Salvation and Social Justice
“But that, of course, would only make the evil part of him [Gollum] angrier in the end—unless it could be conquered. Unless it could be cured.”
—Gandalf
At this point, we are ready to touch on a dangerous subject. At least it is dangerous for a writer discussing J. R. R. Tolkien’s work because it approaches ground that might be called religious. Tolkien largely avoided anything explicitly religious in his own fiction. And he did so consciously and by intention. We can gain some insight into his reason for avoiding or removing explicitly religious elements from his writing by looking at three shortcomings Tolkien sees in the Arthurian legends, the third of which in particular makes these legends inadequate (in his opinion) as a mythology for England (Letters, 144).
Tolkien’s first criticism of Arthurian legend is that it is not English enough. Though it is vaguely associated with the soil of Britain, it is not associated with the English people, culture, or language. Mallory’s fifteenth-century Le Morte d’Arthur, probably the most influential, best-known medieval version of the Arthurian legends, though written in Middle English, draws most heavily on earlier French sources. Other influential early Arthurian grail legends, such as Wolfram’s thirteenth-century tale, Parzival, and Chrétien de Troyes’s unfinished late twelfth-century romance, Perceval, le Conte du Graal, were not even composed in English.
Second, the fairy elements of the Arthurian legends are (in Tolkien’s opinion) too lavish, incoherent, and repetitive.
Tolkien’s third criticism, and the most important both to him and to this chapter, is that Arthurian legend contains too much explicit religion: religion in the same form as in the primary world. This is what he termed the legend’s “fatal error” (Letters, 144). In the final chapter we will deal more with why explicit religion is a problem in myth and fantasy. For now we need only note that Tolkien was critical of the presence of too much explicit religion in Arthurian legend. (Thus, a critic must follow a careful path in observing meanings within Tolkien’s own work that bear what one might call a religious significance.) In a similar vein, as I noted in the introduction to this book, Tolkien had a well-known dislike for allegory, and probably especially for religious allegory. “But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations,” he writes in his foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, “and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence” (Foreword).
And yet, as I also noted in the introduction, though he disliked allegory, Tolkien felt—as he goes on to say in the foreword—that his works should have “applicability to the thought and experience of readers.” His stories are full of meaning, and, furthermore, much of that meaning relates directly to themes that are theological, philosophical, and even religious in nature. In the same letter in which he criticizes Arthurian legend for its explicit religion, Tolkien affirms that myth and fairy stories “must contain elements of moral and religious truth (or error).” Here Tolkien is suggesting that there is an objective truth in the universe, even with respect to religion. Religious claims may be true or false. Not only that, but myth must contain elements of that truth (or attempts at it). Yet the religious elements should not be “in the known form of the primarily ‘real’ world” (Letters, 144). In other words, Tolkien’s works may be replete with important philosophical and religious themes and reflections, but we should not expect to find them (usually) expressed in the same language and terminology, or with the same external practices, as in our primary world. In short, then, what Tolkien thought was inappropriate in fantasy literature—or the literature of Faery as he called it—was the portrayal of explicit religious practices and sacraments in the form they are known in our world. The Lord of the Rings does not show us churches in Middle-earth, or priests or rabbis carrying on clerical duties; Tolkien does not present immediately recognizable Christian customs or practices; we get only rare and indirect glimpses of various practices of religious worship. (The Akallabêth is a notable exception to this.) What Tolkien did believe was acceptable, and even necessary, by contrast, was an element of religious truth that would be applicable to our world as moral truth—just not presented using the religious terminology and practices and ceremonies of our modern world.
As Tolkien himself suggests toward the end of his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” part of the danger of the subject we explore in this chapter does not stem from its lack of importance but rather from its being too important.[53] It was vitally important to Tolkien, anyway, and that alone makes it worth exploring in his writing. Furthermore, the subject of this chapter flows naturally from the central ideas discussed earlier in this book, which themselves—if I have reasoned correctly so far—are fundamental to the understanding of the story and are fully woven into its fabric. For Tolkien’s writing, as we have now seen, clearly rejects the materialist presuppositions that lead to a denial of human free will or moral responsibility. In the worldview reflected in the mythology of Middle-earth, people are more than physical beings. And if more than physical, then what do we call that “more”? The usual word to use is spiritual: men and elves both are creatures of spirit as well as of body. Tolkien writes in his commentary on “Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth” in Morgoth’s Ring, “There are on Earth ‘incarnate’ creatures, Elves and Men: these are made of a union of hröa and fëa (roughly but not exactly equivalent to ‘body’ and ‘soul’)” (Morgoth, 330).
While the natures of the bodies and spirits of elves and men differ slightly, as we saw from The Silmarillion, it is clear that both races have a spiritual nature in addition to the physical. Men have mortal bodies that die, but their spirits live on and “leave the world,” eventually to take part in the Second Music of the Ainur. Elves do not die a natural death (of illness or old age), but their bodies may be slain, and if this happens their spirits are gathered to the halls of Mandos. The point is that in both cases, with elves and men, their nature is more than physical, and individuals continue on as self-aware individuals even after bodily death. What we really begin to see, in fact, is that there are two aspects of the created world: a spiritual plane and a physical plane. Both the spiritual and the physical are real, and they are interrelated; what happens on the spiritual plane affects what happens on the physical, and vice versa. One of the greatest marks of wisdom in Middle-earth can be understood as an eternal perspective: a realization that reality includes both of these planes, and that while it is not quite right to say that the spiritual plane is more important than the physical (an important concern we will return to in the final chapter), it is certainly true that one’s spiritual life, being eternal, carries more weight than one’s present and temporal bodily life. This relates very closely to the earlier conclusion that moral victory is more important than military victory.
This spiritual reality also relates to objective morality and the fact that the choices of men, dwarves, and elves (and also hobbits) are subject to judgment. What does it mean to be judged? With respect to our moral battles, does judgment have to do with the definition of victory? Many of the answers become clearer in an exploration of the notion of salvation in The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, the very concept of spiritual (moral) victory that is at the heart of Tolkien’s writing may be defined by this word: salvation.
The Salvation of Boromir
As I said, writing about salvation in The Lord of the Rings is a dangerous task—dangerous in part because it has clear religious connotations. In particular, the notion of salvation is fundamentally important to the Christian faith, including both to Catholic forms, such as that practiced by Tolkien, and to Protestant forms, such as that practiced by his friend C. S. Lewis. A discussion of salvation cannot avoid religious ground. It is also dangerous in the specific examples that follow because the words salvation (or saved) and, its opposite, damnation are not the words Tolkien uses in his fiction to describe this spiritual victory. Indeed, these are the sorts of words he would avoid because of their explicit modern religious usage. Nonetheless, he uses many words and concepts—for example, cured and escaped and their opposite, fallen—to imply spiritual salvation. These words, in context, carry the meaning of salvation but without the explicit form of religion in our own world (although at times, as we shall see, Tolkien comes very close to that form).
To start with, salvation implies being saved from something, presumably from something bad. If we are speaking of bodily salvation, then the ultimate salvation is from physical death. If we are speaking of spiritual salvation, then the objective reality of good suggests a salvation from its opposite: evil. That is certainly what is at stake for Boromir, as Frodo realizes after Boromir’s attempt to take the Ring by force: “Boromir has fallen into evil,” Frodo contemplates, as he tries to decide his course (II/x). This is, of course, a statement coming from a framework of objective morality. It also must be a statement about spiritual (and not physical) reality because at the time Frodo is saying this nothing physically bad has yet happened to Boromir. So for Boromir to be saved, he must be saved spiritually from this evil.
This is precisely what happens, although Boromir himself might not realize it. We see this in Aragorn’s reply to Boromir’s dying words. “Farewell, Aragorn! Go to Minas Tirith and save my people! I have failed,” Boromir says, with his dying breath. Aragorn’s reply is telling. “‘No!’ said Aragorn, taking his hand and kissing his brow. ‘You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace!’” (III/i). This is a short passage, and yet it speaks more to the central ideas of this book than almost any other. Boromir sees himself as having failed. And in every physical and military way, he has failed. He fails in his task to bring Aragorn and “the sword that was broken” back to Minas Tirith. He fails to bring Isildur’s Bane back to his father. Indeed, he fails to return to Minas Tirith at all. In short, he fails to do anything to save Gondor from military defeat. Or at least at the time of his death, this would seem to be the case. He even fails in the last thing he attempts: to save Merry and Pippin from capture by the orcs. From a physical or bodily viewpoint, he suffers the greatest possible failure: he dies. So in the material plane, Boromir’s final words are true. He fails. He has lost the physical battle. He has lost the military battle.
Yet Aragorn contradicts him emphatically: “No!” Aragorn argues instead that Boromir has “conquered,” that he has won a “victory.” Of what victory does Aragorn speak? Not a military victory, but a moral one; not a bodily victory, but a spiritual one. Whereas Boromir is speaking about the material plane, Aragorn is speaking of the spiritual plane.
Now one might suggest that Aragorn’s words are little more than comforting sounds for a dying man, devoid of any more significant meaning. Suppose for a moment we were to ignore how important words are to Aragorn and to suggest that he is a flatterer, one who speaks falsely in order to make someone feel better. Although Aragorn’s character suggests otherwise, this suggestion is at least worth considering. It is, after all, the only time in all the books that we hear Aragorn’s words to a dying man, and if there were ever an instant to provide comfort with flattery, this would be it. The problem with this interpretation of the events is that at a later point Gandalf says the same thing about Boromir, that in his death he has won an important victory: “It was a sore trial for such a man: a warrior, and a lord of men. Galadriel told me that he was in peril. But he escaped in the end. I am glad. It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir’s sake” (III/v). Whatever motive we may attribute to Aragorn’s earlier words, we cannot reasonably say that Gandalf is merely comforting a dying man with these words. For Gandalf’s words are spoken several days after Boromir’s death; Boromir is not even present. Yet Gandalf says Boromir has “escaped.” And the wizard’s words suggest strongly that what Boromir escaped from was a moral or spiritual rather than a physical danger. Indeed, readers know that the “sore trial” was the temptation of the Ring, since Boromir knew how desperately such power would be needed. Gandalf even goes on to point out that it was good for Boromir’s sake that Merry and Pippin came on the journey. Why? If Gandalf were speaking of Boromir in physical or military terms, it would make no sense. The failed attempt to protect the two young hobbits cost Boromir his life. And yet the opportunity to give his life to save them may have been a large part of his spiritual victory.
And Gandalf is not the only other person to comment, after the fact, on some moral or spiritual victory that Boromir had won in his final moments even as he lost his life. Faramir also, in discussing his brother with Frodo and Sam, notes, “Now I loved [Boromir] dearly and would gladly avenge his death, yet I knew him well.” He goes on with wisdom and insight to acknowledge his brother’s faults and that Boromir might well have attempted to take Isildur’s Bane by force. Then Faramir proceeds to comment on what he observed in his vision when the dead Boromir floated by on a boat: “Whether he erred or no, of this I am sure: he died well, achieving some good thing. His face was more beautiful even than in life” (IV/v). Faramir is painfully honest about his brother’s faults and yet sees from his brother’s face that in his death he has moved from the “evil” that Frodo has seen in him to “some good thing.” The good thing Faramir sees in Boromir’s death is something moral, not something physical. Faramir sees his spiritual condition.
So we must agree that Boromir, in some important spiritual sense, has “conquered,” “won a victory,” and “escaped,” having achieved “some good thing.” We will use the term salvation to refer to this spiritual victory. What is the essence of this salvation? What does Boromir do to achieve it? The answer is fairly simple. First and foremost, Boromir acknowledges his evil and apologizes for it. “I tried to take the Ring from Frodo,” he confesses. “I am sorry” (III/i). This path to what Aragorn describes as a “victory” strongly corresponds to the Christian notion of salvation, which comes through repentance of sin. “Repent and believe” is the essential response called for in the proclamation of the gospel (see, for example, Mark 1:15). In that sense, Aragorn’s words can be used as a central piece of evidence supporting the thesis that in Tolkien’s work moral victory is more important than military victory. Boromir’s moral victory is repentance.
There is one other thing we might associate with Boromir’s victory, though it represents perhaps more of a stretch and is not immediately clear from this passage alone. From the start, Boromir has a strong dependence on his own strength and importance and on military might (his own, that of Gondor, etc.). In giving his life to save the two hobbits, he is giving up his own quest to save Gondor, much as Aragorn will do a short time after Boromir’s death when he chooses to pursue Merry and Pippin rather than aid Frodo and Sam or take his sword to Minas Tirith. Gandalf also makes a similar choice when he sacrifices himself on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, allowing the responsibility to pass from him. Boromir is acknowledging that the fate of Gondor is no longer in his hands. This too might be associated with the gospel: that people can be saved by faith in God’s work and not by their own strength or actions (see, for example, Eph. 2:8–9). In any case, Boromir is seen as having been saved from a great evil, and salvation as something that happens on the spiritual and moral plane. And since such salvation is an important thing to Aragorn, Gandalf, Faramir, and—through them—to Tolkien, it may also be important to Tolkien’s readers.
The Salvation of Sméagol
Gollum-Sméagol also makes for an interesting study, in part because so many passages in The Lord of the Rings deal with what might be called his salvation (including much of book 4, beginning with “The Taming of Sméagol”), in part because—unlike with Boromir—Gollum’s salvation is never achieved, and also in part because Tolkien has shared some of his own thoughts about Gollum’s salvation in his personal letters.
As mentioned, there are numerous references throughout The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers to Gollum’s “cure.” Gandalf in particular speaks of it on several occasions. Even before Frodo leaves the Shire, he says: “‘But that, of course, would only make the evil part of him [Gollum] angrier in the end—unless it could be conquered. Unless it could be cured.’ Gandalf sighed. ‘Alas! there is little hope of that for him. Yet not no hope. No, not though he possessed the Ring so long, almost as far back as he can remember’” (I/ii). And a short time later, for extra emphasis, Gandalf adds: “I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. . . . In any case we did not kill him: he is very old and very wretched. The Wood-elves have him in prison, but they treat him with such kindness as they can find in their wise hearts” (I/ii).
Cured is a different word than saved, of course, and usually refers to a physical illness rather than a spiritual condition. Likewise, the word conquered more often refers to an enemy, though it is also used of physical diseases such as cancer. In this case, however, there is no particular medical problem that Gollum suffers. Rather, we see that it is a moral condition of evil—or “the evil part of him”—that needs a cure. That the “treatment” is “kindness” also suggests that the illness is not physical at all, but spiritual. This treatment of kindness suggested by Gandalf is also later administered by Frodo and is at the center of the taming of Sméagol. One part of Frodo’s kindness is treating Gollum with dignity and trust, which includes the simple act of calling him by his given name: Sméagol.
We also must note that as little hope as Gandalf sees for Gollum’s cure, there can be no question that he desires that cure and still works toward it with some shred of hope. He shows noticeable sympathy for the creature, lamenting that his tale is “a sad story” (I/ii) and sighing about how deeply he has fallen into evil. As Legolas shares at the Council of Elrond, “Gandalf bade us hope still for his cure, and we had not the heart to keep him ever in dungeons under the earth, where he would fall back into his old black thoughts” (II/ii). Admittedly, there are not many others who share Gandalf’s vision for Gollum’s salvation. At the start, not even Frodo does. To the contrary, he wishes Gollum dead. By the end of the book, however, Frodo shows mercy to Gollum and works toward his cure. It is Frodo’s kindness to him—“good Master,” “nice Master,” “kind Master”—that leads to the whole inner debate between his Sméagol-side and his Gollum-side, and to the change that takes place in him. It is a change that Tolkien illustrates in several ways, and of which Frodo is aware. After the famous debate between his two voices in “The Passage of the Marshes,” “Gollum welcomed [Frodo] with dog-like delight. He chuckled and chattered, cracking his long fingers, and pawing at Frodo’s knees. Frodo smiled at him” (IV/ii). Initially, Frodo may only be using Gollum as a guide, out of necessity. By the time they reach Faramir, however, it is clear both that Frodo has grown considerably in his understanding of and pity for the poor creature and that he truly desires his salvation. This is especially evident in Frodo’s anguish at the Forbidden Pool, when in order to save Gollum’s life he has to lure him away from the water to be captured: “His heart sank. . . . What Frodo did would seem a treachery to the poor treacherous creature. It would probably be impossible ever to make him understand or believe that Frodo had saved his life.” He knows from the start that Gollum will feel betrayed and guesses (correctly) the damage that sense of betrayal will do to Gollum’s repentance process. Thus, when it is over, Frodo is “feeling very wretched” and tells Sam, “I hate the whole business” (IV/vi).
In the end, despite the incident at the Forbidden Pool, Gollum comes very close to the salvation that Gandalf and Frodo seek and hope for in him. In one of the most poignant passages of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien shares this moment with the readers.
Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee—but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing. (IV/viii)
The interior debate, we may guess in hindsight, is whether or not to go through with his plan of leading Frodo to Shelob. We may also guess that Sméagol (that is, the Sméagol side of Gollum) is on the verge of winning this debate. The “gleam,” a sign of his sneaking slyness, fades from his eyes. The pawing becomes “almost . . . a caress”—a sign of love and affection—and for “a fleeting moment” he is no longer the slinking, stinking Gollum of secret caves but the hobbit-like creature he once was, associated with “friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth.”
Unfortunately, the fleeting moment of near-salvation slips away. For Sam, who does not take part in administering the treatment of kindness, also does not see the promising results of that treatment. Mistaking this moment of sorrow, compassion, and near-repentance on the part of Gollum for mere “pawing at his master,” Sam continues with his unkind and untrusting treatment. As a result, “Gollum withdrew himself, and a green flint flickered under his heavy lids. Almost spider-like he looked now, crouched back on his bent limbs, with his protruding eyes. The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall” (IV/viii). Gollum has come so near to salvation but has turned away in the end. Suddenly, the imagery associates him more with Shelob-kind than with hobbit-kind.
Just how important salvation is to Tolkien is illustrated in a letter he wrote in 1963 describing this scene, in particular Sam’s lack of understanding and his possible lack of mercy.
Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited. . . . He plainly did not fully understand Frodo’s motives or his distress in the incident of the Forbidden Pool. If he had understood better what was going on between Frodo and Gollum, things might have turned out differently in the end. For me perhaps the most tragic moment in the Tale comes . . . when Sam fails to note the complete change in Gollum’s tone and aspect. “Nothing, nothing,” said Gollum softly. “Nice master!” His repentance is blighted and all Frodo’s pity is (in a sense) wasted. (Letters, 329–30)
It is quite telling that among all the episodes in the three volumes, including the deaths of Boromir, Théoden, and Denethor, Tolkien would refer to Gollum’s failure to come into his cure as “the most tragic moment in the Tale.” It speaks volumes about what is really important to the author. He says almost the same thing—though more briefly—in another, earlier letter to his son Christopher, written in 1945 while The Lord of the Rings was still in progress: that he was “most moved” by “the tragedy of Gollum who at that moment came within a hair of repentance—but for one rough word from Sam” (Letters, 110). In short, it is not only Gandalf who seeks and hopes for Gollum’s salvation but Tolkien himself.
This also contributes to our understanding of why Gandalf restricts his own use of power in the war against Sauron, seeking instead to encourage each person in Middle-earth to use his or her own strength. If the path toward (or away) from salvation relates to moral choices (and not to physical or material victory), and if salvation truly is the highest and most important end, then it will avail nothing for Gandalf to do the work of others for them; with regard to salvation, the laboring itself—that is, the choice to do good—is as important as the result of that labor. So Gandalf seeks for each person to make good choices, even when he could accomplish the outcome of those choices more quickly himself. Or, looking at this from the point of view of those whom Gandalf is helping, the way to escape judgment is not to abdicate choices and responsibility to the wizard, but rather to make good choices.
Saruman, Denethor, and Damnation as Un-Salvation
Indeed, Tolkien shows Gandalf as having a desire for the salvation of all in Middle-earth, no matter how far they may have fallen. As we saw, Gandalf rejoices at Boromir’s “escape” even though it comes about only at Boromir’s death, for what was accomplished on the spiritual plane is more important than what was lost on the physical plane. Likewise, he seeks and hopes for Gollum’s cure. He is also chiefly responsible for bringing about Théoden’s awakening, which we saw in the first chapter with respect to the vivid portrayal of Théoden’s death and the battle between Éowyn and the Nazgûl.
Gandalf hopes even for the cures of Saruman and Wormtongue. “Dangerous, and probably useless; but it must be done,” he says, as he readies for his conversation with Saruman after the fall of Isengard to the Ents (III/x). Why does it have to be done? Gandalf’s words to Saruman give us some hints: “I do not wish to kill you, or hurt you, as you would know, if you really understood me. And I have the power to protect you. I am giving you a last chance” (III/x). Despite the evil that Saruman has done to Gandalf, and indeed to all of Middle-earth, Gandalf does not intend any retribution. Following his own admonition to Frodo, Gandalf does not seek to deal out death in judgment, no matter how thoroughly it may be deserved by Saruman. Instead, he offers kindness: an opportunity for freedom and a chance to turn (as Boromir does) away from the evil he has chosen. It seems even that Gandalf feels a moral duty to offer Saruman “a last chance,” even though the attempt is “dangerous.” A last chance at what? At salvation: “You have become a fool, Saruman, and yet pitiable. You might still have turned away from folly and evil, and have been of service. But you choose to stay and gnaw the ends of your old plots” (III/x, emphasis added). Gandalf’s language here has strong Christian connotations. The word repent, which is at the core of the message preached by Jesus and is also the word used by Tolkien to describe what nearly happened with Gollum, simply means to “turn away from evil.” Thus Gandalf could equally have said to Saruman, “You might still have repented.”
This is particularly significant in light of two other aspects of Gandalf’s words here. In his reference to “folly and evil,” we see yet again the objective nature of morality; Saruman is not free to define his own good and evil, but rather there is an objective good and evil above and beyond both Gandalf and Saruman, to which Gandalf may refer. We also see again an emphasis on the freedom to “choose” and the importance of the moral choice to turn away from evil or, in Saruman’s case, to “choose to stay and gnaw the ends of [his] old plots.”
As for his desire to see Saruman’s repentance and salvation, Gandalf’s words to Pippin as he departs from this encounter reinforce what we have already seen: “But I had reasons for trying; some merciful and some less so. . . . What will become of him? I cannot say. I grieve that so much good now festers in the tower” (III/x). Yes, Gandalf has personal motives for seeking Saruman’s repentance: Saruman is still powerful and knowledgeable and could be of great help in the war against Sauron. But Gandalf also has compassionate motives. He grieves that Saruman turns away from salvation. Indeed, we might well conclude that to Gandalf, this salvation from evil—a spiritual salvation that comes not from physical might or military victory but from repenting of the evil and choosing the good—is the highest and greatest end for all in Middle-earth. As he says to Denethor, he pities even Sauron’s slaves.
That Frodo really learns the virtue of mercy is shown as much (or more) in Saruman’s case as it is in Gollum’s. With Gollum, it may be easier for Frodo to feel pity because Gollum is so weak and miserable and also so similar to the hobbits in his origins. Also, as a Ringbearer, Frodo knows the torment that Gollum has experienced, and in clinging to a hope for Gollum he is thereby also clinging to some hope for himself. But Saruman has no such excuse. He is of a wise and powerful order, and he is never burdened with the One Ring (much though he desires it). Furthermore, the evil that Saruman does to Frodo strikes much closer to home. Indeed, it literally does strike home. When they finally meet near the end of the trilogy, Saruman is coming out of the home that once belonged to Bilbo and Frodo. Nor does Saruman ever take even the smallest steps toward repentance—not even repentance that is later blighted, like that of Gollum. Nonetheless, Frodo follows Gandalf’s path and offers Saruman yet another chance at being “cured”: “He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it” (VI/viii). Frodo’s words not only shed added light on the desire of the more noble characters to help others find their cure—this spiritual salvation of which I wrote—but also suggests that one of the reasons mercy is so important, and shown to be so virtuous, is that mercy leaves open the door to salvation. Once a sentence of death has been carried out, there is no longer the possibility of repentance.
At this point, one must wrestle with the reality that salvation has an opposite, or alternative, which is damnation. This, at least, is what Tolkien believed to be the truth about the primary reality of this world, as is illustrated in the letter quoted earlier: “There are persons who yield to temptation, reject their chances of nobility or salvation, and appear to be ‘damnable.’” And as unpopular a notion as this is in modern times, it is the reality in Middle-earth. Indeed, our earlier observations on moral responsibility and judgment at least suggest the possibility of damnation in Tolkien’s writing, for judgment means nothing if there are not consequences to our choices: good consequences for good choices and evil consequences for evil. Even our affirmation of free will suggests the possibility of damnation, for if created beings are to be truly free, then they cannot be forced to follow their Creator, and damnation is nothing but the natural eternal consequence of rejecting that Creator. Of course, that salvation is a possibility but not a necessity, as has been shown in this chapter, affirms something like damnation as the alternative: the “un-salvation.”
We see several hints of this final judgment in The Lord of the Rings. We see it in the imagery surrounding the deaths of Denethor and Gollum, two characters who fail to come to salvation and who both perish in their evil. Both of them end in flames, a consummation of their wickedness in both the literal and figurative meaning of that word. In the case of Denethor, he “leaped upon the table, and standing there wreathed in fire and smoke he took up the staff of his stewardship that lay at his feet and broke it on his knee. Casting the pieces into the blaze he bowed and laid himself on the table” (V/vii). Gollum ends in the greatest flames in Middle-earth: the fires of Mount Doom. Both of these scenes bring up unmistakable images of the flames of hell, which is the image of eternal damnation.
Equally interesting are the words of Gandalf when he faces the Lord of the Nazgûl at the gates of Minas Tirith: “Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!” (V/iv). The imagery of these words also calls up the notion of damnation, not only for the Nazgûl but also for his master, Sauron. Though once a man, the Lord of the Nazgûl has long ago ceased to be of human kind, but is of the spirit realm. In the Bible, the “abyss” is another name for hell, the place where evil spirits in rebellion against God will be sent. It is a place of damnation. In Luke 8:31, the legion of demons possessing the man of the Gerasens pleads with Jesus “that he would not command them to go into the abyss.” It is not only evil spirits who are sent to the abyss, however. Later, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus speaks of the final judgment of the goats (those who did not serve God) in words that should strike a familiar chord with anyone who has just read the words of Gandalf: “Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).
The point here is not to dwell on damnation. Tolkien’s writing certainly does not. The focus is rather on salvation. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that just as salvation is a real possibility in Tolkien’s world, so is the alternative. For free beings in a moral universe, having a choice between salvation and damnation seems inevitable. However, when a being follows a path toward damnation and seems to receive it as a punishment, there is no gloating, only sorrow. Gandalf grieves at the demise of Denethor, his face “grave and sad” (V/vii). Frodo shows similar sadness at the death of Gollum—“Let us forgive him,” he says (VI/iii)—and even later at the failure of Saruman to turn from his evil. Salvation is not only a possibility; it is the hope for everyone in Middle-earth.
Bilbo and Frodo: Mercy for the Merciful
The possibility of one’s own damnation is yet another reason that mercy is so important in Middle-earth. Not only might the showing of mercy lead to the salvation of others—the recipients of that mercy—but it may be the most important instrument in the salvation of the one who is showing mercy. This seems to be the case with both Bilbo and Frodo. Before Gandalf comments about the effect on Gollum of Bilbo’s mercy, and the possibility of Gollum’s cure, he discusses the effect of that mercy on Bilbo himself: “Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity” (I/ii, emphasis added). Again, Tolkien does not use the religiously laden term salvation, but Gandalf is certainly speaking of something on the moral (rather than physical) plane, and he uses three different phrases that all suggest something similar to salvation. Bilbo is “well rewarded.” What reward can be greater than salvation and the gift of heaven? This is an illustration of one of the principles of Jesus’s teaching: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7). Or, looking at the passage in terms of the opposite possibility, Gandalf sees that Bilbo “took so little hurt” from evil and that he “escaped.” In fact, Bilbo is one of only two bearers of the One Ring who ever freely relinquish it (the other being Sam, who possesses the Ring for only a fraction of the time that Bilbo does). We can only guess what might have happened had Bilbo not begun his ownership of the Ring with an act of mercy, but we can “be sure” that things would have gone worse for him. Indeed, we need look only as far as Gollum, who begins his ownership of the Ring with murder. We can also be sure that Gandalf cares at least as much for Bilbo’s salvation as he does for Gollum’s.
Frodo’s case is not very different. Here, I will rely on Tolkien’s own explanation of the situation. In a letter describing what happens at the Crack of Doom, he writes: “But at this point the ‘salvation’ of the world and Frodo’s own ‘salvation’ is achieved by his previous pity and forgiveness of injury. . . . By a situation created by his ‘forgiveness,’ he was saved himself, and relieved of his burden” (Letters, 234). Up to this point, I have claimed that Tolkien, without explicitly using the word salvation, nevertheless uses the language and imagery associated with the Christian concept of salvation. In this letter, however, Tolkien himself explicitly uses the word twice, with each use conveying a different meaning. With respect to “the world,” Tolkien is probably using the word to mean something more akin to military victory—namely, salvation from the dominion of the Dark Lord Sauron. The peoples of Middle-earth have been saved from slavery. But with respect to Frodo, the word has a double meaning. Frodo is physically saved; what he could not do himself, Gollum does for him, and had he not shown mercy, then Gollum would not have been alive to do what he does. But Frodo is also spiritually saved from enslavement to the evil of the Ring, and here it is not the outcome of the act of mercy (the fact that Gollum is still alive) but rather the showing of mercy itself that keeps Frodo from sinking even further under the dominion of the Ring.
Thus in this subject of salvation are tied up the notions of moral victory, free will, objective morality, and judgment. Frodo follows a path toward salvation in his moral choices to do right, even when it is inconvenient or dangerous. Yet ultimately his salvation comes by mercy, when he is unable to complete his task and Gollum does it for him. Indeed, it comes through mercy in two ways: the mercy Frodo has consistently shown to Gollum and the mercy shown to Frodo by Ilúvatar, who intercedes and brings about the destruction of the Ring when he fails. “Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus taught, “for they shall obtain mercy.”
Social Justice and a Rejection of Gnosticism
The practice of mercy brings us to a final topic I now believe is necessary to avoid a misunderstanding of Tolkien, or of the central points of this book about Tolkien and his legendarium.[54]
For some readers, the concept of salvation in a religious (and especially Christian) context conjures visions of a future ethereal heaven: a world of disembodied spirits hovering on clouds and playing harps, as heaven is often depicted in television commercials, comics, and even films. To express this in more philosophical terms, a discourse on the importance of a spiritual reality—especially when the eternal nature of that spiritual reality is contrasted with the temporal nature of our present bodies—leads to a legitimate concern about gnosticism or certain forms of Platonism.
Gnosticism is a millennia-old philosophical belief system that had (and has) adherents in many religions. At its core is a type of dualism, a belief that there is some nonphysical reality (a spiritual reality, or just a world of pure ideas and forms) that is superior to the physical world, and that salvation is achieved by escaping the physical world. Indeed, according to gnosticism, the very thing we are saved from is the physical world, and the thing that may be saved is our nonmaterial soul. Gnosticism, as with certain forms of Platonism, maintains that the physical world, along with our physical bodies that inhabit the physical world, is evil or impure. The goal is to save the soul by freeing it from the body.
Looking only at a small handful of passages of Tolkien’s writing removed from their context, it might be possible to read a type of gnosticism into his works—or to mistakenly think that I am attributing a gnostic view to Tolkien. After all, I earlier argued that some sort of moral victory is more important to Tolkien’s heroes and wise characters than military victory. The Lord of the Rings, then, seems to place a certain emphasis on the spiritual (battle) rather than the physical (battle). And earlier in this chapter I argued for the importance in Tolkien’s writings of a spiritual salvation. Does that make Tolkien a gnostic? Far from it!
First and foremost, gnostics denied the goodness of the physical world and sought the escape of the soul from the body. Tolkien, by contrast, affirms time and again the goodness and beauty of the physical world of Middle-earth.[55] In Tolkien’s Middle-earth cosmogony, Eä (his term for the entire material universe) is the good creation of a good Creator, Eru Ilúvatar. Eä is full of beauty, including the beauty of Arda, the term for the earth containing the inhabited world of men and elves: Middle-earth. Though Arda was created as a habitation for elves and men, collectively called the Children of Ilúvatar, Tolkien’s cosmogony and mythology as expressed in the Ainulindalë, the Valaquenta, and the early portions of The Silmarillion suggest that the Children of Ilúvatar exist as much to care for and enrich the beauty of Arda (“with their gifts of skill to order all the lands and heal their hurts” [Silm, 52]) as Arda exists to provide habitation for them (“And amid all the splendours of the World . . . Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars” [Silm, 18]). It is a mutual belonging: Arda belongs to the Children of Ilúvatar, and even in some way to the Valar, but the Children belong also to Arda. Sandra Miesel, in addressing Tolkien’s creation myth and the spiritual reality in his writing, also points out that he “avoids Gnosticism” in several ways. Regarding Tolkien’s Arda, Miesel writes, “Despite its contamination by Melkor, matter as such is still good, so good that some of the blessed spirits wish to enter into Arda and bind themselves to it until its ending.”[56] Tolkien’s portrayal of the world itself is anything but gnostic.
What evil there is in Eä and Arda is not attributed to its materiality but rather to the fact that the fallen spiritual being Melkor, later known as Morgoth, waged war on Ilúvatar’s creation. Ilúvatar’s servants—both the spiritual beings known as the Ainur and also the elves and men who are material beings, or rather beings of both spirit and flesh—were called to care for Arda and heal the hurts caused by Melkor. A spiritual being is the cause of evil. The physical world is good and should be cared for.
As a side note, physical (or bodily) pleasure is also not portrayed by Tolkien as evil. The goodness of the physical world is meant to be enjoyed (though not exploited) by bodily beings who can experience (as hobbits of the Shire do) the taste of strawberries and cream, and the scent of flowers, as well as the taste and scent of fresh-baked mushrooms and freshly brewed beer and seed-cakes. The physical place is good and beautiful and is worth enjoying and saving.
Which, indeed, is the purpose of the existence of Ents as well; because the trees and flowers and plants of Middle-earth are also good and valuable and worth saving, and can be victims of moral wrongdoing, Ents were sent by Ilúvatar to protect the plants of Middle-earth (especially the trees) and to punish those who wrongfully destroy the earth. Some scholars have suggested that Middle-earth itself is as much a hero of the tales as any of the elves, hobbits, dwarves, or men. There is certainly some truth in that.
Perhaps my favorite expression of the worth of the physical world comes from Frodo. When he accepts from Gandalf the burden of leaving his home and bringing the Ring to Rivendell, he speaks of his desire to save the Shire: “I should like to save the Shire, if I could—though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words” (I/ii). As the second part of this sentence makes clear, when Frodo speaks of the Shire he wishes to save, he does not mean merely its sentient hobbit inhabitants (though they are certainly included); he means the Shire itself in its fullness, with its woods and fields and rivers, as well as its farmlands and mushroom fields and inns that brew beer—and, of course, its hobbit inhabitants too, though his phrasing makes it clear that the Shire itself means much more than that. Saving the Shire is worth the cost of his life.
In short, the importance of the spiritual reality does not deny the goodness or importance of the physical reality. And this points to another way in which the philosophy underlying Tolkien’s writing is decidedly not gnostic. Salvation, according to Tolkien—though it may be thought of in some way as a spiritual state—does not mean separation from the body. Tolkien expresses this belief clearly in his important and authoritative commentary on “Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth,” a dialogue published in Morgoth’s Ring: The Later Silmarillion (which I will introduce and explore in more detail in the final chapter of this book). In this essay, commenting on the nature of bodily beings in Middle-earth, Tolkien writes, “There are on Earth ‘incarnate’ creatures, Elves and Men: these are made of a union of hröa and fëa (roughly but not exactly equivalent to ‘body’ and ‘soul’)” (Morgoth, 330). In denying an exact equivalence of fëa with soul, I suspect that Tolkien was trying to avoid a Platonic understanding, since for many philosophically astute readers the body-soul dichotomy would suggest Plato’s discourse in the Phaedrus and elsewhere, and thus a Platonic and possibly even gnostic view.
In fact, the elvish word fëa corresponds more closely with a Judeo-Christian concept of spirit than with a Greek or Platonic notion of soul—hence the translation of the name Fëanor as “spirit of fire.” In any case, Tolkien’s essay goes on to explain that hröa and fëa (“body” and “spirit”) “were designed each for the other, to abide in perpetual harmony” and that “the separation of hröa and fëa is ‘unnatural,’ and proceeds not from the original design, but from the ‘Marring of Arda,’ which is due to the operations of Melkor” (Morgoth, 330–31). Thus it is not at all the case, in Tolkien’s philosophical framework, that spirit is good and body evil, or that the spirit is meant to be separated from the body. Quite the contrary.[57]
Another way in which the physical and bodily reality is closely related to the spiritual—and another way in which Tolkien’s work is firmly anti-gnostic—emerges from clarifying the observation that moral victory, in Tolkien’s world, is more important than military victory. This is not at all the same as saying that his heroes win spiritual battles by ignoring or denying the physical reality. Neither Aragorn, nor Gandalf, nor Faramir, nor Frodo, nor any of the other hobbit heroes try to live as entirely spiritual beings, isolating themselves from the troubles of the physical world in which they live. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The physical world is the very place in which all moral and spiritual victories are won! Physical bodies are the very vehicles through which goodness (including both spiritual and moral goodness) is lived out. Or, put another way, the very means by which Tolkien’s heroes pursue peace, and uphold virtues of gentleness, and show love to other beings, and exercise stewardship is by taking care of the physical bodies of others—and the physical world as well.
Why is it morally wrong to torture a prisoner in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, as we argued in the first chapter? Suppose that only ideas were good and pure and important (as forms of Platonism suggest) and that our bodies were impure and unimportant. Then it might be easy to justify torturing the worthless and impure body of a prisoner for the sake of a valuable idea. But, in fact, our bodies and the bodies of others do matter. Why is Frodo willing to give so much to save the Shire? He does not make his sacrifice for an abstract idea, like freedom, but for a physical place and bodily beings.
Indeed, just as there is (as I argued in Ents, Elves, and Eriador) a strong environmental thread in Tolkien’s writings, a close look at his books also shows a strong undercurrent of what might today be called “social justice”: a concern for the oppressed and poor, a valuing of justice and fairness, pity for slaves and an effort to free them, redress of social wrongs. Consider the ways that Tolkien portrays Sauron and Saruman as evil, or even how he portrays the lesser evil of Lotho Sackville-Baggins (a “wicked fool” [VI/viii]) and the corruption of the Shire. Sauron not only rules by fear, but he also feeds his army with slave-based agriculture; he has “great slave-worked fields away south” and “tributary lands, from which the soldiers . . . brought long wagon-trains of goods and booty and fresh slaves” (VI/ii). On a smaller scale, Lotho gets rich through oppression of his fellow hobbits who grow the food but don’t get to eat much of it, and live instead under a set of oppressive rules, suffering unjust treatment and often imprisonment in the Lockholes (VI/viii). One of the primary purposes of a king is to ensure justice. A good king, such as Aragorn becomes, understands this.
On the other side, moral and spiritual victories are won in Middle-earth not by disengaging from the physical world but by engaging it deeply: feeding the poor (providing physical food to physical bodies), nurturing the sick (spiritually as well as physically), building houses for the dispossessed or offering shelter to those whose bodies are cold, offering release to prisoners, abstaining from torture (no matter how desperate the need for knowledge), planting trees, cleaning rivers, and performing all sorts of daily tasks using hands and feet and bodies. This, at least, is the sort of activity we see in the peace and love and justice practiced by the four hero hobbits at the end of The Lord of the Rings. It is also what we see from heroes like Aragorn and Faramir and Gandalf, and even Treebeard and the Ents in their management of Isengard.
It is the moral victory of being gentle and pursuing peace in the midst of war, activities that are every bit as much physical and bodily as they are spiritual.