March 25th is a date which carries a particularly heavy load
in terms of Christian tradition of scriptural events. Aside from being the
supposed date of the Annunciation (9 months before Christmas day), it is also
the date assigned to the Crucifixion, the creation of
Adam, the fall of Lucifer, the passing of Israel through the Red Sea and the
immolation of Isaac.
Clearly, these are best seen in a symbolic sense for the
light which they cast upon each other, rather than getting caught up in overly
literal questions about how we can possibly know when these events happened.
But we should be wary of making the opposite error of thinking - that it
doesn't matter what the date of the event is.
In the Spirit of the Liturgy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
reminds us that redemption happened within time and space, the great became the
small, eternity intersected time, and thus many consequences flow from this.
For instance, we talk about the orientation of buildings, which situates and
locates them in space in relation to the four directions. But how often do we
remember that the word 'orientation' literally means 'easting', which came from
the way in which church buildings were built facing east towards the direction
of the rising sun as a symbol of salvation. Just as important are the dates of
the Church year around which the liturgy is built, and which tell a story of
salvation in time.
So dates matter. Tolkien spent a great deal of time making
his calendar for the events of the Lord of the Rings accurate, even working out
what the phases of the moon would have been. It mattered to him to put the date
of the destruction of the Ring as the date of the incarnation/crucifixion.
It matters that the undoing of the knot of sin created by
Eve would be undone in time by the free choice of the New Eve just as the
undoing of the evil created by Sauron would be effected by (the non-choice of)
Frodo.
Frodo couldn't accomplish the task alone – he needed Sam at
times to carry him, but more than this he actively renounces it – he says “I do
not choose to do this” – and the deed of destroying the ring is done by the
final evil deed of Gollum who bites off the ring and falls into the pit. In
Tolkien’s sub-created world situated before the incarnation Frodo is a kind of
shadow of Mary.
Mary's free choice to be the God-bearer undoes the
evil created by the original disobedience, which contrasts with Frodo’s non-choice,
a final inability to perform the act of destruction, perhaps because of the
harm inflicted upon him by the wearing of the Ring. The lesson is clear - Frodo
is not the God-man, and thus the power to undo such great evil is not within
his ability. However, events themselves conspire to produce the intended result
anyway, a clear signal of the way in which fate works in Tolkien. But in a
masterful touch evil is destroyed by evil - the final evil grasping act of
Gollum cancels out the greater evil of the Ring.
To me, there seem to be clear echoes of one of the early
versions of the doctrine of atonement here, where Christ acts as a kind of
bait, taking upon himself evil, drawing evil to him in his powerlessness, and
then destroying its power through his sacrifice. Evil is tricked through its
own short-sightedness and inability to see beyond its own closed circle. In
this way also, Gollum is so enslaved and blinded by his desire for the ring
that he cannot see the pit into which he falls.
In the world of primary creation (our world) the knot of sin
is undone through a gratuitous act of self-giving; grace freely given and
freely accepted is what finally restores paradise.
In my next post I want to contrast this Christian path to
redemption with ‘gnostic’ views within which knowledge frees humanity from the
slavery of sin and ignorance.
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