The Battle for Middle-earth

THE BATTLE FOR MIDDLE-EARTH

THE BATTLE FOR MIDDLE-EARTH

z

Tolkien’s Divine Design in

The Lord of the Rings

Fleming Rutledge

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2140 Oak Industrial Dr. NE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 www.eerdmans.com © 2004 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. All rights reserved Published 2004 Printed in the United States of America 23 22 21 20 19 18 17

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rutledge, Fleming.

The battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien’s divine design in The Lord of the rings / Fleming Rutledge. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8028-2497-4 (pbk.)

1. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973. Lord of the rings.

2. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973 — Religion.

3. Christianity and Literature — England — History — 20th century.

4. Christian fiction, English — History and criticism.

5. Fantasy fiction, English — History and criticism.

6. Middle Earth (Imaginary place) 7. Theology in literature.

8. God in literature. I. Title.

PR6039.O32L63714 2004 823¢.912 — dc21 2003057287

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint materials granted by the institutions listed on p. 373 below.

To my beloved grandchildren Alice Dabney Donigan and Patrick Riley Donigan

Now I pray for you all, unceasingly, that the Healer shall heal my defects, and that none of you shall ever cease to cry Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. — J. R. R. Tolkien to his son Michael, 1 November 1963

Contents

1

Introduction Prologue: The Hobbit

21

Book I: The Ring Sets Out

47

Book II: The Ring Goes South

89

Book III: The Treason of Isengard

147

Book IV: The Ring Goes East

195

Book V: The War of the Ring

239

Book VI: The End of the Third Age

321

Acknowledgments

373

vii

Introduction

A Narrative Strategy This commentary on The Lord of the Rings differs from others in that it is organized according to J. R. R. Tolkien’s unfolding plot. Instead of identifying various themes and then analyzing them, I have chosen to be guided

by Tolkien’s own professed trust in the revelatory power of narrative. This power is well known to all who have responded to Tolkien’s exceptional skill as a storyteller; it is part of the mystique of the beloved tale. In my discussion, I wanted to hold on to Tolkien’s narrative momentum, because it seemed to me that something of fundamental importance was being conveyed precisely through that momentum.

This strategy dawned on me, I like to think, because I came upon Tolkien with virtually no presuppositions. Somehow I missed the Tolkien-mania of the 1960s. Late in that decade, I acquired a handsome three-volume set of The Lord of the Rings through the Book-of-the-Month Club, but it sat unread on my bookshelf for thirty-five years. I therefore came to the book later in life and with almost no prior information about it; I had no idea what a hobbit was, and the name Gandalf meant nothing to me. In spite of this ignorance, or quite possibly because of it, my first reading convinced me that I had seen something theological in the plot that was unique to Tolkien, and the second reading confirmed it. I had a hunch that I had uncovered something in the book that had not yet been sufficiently celebrated.

I am a Tolkien amateur, in both the highest and lowest senses of that word. That is to say, I am a lover (ama-teur) of Tolkien’s story, but I am not a Tolkien scholar or expert. I made a deliberate decision not to read much of the secondary literature or spend hours on the websites. In areas of fine ex1

the battle for middle earth pertise, therefore, I defer to others. Nonetheless, because I have come to the work almost entirely without expectations, I am presumptuous enough to believe that my delayed, untaught encounter with the Ring saga — combined with my knowledge of Scripture, theology, and the Church — has afforded an opportune glimpse into Tolkien’s deepest intimations.

Every appreciative reader of The Lord of the Rings will remember a mounting sense of excitement as the story progresses. To be sure, this would be true for readers of any well-made plot, but my intention is to emphasize the difference between Tolkien’s story and others. I became aware that as I read, my excitement was operating on two levels. On the surface, there was the keen suspense being built up by the unfolding events themselves, but my sense of intense involvement was beyond the usual, and this alerted me to the possibility that under the surface of the plot there was a parallel narrative with an even more powerful impact of its own. I began to make a few notes based on the hunch that this parallel narrative might actually exist. The further I read, the more convinced I became. As I approached the revelatory moment in the fires of Mount Doom, I felt the usual pleasurable anxiety that the reader of a good story always feels as a climax approaches, but at the same time I was conscious of another level of almost metaphysical anxiety related to the supreme importance of the issues being obliquely addressed. By the time I had finished, I was certain of the existence of a theological basso profundo (deep bass) in this “Ring Cycle,” and I thought I might be able to identify this in a way that differed in certain respects from commonly held views.1 As I began to organize my notes into a commentary, I found that my sense of mounting involvement had not lessened. I became convinced that Tolkien’s theological hints and suggestions are best disclosed by the forward thrust of the tale precisely in the order that it is told. Tolkien himself wrote in quite strong terms of “the logic of the story”; obviously this was important to him.2 I was struck by this logic as I read, and I hope 1. These commonly held views were particularly apparent in some of the review-capsules of the Peter Jackson movie in newspapers and magazines. These reviewers praised the movie for preserving Tolkien’s moral lessons and “timeless truths” (no postmoderns need apply). This, it seemed to me, was a singularly wooden-headed way of interpreting the great saga. Tolkien wrote a narrative precisely in order to avoid the “timeless truths” approach. He says this over and over. For example, he wrote that “‘Moral didacticism’ is the exact opposite of my procedure in The Lord of the Rings. I neither preach nor teach” (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000; first published in Great Britain by George Allen & Unwin, 1981], p. 414).

2. Letters, p. 330.

2

Introduction to show that the cumulative effect of Tolkien’s veiled substructure is intended to strike the reader with a considerable impact.

This treatment, therefore, can be called a theological narrative. It is a narrative of sorts because it follows the order of Tolkien’s plot, and it is theo-logical (theos, God) because it seeks specifically to identify the allusions to a transcendent agency that Tolkien has placed along the way. Indeed, I am convinced that we can speak of a deep narrative underneath Tolkien’s surface narrative. As we go along, my purpose will be to draw out the deep narrative and show how it operates.

Moreover, I particularly wanted to honor the story form because of Tolkien’s own profound faith in story as a vehicle of truth, especially when other forms have failed. In a letter to his son Christopher, he wrote: [C. S.] Lewis recently wrote a most interesting essay . . . showing of what great value the ‘story-value’ was, as mental nourishment — the whole Christian story (NT especially). It was a defence of that kind of attitude which we tend to sneer at: the fainthearted that loses faith, but clings at least to the beauty of ‘the story’ as having some permanent value . . . they [the ‘fainthearted’] do still in that way get some nourishment and are not cut off wholly from the sap of life: for the beauty of the story, while not necessarily a guarantee of its truth, is a concomitant of it, and a fidelis [faithful person] is meant to draw nourishment from the beauty as well as the truth.3

Tolkien identifies two types of readers here: the first is the fidelis, the self-identified Christian believer. The fidelis will be attracted by the deep theological narrative as a matter of course. However, it is the so-called “fainthearted” reader that interested Tolkien most. The word is oddly chosen and could be misleading, for by “faintheartedness” he does not mean to emphasize timidity or weakness. He is referring to the person who has no theistic faith, or has lost what faith he or she had. Tolkien hoped to reach this group of readers — a much larger group than the fideles — with the sheer majesty and grandeur of the story. It was for their sake, especially, that he disguised his theological design. He did not want overt, heavyhanded references to Christian themes interfering with the sheer enjoyment that he wished for his readers. His book was written “to amuse (in the highest sense) — to be readable,” as he wrote to an editor; it should “excite, please, and even on occasion move.”4 This in itself was sufficient rea3. Letters, p. 109. I have changed the punctuation very slightly for the sake of clarity.

4. Letters, pp. 232-33.

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the battle for middle earth son to write the epic tale. Many readers will respond with enthusiasm and appreciation even if they pay no conscious attention to the deep narrative.

For those who want to discover the further implications of the exciting story, however, there are great rewards. I hope that this commentary will give pleasure to those who may have already detected the presence of the sub-narrative, and insight to those who may have missed it on first reading. I propose to trace the movement of the theological under-plot and show how it can be followed with eagerness throughout the saga as the work progresses. In particular, I hope to show how, like the surface narrative, the deep narrative gathers momentum as it goes along, unleashing tremendous force at the climax.

God as Active Subject This treatment of Tolkien’s great story is about God first of all. Then it is about (in no particular order) Providence, history, demonic forces, archangels, bondage and liberation, justice and mercy, failure and restoration, friendship and sacrifice, sanctification and glorification, divine election and human freedom. The Lord of the Rings is like the Bible in its narrative structure, for the Bible is above all a narrative — a narrative of God’s mighty acts of deliverance recalling the words of the virgin Mary after the angel came to her: “[God] has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree” (Luke 1:52).

In this book, therefore, we will not be scouring The Lord of the Rings for literary patterns or mythological archetypes. There will not be much information about how Tolkien came to write the book or how it developed. The material will not be analyzed according to virtues, themes, motifs, characters, languages, people-groups, or any other subcategory.5 The 5. When this commentary was in the process of revision, I read for the first time Tom Shippey’s The Road to Middle-earth and discovered this unflattering passage about Tolkien’s “professional admirers”: “The end-product of book after book, meanwhile, is a scheme: The Lord of the Rings reduced to ‘archetypes,’ related to solemn trudging plots of ‘departure and return,’ ‘initiation, donor and trial,’ hutching out banalities like ‘for every good there is a corresponding evil’.” This is precisely the trap that I, being an amateur rather than a “professional admirer,” have tried to avoid — though to be sure I could never meet Shippey’s criteria, being “one of those people writing about [Tolkien] who could not tell Old English from Old Norse” (The Road to Middle-earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003], p. 334). On the other hand, I can say at least this much for the study in hand: I have designed this commentary in direct refutation of the critical assessment which Professor Shippey identifies as “the one critical statement entirely and

4

Introduction interested reader can readily find other commentaries to fill in these areas of information. My purpose is different. I am interested in the movement of the plot and, above all, the way in which the active agency of God is suggested, indeed assumed, throughout. In his supplementary writings and in his letters, Tolkien calls God Eru, “The One,” or Ilúvatar, “Father of All.” In his own words, this One “intrudes the finger of God” into the plot at various identifiable points. It is this One whom Tolkien calls The Writer of the Story, quoting with obvious approval the words of a reviewer who referred to “that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named.”6 Many books about The Lord of the Rings have been published. Do we need another one? I am hopeful that this analysis offers something a little different. I do not think Tolkien’s deep underlying narrative has as yet been sufficiently analyzed. Moreover, I have talked to many readers who have loved the glamour of the story and have a sense that it is somehow “religious,” but do not seem to be aware of its profoundly God-centered nature. It is customary to speak of Frodo’s “quest,” but this may be the wrong word.7 I propose that it would be more accurate theologically to call it Frodo’s mission (from the Latin missio, to send). Tolkien understands God in the biblical sense, not as the object of the human quest or journey, not as the goal of human moral striving or human religious activity, but as the active subject, calling and sending, independent of the creation but always engaged in redemptive activity on its behalf. Tolkien wanted to show his readers how that unseen but ever-present activity manifests itself in earthly life. In particular, I believe Tolkien has given us a rare glimpse of what human freedom within God’s Divine Plan really means.8 For me, the analyzing of this subtext has been a form of worship.

absolutely wrong.” He refers to the opinion of Mark Roberts, who wrote that The Lord of the Rings was not “moulded by some vision of things which is at the same time its raison d’être” (p. 174). Shippey’s resounding rejoinder could well serve as an epigraph for this commentary: “Had Professor Roberts searched high and low for a work in which world-view and narrative were identical, he could not have found a clearer example [than The Lord of the Rings]” (p. 334). Amen.

6. Letters, pp. 204, 235, 252 (emphasis added).

7. Admittedly I am on shaky ground here since Tolkien’s characters occasionally use the term “quest.” But “quest” generally means seeking after some object or goal, which does not seem precisely to fit the situation here. Tolkien is using the term “quest” more in the medieval romantic sense of a chivalrous adventure, not in a specifically “spiritual” sense.

More of this later.

8. Tolkien uses various expressions to convey this idea: the “Divine Plan,” “The Pattern,” “the Whole Story” (Letters, pp. 194, 121, 107).

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the battle for middle earth

Tolkien’s Nonreligious Theology Tolkien himself wrote, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.” In a letter, he explicitly states that the book “is about God, and His sole right to divine honour.”9 Yet the world of the saga is a pre-Christian world. Indeed, it is a curiously nonreligious world. This is quite deliberate on Tolkien’s part. A number of passages in his letters suggest that one reason for this suppression of all things religious is to ensure the separation of the worship of “the One” from the worship of the natural, created world, for, as he wrote, “the universe is not worshipful.”10 He apparently wanted to exclude any suggestion of pantheism or earth-religion. In this respect his work has very little in common with the so-called “Celtic spirituality” currently experiencing a renascence.11 When people wrote him letters asking about the lack of religion in Middle-earth, Tolkien responded generously with more of his reasoning.

He said, for instance, that the faithful Númenóreans were “monotheists, like the Jews, only more so.”12 This “only more so” apparently refers to their having no building or temple because God could not be captured or held in that way — an idea which, for that matter, appears in the Hebrew Scriptures. The absence of religious rituals also signifies the Númenóreans’ “refusal to worship any ‘creature.’”13 This needs to be emphasized, because Tolkien’s famous love of the natural world has sometimes led readers to think of Tolkien as a type of pantheist, quite misunderstanding his orthodox Judeo-Christian view of God. At no point does Tolkien ever fail to maintain a strict separation between the Creator and the creation, a separation well expressed by Søren Kierkegaard’s phrase “infinite qualitative distinction.” Indeed, this monotheistic “Hebraic” outlook is quite 9. Letters, pp. 172, 243.

10. Letters, p. 400. He also wrote, “The One (the Teller [of the Story]) does not inhabit any part of Eä [the created universe]” (Letters, p. 283).

11. In his letters Tolkien refers to a certain lack of affinity with Celtic languages and culture (Letters, pp. 26, 219, 227). In any case, specialists inform us that the current vogue for everything “Celtic” owes more to romantic nineteenth-century reconstructions than to the eclectic influences that actually formed early Insular culture. If we are to understand Tolkien we need to remember that he was unreservedly Anglo-Saxon in his enthusiasms and deepest commitments.

12. Letters, pp. 193-94n, 204. Significantly, he also refers to the Númenóreans as “Egyptian” in their love of massive monuments, but “Hebraic” in theology (Letters, p. 281).

13. Letters, pp. 155-56, 194n, 205, 206. It is the Black Númenóreans who constructed altars to the demonic Sauron.

6

Introduction marked in Tolkien, comparable to the Old Testament prophets’ strictures against nature-worship and fertility rituals.14 Tolkien insisted that The Lord of the Rings takes place in our actual world, not a fantasy land. He was unhappy that many readers thought Middle-earth was another planet; it is “my own mother-earth,” he wrote.15 It is a long-ago world, however.

The Fall of Man is in the past and off stage; the Redemption of Man [by Jesus Christ] is in the far future. We are in a time when the One God, Eru, is known to exist by the wise,16 but is not approachable save by or through the Valar, though he is still remembered in (unspoken) prayer by those of Númenórean descent.17

When I first read The Lord of the Rings I thought of the Númenóreans as literally “northern,” and therefore at that time beyond the geographical reach of the faith as revealed to the Hebrew people far to the south. Later I discovered Tolkien’s references to the Jews in his letters, showing how biblical history and geography informs his conception of an ostensibly preChristian era. Nevertheless we can best absorb his atmosphere if we think of a Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon world. The Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf offers the most obvious parallel for Anglophones. Those who have read the “northern” myths about Odin, Thor, Fricka, Balder, and Loki will also get the picture. The Finnish Kalevala was a primary inspiration for Tolkien, as well as works in Old Icelandic and Old Norse, but he particularly wanted to write an English epic; he designated the Shire as England, and more specifically as the West Midlands. The location in time is long before the coming of Christianity, where “Yule” is celebrated as the winter solstice but is given no religious significance. And yet, through symbolism and suggestion, Tolkien is telling a Christian story. He is unequivocal 14. Tolkien is listed in the Jerusalem Bible as a principal contributor, which embarrassed him. He was originally assigned several Old Testament books to translate, but in the end, overwhelmed with other demands, he managed only Jonah (Letters, p. 378). In any case, he has a distinct affinity for the Old Testament as well as the New. He seems especially drawn to Genesis, with its story of the Fall of Man, and also the Great Flood, which he explicitly connects with the drowning of Númenor, likening Elendil to Noah (Letters, p. 156).

15. Letters, p. 283.

16. Generally speaking, “the Wise” (usually capitalized by Tolkien) refers to the Istari (the five wizards) and the chief Eldar (Galadriel, Elrond, Cirdan the Shipwright) — the members of the White Council.

17. Letters, p. 387.

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the battle for middle earth about this in his letters, referring to the New Testament repeatedly with no sense of disjuncture or contradiction.18 There is no explicit talk of any transcendent dimension in Tolkien’s world. With the exceptions of the “standing silence” observed in Gondor and the occasional invocation of Elbereth! Gilthoniel! there are no prayers, sacrifices, temples, totems, idols, propitiatory rites, or any of the other religious phenomena found in early human societies. Tolkien stated repeatedly in his letters that he designed this absence precisely in order to evoke a presence.19 The Ring saga contains a powerful undercurrent of transcendent meaning. This undercurrent can be interpreted in varying ways, and not all of these will be theological. I choose the term “theological” rather than “spiritual” because, as will become apparent, I am arguing for one particular interpretation, a truly theological (Godcentered) one.20 Others will want to take a more anthropological (human-centered, or creature-centered) approach. I make no secret of my preference. Tolkien designed the story so that the attentive reader would discern the workings of an active transcendent agency. When that happens, something emerges that is even more compelling than a story of creaturely growth and spiritual development. The human growth and development that form such a gripping part of the plot would not be possible without the unseen but often obliquely identified intrusion of “the finger of God.” Tolkien knew that many readers would strongly resist his convictions about divine agency. We are programmed to believe that we cannot have both divine agency and human freedom. This resistance is one of the most important factors motivating Tolkien’s omission of explicit references to God. He made them implicit. “The religious element,” he wrote to a Jesuit friend, “is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”21 This par18. Academically trained biblical scholars would say that he feels no need to make a “hermeneutical transfer.” One of my own deepest convictions, as a preacher and storyteller, is that the biblical story is a seamless fabric needing much less hermeneutical transfer than the schools of divinity sometimes seem to require.

19. Letters, pp. 121, 172, 193-94, 201, 204, 206, 387, etc.

20. In his letters, Tolkien uses the word “theological” in a deliberate way. For instance, he says that the Númenóreans received theological teaching from the Elves (Letters, p. 279). “The Eldar and the Númenóreans believed in The One, the true God, and held worship of any other person in abomination” (p. 243).

21. Letters, p. 172. Sometimes in his letters Tolkien would become annoyed and say that there is no symbolism in the saga at all. But, as this quotation shows, such statements cannot be taken literally. He was just trying to squelch the absurdities. In one letter, for example, he objected to a reader’s notion that Sauron was supposed to be Stalin (Letters,

8

Introduction ticular letter, among others, has reinforced my belief that we cannot be drawn fully into the symbolism unless we are immersed in the story. He writes, moreover, that his “hints” are “perceptible only to the most attentive.”22 This is true, but it is perhaps misleading. The deep narrative that I think I have detected is not arcane. It does not run parallel to the action yet separate from it like some gnostic secret available only to the initiated.

It is right there, just under the surface, for all to see who will. Tolkien wrote, “I am a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories).”23 Special expertise, then, is not required, only a little extra help in deducing.

There is no reader who cannot be among the “most attentive.” It is those readers who are addressed in this commentary.

Tolkien’s Letters After I had completed the first draft of this book, I read all of Tolkien’s collected letters (and also Humphrey Carpenter’s biography). I did not want to read them any sooner because I did not want to be influenced too much. It was a great pleasure to learn that Tolkien was an exceptionally prolific and gifted correspondent. The letters are distinguished by their charm, warmth, and generosity. He was touchingly conscientious about answering fan mail — especially, Carpenter notes, if a letter was from a child or elderly person.24 His strong, often eccentric opinions are entertainingly evident. More important for our purposes here, however, is the extensive commentary on his own work that he was willing to undertake.

I was deeply gratified to learn that a good deal of what I had already written about The Lord of the Rings was confirmed by what Tolkien had to say in his letters. This encouraged me to think that I was on the right track. I therefore made numerous additions to my manuscript, largely in this Introduction and in the footnotes, but it was not necessary to make any significant emendations.

More than most authors have been willing to do, Tolkien made extraordinary attempts to explain his personages and his story, sometimes at considerable length. As one reads the letters over the decades, one can p. 307)! In another he protested, “To ask if the Orcs are Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs” (p. 262).

22. Letters, p. 201.

23. Letters, p. 288.

24. Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien: A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), p. 240.

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the battle for middle earth see Tolkien working out aspects of his mythology — with regard to the Valar and Gandalf, for instance — that he did not complete to his satisfaction in the book.25 Moreover, he seems to say certain things in his letters at one period — the late 1950s, say — and then take another tack in the 1960s. To some correspondents he emphasizes one theme, to others, another. He took all the questions that people asked so seriously that occasionally he seems to get a bit tangled in his responses; there are times when the reader of the letters may feel that he might better have left the story to speak for itself.26 Tolkien was not a metaphysician; he was a storyteller of prodigious gifts. Nevertheless the letters taken as a whole speak powerfully of the coherence of his many themes.

There is one particular passage in the letters that expresses his deepest concerns while at the same time revealing much of his strategy.

Tolkien believed in what Christian tradition has called “original sin,” and the following sentence is a superb description of it: A small knowledge of history depresses one with the sense of the everlasting mass and weight of human iniquity: old, old, dreary, endless repetitive unchanging incurable human wickedness. . . .

This is followed by another sentence which explains much of what Tolkien is expressing through his story: And at the same time one knows that there is always good: much more hidden, much less clearly discerned, seldom breaking out into recognizable, visible beauties of word or deed.27

Clearly, Tolkien wants to celebrate these “visible beauties” of word and deed in his tale, and he has created many such moments for the reader to identify and savor. It is significant, however, that these instances are “more hidden” and “much less clearly discerned.” This explains why there is so much reticence in the story, why Tolkien uses so much indirection and allusiveness to show the workings of the transcendent realm. He wants the reader to understand how mysterious and disguised this working is, how it is apprehended by faith and not by sight.

Careful readers of Tolkien’s letters may note that my analysis will oc25. In particular, after publication, he admitted that he was not satisfied with his account of Gandalf’s return from death. He kept tinkering with it in his mind and in the letters.

26. For example, he engages in some speculation about “what if” Gollum had not attacked Frodo in the Sammath Naur (Letters, pp. 330-31).

27. Letters, p. 80.

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Introduction casionally seem to be at odds with the author’s intent, especially in the matter of “free will.” He refers to free will a number of times in his letters. It is my view that Tolkien underestimates the consistency of his own narrative. Not even Aragorn, he specifically writes, could have withstood the presence of Sauron, by choice or otherwise28 — and in the story itself, Gandalf says several times that not even he could safely handle the Ring. Tolkien repeatedly indicates in his letters that the power of evil is too great to be resisted by incarnate creatures without divine aid.29 This is confirmed over and over dozens of times throughout the story. It is therefore my contention that he has illustrated the dilemma of the bound will much more powerfully than he himself realized. This will be demonstrated many times throughout the retelling of the story. Other “Catholic writers” like Graham Greene, Walker Percy, and Flannery O’Connor are remarkably similar in emphasizing the action of grace upon the bound or impotent will, so much so that they seem more “Protestant” than most Protestants. We will have ample opportunity to see how this works as we go along.

There are many things that I have seen in the book — some of the biblical and liturgical references, for example — that are not explicitly mentioned in the collected Letters. Does this mean that Tolkien had not thought of these references, did not intend them, or was concealing them (in light of his own expressed view that not too much should be spelled out)? Am I straining too hard to find these correspondences? I am convinced that this is not the case. For instance, when I read the episode after the Battle of the Pelennor when Aragorn’s touch heals Merry, I thought there was a hint of Jesus’ raising the daughter of Jairus. I later discovered from one of Tolkien’s letters that this biblical text was important to him.30 The biblical references in his correspondence are so knowing and so easily tossed off — as they would be when someone knows a subject thoroughly and expects the reader to know it too — that they imply lifelong familiarity. If there are places here and there where I have seen something that Tolkien was not consciously aware of, it is nevertheless the case that he was so steeped in the Scriptures, the Christian tradition, and the liturgy that these influences suffuse the work at almost every point.31 28. Letters, p. 332.

29. Letters, pp. 202, 204, 251-52, 325-27. By far the greatest evidence of this, however, is in the story, not the letters.

30. Letters, p. 100.

31. The one thing he did not have in his storehouse was Protestant preaching. In one of his letters he complains about the Catholic homilies that he hears: “As for sermons! They are bad, aren’t they?” (Letters, p. 75).

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the battle for middle earth Literary works have a way of expanding beyond their author’s original vision and intention. I have tried to err on the side of respecting Tolkien’s intentions, taking great care with his letters, and I have been scrupulous in recording alternative interpretations and possible objections. It is my sense of the matter, however, that The Lord of the Rings has layers and depths that even Tolkien himself did not entirely perceive — and he would be the first to say that the real Writer of the Story was at work in these depths.32 If I have misjudged at points, the reader can decide. Still, I am confident that Tolkien himself would be pleased with some of the theological implications that I see, as he was when people wrote him about such things.33 An analogy occurs to me. Tolkien did his own illustrations for The Hobbit, and they have a certain interest, but his letters reveal that he knew he was no great shakes as an illustrator. Some of the professional illustrators who later worked on the book drew out the visual drama in ways that he himself had not been able to do, and he liked some of their work very much.34 Similarly, then, he seems to have responded favorably when readers saw theological meaning in his work even if he had not been entirely conscious of it himself.

War or Anti-war? Good vs. Evil?

At the time of publication of this commentary, the United States of America enjoys a degree of military supremacy and might never seen before in the world. Combined with this fact is a mood of increasing bellicosity among many Americans, encouraged by a new doctrine of preemptive war. The near cause of this new mood and new doctrine was the aftermath of the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The release of a wildly successful movie with spectacular battle scenes a year later, remarkably entitled The Two Towers, seemed to give support to the nation’s martial mood. Viggo Mortensen, the actor who plays Aragorn, was so disturbed by this interpretation of the movie that he wrote a preface to the picture book prepared to accompany the movie. Here is some of what he wrote: 32. After I wrote this I was pleased to discover a letter in which Tolkien wrote that, although a lot of the critical “interpretations” seemed merely “amusing,” even he himself could see some things in the story “post scriptum” that he had not seen before (Letters, pp.

211-12). He also admits that he is sometimes puzzled by his own book (p. 278).

33. Letters, p. 288.

34. Letters, pp. 133, 186. (Admittedly he hated the work of some others.)

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Introduction The second installment of The Lord of the Rings comes to theatres in a world that is no more secure than the one in which the first was released last year. . . . It would seem from even a cursory reading of world history that there is no new horror under the sun, that we will perhaps always have to contend with destructive impulses in ourselves and others. . . . The most enlightened beings in Middle-Earth are conscious of the ubiquity of good and evil in neighbors, strangers, adversaries, and most important, themselves. There can be little future in adopting a permanent policy of “an eye for an eye.” If we were all regularly to put into effect such an inflexible approach, we would all soon be blind, as Gandhi pointed out.35

Mortensen has well understood some of the principal themes of Tolkien’s tale. It is human nature to want to divide up the world into Good and Evil, always with ourselves and our own group on the Good side. It was one of Tolkien’s principal aims to show that, in reality, such a line cannot be drawn, because “good” people can be and are capable of evil under certain circumstances. Václav Havel of the Czech Republic, hero of the Velvet Revolution, wrote that during the period of Communist rule it was often impossible to distinguish between those who had collaborated and those who had not; the line, he said, “did not run clearly between ‘them’ and ‘us’, but through each person.”36 It is therefore one of the chief arguments of this “analysis-in-theform-of-a-narrative” that The Lord of the Rings is not about “Good vs. Evil,” and understanding it that way is in fact a failure to understand.37 Some readers may have noticed that I did not include “good and evil” in my list at the beginning of this Introduction. That was deliberate. Tolkien himself resisted those categories, and forcing the story into them does serious damage to the subtlety and complexity of his conception. It requires considerable vigilance on the readers’ part to keep this in mind. To give just one example of the way the book and movie are being widely misinterpreted, an article in The New York Times at the time when the third movie, The Return of the King, was about to win eleven Academy Awards stated that 35. Introduction by Viggo Mortensen to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers — Visual Companion by Jude Fisher (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002).

36. Quoted in Timothy Garton Ash, “The Truth about Dictatorship,” The New York Review of Books, February 19, 1998, pp. 36-37. The resistance leader and former Solidarity spokesman Adam Michnik, in Poland, took much the same position after 1989.

37. Not only did Tolkien not like the “good/evil” dichotomy, he did not like “light/ darkness” either, for the same reasons. See Letters, pp. 121, 197, 243-44, 262.

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the battle for middle earth “The triumph of good over evil is the main theme of the story.”38 Well, yes and no. If the “main themes” of this present analysis were to be distilled into a few words, I suppose I would say two things: 1. It is primarily about the unseen Providence of God operating for good through human (and angelic) agents — especially the “little” ones that no one else has noticed.

2. Secondarily it is about the universal propensity of human beings (and angels) to fall into evil unless they are aided by power from that “unseen but ever-present Person.”39 Tolkien was not a pacifist; he fought in the infamous trenches of the Somme in the first World War, and his son Christopher was in the R.A.F. in the second. But no one reading his letters could take The Lord of the Rings as a rationale for going to war except in the farthest extremity. To his son, in January 1945, he wrote these words, which sum up a good deal of what he poured into his mighty tale: I have just heard the news. . . . Russians 60 miles from Berlin. It does look as if something decisive might happen soon. The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly: destruction of what should be (and indeed is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not. Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way. There seem no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolic hour. By which I do not mean that it may not all, in the present situation, mainly (not solely) 38. Katie Zezima, “Frodo’s Quest Inspires a Search for Allegory,” The New York Times, February 21, 2004. There’s that misleading word “quest” again — and anyone really familiar with Tolkien will avoid the word “allegory.”

39. There are many other ways of identifying the main themes, and Tolkien was not always consistent — depending on his mood and the person he was writing to. A provisional description of the book that he offers in a letter about Allegory and Story rings especially true in our own time; he says his book can be interpreted as “an allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power” (Letters, 121). In a later letter discussing the theme of Power and Domination, and the (Christlike) abnegation of power that he valued so highly, he seems to shift gears, saying that the “real theme is Death and Immortality” (Letters, p. 246). This emphasis seemed important to him at one time, but these letters are clustered together in the late 1950s, and after that he seems to drop the subject. The motif of the “ennoblement” or elevation of “those of low degree,” for example, is emphasized far more in the letters overall than death and immortality — not to mention the book itself.

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Introduction created by Germany, be necessary and inevitable. But why gloat! We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted.40

At the time of V-E Day he wrote: It all seems rather a mockery to me, for the War is not over. . . . But it is of course wrong to fall into such a mood, for Wars are always lost,41 and The War always goes on; and it is no good growing faint!42

In these two brief excerpts from the letters we find much of what has gone into the tale of the Ring, and much of what makes it biblical: the primary emphasis on compassion; the tragic sense of the “besotted” human condition; the sense that all sides are to blame, not just “theirs”; the renunciation of self-righteousness and “gloating”; the necessity of taking action under extreme pressure; the conviction that all of life is an ongoing battle; the certainty that the Shadow will always gather strength and return; the determination to persevere. We find all of this in the story, front and center. And we find something more: the overarching presence of the unseen hosts of heaven, flashing through the work in brief strokes of unforgettable brilliance. These are the moments that lodge in the reader’s mind: they are glimpses of celestial triumph that ring through our senses like the silver trumpets that Pippin heard in the air over Minas Tirith at the rising of the sun.

Practical Notes to the Reader It is assumed that anyone reading this book will have read The Lord of the Rings first. Familiarity with the names, geography, and history of Middleearth is assumed, but to help readers whose memory may need a bit of priming I have added a good many reminders in the footnotes.

Some portions of the book receive more attention here than others.

For instance, readers may wish for a fuller account of the Battle of Helm’s Deep. However, that would have added greatly to the length of this book 40. Letters, p. 111.

41. “War is always a defeat for humanity”: Pope John Paul II, annual address to diplomatic representatives, Vatican City, January 13, 2003.

42. Letters, pp. 115-16.

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the battle for middle earth without enlarging our theological theme in any essential way. (Even Tolkien himself agreed that it was “incidental to the main story.”)43 There is hardly a page in The Lord of the Rings that does not have some degree of theological suggestion, but I have concentrated on the scenes that advance our understanding of Tolkien’s hints and allusions in significant ways.

Footnotes Let the reader not be daunted by the footnotes! They can be skipped entirely without missing anything in the main narration. They are there for four reasons: 1. Most important, they are there to impart supplementary information without interrupting the primary analysis.

2. They remind the reader of details about Tolkien’s world that might have been forgotten.

3. They include comments on Peter Jackson’s three-part film.

4. They annotate references in the letters.

Division into Six Books The Lord of the Rings has been erroneously called a “trilogy” for so long that it is probably no use protesting, but Tolkien disliked the term. It was important to him that it be regarded as a single continuous story. The arbitrary division into three volumes was made by the publisher in order to reduce costs. Tolkien’s own arrangement divides the work neatly into six Books, and that is the way I am dividing this commentary. He gave titles to each of the six, but they were never used. I have restored Tolkien’s original titles as the headings for the six chapters in this commentary.

Spelling and Names of Places, People, and Creatures In my own text I have used standard American spelling, but I have preferred to use English forms — labour, defence, traveller, fibre — when quoting directly from Tolkien.

43. Letters, p. 276.

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Introduction As every lover of Tolkien knows, almost everybody and everything in The Lord of the Rings has two, three, four, or more names.44 Take the Witchking, for instance; he is called the King of Angmar, the Lord of Minas Morgul, the Wraith-king, and the Black King. Elbereth has at least seven names or appellations. Rivendell is called Imladris often enough for us to require learning both names. Treebeard is also Fangorn, the forest that bears his name (or vice versa). Mithrandir is used almost as commonly in dialogue about the great wizard as is Gandalf. A principal reason for this variety is that each of the various people-groups has names in its own language: Sindarin, Westron, Khuzdul, Quenya, Black Speech, and so forth.

Since Tolkien got so much enjoyment out of devising these names, I see no reason why we should not play around with them too, and I have done so. At the very least the reader might want to remember that Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul (Tower of Guard and Tower of Sorcery) had more auspicious names before the Shadow began to grow again — Minas Anor and Minas Ithil — Tower of the [Setting] Sun and Tower of the [Rising] Moon.

Capitalization I have not been able to figure out any rhyme or reason with regard to Tolkien’s use of capitals. Hobbits or hobbits? Elves or elves? King or king?

Orcs or orcs? Men or men? Tolkien himself was not consistent in most cases. Man and Men are almost always capitalized, however, as a way of distinguishing them from Elves and also to indicate the human race as an entity designated for special status. In this case I will be doing the same. I have no rule about Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Orcs so I trust the reader will not be confused by my inconsistency.45 I will often be capitalizing Power, Sin, and Death, also Flesh and Spirit, for the same reason that Tolkien capitalizes Necromancer and Enemy: to ascribe all due weight to their status as active, aggressive cosmic agents. Tolkien was well aware of the Principalities and Powers in the New Testament, and he specifically refers to them that way, with capitals.46 44. The main exception to this is the hobbits, who are as unpretentious in their names as in their style of living. On the other hand, hobbits as a group are called “Halflings,” and in Sindarin they are called Periannath or Pheriannath. An archaic word for “hobbit” occasionally used in Rohan is Holbytla.

45. Tolkien was embarrassed that he, a philologist, had not known that the proper plural of “Dwarf” is “Dwarfs,” not “Dwarves.” But he stuck by the mistake. See Letters, p. 23.

46. Letters, p. 370. He is referring to Ephesians 6:12.

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the battle for middle earth

Evil Not Capitalized I do not capitalize evil, however — even though Tolkien does so in his letters — for two reasons. First, it is never identified specifically by the apostle Paul in the New Testament as a Power alongside Sin and Death (and the Law), or as a realm like those of the Flesh and the Spirit. Second, for reasons that will be stated at length, I am trying to avoid giving personified “Evil” a separate existence over against “Good.”

To summarize the argument thus far, the popular tendency to characterize The Lord of the Rings in terms of a battle of Good vs. Evil has been a mistake of serious proportions. Radical evil is indeed personified in Sauron, but Tolkien is emphatically clear that after Sauron, evil will never again be embodied in one single person, “unless it be before the great End” foretold in Scripture. Instead, evil will take shape as “half-evils, and defective-goods, and the twilights of doubt as to sides.”47 It is of the utmost importance that this be understood, because it will then become clear that the book cannot be simplistically applied to present-day situations and used to justify self-righteous crusades against this or that crudely defined “evil” person or group. In a note of particular importance, Tolkien wrote, “In my story I do not deal with Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing. . . . I do not think that at any rate any rational being is wholly evil.”48

The Appendices Tolkien labored mightily over his fascinating appendices (found at the end of Book VI), and I have made much use of them. Vital information regarding the languages, dates, places, dynasties, and primeval history (and some future history as well) are found there. Tolkien’s grasp of what did and did not belong in the main narrative was impeccable; in a sense, the appendices are like the footnotes in this commentary. The one exception to this is the “Tale of Aragorn and Arwen” in Appendix A, which is “part of the essential story.” Tolkien did not include it in the main text because, he said, The Lord of the Rings is “hobbito-centric,” primarily focused on the ennoblement of the humble, small people.49 The ending of the story of Aragorn and Arwen is almost unbearably sad, as Tolkien himself realized.

47. Letters, p. 207.

48. Letters, p. 243.

49. Letters, p. 237.

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Introduction

Acknowledgments The lions’ share of thanks and praise goes to my editor at Eerdmans, Jennifer Hoffman. I have lived in dread of the Tolkien fans’ well-known mastery of every minute detail of the saga, but Jenny can match wits with the best of them. She combed every syllable of the manuscript, checked every reference, looked up every footnote and Scripture verse, made sage suggestions about interpretation, and in every way was a tremendous collaborator. I am very thankful for her devotion to this project.

Three other Elf-friends read the entire manuscript and offered very helpful comments from their various perspectives — Tim Boomer, Pennie Curry, and Tom Luxon. If I did not take every one of their suggestions, that is my fault, not theirs. I have been greatly encouraged by their enthusiasm and engagement.

To Jon Pott, editor-in-chief at Eerdmans, I extend my gratitude because, for reasons best left unwritten, without his tenacity, patience, and skill this book would never have been published.

Summary The writing of this book of commentary and analysis has given me intense pleasure. The sweep and momentum of the story bore me along from beginning to end as though Gwaihir the Eagle were under me. My fondest wish is that some lovers of Tolkien’s mighty epic will find themselves thus carried along as well, so that the joy and sorrow of the tale will resonate with renewed power in some deep place of the soul.

I believe, moreover, that this is a tale for our time. Since the seemingly clear-cut triumphs of World War II, the Shadow has been growing again, and it is not so easy to tell who is friend and who is enemy; there are “twilights of doubt as to sides.” I am not referring to the difficulty of identifying terrorists; I am speaking of the need to examine ourselves.

Wise, generous leadership is in short supply; self-righteousness abounds; the gap between the “great” and the “small” widens; there are few calls for sacrifice. The United States has been shocked out of its naïve complacency about its own virtue by photographs of torture carried out by ordinary Americans. Never has there been a greater need for understanding and clemency — two prominent Tolkienian themes. The lust for “the Power that Dominates” has bored into America like Sauron into the very core of Minas Tirith. These things can be said about any people at any pe19

the battle for middle earth riod in history, but it is our calling and our responsibility to pay attention to their pertinence in our own. In other words, we are called to repentance — another Tolkienian motif.

But we are also called to hope. (The more one lists Tolkien’s themes, the more themes there are to list.) During the dark decades of apartheid, the cruel state-sponsored system of racial oppression in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu called himself a “prisoner of hope” (Zechariah 9:12). One hallmark of responsible hope is honoring those “Númenóreans” among us, those people in our world who, in spite of their imperfection and — yes — sin, nevertheless, like Tutu and Nelson Mandela, embody the noblest and highest among us. In the presence of such people, the “finger of God” has intruded into History. But if The Lord of the Rings teaches us anything at all, it is that we do not look for signs of hope chiefly among the Great and Wise, but among “those of low degree” who may at any time become those whom God has chosen to “shame the strong.”

In a letter, Tolkien used a haunting phrase of Galadriel’s to explain that he did not expect History to be anything other than “a long defeat.”

Wars are never won, and the Shadow will always grow again. In this respect there is a profound melancholy throughout his tale. There is an unsleeping Enemy bent on our destruction, and Tolkien’s epic narrative conveys the biblical message that human nature left to itself is incapable of effective resistance. But, as the Ring saga so wonderfully shows us, we are not left to ourselves. The Writer of the Story takes an active part in history, and, as Tolkien has said, the stories, myths, and legends that are based in this knowledge and grounded in this promise are capable of offering the reader an unforgettable and transforming vision of the ultimate Victory that is yet to come.50

50. Letters, p. 193.

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prologue

The Hobbit

The Hobbit is a prelude to The Lord of the Rings. It introduces several important characters and describes events that are crucial for understanding the larger work. More to the point, a few of Tolkien’s most powerful themes make their first tentative appearance in this earlier volume. We will understand them better if we begin here. At the same time, however, I call the reader’s attention to the curious fact that the transcendent dimension so very present in The Lord of the Rings is largely missing from the introductory book, The Hobbit. That is one of several reasons for beginning with it, so that one can see the huge leap that Tolkien makes when he enters upon the tale of the War of the Ring.

Tolkien has told us that he was not entirely conscious of his own subtext when he was writing The Lord of the Rings. He says that it was “in the revision” of the Ring epic that he began fully to realize what he had been doing.1 As is so often the case with writers, the work took on an independent life as it progressed, so that it spoke back to its author. Many writers have testified to the surprising autonomy of their work, but Tolkien, looking back later, was explicit; he acknowledged the hand of God in the Ring saga by referring to “the Writer of the Story,” “the Great Author,” and “the supreme Artist.”2 He came to think of his story as a reflection of, or adumbration of, the biblical drama of redemption. In the years following the publication of The Lord of the Rings, his letters disclose an increasingly explicit commitment on his part to the link between his story and the greater Story of which God is the sole Author.

When Tolkien was writing The Hobbit, therefore, he was as yet only 1. Letters, p. 172.

2. Letters, pp. 252, 215, 101.

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the battle for middle-earth dimly aware of the great structure that was to come into being around his early conception. It will help us to appreciate the extraordinary scale and depth of the epic that will follow if we take note of the alteration in Tolkien’s style of narration as he proceeds. Even before the end of The Hobbit, he will begin to shift into a more adult tone. He will abandon the ever-so-slightly patronizing voice that adults often adopt when writing for children. Arch remarks made to the reader will disappear entirely, as will didactic comments about such things as remembering one’s manners. None of this will be carried over into The Lord of the Rings. In The Hobbit, Tolkien is warming up for the main event.

Early Hints of Greater Things to Come The Hobbit introduces a few of the characters that will loom large in the later work, beginning with the habits and idiosyncrasies of the Hobbits.

We meet Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, and the Dwarves with their marvelous metalworking skills. We are also made aware of the sinister presence of the Necromancer — an early appellation for Sauron, the great Enemy of The Lord of the Rings. “He is an enemy far beyond the powers of all the dwarves put together,” says Gandalf sharply to Thorin Oakenshield, rebuking the dwarf for even hinting at a foray against him. This mention, however, is so slight as to attract little notice on first reading — certainly not enough to alert us to the satanic, world-devouring antagonist of the Ring epic, and there is only a fragment of a suggestion of the coming cosmic conflict.3 Gandalf, too, starts small. He will grow as the saga develops. He appears at first as a magician who entertains, a blower of smoke-rings, a pied piper leading timid hobbits into reckless adventures. We are hardly aware of his grandeur, mystery, and complexity — let alone his connection to the transcendent world — though there is a hint in the phrase “strange and sorcerous” which Tolkien uses to describe the way he looks in the dim light of his enveloping smoke-rings. It will be some time yet before we begin to sense his unplumbed depths.

Likewise, when we first meet elves, we are not tipped off to their 3. It is amazing to realize that at first Tolkien’s interest in the Necromancer was “quite casual.” In his letters, Tolkien comments that readers of The Hobbit clamored for more of the Necromancer. To say that they got what they asked for would be the understatement of the decade (Letters, pp. 164, 346).

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Prologue: The Hobbit haunting beauty right away; the word “elves” is not even capitalized, as it will be later. Except for one elf being described as “tall,” there is no early hint that these beings are not simply the diminutive sprites of common folklore. These are Wood-elves, much lower in the hierarchy than the Elves of the Ring epic with their mystery, nobility, and sadness. I am making a point of this because the changes that occur as we go along are so striking. In The Hobbit, this change begins when Bilbo and the party of dwarves enter Rivendell. There is a sudden opening up of the horizon. Here we encounter our first suggestion of mighty themes. It is only a glimpse, but its fleeting appearance is more than enough to prepare us for Sam Gamgee’s fervent “I should love to see Elves, sir!” in The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, I would venture to say that it is here, in the lesser, earlier Hobbit, that the deep narrative begins as a seed planted in the mind of the reader. Perhaps in the mind of the author also, for Tolkien here gives us a first hint of what may have been only nascent in his own mind at the time of writing.

In Rivendell, we hear for the first time of the High-elves of the West. This is the first intimation of the significance of “West.” Here, the word “Elves” is capitalized and invested with greater meaning. These beings, as yet obscure to us, are named as the original owners of the wondrous swords taken earlier from the trolls’ lair by Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield. These blades have names and histories themselves, for (we are moving into Tolkien’s higher diction here) they were used by the High-elves in the Goblin-wars of old. They are called Orcrist and Glamdring, and they were wrought in Gondolin. The mythic glamour of these names begins to grip us. None of this, however, would be different from many another children’s fantasy if it were not for the tale that lies ahead. References to the embracing, restorative properties of Elrond’s “Last Homely House”4 in Rivendell are merely sketches for the more developed qualities of the Elves and their habitations in The Lord of the Rings. Elrond fades from the sight of the Hobbit reader as quickly as he appears, having occupied only three pages, but his supernatural beauty and wisdom have impressed themselves upon the reader’s imagination, and he will not be forgotten.5 4. In England, the word “homely” means “homelike,” not “ugly” as it does in America.

5. The actor who plays Elrond in Peter Jackson’s movie does not have the physical beauty or the spiritual presence to convey the surpassing qualities of the Half-elven lord. In contrast, the casting of the elegant young Canadian Orlando Bloom as the lesser Elf, Legolas, was a brilliant stroke. He has almost no lines, but through sheer gravitas, grace of movement, and star quality is able to project something of the Elves’ fascination. On a much higher level of acting, Ian McKellan as Gandalf approaches perfection.

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the battle for middle-earth The master of the House was an elf-friend, one of those people whose fathers came into the strange stories before the beginning of History, the wars of the evil goblins and the elves and the first men in the North. In those days of our tale there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors, and Elrond the master of the house was their chief.

These two sentences set the reader’s mind to work. Perhaps this is not a children’s entertainment after all. The elves are not yet capitalized, but History is, and the association that comes to mind is the primeval history in the book of Genesis (chapters 1–11). There was a time (Genesis 6:14) when unidentified “sons of god” — a reference that baffles biblical scholars to this day — ranged about the earth and conceived children with the “daughters of men.” There is a correspondence here with the three intermarriages between Elves and Men that Tolkien works out later.6 Tolkien confirms in his letters that he has drawn on the early chapters of the book of Genesis (especially the story of the Fall, the “sons of God” passage, and the story of the flood) for his mythology.7 As for the “evil goblins,” they will become Orcs in The Lord of the Rings, but their name is Legion (Mark 5:9).

The Hobbit quest is on a very small scale compared to the mission in the great saga that will follow. Its goal at first seems to be merely to recover gold and jewels from the dragon who stole them from some riled-up dwarves. It is hardly to be compared with the world war of The Lord of the Rings, which is not undertaken for personal revenge or vindication, but for the deliverance of the whole of Middle-earth from a ravenous Enemy.

However, it will become apparent that the dragons and goblins of The Hobbit, in their lesser way, also imperil civilized life, for “evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild since the dragons had driven men from the lands, and the goblins had spread in secret.” All of this is still background, however. The goblins in The Hobbit are not frightening in a mythic way. The tone is still that of the adult narrator adjusting his tone to the juvenile reader. There is one early hint, however, of the world-class 6. It seems to me that Tolkien has made more sense (mythologically speaking) of this mysterious passage in Genesis than anyone else. He discusses the “Children of God” at great length in numerous letters (Letters, pp. 146-47, 203-4, 284-86, etc.) and in The Silmarillion. Tolkien explains that Men and Elves are known as “Children of God” and that the Valar, who were also created beings but of far greater age and knowledge, loved and yearned after them. All of this fits the Genesis stories very well.

7. Letters, pp. 145-47, 154-56, 203, 234-36, 286-87, etc.

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Prologue: The Hobbit wickedness we will meet later when the goblins become Orcs, and that is the reference to the goblin invention of some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help.

Here, in embryonic form, we first glimpse Tolkien’s capacity for imagining radical evil — the sheer banality8 of its lesser ministers and its genius for devising impersonal, industrial methods of implementing mass murder without compunction from a safe distance. The efficiency and the side effects provided by the working of the machinery provide an entertaining distraction from what is really going on. The “wheels and engines and explosions” interpose themselves between the killers and the victims. Whatever Tolkien may have intended, the analogy to death camps and crematoria, guided missiles and nuclear weapons is unavoidable. The hint passes quickly, however. Perhaps the author himself, at this stage, was not entirely aware of what he was uncovering — but we shall meet this Enemy again.

The Hobbit offers some examples of Gandalf’s wizardry, but few hints of the stature that he will attain later. Indeed, we are specifically told — and this will be important as we go on — that his powers are limited.

Chapter 4 ends with an example. The wizard is guiding the dwarves through the goblins’ black underground domain with the light of his magical wand, but he does not hear the goblins coming in their soft shoes in the dark. Because he does not anticipate their attack, Bilbo is knocked unconscious and abandoned in the blackness by the fleeing dwarves. This potentially disastrous turn of events leads to the central episode of the book.

The Theological Center of The Hobbit The portion of The Hobbit that is truly indispensable to the grand sweep of the larger narrative is chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark.” It opens with an early example of Tolkien’s narrative skill. The subtle, understated telling is masterly: 8. Readers will recognize the reference to Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil.”

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the battle for middle-earth [Bilbo] could hear nothing, see nothing, and he could feel nothing except the stone of the floor. . . . He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it. . . . He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking.

In this almost offhand way, Tolkien introduces the Ruling Ring into the story. The glancing mention of it does not arrest the reader’s attention; we are carried across this “turning point,” paying as little heed to it as does Bilbo himself. His frightening predicament absorbs all his (and our) attention. “He could not think what to do. . . . He had been lying quiet, out of sight and out of mind, in a very dark corner for a long while.”

What we are to learn, however, is that the failure of Gandalf to protect Bilbo from the goblin attack has led to the pivotal, transforming event of the Third Age of Middle-earth.

Enter Gollum. This wretched personage is a masterpiece of nastiness. The “horrible swallowing noise in his throat” (gollum) is revolting enough. Add to that the famously disgusting baby-talk that he addresses to himself and the slimy, dark unpleasantness of his person, and we have before us a memorably creepy character. Indeed, Gollum is so loathsome that we might well hope to be rid of him. Thereby hangs a large part of our tale.

The riddle contest between Bilbo and Gollum is clever, ingenious, and suspenseful on its own terms, which are nothing less than life or death for the two combatants. Yet this is no mere struggle between two individuals. Nor is it more than superficially analogous to the classic trial of the hero who must compete successfully for the hand of the unsullied princess or be killed. The outcome of the competition between these two diminutive people with silly names, Gollum and Bilbo, will draw vast armies into its wake and lead to consequences of world-altering proportions. The reader does not know this yet, any more than Bilbo knows that the discovery of the One Ring will change his life forever. Even at this preliminary stage in the story, however, Tolkien is able to invest the next episode with a haunting significance that remains with the reader until he meets it again in “The Shadow of the Past” in The Lord of the Rings. When Gollum attempts to prevent Bilbo from escaping into the light, Bilbo slips on the Ring, becoming invisible, and finds himself in a struggle with his own conscience: 26

Prologue: The Hobbit He was desperate. . . . He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now.

Gollum had no sword . . . and he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. . . . And then quite suddenly . . . as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped . . . over Gollum’s head and escaped.

This central passage provides us with a key to The Lord of the Rings.

Note the phrasing: “A sudden understanding . . . welled up in Bilbo’s heart” and “as if lifted by a new strength and resolve.” These are early examples of a syntactical technique that Tolkien will use repeatedly throughout his epic. He does not write “Bilbo suddenly understood,” or “Bilbo acquired a new strength.” Bilbo is not the acting subject. Understanding and pity well up; a new strength and resolve lift him; they are active agents. Grammatically, Bilbo is the passive recipient of understanding and pity, strength and resolve. They come to him from outside himself.

We will see this sort of thing happening over and over again throughout the Ring saga, and it is of the greatest importance. Bilbo is enabled to put his new gifts to work, so that we admire what he does; but he is not the author either of the gifts or of the consequent actions. The actions flow out of the gifts.

Notice especially the “glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment.” It is a description of a prisoner on death row. Bilbo is enabled to see through Gollum’s unattractive surface characteristics to his wretched underlying condition. It is a description of unredeemed humanity “tied and bound by the chain of our sin.”9 Bilbo trembled, we are told. Something is implicit here that will become explicit later in The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo sees Gollum as one who might have been himself. That is why he trembles; this is the insight that produces “a sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror.” When we come to the Ring saga itself, we will hear a great deal more about the vital importance of understanding , and more still about pity and horror.

Bilbo’s sense of horror is provoked not by Gollum’s sliminess but by the hopelessness of his bondage. This mirrors the picture of the human predicament described by St. Paul in the epistle to the Romans. The uni9. Book of Common Prayer.

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the battle for middle-earth versal human condition is one of bondage to Sin and Death. Gollum is in thrall to a Power greater than he. His plight is not therefore peculiar to him. It is granted to Bilbo “in a flash of a second” to see this. His recognition that it would not be a fair fight leads to insight into his commonality with Gollum. If human beings are to fight to the death, it must be as equals — as those who would have been sharers in the same bondage if circumstances had been different. “There but for the grace of God go I” is the thought that comes to Bilbo and causes him to spare Gollum’s life, and this is the source of the new courage that propels him out of the tunnel into safety. It can’t be stated too strongly: this brief passage in The Hobbit lays out the theological foundation for the climax of The Lord of the Rings.

There are only a few suggestions in The Hobbit about the power of the One Ring, but they are significant. The fact that the Ring causes the wearer to become invisible is negligible, a mere frill. The real power of the Ring is its ability to overcome resistance and suck into its orbit all those who come within reach. We read earlier of “ages ago . . . when such rings were at large in the world.” There is a distinct suggestion here that the Rings of Power have lives and purposes of their own, independent of their owners — they are “at large.” When the One Ring is reposing in Bilbo’s pocket, it is said to be about to “take a new master.” Again, the Ring is the active agent that “takes” what it wants. Again we note Bilbo’s essential passivity in the matter. It is not that Bilbo is given nothing to do, but he played no part in the finding of the Ring on the floor of the lightless tunnel. It was no accident, however; the Ring found him, not the other way around, and it is about to claim him as its new “master” — or its new owner, at any rate, for one aspect of the Ring’s art is deceiving its holder into thinking he can be its master. Whether anyone can really master the Ring remains to be seen.

More Hints The confrontation of Bilbo and Gollum is the episode that counts in The Hobbit. There are no other passages of comparable theological weight in the book. There are other moments that merit review, however. The chapter called “Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire” provides an early example of Tolkien’s ability to invest a natural phenomenon with metaphysical significance without romanticizing it. This section also offers a glimpse of Tolkien’s well-remarked talent for evoking terror. The scene in which Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarves find themselves trapped in the trees as 28

Prologue: The Hobbit the goblins build a huge fire below them is genuinely fearsome (though the terror is somewhat undercut by the tone of the child’s story, never to be repeated in The Lord of the Rings: “Even [Gandalf] began to be dreadfully afraid, wizard though he was”). Much of this unfolds like an episode in a typical fairy tale, but as the flames leap upward into the lower branches, there is a point at which the situation becomes something sufficiently immediate to cause adult terror. Tolkien describes a quite horrific scene: the goblins scream their relish at the prospect of skin crackling, fat melting, and flesh roasting as they encircle the fire, while the Wargs stand silently waiting and watching in the darkness beyond.

A Tolkienian stroke then occurs when the Lord of the Eagles of the Misty Mountains, Gwaihir the Windlord, makes his first but not his last appearance as he snatches Gandalf from the tree. Many rescues are effected by winged beings in world literature, but Tolkien’s Eagles are beyond typical. They are not mythic beasts, but real birds — yet they convey majesty and evoke awe beyond their mundane existence. Even so, they “are not kindly birds.” As we will see over and over, Tolkien is not sentimental.

He never condescends to the animal world. The ferocity of these guardian eagles is not glossed over. Yet the lordliness that has made eagles so potent as symbols works to the advantage of the narrative here. These “proud and strong and noble-hearted” creatures come with a suggestion of transcendence. They are indifferent to the loathing of the goblins, being on a higher plane in more ways than one, except when the goblins work wickedness. At such times the Eagles intervene with soaring ease.

Tolkien is justly famous for his ravishing descriptions of nature, but for him, as for the psalmists, nature is benign and dangerous in equal parts. The Eagles are representatives of a moral order, but they are not gentle, even as the administration of justice is not always gentle. The Lord of the Eagles never becomes an approachable figure. Even Gandalf must adapt to Gwaihir’s rituals while the party is in the Eyrie. Thus the presence of a larger design is once again suggested.

Glimpses of a Resistance Movement A theme of great importance in The Lord of the Rings makes an early appearance in the next section. We may pass over the sojourn with the enormous bear-like man called Beorn for now; the part he plays here is moderately diverting but of no great significance as yet for the deep narrative. What is more important at the moment is that for the first time we catch glimpses 29

the battle for middle-earth here and there of small communities of people or creatures who have banded together not only for fellowship but also for mutual reinforcement in an atmosphere of encroaching menace. We begin to realize that this is necessary when we hear hints for the first time of the dark secrets of Mirkwood. This is not even remotely like the full complement of terror that lurks throughout The Lord of the Rings; there is another glancing reference to the Necromancer and a first mention of “his dark tower,” but the tone is light and bouncy, not really portentous. The expansion of the concept of evil between this early volume and the larger epic is one of the notable developments in Tolkien’s work. As we have already noted, however, the vast, grim enterprise that dominates The Lord of the Rings does have a seedbed in the passage quoted earlier about the goblins’ “ingenious devices.” We will better understand the scope of evil in the Ring saga if we recognize the difference between the relatively small-scale dragon-doings in The Hobbit and the full-bore activity of an evil intelligence with vast forces at his disposal that we will see coming out of Mordor.

We begin to learn of the presence of alternative communities when the company enters the “enormous uncanny darkness” of Mirkwood. In this section we are treated to a good example of Tolkien’s remarkable abilities to evoke atmosphere via descriptions of natural phenomena. The blackness of the forest, full of sinister presences, is relieved only by a glimpse of the Wood-elves with their eerie singing and laughter. These are lesser elves, several notches below the noble, pensive High and Grey Elves of Lothlórien whom we will meet in The Lord of the Rings. Like all elves, the Wood-elves of Mirkwood in The Hobbit are aesthetes, but they are actually somewhat indolent and greedy. They love gold and jewels but have not bothered to learn about the artistry of working them into useful objects; in this regard they come off poorly next to the Dwarves — a good example of the subtle variations in Tolkien’s conception. It is notable that he does not give names to any of these Wood-elves in The Hobbit, not even the Elvenking.10 10. In The Lord of the Rings we will discover that the Elvenking has a name after all: Thranduil. He is not himself a Wood-elf, but a much loftier Grey-elf, one of the Sindar. His ill-considered imprisonment of Thorin and the other Dwarves makes a rather negative impression on the reader (a fact that will require a bit of rehabilitative dialogue at the Council of Elrond), but in fact the Elvenking’s reliability as an ally against the power of Mordor was considerable. His success in preventing Sauron from encroaching upon the Wood-elves in Mirkwood is not as clear in The Hobbit as it will become later. In particular, we will learn that Thranduil is the father of Legolas, who attends the great Council as his father’s representative and becomes a member of the Fellowship of the Ring.

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Prologue: The Hobbit Nevertheless, there are some preliminary clues here to the larger themes of the epic. The dwellings of the Wood-elves in Mirkwood are pockets of resistance in enemy territory. They make frequent forays deeper into the ominous forest, carrying with them their fire, their songs, and their merriment, scattering the shadows. This, I will be suggesting, is the first hint of many communities of resistance in Tolkien’s work that suggest the Church — planted in the midst of occupied territory, refusing to be conformed to it, striking a defiant blow against it simply by means of presence. This may not be the typical understanding of the Church that one meets in white America, but it is the way oppressed peoples have thought of it, and much of the New Testament envisions Christian discipleship in just this way. We will speak of this again when we begin to consider Lothlórien, a much more significant Elven outpost, in The Lord of the Rings.

Another valuable aspect of The Hobbit is its introductory depiction of the relationship between the elves and the dwarves, which will become very important later. Elves do not like dwarves and are very suspicious of them.11 The Wood-elves go so far as to take them prisoner — though they treat them humanely. This background gives depth to our understanding of the significance of the friendship between Gimli the Dwarf and Legolas the Grey-elf in The Lord of the Rings. Their bond turns out to be one of the most attractive features of the saga, and, as we shall see in Chapter Two, it begins with an act of strikingly Christian charity. In their own very different, often rude and roughhewn way, the dwarves also represent a community of resistance.

Luck or Providence?

The Mirkwood spider fight offers another instructive contrast with later episodes in the Ring saga. It is undeniably rousing — our attention does not flag — but there is no suggestion of a greater power and purpose behind it all. The victory is attributed entirely to Bilbo’s “luck,” cleverness, and “Tookish” genes. The success of the escape in the barrels is a result of coincidence as much as it is of Bilbo’s resolve. There is nothing like Providence here. Nor is there any hint of the dimensions of the evil that was 11. One of my readers, Tim Boomer, reminded me that the Elf/Dwarf rivalry is reminiscent of the biblical conflicts between Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob — the hunters vs. the husbandmen.

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the battle for middle-earth mentioned so very briefly a hundred pages before, when Gandalf referred to an enemy “far beyond the powers of all the dwarves put together.” The tone is several notches below adult-level: the spiders are struck “plunk on the head,” they fall “flop to the ground,” they are “whack, dead.” These locutions are not suitable even for Orcs, let alone for Shelob or the Balrog, and we will not hear them again in The Lord of the Rings. If the term “quantum leap” is to be used metaphorically at all, this is a good place to use it — to denote the full-blown development of the concept and scale of evil that takes place between The Hobbit and the larger work.

We should not fail to give The Hobbit its due. There are many tantalizing allusions to a greater History that seems to be in the narrator’s mind. We hear of “the great days of old,” and “the days when all the world was wonderful.” The term “Middle-earth” has not yet come into play, but we become aware, almost imperceptibly, that there have been great migrations of Men, elves, dwarves, and other beings across the landscape, leaving large tracts of land abandoned and desolate where once they were flourishing. Too, there is the beginning of a suggestion that the directions of the compass have a mysterious significance: “West” means more than west. We begin to suspect that there is a larger story here, more than meets the eye. The fact that these clues are mentioned so rarely and with such reticence is fascinating; Tolkien himself, he tells us, scarcely knew what he was beginning to create.12 We return to the story to discover a good deal of development in Bilbo’s character. He is explicitly said to be braver than he had been, more resourceful, more confident in his abilities. We read that somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach.

I emphasize this passage because it is so striking that there isn’t anything like it in The Lord of the Rings. There is tremendous growth and development in most of the main characters in the Ring saga — we need only think of Sam Gamgee — but it is far more subtle, disclosed through dia12. It is fascinating to follow the development of the story as the writing progressed, and we know a good deal about it now. The degree of sophistication and the increasingly mature tone of the saga as Tolkien reworked it can be nicely summed up by noting that Strider was originally called Trotter. See Christopher Tolkien, ed., The History of “The Lord of the Rings” (Boston: Houghton Mifflin paperback edition, 1988).

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Prologue: The Hobbit logue and action rather than being spelled out. More important still, nowhere in the larger saga will we find this insistence that any character accomplished anything “all alone by himself without the help . . . of anyone else.” Instead we will find, not far into the great epic, that Tolkien has abandoned this line of thinking altogether and has substituted something quite different. What that is will unfold in due course, but only as we follow the narrative itself.

Emerging Themes As The Hobbit draws to its climax, there are a few further hints of developments to come. In Tolkien’s world as in Scripture, the whole created order plays a role in the gathering storm. The Dwarves suspect ominouslooking crows of being “spies of evil,” and that is what they become in The Lord of the Rings — not just omens but active agents, part of the vast forces deployed by Sauron. On the other hand, the thrush that leads the party to the gate of the treasure hints at a benevolent presence from somewhere beyond. We also learn that ravens had been intelligence agents for the Dwarves of Erebor, and Ravenhill was named for them. Here are further suggestions of a history of alliances between species in a world where security and peace can never be taken for granted by any creature.

There are some marvelous descriptions in this section, giving us a good preview of Tolkien’s ability to delight and thrill the eye of the imagination; especially notable are the passages about the Arkenstone and other treasures. We are introduced to the mithril-coat given to Bilbo; this protective garment will play a significant part in The Lord of the Rings.

There is no mention of any greater power behind any of this, however; Smaug the dragon appears to be an autonomous agent, and Bilbo’s success in the contest with him is owing partly to “a new turn of luck.” None of this suggests any dimension beyond what is immediately before us. Bilbo and Smaug are on their own. With The Lord of the Rings the atmosphere will be completely different.

The descriptions of Smaug in flight over Esgaroth (Lake-town) are quite breathtaking. These scenes in The Hobbit approach similar ones in The Lord of the Rings for splendor and terror, and something happens at this crucial point that definitely prefigures the adult epic. When the mayor of Lake-town proves to be interested largely in saving his own skin and the hero Bard arises in his place, we sense that we are moving into a greater History of rising and falling epochs: “[Bard] was a descendant in 33

the battle for middle-earth long line of Girion, Lord of Dale, whose wife and child had escaped down the Running River from the ruin long ago.” This is underscored by Bard’s powerful charge to his remaining arrow: “Arrow!” said the bowman. “Black arrow! I have saved you for the last.

You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!”

This is spine-tingling in a different way from anything preceding it in The Hobbit. It is rhetorically reminiscent of many old tales, but we see here a glimmer of the sense of destiny that will become so prominent in The Lord of the Rings — the conviction that what happens now is linked to what happened in the past and what is purposed for the future.

Another substantial theme can be identified at this point. In the very moment of deliverance we see how the mayor, who a moment before was cravenly seeking to escape the conflagration in his gilded boat, is already fomenting enmity between Laketown and Dale, between warriors like Bard and venerable “wise men” and “money-counters” like himself. It is human nature, the “old Adam,” asserting itself at the very moment of triumph, like the New York City firefighters and the police trading blows at Ground Zero only a few days after their sanctified deeds in the ruins of the World Trade towers. Greed also rears its head as soon as the dragon is slain. Men and dwarves are quickly at odds for the treasure, and Thorin Oakenshield behaves disgracefully. This combination of fabulous — even transcendent — triumph and petty small-mindedness is emblematic of human existence in any age, and Tolkien will multiply these insights in the great saga to come.

Apocalyptic War and Transfiguration Transfiguration has been an important concept for some twentieth-century theologians.13 Bishop Tutu referred to it constantly during the decades of his leadership in the struggle against apartheid. The concept is derived from the biblical episode called the Transfiguration of Christ, when on a mountaintop his mortal form took on a blinding brilliance and a voice from heaven identified him as Son of God. Christians are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 8) and granted the gift of eternal 13. For instance, see The Transfiguration of Politics by Paul L. Lehmann (New York: Harper & Row, 1975).

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Prologue: The Hobbit divine life with him. These gifts of grace work such a change in the life of believers who take their baptism seriously that there are times when we can speak of a transfigured person or situation. Tutu spoke this way about his country at the time of the collapse of apartheid and the freeing of Nelson Mandela. Transfiguration in the biblical sense is not a human achievement but is granted by God. The numerous transfigurations in The Lord of the Rings suggest the working of an unnamed but powerfully present transcendent reality, endowing its servants with an extraordinary aura at climactic moments.

The Battle of Five Armies is the climax of The Hobbit, and it begins with a moment of transfiguration. With this incident Tolkien seems to begin to move into a more adult type of narrative, closer to the world of The Lord of the Rings. I refer to the moment when, as the Dwarves, Elves, and Men seem on the verge of attacking one another, suddenly and without warning of any kind a vast cloud of bats from the North overshadows the sun, announcing the coming of the darkly named Bolg, the Goblin (capitalized) who is coming with his hordes to avenge the death of his father at the hands of Men. We sense that we are leaving behind the little world where hobbits fight against spiders. The stage is enlarging; the forces are increasing; the coming battle seems no longer to be about jewels and gold but about the soul of the inhabited world. The transfiguration in this case (and they will be numerous in The Lord of the Rings) is that of Gandalf, who suddenly takes on an entirely new, Olympian aspect: “Halt!” cried Gandalf, who appeared suddenly and stood alone with arms uplifted, between the advancing dwarves and the ranks awaiting them. “Halt!” he called in a voice like thunder, and his staff blazed forth with a flash like the lightning. “Dread has come upon you all!

Alas! it has come more swiftly than I guessed. The Goblins are upon you! Bolg of the North is coming, O Dain! whose father you slew in Moria. Behold! the bats are above his army like a sea of locusts. . . .”

Amazement and confusion fell upon them all. Even as Gandalf had been speaking the darkness grew.

Here for the first time there is a hint of a larger plan. I did not notice it on first reading, and it could be argued that it is not there at all. When The Hobbit is backlit by The Lord of the Rings, however, it is possible to think of the appearance of the Goblin hordes at this precise moment not merely as a coincidence or perverse form of luck, but as a providential interven35

the battle for middle-earth tion in which evil instruments are turned to a good purpose. The description of Gandalf here is reminiscent of Moses at Mount Sinai, with thunder and lightning and an upraised staff. The mention of locusts suggests not only the plagues in Egypt (Exodus 10:12-19) but also a sign of apocalypse from the book of Joel (1:4). The sentence “Amazement and confusion fell upon them all” echoes lines like “fear came upon every soul” in the book of Acts (2:43 and elsewhere). In any case, the rhetoric is greatly heightened. More important still is the opening up of the horizon. The marshaling of the Goblin hordes is described in sweeping strokes suggesting a vast evil force entering upon a world war: In all the mountains there was a forging and an arming. Then they marched and gathered by hill and valley, going ever by tunnel or under dark . . . a vast host was assembled ready to sweep down in time of storm unawares upon the South . . . , and they hastened night after night through the mountains.

In this passage, Tolkien seems consciously to be assuming an epic style. It is a signal to the reader that this is a serious enemy. There will be no more talk of falling “flop to the ground.”

We have just referred to the disclosure of the thunderous powers of Gandalf as a transfiguration, one of many to come. This is not to suggest that Gandalf is a divinity. The narrative continues, “How much Gandalf knew cannot be said, but it is plain that he had not expected this sudden assault.” He is clearly limited. We learned earlier that he could not cross the Anduin without finding a ford and wading across like an ordinary man. He is wounded in the battle soon to come. He is a bit vain, and “never minded explaining his cleverness more than once.” Passages like these lodged in many original readers’ minds and caused Gandalf to be regarded as a somewhat doddering character, much to Tolkien’s later frustration. It is hard to say at this early stage exactly what Gandalf is. Tolkien had not yet worked it out. He is certainly not “God.” Some have called him a sort of archangel, but the biblical archangels, what little we see of them, are not humanized in the least degree. We will reflect further upon this wizard’s identity as we go along through The Lord of the Rings.14 We are treated to another transfiguration when Thorin Oakenshield 14. A preliminary note on this subject: “It was afterwards said that they [the wizards, or Istari] came out of the Far West and were messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron, and to unite all those who had the will to resist him” (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B). Angelos is “messenger” in Greek. More of this later.

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Prologue: The Hobbit bursts forth from the Gate of Erebor like a new dwarf, seemingly twice his former size, fully armed in dazzling metalwork, appearing invincible with his axe. We will shortly learn that transfiguration has moral consequences as well as martial ones, but his role at this point is to rally the elves, Men, and dwarves to a heroic last stand. They cannot prevail, however. Slowly the Goblins press forward from below and down from above. The situation is apparently hopeless, and in a relapse into Hobbity language Bilbo bewails his lot (“Misery me!”). But the Eagles are gathering. “At length smelling the battle from afar they had come speeding down the gale in the nick of time.” Without doubt this is a borrowing from the passage about the warhorse in Job 39:25: When the trumpet sounds, he says “Aha!” He smells the battle from afar.

This reference to one of the most exalted passages in all of Scripture underscores the effect of moving onto a higher plane. Everything is becoming larger than life, though remarkably it is still enough like life to make us believe in it as though it were our own. One more outsized rescuer appears. The Eagles drive the Goblins from the Mountain, but the hordes below still outnumber our friends and it seems that they will at last be beaten down by the Goblins’ reinforcements. But in that last hour Beorn himself had appeared — no one knew how or from where. He came alone, and in bear’s shape; and he seemed to have grown almost to giant-size in his wrath. The roar of his voice was like drums and guns, and he tossed wolves and goblins from his path like straws and feathers.

Beorn’s appearance at this climactic moment (“in that last hour” has biblical and liturgical overtones)15 may not seem particularly different from many other stories of miraculous rescue. It is the context that makes the difference. I am suggesting that Tolkien has something more in mind than the usual last-minute deus ex machina (sudden appearance of an artificial plot-saving device).

15. “Suffer us not, at our last hour, through any pains of death, to fall from thee” (Book of Common Prayer).

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the battle for middle-earth

Armies Seen and Unseen The appearance of Beorn at the climax of the Battle of Five Armies is the first of many scenes in Tolkien’s ongoing saga that remind me of an extraordinary passage in the second book of Kings in the Old Testament.

We will be referring to it again when we come to The Lord of the Rings. It is one of the episodes in the cycle of stories about the prophet Elisha: The mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled . . . and he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel?” And one of his servants said, “None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.” And he said, “Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him.” It was told him, “Behold, he is in Dothan.” So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army; and they came by night, and surrounded the city.

When the servant of the man of God [Elisha] rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was round about the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” [Elisha] said, “Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” . . . So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. (2 Kings 6:11-17; emphasis added)

This scene from an earlier portion of the Old Testament has features of the later apocalyptic literature that we find in portions of Ezekiel and Zechariah, as well as in Daniel and Revelation. It will help us to understand Tolkien’s deep narrative if we can grasp some of the fundamentals of the biblical apocalyptic vision.16 The basic idea is that there are two spheres of reality, the earthly and the heavenly — or, to use language from New Testament apocalyptic, two Ages: the present Age that is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31; 1 John 2:17) and the Age to Come. All four evangelists work from this framework, but they use varying language to refer to it. John uses the word kosmos to designate the fallen creaturely world occupied by the Enemy (called “the ruler of this world” [archZn tou kosmou] in John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). Over against 16. It can’t be said too often: this constellation of ideas is almost totally unrelated to the popular literature of apocalypse — millennial fantasies, simplistic predictions of the End, speculations about Armageddon and “the rapture,” the Left Behind series, and so on.

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Prologue: The Hobbit this kosmos he sets the phrase zZ3 aiZnios, which means “eternal life” — better translated as “the life of the eternal Age.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke (called the Synoptic Gospels) refer to the coming eternal Age not as zZ3 aiZnios, which is John’s special term, but as the “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven,” which is already breaking into the world in the words and works of the Messiah Jesus.17 The apostle Paul, in particular, envisions the life of the Christian community as lived in two realms at once. Sometimes he calls these realms “Flesh” and “Spirit”; at other times he refers to “the old man” (human being) and “the new man” — Adam and Christ. Paul proclaims that the “present evil age” (Galatians 1:4) has been invaded by the powers of the Age to Come. Christians live in a world that is still occupied by the Enemy, although as Martin Luther wrote in his famous hymn “A Mighty Fortress,” his downfall is already certain (“for lo! his doom is sure . . .”). The Christian community is planted within occupied territory, like the Wood-elves’ outpost in Mirkwood, living a life of resistance while awaiting the promised but long-delayed arrival of the forces of liberation. Later on, the communities in Rivendell, Lothlórien, and especially Henneth Annûn in Ithilien will illustrate this in a much more complete and intentional way. This is part of the basic framework of The Lord of the Rings, and it is strikingly compatible with that of the New Testament.

A great misunderstanding has arisen about the apocalyptic passages in the Bible. The criticism is frequently heard that they support a passive, world-denying attitude. It is unfortunately true that people have sometimes thought so. But such a stance toward the world cannot be supported from Scripture. There is never the slightest suggestion in the Bible that life in this world is of no significance. Rather, it is precisely in and through the struggles of Christians in this world that the Powers of the Age to Come make themselves known. That is the whole point of New Testament ethics. The Christian community is called to resist the Enemy “even unto death.” However, the Church fights with weapons that are not of this world. These spiritual weapons are described in a number of ways. In Ephesians 6 they are called “the whole armor of God.” In Galatians 5 they are called “the fruit of the Spirit.” In 1 Corinthians 12 they are called the charismata, or spiritual gifts. These heavenly gifts supplied to the Church by the Holy Spirit are analogous to the swords, daggers, and armor in The 17. John’s Gospel is known for its emphasis on eternal life as present possession, whereas the Synoptics have more of a future orientation.

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the battle for middle-earth Lord of the Rings.18 They are to be used in an ongoing cosmic struggle that the letter to the Ephesian church describes in this way: Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:11-12)

The Battle of Five Armies at the end of The Hobbit is Tolkien’s first major move toward the greatly enlarged world of the Ring saga. He is on his way to staging an epic war of biblical proportions. In the passages called the “Synoptic apocalypse,” Jesus describes this war. I have italicized some portions for special emphasis in the present context: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold. But he who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:6-13)

The New Testament apocalyptic vision operates as a symbolic universe in which visible events on earth correspond to the invisible cosmic struggle between the “powers and principalities” and the people of God. What is required of the Church and of the individual Christian in this conflict is described in a number of ways. Some of the basic elements are identified in the passage above. The community of resistance (think of the Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, and other Free Peoples of Middle-earth) must be prepared for the worst. Jesus instructs them that they must be vigilant against betrayal, capable of endurance, and confident of a higher purpose — qualities that abound in The Lord of the Rings. This style of resis18. The question inevitably arises as to whether the biblical weapons of the Age to Come, which are essentially spiritual and nonviolent, can ever be exchanged for actual weapons that maim and kill. Thus we are forced to ask if tales like The Lord of the Rings are symbolic or literal. We will reflect upon this in due course.

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Prologue: The Hobbit tance characterizes the Church, and it rests upon Christ’s promise that he will be with them, even to the end of the Age (Matthew 28:20).

Soldiers Armed with Promise In the first chapter of Revelation three important words appear in the greeting from John to the Church: “I, John [am] your brother, who shares with you in Jesus the tribulation (thlipsis) and the kingdom (basileus) and the patient endurance (hupomon3).” As we proceed, it will be seen how these three Greek words illuminate much of what is happening in the Ring epic. Thlipsis can be translated “apocalyptic suffering,” because it refers to the affliction suffered by the servants of God in the ongoing conflict with the “world rulers of this present darkness” as Ephesians calls them (6:12). This is not ordinary suffering that comes willy-nilly to everyone. This is suffering that is voluntarily undertaken for the sake of a higher cause. The entire Ring saga could be described as a tale of apocalyptic affliction endured so that the united kingdom of Arnor and Gondor can be restored to its rightful ruler. This endurance is called hupomon3, and it is one of the central marks of the Christian life. Hupomon3 can also be translated “perseverance,” “steadfastness,” “fortitude,” or “patience.”19 It is not a glamorous virtue like courage or valor. It sends off no fireworks. Yet it is required of all who would fight the good fight, and there is no one, however lowly, who cannot serve in this way. Bilbo, the rather comical little peace-loving hobbit, is given two or three really heroic moments, but 98 percent of his journey “there and back again” is just putting one foot in front of the other, week after weary week. We will emphasize this much more when we come to Frodo and Sam in Mordor.

Patient endurance (hupomon3) of apocalyptic suffering (thlipsis) is made possible through the power of transcendent promises. This becomes apparent at the very end of The Hobbit. After Bilbo has returned to his beloved hobbit-hole at Bag-End, he receives a visit from Gandalf and Balin the dwarf. They bring good tidings. Bard, the new Master of Laketown, has rebuilt it and led it wisely and well into prosperity. Balin reports that the inhabitants “are making songs which say that in his day the rivers run with gold.” Bilbo exclaims, “Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!” The “prophecies” in the songs 19. The great Roman Catholic lay worker Dorothy Day said, “Patience, patience — the very word means suffering.”

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the battle for middle-earth are analogous to the promises of restoration in Scripture. Here is an adroit move on Tolkien’s part. The golden river, though on one level it means nothing more than earthly riches, functions here as an image of paradise restored after great tribulation (thlipsis). The added phrase, “after a fashion,” however, is a caution. No earthly paradise is either perfect or permanent. The rule of Bard in Esgaroth is a blessing, but in the end we know that even the greater reign of Aragorn at the end of the saga is only a provisional arrangement — it is “after a fashion.” Thorin Oakenshield, on his deathbed, seems to refer to something beyond earthly kingdoms, the hope of an ultimate Final Day when “the world is renewed.” Striking the Advent note, Thorin says he is going to the “halls of waiting.” What is this if not an oblique reference to the long watch of the Church as it waits and longs for the Second Coming?

Traditionally, the Church is said to have three modes: the Church Militant, the Church Expectant, and the Church Triumphant. These terms can be used to expound the ending of The Hobbit. Bilbo and Gandalf, with the elves, dwarves, and Men who survive the battle, are the Church Militant. They must live to fight another day, for they can never rest assured that the battles are over; as we will learn, the Necromancer (later disclosed as Sauron) always rebuilds his strength after a defeat.

Thorin Oakenshield and the other valiant elves and dwarves who perished in the fight are the Church Expectant in the “halls of waiting.” The Church Triumphant will come into being at last when the world is made new, in what the Old Testament calls the Day of Yahweh and the New Testament calls the Second Coming of Christ.

Apocalyptic Transvision We are left with the hint that there are prophecies and promises that can be trusted. There is for the first time a suggestion of invisible powers at work. Tolkien’s vision is beginning to take shape, for now it is clear that the great deliverances that occur are not a result of human endeavor. On the very last page of The Hobbit, Gandalf seems to be readying the reader for something larger when he says that the remarkable escapes cannot be attributed to “mere luck,” and he teases Bilbo — partly with affectionate good humor and partly with utter seriousness — for the smallness of his horizons. The Hobbit ends with a strong hint of what I will be calling “apocalyptic transvision.” We see through one sphere of reality into the other. Two worlds are suggested here. The nearer world is that of Bag-End 42

Prologue: The Hobbit and its homely comforts, represented by Bilbo’s tobacco jar. Beyond is another reality, evoked by the final words of Gandalf which seem to be lifting our eyes to the “wide world” where he has been meeting with the white wizards to drive the Necromancer from his encampment in the south of Mirkwood (Dol Guldur), as he told Elrond in Rivendell. This is only the third brief mention of the Necromancer in the entire book. There is as yet no direct information about this White Council, or who this Necromancer might be. We are told just one thing: that he will return. “I wish he were banished from the world!” exclaims Gandalf. “It would be well indeed,” replies Elrond, “but I fear that will not come about in this age of the world, or for many after.”20 As Jesus warned his disciples, “The end is not yet” (Mark 13:7).

And so we are embarked upon a story that, we are warned, is only one installment in a cosmic drama of “multiplied wickedness.” There is great subtlety to come, for the Ring saga does not pretend to be conclusive. Indeed, as we will see, its tone toward the end is one of muted sadness. The Lord of the Rings is not a happily-ever-after story. In that sense it is like real life in the world. That is part of its lasting strength. The surface narrative is a story about the accomplishments of just two generations of hobbits and Men. The deep narrative, however, is about the way in which an overarching purpose for the universe is being worked out over countless ages through the deeds of creatures both great and — especially — small.

The story of the revelation to Elisha and his servant, with its striking line, “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them,” might well serve as an epigraph for many chapters in The Lord of the Rings.

It is the inspiration for these lines from a popular hymn: Go forward, Christian soldier, fear not the secret foe; Far more o’er thee are watching than human eyes can know.21

All through the Ring saga we will be aware of a dimension of unseen protection. The arrival of the Eagles and the totally unexpected appearance of Beorn at the Battle of Five Armies can be interpreted in this way; Beorn and the Eagles are not exactly supernatural, but they have more than ordinary powers and seem to come “from another quarter,” as the 20. In this dialogue, Gandalf sounds much less Olympian than Elrond. In The Lord of the Rings, that will all be changed. The two will be equal in wisdom and authority, each being (with Galadriel) a bearer of one of the Three Rings.

21. From a hymn by Laurence Tuttiett (1825-1895).

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the battle for middle-earth biblical book of Esther puts it (4:14). In fact, this verse from Esther, which is often cited as the one and only mention of a possibly divine dimension in that entire book, is a good example of the way in which a seemingly minor and glancing reference can, in the right context, mean a great deal. I am interpreting the very few such hints in The Hobbit in just that way. In The Lord of the Rings, by contrast, such allusions will come thick and fast.

The End of The Hobbit: Looking Ahead In closing let us look again at the death of Thorin Oakenshield, the valiant but temperamental dwarf who has made much trouble for Bilbo. His is an exemplary Christian death in every way. “I leave now all gold and silver, and go where it is of little worth,” says this person who has spent his whole life pursuing wealth. In this deathbed speech there are many echoes of Scripture.22 He confesses his wrongdoing to Bilbo and asks forgiveness: “I wish to part in friendship from you, and I would take back my words and deeds at the Gate.” He leaves a benediction for Bilbo that conveys something of what St. Paul has in mind when he uses the word “reckon” (logizomai). We will not stop to examine this word in detail now, for we will meet it again and again in the saga of the Ring, but the underlying idea is that people can be “worded into” a new state of righteousness (logizomai comes from the root logos, meaning “word”). “There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. . . . Farewell!” says Thorin as he expires. Such words can have the effect of making the listener see himself in a new light. Bilbo’s response shows how this works; he goes into a corner and weeps not only for Thorin but also for his own failures.

Thorin’s blessing evokes repentance, insight, and a new resolve in a way that no rebuke could ever do.

Bilbo has learned much. We see in his subsequent actions that Thorin’s “reckoning” has had an effect on him. He refuses his share of the dragon’s stolen treasure, taking only a small amount; he seems to sense that great riches will only bring unhappiness. This decision is ratified by events at home; when he arrives at Bag-End, he finds his relatives — supposing him dead — fighting over his effects. He gives away most of what 22. “I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:11); “Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted” (James 5:2-3); “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20).

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Prologue: The Hobbit he brought back with him (with a significant exception that the reader can guess), and settles in for a contented life of small pleasures.

Thus ends The Hobbit. Bilbo has been “there and back again.” Read superficially, the story would seem to have ended “happily-ever-after,” with lessons well learned, fights well fought, rest well earned. As in real life, however, such is not to be the case. Tolkien is just getting started.

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