Biblical and Theological Commentary on Tolkien's Letters, Part 5
Letters #155, #156, #163, #165, #181, #183, #186, #191, #192, and #195
(avg. read time: 18–35 mins.)
Letter #155 (passage from draft of Letter #154: to Naomi Mitchison)
In this unsent portion of Tolkien’s previous letter to Naomi Mitchison, he seeks to explain the use of the term “magic” in his story. I have previously noted that the term is not consistently used in LOTR, and Galadriel even makes a comment about how mortals use it for both the powers that the Elves exercise and the powers of the Enemy [noted in commentary on Letter #131]. Since LOTR is told primarily from the Hobbits’ perspective (being based as it is on The Book of Westmarch), it necessarily continues this lack of distinction and does not launch into some philosophical or theological reflection on differentiation when it comes to “magic.”
He notes the old distinction between magia (which was more often regarded positively) and goeteia (which was more often regarded negatively) as an analogous one to the distinctions between kinds of magic in his story. Ultimately, the distinction of good and bad in the case of magic in his world does not have to do so much with the power itself as with the motive, purpose, or use thereof. Furthermore, the distinction between the two kinds of magic, as he continues to use the terms, is that magia is some inherent power, such as both Gandalf and Sauron have by virtue of their being Maiar (an order of angelic beings lower than the Valar), while goeteia is not inherent and usually involves external manipulation, often on the level of creating visions or illusions. What, then, sets what one might consider “good” magic in Tolkien’s story apart from the biblical prohibitions against sorcery and such was that the cases of the latter 1) do not concern some inherent powers and 2) involve appeal to and attempted manipulation (using formulae and divine names) of other powers, rather than going to God in prayer. Magic in this framework, where it does not concern inherent powers of superhuman creatures, is a two-faced form of idolatry and pride. On the one hand, one generally seeks a power apart from God to accomplish a given purpose, either because they know it is improper to ask this of God or because they expect better, quicker results by going to another power than the one God they are supposed to worship. On the other hand, even as it involves appeal to another god as the supposedly more dependable power, magic also works on the presumed ability to manipulate the deity to one’s own ends. Sometimes this even involves YHWH, as there are magical texts that include this name. As such, magic operates on the conceit that one is not only appealing to a supernormal power, but that that power is to render service to oneself.
Although Tolkien does not deal with the relationship to the biblical text as such, he makes some important notes about the framework of this discussion in his closing paragraph:
Anyway, a difference in the use of ‘magic’ in this story is that it is not to be come by by ‘lore’ or spells; but is in an inherent power not possessed or attainable by Men as such. Aragorn’s ‘healing’ might be regarded as ‘magical’, or at least a blend of magic with pharmacy and ‘hypnotic’ processes. But it is (in theory) reported by hobbits who have very little notions of philosophy and science; while A. is not a pure ‘Man’, but at long remove one of the ‘children of Lúthien’.
Letter #156 (draft: 4 November 1954 to Robert Murray, S.J.)
I have commented on this letter and how it responds to criticisms about the treatment of Gandalf’s death and return in my post on Tolkien’s response to critics. What will concern me here are the theological notes Tolkien makes, as well as his comments on religion and worship in his sub-creation. In case there was any lingering doubt about whether God and the subservient Valar are acknowledged at multiple points throughout Tolkien’s work, Tolkien himself says that he has purposely kept all allusions to the “highest matters” down to hints, only coming through in places like Gandalf’s statement, “behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker’s” and the grace that Faramir and his men observe at dinner. The action of God also appears in Gandalf being sent back, for it was not the Valar who did so. As Tolkien explains, “He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or governors; but Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure.”
Beyond the explanation of Gandalf and his return, as well as how it fits in his mythology, Tolkien spends much of the rest of the letter explaining religion and worship in his Secondary World. As noted elsewhere, the Fall has already happened, and the Edain (Men) who have come into Beleriand in the First Age have, in fact, fled from Melkor’s work in the East, where he had presented himself as God to them and many had been deceived and offered him worship (for more detail on this aspect of the story, I reserve comments for the theologically dense “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth” in Morgoth’s Ring). This experience, then, affected how they expressed theology after they became aware of the truth: “They thus escaped from ‘religion’ in a pagan sense, into a pure monotheist world, in which all things and beings and powers that might seem worshipful were not to be worshipped, not even the gods (the Valar), being only creatures of the One. And He was immensely remote.” Likewise, the Noldor, who had come to Middle-earth after their own sort of Fall, “had no ‘religion’ (or religious practices, rather) for those had been in the hands of the gods, praising and adoring Eru ‘the One,’ Ilúvatar the Father of all on the Mt. of Aman.” As such, for different reasons, the Elves and Men of Beleriand lacked religious practices, but not theology informed by the truth of the One, as will be expounded on more extensively in the commentary on The Silmarillion.
As for the state of things in the Second Age, Tolkien reiterates what he has said elsewhere that the Númenóreans had a place of worship on the summit of Meneltarma (“Pillar of Heaven”), but without a building there, for such things still retained evil associations in the traditions of these Men about the hazy past their ancestors came from. But in the end, they too would fall, and this fall resonated with the Eden story in Genesis, for it came at the violation of a Ban in a vain attempt to claim immortality for themselves when that was not Eru’s will for them. The quality of immortality has a different role in the Eden story, of course, as the humans were not yet immortal, but were prevented from eating of the tree of life after they had violated their own ban in eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the one tree they were not allowed to eat from (as the Númenóreans had sailed west to the one land they could not sail to). Another difference is that there is an extended rebellion period in Númenor prior to its ultimate fall. And this rebellion period included Sauron’s religious corruption of the Númenóreans, whereby he, “destroyed the conception of Eru, now represented as a mere figment of the Valar or Lords of the West (a fictitious sanction to which they appealed if anyone questioned their rulings), and substituted a Satanist religion with a large temple, the worship of the dispossessed eldest of the Valar (the rebellious Dark Lord of the First Age).” Of course, there are ways in which this resonates with the Eden story, not so much in that the serpent deceived Adam and Eve into thinking there is no God—that could not have happened in the Eden story, but it makes sense as a deception in how the world of Arda is set up—but in the sense that he was attempting to induce a sort of attempted usurpation. And indeed, Sauron tempts the last Númenórean king, Ar-Pharazôn to invade Aman in a vain attempt for the king and his fellows to wrest immortality for themselves.
Tolkien’s general story here also resonates with Eden in another way. Mortality in Tolkien’s world is not a punishment for Men, but a Gift, one that even the Valar, bound as they are to the current created order for as long as it exists, could come to envy. In a marred world well short of the new creation that will be created by the Second Music, perpetual life can become a source of constant sorrow, rather than constant joy. For many of the Elves who lived through the travails of the First Age, then the diminishing of the Elves in the Second Age, followed by their ultimate dwindling while watching the darkness wax in the Third Age, it is easy to see how such weariness can accumulate to a burden of unimaginable weight (cf. Letter #245). There is to come a time of new creation in which even this mortality is voided, but it is not in essence a punishment. It becomes that way due to rebellion against the will of the One, which tends to manifest in Arda in terms of fear, reluctance, and contempt for mortality. In a similar way, death as simply the end of a transient existence is not, in and of itself, a punishment. But it becomes an affliction on the world when it is combined with sin. Adam and Eve were not immortal by nature (hence the tree of life), but they could become immortal. Then with sin causing the rupture in the relationship with God, they were exiled from the garden, forbidden from ever partaking of the tree of life (which was both a punishment in that Adam and Eve were not allowed to partake of both the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then the tree of life afterwards, as well as a hidden grace in that such a sinful and broken existence was not allowed to perpetuate forever). Thus, death became intertwined with this exile caused by sin to become the ultimate end of sin, the ultimate end of godforsaken existence. Death does not have this same sense for those who are in union with the risen Christ and thus the God who raises the dead, since death becomes like a temporary state of sleep for them, after which they will awaken to the resurrection of everlasting life.
In any case, Tolkien notes that the story of Númenor also ends with a “Noachian” element, as a remnant of the Faithful are spared the destruction because they fled Númenor for Middle-earth and were preserved through the cataclysm. Their story could thus continue and Tolkien further explains the state of religion among Men in the Third Age as follows:
Also when the ‘Kings’ came to an end there was no equivalent to a ‘priesthood’: the two being identical in Númenórean ideas. So while God (Eru) was a datum of good Númenórean philosophy, and a prime fact in their conception of history, He had at the time of the War of the Ring no worship and no hallowed place. And that kind of negative truth was characteristic of the West, and all the area under Númenórean influence: the refusal to worship any ‘creature’, and above all no ‘dark lord’ or satanic demon, Sauron, or any other, was almost as far as they got. They had (I imagine) no petitionary prayers to God; but preserved the vestige of thanksgiving. (Those under special Elvish influence might call on the angelic powers for help in immediate peril or fear of evil enemies.) It later appears that there had been a ‘hallow’ on Mindolluin, only approachable by the King, where he had anciently offered thanks and praise on behalf of his people; but it had been forgotten. It was re-entered by Aragorn, and there he found a sapling of the White Tree, and replanted it in the Court of the Fountain. It is to be presumed that with the reemergence of the lineal priest kings (of whom Lúthien the Blessed Elf-maiden was a foremother) the worship of God would be renewed, and His Name (or title) be again more often heard. But there would be no temple of the True God while Númenórean influence lasted.
He describes such things in terms of philosophy because this is a situation of natural theology from the perspective of Men. There is not, as with Israel, a revealed theology, a revealed religion that comes from a special dispensation of the One. In the absence of such special revelation, and in the absence of proper religious instruction from the Valar, Tolkien is essentially portraying this history as the most one might expect or hope for from a natural theology, having only hints of religious praxis, rather than anything robust, as with special revelation. And it makes sense, in light of the history portrayed by Tolkien: “But if you imagine people in such a mythical state, in which Evil is largely incarnate, and in which physical resistance to it is a major act of loyalty to God, I think you would have the ‘good people’ in just such a state: concentrated on the negative: the resistance to the false while ‘truth’ remained more historical and philosophical than religious.”
Letter #163 (7 June 1955 to W. H. Auden)
This letter addresses W. H. Auden, one of the most favorable literary critics to Tolkien at the time of LOTR’s release. He had been asked to give a talk on the BBC Third Programme in October about LOTR and he wrote to Tolkien to get his input on what he should talk about and concerning the genesis of the story. Tolkien’s response is filled with how he thinks his life has influenced the story and the need to write it. As a philologist, Tolkien naturally gives much attention to linguistic interests and how they gave rise in his interest to write such stories. In the process, he provides insight into how he thinks of his sub-creative project.
His love of language ultimately gave birth to his own stories. As is often noted, the origin of The Hobbit—and LOTR by extension, though it was more substantially mixed with the earlier elements of his mythology—was from the sentence he wrote on a blank sheet of a student’s exam paper: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” As Tolkien relates to Auden after summarizing his extensive philological background, “All this only as background to the stories. They are and were so to speak an attempt to give a background or a world in which my expressions of linguistic taste could have a function.” Even as words are the source of this Secondary World’s existence and purpose—as, in a related fashion, it is through the Word that the Primary World exists and has its purpose—it is the Secondary World and the story of it that gives the words their sense and significance.
When he focuses on Hobbits and their importance in his storytelling, he states,
Anyway I myself saw the value of Hobbits, in putting earth under the feet of ‘romance’, and in providing subjects for ‘ennoblement’ and heroes more praiseworthy than the professionals: nolo heroizari [I do not wish to be a hero] is of course as good a start for a hero, as nolo episcopari [I do not wish to be a bishop] for a bishop. Not that I am a ‘democrat’ in any of its current uses; except that I suppose, to speak in literary terms, we are all equal before the Great Author, qui deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles.
Of course, Tolkien’s description of the Hobbit heroes paints in broad strokes. Bilbo, Sam, and Frodo each have an interest in adventure beyond the Shire, but it is only there deep down, and it is Gandalf and the sense of necessity that have to excite it to the surface beyond the initial denial they have been conditioned to by lifetimes spent in the Shire. But it is precisely because they are not “professional” heroes—like Gandalf, Aragorn, or any other non-Hobbits of the Fellowship—and do not even see themselves as the hero types that they are best suited to be the heroes of Tolkien’s story. The quote from the Magnificat (specifically, Luke 1:52) in the Latin he had heard in Mass for most of his life puts a fine point on the character of Tolkien’s story as one of ennoblement. It is a story that imitates God’s action as Creator, Judge, King, and Redeemer in humbling the exalted and exalting the humble (cf. 1 Sam 2:1–10; Pss 9:11–14, 17–20; 10:1–4; 12:1–5; 14:6; 18:25–29; 22:26; 25:9, 16–18; 37:14; 69:30–33; 140:12; 147:6; 149:4; Isa 11:4; 29:19; 61:1; Zeph 2:3).
Letter #165 (30 June 1955 to the Houghton Mifflin Co.)
Tolkien penned this letter to his American publisher in response to how a columnist named Harvey Breit—writing for the New York Times Book Review—had handled his correspondence in reply to questions about him and his work. It serves as a clarification and expansion on the answers he had given. It also serves to give some implicit hints on how Tolkien thinks of his sub-creation.
As in the last cited letter, Tolkien insists that his entire work is, “fundamentally linguistic in inspiration.” It is an expansion on what he wrote in the previous letter that, “I am a philologist, and all my work is philological.” On the one hand, this fact befits a work produced by a professor of philology. On the other hand, because of those professional interests, others could easily think of Tolkien’s work in storytelling as a creative outlet, a diverting hobby taken up when professional responsibilities are not of concern. But Tolkien insists that—because he is a philologist with interests in the relation of philology and myth who has written stories as an extension of his professional work—his stories are not results of hobby, even if they are part of his private amusement (amusement that he takes in his professional work, meaning that he does not consider himself a man of hobbies at all). The fact that there is deep continuity between his professional work and his stories shows itself in his reiteration, “The invention of languages is the foundation. The ‘stories’ were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse.” As a grand linguistic construction, Tolkien claims that it, “is not ‘about’ anything but itself.”
Furthermore, he gives clarification on the religious nature of his sub-creation against the claim that it contains no religion. He has already indicated in other letters that he does not regard it as proper for a Secondary World to contain the explicit forms of religion in the Primary World. Rather, “It is a monotheistic world of ‘natural theology’. The odd fact that there are no churches, temples, or religious rites and ceremonies, is simply part of the historical climate depicted…. I am in any case myself a Christian; but the ‘Third Age’ was not a Christian world.” The world’s seeming lack of religion, at least insofar as the world is disclosed through LOTR, is simply due to Tolkien’s attempt at being realistic about the character of this world, as noted in the commentary on Letter #156. After all, it is an imaginative history meant to take place in an earlier time of this planet. LOTR (and even much of The Silmarillion) takes place at some imagined time between the Fall and the Incarnation. As such, revealed theology and its attendant religion have yet to arrive.
The last noteworthy matter of this letter for the purposes of this analysis comes in Tolkien’s reflections in what especially moves him within his own story. He reaffirms the special place he has in his heart for the ennoblement of the ignoble (a theme expounded on elsewhere in this commentary, and to which he will make reference again in Letters #180, #181, and #186). And there are individual aspects of his story that he finds especially moving, such as the description of Cerin Amroth, the arrival of the Rohirrim at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and Gollum’s near-repentance on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, which Sam unthinkingly thwarts by his faithfulness to his friend and master. Tolkien singles out this last event as a way in which the Secondary World has a reality reflecting the Primary World: “this seems to me really like the real world in which the instruments of just retribution are seldom themselves just or holy; and the good are often stumbling blocks.” In instances such as this one, Tolkien shows that the moral and providential picture of his world is more complicated than it is often given credit for being and it is thus more reflective of the Primary World in both of these ways.
Letter #181 (drafts: January or February 1956 to Michael Straight)
This text is actually the combination of several unfinished drafts of what Tolkien intended to send to Michael Straight, the editor of New Republic, who had asked him a few questions about LOTR before he wrote a review. Though he did not ask about Tolkien’s notions of sub-creation, his question about Gollum’s role in the story and Frodo’s failure at the climax prompts Tolkien to give depth to how he thinks of his fairy-stories and the most important events in them.
As Tolkien had written previously in “On Fairy-Stories,” he insists that, contrary to popular opinion, they are properly for adults—though naturally children can benefit from them. It is for all because it reflects truth in its own fashion. But in order to fulfill that purpose, the story has to fulfill obligations of quality and coherence. And to address adults in such a way as to engage them at a deep level it is necessary to remember, “they will not be pleased, excited, or moved unless the whole, or the incidents, seem to be about something worth considering, more e.g. than mere danger and escape: there must be some relevance to the ‘human situation’ (of all periods). So something of the teller’s own reflections and ‘values’ will inevitably get worked in.” This description is the reality with which he contrasts the common thoughts of allegory in LOTR. Its resemblances to the Primary World at the points where some think it is allegorical are implicit simply because the author is from the Primary World and because that author has certain beliefs and values. Such are the externals that the aspects of the story refer to, but not intentionally, since those externals only resemble the Secondary World’s exemplification.
In reference to the dyscatastrophe and resultant eucatastrophe of the climax, there is a particular exemplification of a primary truth Tolkien sees at work: “Forgive us our debts even as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” In particular, it exemplifies the first clause of the second verse. Frodo, as the Ring-bearer, is led deeper into temptation than others in order to accomplish a goal of delivering the world from the evil one. It is a sacrificial situation in which,
the “good” of the world depends on the behaviour of an individual in circumstances which demand of him suffering and endurance far beyond the normal – even, it may happen (or seem, humanly speaking), demand a strength of body and mind which he does not possess: he is in a sense doomed to failure, doomed to fall to temptation or be broken by pressure against his ‘will’: that is against any choice he could make or would make unfettered, not under the duress.
It is a truth of the Primary World exemplified in the Secondary World that makes Frodo’s failure realistic and even inevitable. He may be a Christ-like figure in his enacting of a priestly and suffering servant role in direct confrontation of evil and temptation, but he is clearly not Christ, the only one who could overcome this inevitability.1 In this sense, the story of this Secondary World is praeparatio evangelica. But it is only anticipatory because the deliverance brought about by the eucatastrophe was in spite of Frodo and happened by the providential provision of Gollum’s presence at the crucial moment (an outcome which was in turn influenced by the pity of Frodo and, on one occasion, Sam). This complicated, but clear, moral, providential, and salvific picture reflects Primary Reality while having the inner consistency of its own reality, meaning that it enables the sub-creation to fulfill one of its purposes to which Tolkien has returned constantly.
He frames his story as a whole as “a ‘monotheistic but “sub-creational” mythology’.” This fits with what he says elsewhere about this being a story with a setting of natural theology for Men within it, but it also conveys what I have showed elsewhere of the importance of the action of sub-creation within the story itself. There is only one God, one Creator, with the Valar taking the place of “gods” from other mythologies, but who are themselves created spirits and sub-creators par excellence. From the perspective of the story, the One is generally distant, but remains at work. And only the One is capable of occasional special divine actions: “the One retains all ultimate authority, and (or so it seems as viewed in serial time) reserves the right to intrude the finger of God into the story: that is to produce realities which could not be deduced even from a complete knowledge of the previous past, but which being real become part of the effective past for all subsequent time (a possible definition of a ‘miracle’).” In The Silmarillion, such miracles are more overt and manifest in such ways as the creation of the Children of Ilúvatar—Elves and Men—along with the hallowing of the Dwarves, the allowance of Beren and Lúthien to return to life and form a union and from it introduce a branch of Eldar and Maiar into the world of Men (as well as offspring who would be allowed a choice to have their final fates with Elves or Men), and the changing of the world after Númenor’s attempted invasion of Aman, so that Aman was removed from Arda and Arda was made a globe. In later years, Eru was still active, but, as noted previously, was alluded to indirectly and his action was most often seen in remarkable providence. But there is, as yet, no supreme miracle of the Incarnation, for “The Incarnation of God is an infinitely greater thing than anything I would dare to write.” There are in fact hints towards a future divine incarnation in “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth” in Morgoth’s Ring, but this is a point we will need to return to another time.
Letter #183 (notes on W. H. Auden’s review of The Return of the King [1956])
This letter is another unsent document from Tolkien addressing W. H. Auden’s review “At the End of the Quest, Victory” for the New York Times Book Review (January 22, 1956). While Tolkien is appreciative of Auden’s praise, he has comments to make about Auden’s thoughts on the political nature of the Quest (which he sets in contrast to Erich Auerbach’s criticism of medieval quests that they are random feats not fitting into a politically purposive pattern). This point gives Tolkien occasion to expand on the Secondary Reality of his sub-creation and how it reflects (or exemplifies) Primary Reality. After all, “Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. The name is the modern form (appearing in the 13th century and still in use) of midden-erd > middel-erd, an ancient name for the oikoumenē, the abiding place of Men, the objectively real world, in use specifically opposed to imaginary worlds (as Fairyland) or unseen worlds (as Heaven or Hell). The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary.”
Even though the point Tolkien addresses is political, he ultimately offers moral and metaphysical reflections that inform his sub-creation. In his contrast between good and evil causes (which he states is not determined so much by the conduct of groups on either side but by principles that extend beyond the particular conflict), he notes that, “In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero. I do not think that at any rate any ‘rational being’ is wholly evil.” Even his most villainous characters—Morgoth and Sauron—were originally good beings (even simply by virtue of their existence). Sauron himself began as a being who desired order and even as one who considered the well-being of others within this order. However, this desire became corrupted into a desire for domination and enslavement of others to his will. This same story seems to fit the pattern of many tyrants, even as Sauron is more like a fallen angel. As such, his fall is more extreme and of greater consequence. Because of Sauron’s nature and because of the influence of his master—who wished to find a way to steal the Flame Imperishable and become the Creator himself—his aims and desires go beyond politics and into metaphysics. As such, the conflict in LOTR that Sauron instigates is not about freedom so much as it is about, “God, and His sole right to divine honour. The Eldar and the Númenóreans believed in The One, the true God, and held worship of any other person an abomination. Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants; if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world.”
Tolkien’s sub-creation thus reflects the Primary World in its central conflict and primary sin (idolatry or pride) according to a Christian vision. Sauron was one of the original sub-creators, but sub-creation was not enough for him and he attempted to be a usurper and to be worshiped as Creator, much like the beings made in the image of God who attempted to be usurpers and become like God against God’s order. Thereafter, both sins—though Sauron’s was subsequent to and on a smaller scale than Melkor’s—came to define the sin of the world as a whole as the usurpation of idolatry mars and upends the order, function, and purpose of creation, and gives rise to the need for holistic redemption (taking the form of new creation in both Secondary and Primary Worlds).
Letter #186 (drafts: April 1956 to Joanna de Bortadano)
A group of drafts written to Joanna de Bortadano addresses a correlation that many have made in some capacity since the full publication of LOTR. Even as WW2 is often connected with the War of the Ring—for no real reason except that it was a big war that happened while Tolkien was writing—the Ring is often connected with the atomic bomb and atomic power. Tolkien clarifies that his story, and the Ring specifically, concerned not power unleashed upon the world in recent times, but power generally when it is exerted for domination. Still, in the case of Saruman in particular, Tolkien notes that the most direct contemporary reference in his story is to the widespread assumption, which Saruman embodies, of Tolkien’s own time, “that if a thing can be done, it must be done.” What has become the classic response to this way of thinking in the post-Cold War era is that of Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park: “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Both Malcolm and Tolkien, for different reasons, represent the view that there are certain powers humans should not have, even if they could, in principle, attain it. For Tolkien, “The greatest examples of the action of the spirit and of reason are in abnegation.” And for atomic power in particular, “it surely is clear that there will have to be some ‘abnegation’ in its use, a deliberate refusal to do some of the things it is possible to do with it, or nothing will stay!” We have seen at multiple points previously how this principle of abnegation is informed by the cruciform life he learned from the Bible and from examples such as his mother. Indeed, since this is the way of the cross that leads to resurrection by the God who raises the dead, it is the way of wisdom and the proper use of power (as Tolkien has also sought to show in his story through Gandalf in particular, who had to refuse to use his great power to dominate others for his purposes).
But in the end, he says that even power and domination are not at the center of the story, even the larger story that encompasses The Silmarillion. Such things provide the impetus for the War of the Ring and the drama that surrounds it, but “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 it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete.” Of course, he does not think this theme some peculiar discovery of his, as he says in Letter #203 that the fact that this theme is central to his work is simply to say, “it is a tale written by a Man!” (cf. Letter #208) Such a theme is embodied from the beginning in the contrasting fates of Elves and Men. Elves are immortal, not in the sense that they absolutely cannot die (many, many do), and not in the sense that they are eternal, but in the sense that their lives or cycle of lives lasts for as long as the world does. If they die, they become reincarnate after a time, but even in their time as spirits they remain within the bounds of the world in the Halls of Mandos. They are bound to the world until its end, and so they inherently have a deeper connection to it than Men ever can. But Men, despite having comparatively short lifespans, also have a connection to the world, even if their fate after death lies beyond it. The Elves, with the weariness of time in a broken world, come to envy the mortality that is Eru Ilúvatar’s Gift to Men, while many Men, faced with the cloud of uncertainty beyond death, envy the Elves’ immortality and wish, in their shortsightedness, that they too could continue in perpetuity in the circles of the world. Such is the nature of humans in a Christian anthropology that they are part of creation, being creatures in many ways similar to animals, but in that they are image-bearers of God, they also transcend the rest of creation in a way. In this in-between status, they ideally represent creation to God in worship and they represent God to creation in stewardly rule.
In both the Primary World and the Secondary World, the attachment to creation combined with the reality of death ultimately points to something more for humans. In Tolkien’s Secondary World, it is noted from the outset of The Silmarillion that there will be a Second Music, in which the Children of Ilúvatar will join with the Ainur, from which a new creation will come, and in what comes from this Second Music immortality will attain its fullness and the desires of both Elves and Men will be fulfilled in the promises of Eru. In the Primary World, the “something more” will come about through the eschatological resurrection to everlasting life and the new creation.
Letter #191 (draft: 26 July 1956 to Miss J. Burn) and Letter #192 (27 July 1956 to Amy Ronald)
We will consider the next two relevant letters together because both address criticisms about Frodo that persist today in some quarters of LOTR fans. Both readers had registered problems with Frodo’s failure to destroy the Ring and yet that he is treated as a hero nonetheless. Tolkien once again appeals to verisimilitude and the internal consistency of the reality of his Secondary World. Given what has been established about the power of the Ring, and especially its growing influence due to either length of exposure or proximity to its point of origin, Frodo being unable to destroy the Ring of his own will was inevitable. Indeed, the decisive moment is one at which the Ring was exerting its “maximum power” (functioning as something of a failsafe if anyone should try the unthinkable) and Frodo had had trouble casting it away even in Bag End. But despite knowing his own weakness, despite all that he had been told by Gandalf at Bag End, despite all that he had heard at the Council of Elrond, despite being made aware of the dangers of any such quest to Mordor (particularly for the Ringbearer), Frodo accepted the burden voluntarily. He had done all that he could have been expected to do and more, resisting the temptation of the Ring with all his willpower, but his willpower was not infinite. In Tolkien’s reflection on the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer (lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one), he notes that, “there exists the possibility of being placed in positions beyond one’s power.”2 Such is what happened to Frodo, as he was constitutionally incapable of resisting this power in the Sammath Naur, but that he made it this far is admirable in itself, “Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far.” And he only made it this far for the other major reason that he is deserving of honor: his mercy/pity towards Gollum.
If Frodo had taken Gollum’s life, the Quest would have well and truly failed. But at the point of catastrophe, Tolkien writes, “The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), ‘that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named’ (as one critic has said).” Just as this One (Eru Ilúvatar) had brought Frodo and Gollum together by Bilbo’s pity, so by Frodo’s pity, his act of mercy towards Gollum, he brought the Quest to its proper conclusion. Bilbo’s act of pity was taken up by providence to make it possible for Frodo to enter Mordor, and Frodo’s act of pity was taken up by providence to ensure not only that Frodo would make it to Mount Doom, but that the Ring would be destroyed despite Frodo’s inevitable failure of will. The importance of this point is such that Gandalf’s statement that Gollum may yet have some part to play in the fate of the Ring is repeated (in some form or another) in all three volumes (or Books I, IV, and VI). These two readers were not malicious in their criticism, but unfortunately Tolkien mentions a third who was in saying that Frodo “should have been hung and not honoured,” to which Tolkien says, “It seems sad and strange that, in this evil time when daily people of good will are tortured, ‘brainwashed’, and broken, anyone could be so fiercely simpleminded and self righteous.” Indeed, even as it is essential to take seriously the implications of the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer, it is also essential to take seriously the implications of the preceding one: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (as in Letter #181).
Letter #195 (15 December 1956 to Amy Ronald)
This short letter provides one of Tolkien’s more famous quotes for theological/philosophical discussions of his work, not least because it contains a phrase spoken by Galadriel. The letter is short enough that I quote it here in full:
One point: Frodo’s attitude to weapons was personal. He was not in modern terms a ‘pacifist’. Of course, he was mainly horrified at the prospect of civil war among Hobbits; but he had (I suppose) also reached the conclusion that physical fighting is actually less ultimately effective than most (good) men think it! Actually I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’ – though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.
Some critics, overeager to expound on Tolkien’s pessimism, have seized on the line about him expecting that history will only be a “long defeat” (the phrase from Galadriel), often without quoting the rest of the sentence. But the point he makes in the context in referencing his Catholic faith is in his support of Frodo’s view, which was not pacifist per se (like Tom Bombadil) but was a realistic view on just what physical fighting can accomplish. In this context, Tolkien clarifies that it is precisely because he is Catholic that he does not believe any human processes, no matter how justly executed, will lead to final victory. The eschaton is not in our hands and the most that any of our processes can accomplish is that of perseverance, knowing that the victory is not ours to win. But it is also precisely because Tolkien is Catholic that he always accompanies such statements about the power of evil in human history with statements about final victory guaranteed by his Lord Jesus Christ, in whose victory we are allowed to participate. In this same line of thinking, he also thinks that because of God’s providence and guidance of history, there are samples and glimpses of that final victory within history. As such, Tolkien is certainly no optimist, but he is not a pessimist either. His is a view of history defined in specific ways by his Christian theology, based as it is on the fact that Christ has been raised from the dead.
Clyde S. Kilby, Tolkien and the Silmarillion (Wheaton, IL: Shaw, 1976), 55–56.
He also notes in the first letter 1 Cor 10:12–13 as a relevant text, but not the one that first comes to his mind. But he interprets it to apply to situations in which a free agent in normal command of the will is capable of resisting temptation, so unlike Frodo’s overwhelming situation. Of course, the last part of v. 13 is applicable in that God (Eru Ilúvatar) does ultimately provide a way out of deliverance that came from Frodo’s own resistance to temptation earlier in his journey, when he chose the way of pity/mercy rather than wrath in response to Gollum.