise.

In any case, what cannot be denied is that both great good and great sorrow came from this fateful decision. The latter was not intended, but such is the way of choices. We have more control over the means that we use than the ends that are achieved (as I have noted in commenting on Saruman here). This is but the first of several cases in this story where the narrator allows that taking another course might have been good while allowing that good came from the decision in question also. Eru’s providence and upholding of free will is such that he did not step in to prevent this decision, but it was taken up and still directed to good ends because of how the Elves who made the journey would grow and what they would learn from their time among the Valar and Maiar. One such good end is one no one could have guessed.

Providence in Other Forms

The roots of that good end begin in the next chapter. Sometime after the four leaders of the Eldar have journeyed to Valinor, beheld the light of the Two Trees, and returned to bring along the rest of their people, one of those leaders, Elwë, is seeking out his friend Finwë, another one of the leaders, as was his habit in the slow journey to the West. But on one occasion, a “chance” happening occurred:

it chanced on a time that he came alone to the starlit wood of Nan Elmoth, and there suddenly he heard the song of nightingales. Then an enchantment fell on him, and he stood still; and afar off beyond the voices of the lómelindi he heard the voice of Melian, and it filled all his heart with wonder and desire. He forgot then utterly all his people and all the purposes of his mind, and following the birds under the shadow of the trees he passed deep into Nan Elmoth and was lost. But he came at last to a glade open to the stars, and there Melian stood; and out of the darkness he looked at her, and the light of Aman was in her face.…

Melian returned not thither while their realm together lasted; but of her there came among both Elves and Men a strain of the Ainur who were with Ilúvatar before Eä.… And of the love of Thingol and Melian there came into the world the fairest of all the Children of Ilúvatar that was or shall ever be. (4)

This is in reference to Lúthien. She is the one who would later marry Beren and have a son with him. From this son, Dior, came Elwing, who would marry Eärendil and give birth to Elrond and Elros. This line—with all the tremendous significance of the actions and roles of its various members and the sanctifying work brough to the world through them—began here with a “chance” encounter between the only Elf to see the Two Trees who did not ultimately dwell in Valinor and a rare (uncorrupted) Maia wandering in Middle-earth.

That this chance encounter was itself providential is well implied by the fact that it will be a special action of Ilúvatar that allows both Beren and Lúthien to return from death, whence comes their union by which Dior will be born. Lúthien would never have been born in the first place if not for the union that came by this “chance” encounter. And she would not have been where she was to meet Beren if their meeting had not taken place in Middle-earth. We will see much more fruit borne from this across Tolkien’s larger story, and none of it might have happened but for this “chance” meeting.

Another manifestation of divine providence can also be seen later in this story after the Eldar, more specifically the Caliquendi among the Elves, have completed their journey to Aman and have established their realms and cities therein. Finwë, King of the Noldor, had married Míriel and fathered Fëanor, the most masterful craftsman among the Children of Ilúvatar and renowned in many other respects besides (including for developing the Tengwar letter system). But his wife had expended so much of her spirit giving birth to Fëanor that she died soon thereafter. Although it is not included in The Silmarillion, Tolkien wrote much about this peculiar situation that arose, the first of its kind in Valinor, whereby Finwë was bereaved, and his wife refused reincarnation so as to continue upholding their marriage, and he wrote much about the debate of the Valar concerning this situation and whether Finwë should be allowed to remarry (which can be found in Morgoth’s Ring). But it was ultimately decided that he could remarry, so that he had multiple children thereafter by his second wife Indis. However, Fëanor was never happy with this marriage, nor with the children born from it. And so the narrator tells us:

In those unhappy things which later came to pass, and in which Fëanor was the leader, many saw the effect of this breach within the house of Finwë, judging that if Finwë had endured his loss and been content with the fathering of his mighty son, the courses of Fëanor would have been otherwise, and great evil might have been prevented; for the sorrow and the strife in the house of Finwë is graven in the memory of the Noldorin Elves. But the children of Indis were great and glorious, and their children also; and if they had not lived the history of the Eldar would have been diminished. (6)

Again, there is ambiguity about this. Certainly much woe came from this course that Finwë took that might have been avoided. Fëanor’s fall may well have been prevented in the absence of such discontent as he felt because of this marriage. But at the same time, there is much that was good that would not have been had Finwë not remarried. In a late version of this story featuring the Valar’s debate, Mandos says this:

Aulë nameth Fëanor the greatest of the Eldar, and in potency that is true. But I say unto you that the children of Indis shall also be great, and the Tale of Arda more glorious because of their coming. And from them shall spring things so fair that no tears shall dim their beauty; in whose being the Valar, and the Kindreds both of Elves and of Men that are to come shall all have part, and in whose deeds they shall rejoice. So that, long hence when all that here is, and seemeth yet fair and impregnable, shall nonetheless have faded and passed away, the Ligh of Aman shall not wholly cease among the free peoples of Arda until the End.¹⁷

Without these children, there is no other King of the Noldor in Middle-earth after Fëanor. There is no Fingolfin and his awe-inspiring courage. There are no kingdoms of Nargothrond and Gondolin. There is no Galadriel and all that she brings to Middle-earth. There is no Eärendil and the salvation he will bring to Middle-earth. And without Eärendil, there would be no Elrond and Elros, and so there would be no Arwen, no Elendil, no Aragorn, and so many others besides. When Fëanor loses his Silmarils, it will not be his sons who will use one to bring hope and salvation to Middle-earth; it will be a descendant of Fingolfin. So many other great deeds and their rippling effects across the history of Arda would never have happened.

While one may wonder how events might have turned out if this other course was taken, we see the fruit of Providence here. Providence took up this decision by Finwë and directed it to a good end so that it would yield fruit beyond expectation. Fëanor will not be the only one of Finwë’s descendants gifted for the good of others, and he will not be the only one to misuse those gifts. But all such decisions are still taken up by Eru and directed to good ends that could not have been imagined.

Melkor Released

After Melkor’s sentence concludes, he is brought before the Valar to sue for pardon. He promises to commit himself to restitution by helping the Valar in their works and healing what he had done to the world. As I mentioned previously, Nienna spoke in support of him, showing her incredible capacity for forgiveness, whether or not she actually believed his sincerity.

Manwë grants him pardon, but the Valar keep a watch on him. Melkor even seems to confirm his repentance by seeming fair and being helpful to all those who consulted him. He had a great store of his own knowledge to offer, and he was obviously quite powerful if any help by that means was needed. He was convincing enough for Manwë to think that he was truly repentant, “For Manwë was free from evil and could not comprehend it, and he knew that in the beginning, in the thoughts of Ilúvatar, Melkor had been even as he; and he saw not to the depths of Melkor’s heart, and did not perceive that all love had departed from him for ever” (6).

Again, Manwë would seem to be opened to criticism by this narration. It is as if he is “too pure for this world” and that in a way which makes him seem naïve. But is it really a fault to be so holy and so good as to be so far above the follies of evil, and thereby thinking the best of others? In a later version of this story, Tolkien mollifies the criticism that might be so raised via the Elf Pengolodh in another text “Ósanwe-kenta” preserved in The Nature of Middle-earth:

How otherwise would you have it? Should Manwë and the Valar meet secrecy with subterfuge, treachery with falsehood, lies with more lies? If Melkor would usurp their rights, should they deny this? Can hate overcome hate? Nay, Manwë was wiser; or being ever open to Eru he did His will, which is more than wisdom. He was ever open because he had nothing to conceal, no thought that it was harmful for any to know, if they could comprehend it. Indeed Melkor knew his will without questioning it; and he knew that Manwë was bound by the commands and injunctions of Eru, and would do this or abstain from that in accordance with them, always, even knowing that Melkor would break them as it suited his purpose. Thus the merciless will ever count on mercy, and the liars make use of truth; for if mercy and truth are withheld from the cruel and the lying, they have ceased to be honoured.

Manwë could not by duress attempt to compel Melkor to reveal his thought and purposes, or (if he used words) to speak the truth. If he spoke and said: this is true, he must be believed until proved false; if he said: this I will do, as you bid, he must be allowed the opportunity to fulfill his promise.¹⁸

That we might be so naturally inclined to criticize Manwë on this front may be an indication of how comfortable we have gotten with living in a fallen world and adopting ways of thinking adapted to it. But if Manwë is an angelic being, and one who knows best the will of Eru, then it makes sense that he would follow a higher way of thinking, one represented by such commands as to forgive one who repents seventy times seven times (Matt 18:21–22; cf. Luke 17:4), one that blesses the merciful with the promise that they will be shown mercy (Matt 5:7), one that blesses the pure in heart as those who will see God (Matt 5:8), one that calls to do good to those who hate you (Matt 5:43–48 // Luke 6:27–28, 32–36), and one that calls for overcoming evil with good (Rom 12:17, 21; 1 Pet 3:9–12).

Of course, not everyone is deceived in any case. Ulmo did not think the best of Melkor, and he was certainly not incorrect. Tulkas was slow to forget what Melkor had done, but he only went so far as clenching his hands when he saw Melkor. Yet neither of them deviated from Manwë’s judgment, “for those who will defend authority against rebellion must not themselves rebel” (6). Manwë is the king of all Arda, but he is not simply a more powerful version of the same. He has higher responsibilities and is supposed to show a higher way. In respect of that, even when they disagree with him, those like Ulmo and Tulkas must show due respect, lest they sow seeds for undermining Eru’s established order, since he is the One who made Manwë his vicegerent.

The Silmarils

At this time, Fëanor also made the greatest craftwork of the Elves, the Silmarils, to contain the light of the Trees in ineffable jewels. They are wrapped up in the eschatological fate of the new creation, as Mandos foretells that “the fates of Arda, earth, sea, and air, lay locked within them” (7). For it will only be with the remaking of Arda that they will be broken to release the light of the Two Trees again. As yet, no violence could break or even damage them within Arda.

The Silmarils as such are not of any particular Christian inspiration, as far as can be told. That is not what makes them of interest to this analysis. Their significance to the eschatology of this sub-creation is of interest, as they are a particular, albeit imaginary and mythological, exemplar of how the works of the Children are in some mysterious way preserved in the new creation. This is the logic of the final judgment, as indicated in texts such as 1 Cor 3:10–15 and 15:58 (and many others seen here), because it is the logic of resurrection. Our bodies in which we have done our works are made continuous, in some mysterious way, so as to preserve the continuity of identity in the new creation, even as they are transformed to be more glorious than they have ever been in order to be fit for the new creation (see here, here, and here among others).

The connection to resurrection is also apropos here because of how the Silmarils are described. As the narrator tells us, “Yet that crystal was to the Silmarils but as is the body to the Children of Ilúvatar: the house of its inner fire, that is within it and yet in all parts of it, and is its life” (7). This analogy with the body and with the composition of incarnate beings could well be taken to indicate a popular form of dualism. But it is rather informed by a metaphysic of the (Aristotelian-)Thomistic variety called hylomorphism. As Carl Hofstetter explains, this teaching is that “all material things are ultimately a union of created but undifferentiated prime matter (in Quenya, erma) with a God-given form (in Tolkien’s parlance here, pattern, that which gives each portion of erma the nature and shape of the thing that it is).”¹⁹ Or as he says elsewhere:

The Aristotelean-Thomistic metaphysic of hylomorphism (from Greek ὕλη, hylē, ‘wood, matter’, and μορφή, morphē, ‘form’), holds that all material things (including human beings and all other things, living and unliving) are comprised of matter … and form, that is, a Divinely-willed organizing principle that shapes prime matter into the thing that it is. In a living being, its form is its spirit; in a human being (any Child of Eru) its form is its soul. In Tolkien’s terms, living beings comprise erma ‘prime substance’ and an ultimately Divinely-willed arkantië ‘great pattern’. A Tolkienian distinctive is that the arkantiër were developed in response to the Great Pattern, Erkantië, of Eru, and so represented a subcreative act; and yet were both permitted and willed by Eru. Another distinctive is that the nature of Incarnates consists of an unity of both body (in Tolkien’s terms a hröa) and, as its pattern, a soul (in Tolkien’s terms, a fëa).²⁰

Tolkien delves into such metaphysical matters outside of the published Silmarillion, but offhanded remarks like this analogy to the Silmarils still help to demonstrate the theological foundations he was working from to express Primary World theology in appropriate Secondary World forms.

Ungoliant

But not all is well in Valinor. Melkor’s help and fair-seeming words eventually turn to his subtle and extensive work in sowing seeds of doubt, dissension, and deceit among the Elves to sour their relationship with the Valar and Maiar. By the time the Valar hear of what has transpired and attempt to bring Melkor in, he has already fled. They searched for him to the north, thinking that he was heading back to his old fortress, but it was a feint by which he took the long road south, where the Valar were not vigilant. They had long neglected the darkness south of their encircling mountains, and so they were unaware of the presence of Ungoliant.

Ungoliant’s origin is left mysterious. It seems that she was a fallen Maia, but this is an inference, and in any case she was not one to serve Melkor like Sauron and the Balrogs, “she had disowned her Master, desiring to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness” (8). All that interested her was satisfying her own thirst. She hated light as one who wove darkness around her, but she consumed it to survive. She had taken the form of a giant, monstrous spider, as her descendants after her would be, most notably Shelob. And from the light she consumed, she “spun it forth again in dark nets of strangling gloom, until no light more could come to her abode; and she was famished” (8).

It should be remembered that there is no such thing as absolute evil in Tolkien’s stories in the way that there is Absolute Good, for reasons of his adherence to orthodox Christian ontology. But Melkor and Ungoliant are among those that are the closest analogues to such an impossible idea. They have both so devoted themselves to darkness and evil that they have become anti-creative. We have seen already how this manifests in Melkor. For Ungoliant, a veritable embodiment of unsatiable lust and gluttony, this characteristic manifests by the fact that she only subsists by parasitizing light. If all light was extinguished, she would starve, just as evil cannot exist without good to parasitize. Indeed, her ultimate fate is said to be devouring herself in her uttermost famine (9).

Before that, though, she assists Melkor and is empowered by him in order to consume the light of the Two Trees. She thus becomes so mighty that even Melkor fears her, particularly as he has expended his own power in growing hers and has dissipated his power in domination of so much else through the ages of Arda to this point. As she drank the light and parasitized it, she also poured forth the poison of death into the Trees and belched forth what is called her “Unlight.” This Unlight not only cloaks her and Melkor so that not even Manwë can pierce the darkness by his sight, but she inflicts it upon Aman as a whole, as we are told, “The Light failed; but the Darkness that followed was more than loss of light. In that hour was made a Darkness that seemed not lack but a thing with being of its own: for it was indeed made by malice out of Light, and it had power to pierce the eye, and to enter the heart and mind, and strangle the very will” (8). This is an example of why it is best to think of evil as something besides the absence of good and to think of darkness, specifically the kind in association with evil rather than the natural phenomenon, as something besides the absence of light. Its potency comes from its parasitizing corruption of what is good and what is light.

The Oath of Fëanor and the Doom of the Noldor

Melkor (now known primarily as Morgoth) and Ungoliant will also be responsible for slaying Finwë and stealing the Silmarils, which Melkor will keep for himself. This causes a falling out with Ungoliant that might have led to his death, if not for his Balrogs coming to his rescue and driving her off. Morgoth then places the Silmarils into a crown for himself that he will wear for the rest of his days in Middle-earth.

Fëanor will not allow his most prized, beloved, beautiful, and glorious craftwork to be stolen without reprisal, nor will he let his dearly beloved father’s murder go unavenged. He thus takes an oath and calls upon his sons to take it with him. This represents both a crucial turning point in the story and an occasion for illustrating the complex relationship of fate and free will in Tolkien’s fiction. Of course, a fuller explanation of this must wait until we can interact more at length with Tolkien’s comments preserved in The Nature of Middle-earth, since this is by far his longest exposition on the subject.²¹

We have already seen that Men have a different relation to fate, particularly as outlined in the Music, than the Elves and the Valar and Maiar do. The Elves also, by extension, have a different relation, as Children of Ilúvatar, when compared to the Valar and Maiar (cf. Letter #181). We have also previously encountered in the LOTR commentary different senses of “fate” as related to choice, which complicates matters further. The same applies here in reference to the word “doom.”

Of course, the word “doom” outside of Tolkien’s fiction has a variety of senses already. In some cases, it refers to a law, decree, or ordinance rendered as a result of the judgment of the powers that be. In other cases, it refers to judgment itself, particularly in a judicial context, and often in the adverse sense of condemnation. In still other cases, it is another way of referring to fate or destiny, often in the sense of being fated to an end of ruin, destruction, or death. And in light of all these uses, it is sometimes used in reference to final judgment, particularly as the Day of Doom or Doomsday.

We see similar complexity in The Silmarillion. Mandos refers on multiple occasions to something being “doomed” in the sense that it is so decreed or decided. Melkor is also said to have been “doomed” to be imprisoned for three ages, since this was the decision of judgment from Manwë. But there is also the sense of adverse fate, as is foreshadowed soon after Fëanor refuses to give the Simarils to the Valar to restore the light of the Trees. The narrator speculates that Fëanor’s deeds after the robbery of the Silmarils might have been otherwise if he had initially agreed to provide the Silmarils. Instead, we are told, “now the doom of the Noldor drew near” (9). This is doom foreshadowed because the actual pronouncement of the doom of the Noldor will not be spoken until later in this chapter. It is thus possible to read what happens to Fëanor and his followers as an inevitable course they were destined to take or as a course full of the devices of condemnatory judgment that came as a result of choices made.

We have seen uses of “fate” tied to the results of choices made in LOTR, and this does comport with how the story is told. This doom is drawn to Fëanor and his kin first by taking the aforementioned oath. It is not for nothing that Jesus declared it wisdom to avoid oaths and vows just to make one’s words seem stronger and less unbreakable by appealing to something other than one’s own integrity. As Jesus taught (and James echoed), let your “Yes” be “Yes” and your “No” be “No” (Matt 5:34–37; Jas 5:12). While Elrond would declare similar wisdom (II/3), it could be specifically because he knew of this horrible example from ancient history. For Fëanor and his sons swore an oath,

which none shall break, and none should take, by the name even of Ilúvatar, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them if they kept it not;²² and Manwë they named in witness, and Varda, and the hallowed mountain of Taniquetil, vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn, or any creature, great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth unto the end of days, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession. (9)

Thus Fëanor and his sons set themselves on a course that could not help but bring sorrow as their choices turn to ill ends for themselves and for others who align with them. And they do bring many with them, for 90% of the Noldor agree to follow the one who is now their king into exile after his rousing speech promising them freedom and dominion in Middle-earth. His brothers, Fingolfin and Finarfin, were loath to follow, but at the urging of their houses, they also fell in line. Fingolfin particularly had victimized himself with a rash promise when he was reconciled with Fëanor that he would follow wherever Fëanor led.

Manwë and the other Valar do not attempt to hinder this journey. They would not risk trying to compel the Noldor to do otherwise and make the lies of Morgoth appear true. Still, Manwë sent a herald to exhort Fëanor not to take this road that will lead to sorrow greater than he and his fellow Noldor can imagine. He also warns Fëanor of the peril he faces to challenge Melkor without aid from the Valar, since Melkor is so much greater than he is. What is particularly interesting in this exchange is how both the herald and Fëanor rely for their points on the agreement that Eru is the Creator. The herald reminds Fëanor that Eru made the Valar far greater than him, but Fëanor haughtily insists that it may be that Eru has set a greater fire in him than the Valar know.

After this exchange, the host continues north, until Fëanor realizes that such a great host will not (as far as he reckons) be able to cross the northern wastes to Middle-earth. They will need ships. But it would take too long for them to make their own ships with resources they do not have and knowledge that they do not possess. He also feared that the longer the journey was delayed the more the hearts of his people would cool, and they would turn back to the realms they left behind. And so he comes to the Teleri at the port of Alqualondë in hopes of procuring ships to transport his people and of recruiting other Eldar to swell his army. But the Teleri refuse his requests and attempt to persuade him to change his course. Instead, Fëanor waits for more of his people to arrive and he attempts to take the ships by force. The Teleri rebuff them, throwing many of them into the sea, but they are soon overwhelmed when the main host, who devoted themselves to Fingolfin and were led at the forefront by his son Fingon, arrived and thought the Teleri had waylaid their kin at the bidding of the Valar. And so came the bitter Kinslaying at Alqualondë, the first fruits of the evil wrought by the Oath of Fëanor.

In response, as the Noldor are leaving the land of Aman, a dark figure appears, with some thinking that it was none other than Mandos himself, to pronounce the Doom of Mandos against the Noldor, which was a curse of judgment against them that came as a result of the evil they chose to do:

Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains. On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever.

Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death’s shadow. For though Eru appointed to you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you. And those that endure in Middle-earth and come not to Mandos shall grow weary of the world as with a great burden, and shall wane, and become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after. The Valar have spoken. (9)

This is reminiscent of curses pronounced in Lev 26 and Deut 28, as well as the outcomes seen in Judges, the books of Samuel, and the books of Kings. It also resembles warnings or expressions of judgment throughout the Prophets. While, as here, there is inevitably an element of foreknowledge of these things on behalf of God or God’s agents—as Mandos is here—the curses are spoken of as the outcomes of the choices made in both The Silmarillion and the biblical texts.

The Stubborn Courage of the Host of Fingolfin

After Fëanor gives his ever-defiant response to this pronouncement of doom, he eventually decides to take his host most loyal to him in the ships and cross the sea by themselves. They had lost ships in the journey so that there was not enough to bear all the Noldor across the sea, but sending the ships back would also mean delay. Fëanor also knew that Fingolfin’s people cursed him for the hardship they faced on the road and for the doom pronounced on them by Mandos. Although not everyone, even among his own sons, are of the same mind as him, he decides to burn the ships once they have crossed over. This leaves the host loyal to Fingolfin stranded while Fëanor’s host pushes forward on their quest.

Fingolfin and his host know they have been betrayed. But now they have a choice set before them. They can do as Finarfin and some of his people (though not those like his children Finrod, Galadriel, and others) have done and take the road back in humiliation and humility to repent of what they have done. Or they can dare the harsh road of the Helcaraxë, the icy wastes of the north joining the continents of Aman and Middle-earth, which Melkor and Ungoliant had taken in their flight to Middle-earth. Although they were not as mighty as these fallen angelic beings, the host of Fingolfin nevertheless dared this perilous crossing. As the narrator says, “Few of the deeds of the Noldor thereafter surpassed that desperate crossing in hardihood and woe” (9). Many of that great host did not survive the crossing, including Turgon’s wife Elenwë. Those that survived thereafter understandably bore little love for Fëanor and his people for forcing this difficult way on them once they decided to come to Middle-earth.

The deed itself represents hardness of heart in refusing the way of repentance. But it will also be taken up by Providence and directed to good ends that could not have been achieved by Fëanor and his people on their own. Even though this deed was not motivated by good intentions, the courage and hardihood required to achieve it remain admirable.

This is consistent with how Tolkien regarded courage among the heroes of the pagan past or those whose courage was still motivated by pagan ideas. They may have been devoted to false gods, something that cannot be said of the Noldor in Tolkien’s mythos, and their practices may have been upheld by pagan ideas, but there is still something to be said for their courageous actions and the way they used the gifts of their Creator. Indeed, for those stories that Tolkien read and studied often, he observes and admires the northern spirit of courage, even as he criticizes the use of that gift for vanity, pride, and other sins. The expressions of this spirit most compelling to Tolkien are found in Beowulf and the incomplete Old English poem The Battle of Maldon (a story he even wrote a continuation of, which he called The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm’s Son).²³ Tolkien is critical of certain expressions of this spirit of courage when heroes use it to pursue their own glory, but he finds it best exemplified by servants who express this spirit in the form of unflinching fidelity in service. The northern spirit was one defined by indomitable will chafing against inevitable defeat. As such, although the direction of logical causation is less clear, related to this spirit are elements of Norse theology, such as Valhalla being for those who die in battle (expressing indomitable will in the face of death) and their eschatology being expressed in the battle of Ragnarök, wherein almost all of the gods die in battle against the forces of chaos. In this theology, right and wrong had nothing to do with victory or defeat. Even the greatest warrior, like a Beowulf, can fall to the forces of chaos as exemplified by the monsters, but their greatness in Norse estimation was not measured by “competence” or ability to finally overcome all obstacles, for final defeat is inevitable. Rather, their greatness is measured by absolute resolution to not be cowed by such final defeat, to exert one’s will to the bitter end, never wavering amidst the waves of chaos, even if one must ultimately be drowned by them.

As such, Norse mythology and Norse theology, resonating as they did in Old English tales like Beowulf, are defined by tragedy, for human existence itself is a tragedy in the face of this final defeat, as Tolkien observes in his famous essay.²⁴ But Beowulf is, of course, not an undiluted presentation of Norse paganism, for it comes from the Christian era reflecting on the era of Beowulf as the darkened past. It is thus “a fusion that has occurred at a given point of contact between old and new, a product of thought and deep emotion.”²⁵ In the distant past of Tolkien’s England, “this imagination was brought into touch with Christendom, and with the Scriptures. The process of ‘conversion’ was a long one, but some of its effects were doubtless immediate: an alchemy of change (producing ultimately the mediaeval) was at once at work.”²⁶ For the Beowulf-poet, one of the most significant contributions the Norse make to this fusion of horizons is “the theory of courage,” “the creed of unyielding will” that defines the valued character of the Norse.²⁷

Christian eschatology, shaped as it is not only by the eschatological visions of the OT (a shaping seen most poignantly in Revelation), but also by the remembrance of Jesus’s resurrection, presents a hope of final, everlasting victory. The Messiah who was crucified was ultimately vindicated by the God who raises the dead, and he took up the everlasting life that utterly conquers death. Those who are in him will likewise receive this vindicative and ultimately vivifying victory, which in turn promotes living as he has called us to live.²⁸ The tragedy of human life is given its great eucatastrophe by the Author. The condemnation of final defeat is overturned by the great Arbiter with his verdict of victory, the same verdict he gave to the Christ he raised from the dead (and whom he unites others to by the Holy Spirit). The monsters persist for now, but there is hope for a time when they will be no more, when God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:20–28).²⁹ The ending humans and their enemies receive in the Christian story is starkly different from the one they receive in the Norse story of Ragnarök.

That “northern spirit of courage” is thus something of a preparation for the gospel in the view of the Beowulf-poet and Tolkien. That indomitable will that represented the highest ideals of the North was a gift of empowerment, courage, and even integrity from God, preparing people for the life of perseverance that characterizes the faithful, although it was incomplete in itself until the gospel came (even as the indomitable human could not hope to attain final victory outside of this Christian story). As the poet looks back on this past in writing this elegy, he presents this fusion of horizons as what Tolkien describes as “essentially a balance, an opposition of ends and beginnings. In its simplest terms it is a contrasted description of two moments in a great life, rising and setting; an elaboration of the ancient and intensely moving contrast between youth and age, first achievement and final death.”³⁰ Beowulf thus becomes the paradigmatic figure for this pagan past in his own progression through this opposition, but he is now given a new frame.

Thus it is here with this great deed of courage. Courage is admirable for the virtue that it is, but it can be corrupted and used for bad ends. It is at its best when it upholds other virtues in supplying the resolution to do what must be done in the face of obstacles. And in its fullest exercise, it is a virtue that is itself upheld and balanced by others like the theological virtues of faith, love, and hope. Thus, various expressions for courage in the Bible involve being strong/strengthened (Num 13:20; Deut 1:38; 3:28; 31:6–7, 23; Josh 1:6–9, 18; 10:25; Judg 7:11; Ruth 1:18; 2 Sam 10:12 // 1 Chr 19:13; 1 Kgs 2:2 // 1 Chr 28:20; 1 Chr 22:13; 2 Chr 32:7; Ezra 10:4; Dan 11:32; Mic 3:8; Zec 8:9, 13; 1 Cor 16:13; Eph 3:16), resolution in heart (Pss 27:14; 31:24; Isa 35:4; Jer 51:46; Hag 2:4; John 14:27; Acts 11:23; 2 Thess 2:17; 2 Tim 3:10–11; Jas 5:8), being comforted in the face of trial (1 Sam 23:16; John 16:33; Acts 23:11; 27:22, 25; 2 Cor 5:6, 8; 10:12; Heb 13:5–6), and speaking/acting with freedom (Acts 4:13, 29, 31; 9:27–28; 13:46; 14:3; 18:26; 19:8; 26:26; 28:31; 2 Cor 3:12; Eph 6:19–20; Phil 1:20; 1 Thess 2:2; Heb 3:6; 10:35). Without such balance and support, courage can still accomplish great deeds in accordance with the gifts of God, but it will be towards ends less in accord with his will, as is the case here.

Manwë and Mandos on Volition and Providence

We later learn of the response from Manwë and Mandos to how Fëanor responded to Manwë’s herald. When Manwë hears of how Fëanor believes the Noldor will do deeds that will live in song forever, he says, “Shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been” (11). To this Mandos says, “And yet remain evil. To me shall Fëanor come soon” (11).³¹

This is another illustration of how Providence is presented as working in Tolkien’s mythos. Previously, some similar statements had been said by Eru Ilúvatar while outside of the Song and the Music, as one transcendent of them. Now, this is expressed by characters within the flow of history. Manwë’s hope for the glorification of the Noldor is thus built on his belief in Eru’s providence that he will take up their deeds and turn them to greater glory. This is the only sense in which one could speak of it being a good thing for evil to have happened, simply because it then becomes an occasion for greater good and glory to arise than could have been imagined beforehand, and that in despite of evil will and evil deeds. This is a theme we have seen again and again in previous commentaries on The Hobbit and LOTR, but it is tempered by a strong moral vision in which the evil that became the soil for unexpected good does not thereby become good itself. That is the importance of Mandos’s qualifier. Gollum may have brought amazing good about in being an instrument of Providence, but that does not change that his intentions were evil, his action of taking the Ring for himself was evil, and his attempts to kill Frodo and Sam beforehand that led up to the climax of the story were evil. But those acts were taken up and directed to better purposes. Thus it was also that much unexpected good came from Boromir’s attempt to take the Ring from Frodo, but the action itself was still evil. Likewise, in one of the key biblical examples of this in Gen 50:20, Joseph himself does not move from saying that his brothers intended what they did for evil to justify what they did, but he does say that God used it for good. Such are God’s ways of outmaneuvering evil intentions and using them against the actors for his higher purposes.

Morgoth’s Dependence on the Dominated

This same chapter conveys how the Sun and Moon came to be. This was something that Tolkien struggled with in his mythos, along with the shape of the earth. While The Silmarillion includes both the Two Trees being before the Sun and Moon as well as the world being flat before it was made round, Tolkien struggled with such concepts because from the time he began writing this mythos in WW1, he maintained that his stories were set in an imaginary past of our own world. And if some of this information was supposed to come from angelic revelation, why would they be decidedly inaccurate reflections of the past? We will address this further as we get to later volumes in the HOME series. But what can be said for now is that Tolkien also appealed here to the notion of the transmission of the myth to reflect perspectives of Elves and Men, as he has elsewhere.³²

In any case, this story features the Sun and Moon being formed from the last fragments of the diminished light of the Two Trees. The Moon is the fragment of the light of Telperion and the Sun is the fragment of the light of Laurelin. The lights are also piloted by two Maiar, with Tilion piloting the Moon and Arien piloting the Sun. Morgoth sought to overthrow these lights, but he found that he no longer had the power to do so. This was not because these Maiar were somehow much more powerful than the Valar who needed to combine forces to subdue him long ago. Rather, it is a result of what we have hinted previously of how Morgoth spent himself in his domination, “And Arien Morgoth feared with a great fear, but dared not come nigh her, having indeed no longer the power; for as he grew in malice, and sent forth from himself the evil that he conceived in lies and creatures of wickedness, his might passed into them and was dispersed, and he himself became ever more bound to the earth, unwilling to issue from his dark strongholds” (11).

He will yet have centuries of further disseminating himself in domination. This particular venture is before he even spent himself in breeding dragons and dominating them, much less the vaster Orc armies of the late First Age. Previously, although he did not actually dominate Ungoliant, he had spent enough of his power in empowering her for his purposes that he was vulnerable to her and required rescue by his Balrogs. But Melian the Maia was powerful enough to prevent her from entering her realm (10). These points of the narrative simply illustrate how far Morgoth had fallen from his great power before the world began, as he had expended it in dominating others, including other angelic beings. His power was still vast within Middle-earth, but less so within himself, because it was now dispersed in others. He still ruled through terror, but he would also rely at various times on deception, demoralization, and sowing dissent among his enemies, as he had done among the Elves in Valinor. And more than anything else, he depended on the servants he expended his power in dominating. In his aim to become worshipful to more and more beings, he made himself more and more pathetic while making the forces he commanded to maintain his dominance stronger and stronger.

Men, the Secondborn Children of Ilúvatar

To close out this part of the commentary, the final chapter concerns the emergence of Men with the first rising of the Sun. Unlike the Elves, they will never know any other light for the world than the Sun and Moon. And unlike the Elves, they will have no Valar come to guide them. Seemingly, the Valar did not want to make another attempt of what had so recently turned sour with the Elves. And thus Men were more estranged from the Valar than the Elves, though many of them eventually learned about them from the Elves.

Not much is said about Men here, save for some of their ancestors and heroes of old, since these tales are told from an Elvish perspective. But we are given another contrast between the kindreds of the Children of Ilúvatar that fits what has been said previously:

What may befall their spirits after death the Elves know not. Some say that they too go to the halls of Mandos; but their place of waiting there is not that of the Elves, and Mandos under Ilúvatar alone save Manwë knows whither they go after the time of recollection in those silent halls beside the Outer Sea. None have ever come back from the mansions of the dead, save only Beren son of Barahir, whose hand had touched a Silmaril; but he never spoke afterward to mortal Men. The fate of Men after death, maybe, is not in the hands of the Valar, nor was all foretold in the Music of the Ainur. (12)

This further illustrates the Elvish perspective and how it presents some ambiguity and uncertainty that is lacking elsewhere. But it still comports with the idea that the fate of Men after death is to go beyond the world. That is, they are beyond it until the time of the new creation, when the Children will come together and participate in the Second Music with the gifts Ilúvatar has given them.

1. J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Qenya Lexicon,” Parma Eldalamberon 12 (1998): 35 (available online at: https://archive.org/details/parma-eldalamberon-12/page/35). Cf. also Letter #246.

2. J. R. R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf (including Mythopoeia), 3rd ed. (London: HarperCollins, 1988), 87.

3. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” 145.

4. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales 2, The History of Middle-earth 2, ed. Christopher Tolkien (New York: Del Rey, 1984), 225.

5. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Shaping of Middle-earth, The History of Middle-earth 4, ed. Christopher Tolkien (New York: Del Rey, 1986), 125.

6. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lost Road and Other Writings, The History of Middle-earth 5, ed. Christopher Tolkien (New York: Del Rey, 1987), 143.

7. Ibid., 195.

8. Ibid., 299–300.

9. Cf. II/6: “There lies the Crown of Durin till he wakes.”

10. Cf. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Peoples of Middle-earth, The History of Middle-earth 12, ed. Christopher Tolkien (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), 383.

11. Helpful in this regard is Kathleen E. Dubs’s outline, following the influential theologian Boethius in distinguishing, “providence, which orders the universe; fate, the temporal manifestation of that order; chance, that ‘fate’ which occurs not according to our expectations, and for causes of which we are unaware; and, of course, freedom of will, which operates as part of this providential order.” Kathleen E. Dubs, “Providence, Fate and Chance: Boethian Philosophy in The Lord of the Rings,” in Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader, ed. Jane Chance (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 141. See Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, Books 4 and 5.

12. J. R. R. Tolkien, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo (New York: Del Rey, 1980), 58.

13. J. R. R. Tolkien, trans., The Old English Exodus, ed. Joan Turville-Petre (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981). Since, as far as I am aware, the latter text has not been reprinted, it is available at: https://archive.org/details/document_20230827.

14. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Nature of Middle-earth, ed. Carl F. Hostetter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), 234.

15. Tolkien, Morgoth’s Ring, 162.

16. Ibid., 401–2.

17. Ibid., 247.

18. Tolkien, Nature of Middle-earth, 214–15.

19. Carl F. Hostetter, “Body, Mind, and Spirit: Introduction,” in The Nature of Middle-earth, 171–72.

20. Hostetter, “Metaphysical and Theological Themes,” in The Nature of Middle-earth, 409.

21. Tolkien, Nature of Middle-earth, 226–31.

22. Cf. the description of the fate of the condemned in 2 Pet 2:17; Jude 13. For more on the texts of 2 Peter and Jude, see here.

23. J. R. R. Tolkien, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” in The Monsters and the Critics, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: HarperCollins, 2006), 5–48. Beyond his famous essay, see J. R. R. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Mariner, 2015); Tolkien, The Battle of Maldon Together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son and “The Tradition of Versification in Old English, ed. Peter Grybauskas (New York: HarperCollins, 2023).

24. Tolkien, “Beowulf,” 18.

25. Ibid., 20 (emphasis original).

26. Ibid., 21.

27. Ibid., 20, 21.

28. Similarly, Tolkien summarizes the fusion well in an unpublished letter to Bruce Mitchell, “I think we fail to grasp imaginatively the pagan ‘heroic’ temper, the almost animal pride and ferocity of ‘nobles’ and champions on the one hand; or on the other hand the immense relief and hope of Christian ethical teaching amidst a world with savage values.” Bruce Mitchell, On Old English: Selected Papers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 53–54.

29. On this text, see pages 172–202 of my dissertation.

30. Tolkien, “Beowulf,” 28.

31. Cf. Tolkien’s comments to C. S. Lewis in Letter #113: “It is one of the mysteries of pain that it is, for the sufferer, an opportunity for good, a path of ascent however hard. But it remains an ‘evil,’ and it must dismay any conscience to have caused it carelessly, or in excess, let alone wilfully.”

32. See especially Tolkien, Morgoth’s Ring, 370–90.