Tolkien’s Catholic Mythopoeic Vision

Author: Georg Sellner

Editors note: the author’s first language is not English. We hope to publish another version in German as well.

 

 

The Works of Tolkien — especially his legendarium — have an incredible and enormous depth to them. You can dive deeply into his lore and explore every inch of his realm without ever hitting a wall, because the deeper you go the profounder the experience becomes, reaching the heights of orthodox theology, realist philosophy and true myth.

 

Of course one can absolutely enjoy Tolkiens stories for their own sake, just like one can be amazed by a beautiful landscape, even when looking through a dusty window. But I am deeply convinced that without a Christian and Catholic understanding, there will always be missing the central, most illuminating piece, which beautifully enchants every other part of the Legendarium and affords universal meaning.
To expand on this fact shortly, let us look to an analogy given by Tolkiens long time best friend and fellow Inkling C.S Lewis. He identified the Incarnation of God as the one miracle which makes sense of whole human history and he compared it to a missing part of a book, which when it is given to a reader, who is familiar with the rest of the story, will see that this missing part acts as the central key and will give most sensibly light and utmost meaning to everything else.

 

In my opinion it is the same with Tolkien’s writings and the Catholic faith: It illuminates and gives meaning to his entire work, like nothing else. As has his own Roman Catholic faith illuminated and enchanted his own life.

 

 

Myth and Truth

 

“We have come from God and inevitably the myths woven by us though they contain error will also reflect a splintered fragment of True Light the Eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth making only by becoming sub Creator and inventing stories can man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true Harbor while materialistic progress leads only to a yawning abyss and the iron crown of the power of evil.“ [1]

 

In our (post)modern age, which has gone through the dis-enchanting rationalism of the so called enlightenment, the term “myth“ is normally being used in order to describe a false story, a collective lie, which is believed only by the superstitious, dull and not yet “enlightened“. Tolkien of course rejected this reductionist view of truth and myth:

 

“Myths are the very opposite of a lie“ he would say to C.S. Lewis in one of their nightly discussions, “myths convey the essential truths of primary reality and life itself!“

 

But what is truth, Quid est veritas?

 

There is never really a way around this fundamental question.

 

In the Passion of Our Lord, it is Pontius Pilate who asks precisely this question and thus also acts as a representative of every sceptic, nihilist or otherwise desperate and hopeless person. It was the Son of God, Jesus Christ who stood before the Roman governor, but the Word incarnate stood silent, why? Because He himself literally was and is the answer, standing right before the roman. The ultimate truth incarnate stood before Pilate yet he could not see. This silence of the Word incarnate speaks louder than any human utterance could.

 

Christ is the invisible Eternal God — born to Our Immaculate Lady — thus made visible in a man in a perfect harmonious Union, neither separated nor confused.

 

Truth therefore can be seen as something invisible, eternal, made visible, tangible, audible, manifested, in a loving and marriage-like conjunction. Truth is this symphonic on key Union between Heaven and Earth, between thought and reality.

 

What is the meaning of myth in relationship to truth then?

 

A myth is an ever ancient, ever new, shared story, which reveals to us eternal patterns through epic and often fantastic narrative. It is a union of history and human imagination (a God-given faculty) — not removing us from reality — but pointing us to hyper-reality, to metaphysical truths, which are acted out and displayed by the inhabitants of the mythical story, where they find a proper „incarnation“, which „physical history“ might be lacking in such a clear and moving way. Furthermore a myth is connected to a certain people, gives them a common origin and affords participation which transcends time.

 

So far from being a lie, a myth can contain higher truths which go beyond a mere physical fact, of which there is an infinite amount.

 

What is the relationship between Tolkien and myth and how does it connect to his Catholic faith? Could Tolkien’s legendarium be the most “Catholic mythology“ ever to be subcreated by man?

 

 

Sub-creation 

 

“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“ [2]

 

Since the Professor, as we all know, was a passionate and renowned philologist, it is only fitting that he would also coin, or even invent, new terms to describe his thinking and work. One of these terms is sub-creation.

 

Sub-creation — according to Tolkien — is a faculty, which is given to us by our Supreme Creator, God. Only he can truly create, ex-nihilo, so original creation in the strict sense of the term, is only possible for God Himself.

 

To emphasize this and to outline that we are children of the Almighty, Tolkien came up with the term sub-creation, which means creating something “new“, through connecting and combining certain things, which are already created, by God. And this is actually what creativity means. It is always a form of sub-creation, of imitating Our Father in heaven, like a child imitating his earthly father.
Our creator, the Giver of the gift of imagination has made us in His image. It only follows then that we as children of God have the natural desire to emulate our heavenly Father. There is no faculty that God gives to us in vain so Tolkien concluded that storytelling and imagination are one of these God-given faculties and that we might use them for good, even as Christians who believe that the ultimate story has already been told and has taken place, physically, on earth.

 

“The story-maker proves a successful ‘sub-creator’. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.“ [3]

 

In his poem with a poem “Mythopoeia“, Tolkien defends this position and the Art of Storytelling and myth-making. It is a beautiful and profound plea for human imagination and our God-given right to use it for good.

“Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme  of things not found within recorded time.  It is not they that have forgot the Night, or bid us flee to organized delight, in lotus-isles of economic bliss forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss (and counterfeit at that, machine-produced, bogus seduction of the twice-seduced). Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,  and those that hear them yet may yet beware.  They have seen Death and ultimate defeat, and yet they would not in despair retreat,  but oft to victory have turned the lyre and kindled hearts with legendary fire, illuminating Now and dark Hath-been with light of suns as yet by no man seen.“ [4]

 

 

Tolkien and “Catholic myth“

 

“But in God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the ‘happy ending.’ The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the Fallen that we know.“ [5]

 

I think one can argue for the validity of calling Tolkien’s Legendarium a “Catholic myth“ in three ways:  First of all, we should consider the content of the Legendarium.

 

Does the myth itself embody Christian and Catholic truths, will the story get most alive if you apply the Catholic framework to it?
The answer to this question is a definite yes! The Christian framework is the most illuminating key to Tolkiens Legendarium. Once you realize for example, how certain dates within the story of “The Lord of the Rings“ correspond to important dates in the Catholic liturgical calendar, a whole new level of meaning will be unlocked.

 

The 25th of March e.g. is not only the Feast of the Annunciation, but also the the day when Christ died for us on the Cross, ultimately defeating death and Satan.

 

Now in the Lord of the Rings, it is the one ring that is destroyed on exactly that date —which tells us that the ring can be seen as sin in general and original sin in particular. Thus Frodo becomes the “sin bearer“, the sacrificial priest, Mount Doom becomes Calvary and the destruction of the Ring is when the Sauron i.e. Satan is bound up. From there on, one can explore further awesome meaning-making connections; I highly recommend the work of Joseph Pearce, especially his great book “Frodos Journey“ in order to further investigate this fact.

 

Secondly the term Catholic derives from the Greek term “catholicos“, meaning “universal“, “all-encompassing“.

 

So in that sense a Catholic myth would be an all-encompassing Story by embodying Eternal truths and serving not as a source only for a specific kind of people but being applicable for any culture, just like the Catholic Faith. I think that Tolkien’s mythology, although it was primarily created as a mythology for his beloved Anglo-Saxon England, in the end achieved more than that and deals with such universal i.e. Catholic truths that it becomes indeed “catholicos“, thus Tolkien’s Legendarium can be called a “Catholic myth“.

 

Thirdly, we should maybe take a step back and see if there even is a justification for the claim of how a myth, made by human imagination can even be called “Catholic“. Can we as Christians create fictional and Fantastical stories, which legitimately serve a Heavenly purpose? One could regard Tolkien’s insightful essay “On Fairy Stories“ as an attempt to investigate if his desire to create a fundamentally religious and Catholic Secondary World, in which there is no explicit mention of Christ, is in accordance with Catholic doctrines and the Christian Faith.
His answer is a resounding and hopeful “yes“, for Christ and the Gospel “did not abrogate Legends, but hallowed them“.

 

It may also be made clear by the fact that Christ himself in his Parables was teaching us fundamental truths through the faculty of story-telling, thus revealing to us that “story“ and “myth“ are also redeemed and can serve a Heavenly purpose. A purpose to which we can submit our own stories and so let them be baptized transformed and even sanctified.

 

What a joyful and yet serious and responsible conclusion by the Professor. Story-telling and myth-making are indeed gifts we receive from God, but it is the Christian responsibility to make them true good and beautiful, in service to Christ!

 

 

[1]  Humphrey Carpenter, JRR Tolkien: A Biography, p. 151

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories

[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories

[4] J.R.R. Tolkien, Mythopoeia

[5] J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories