The White Council

Re: No Problem!

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : Interesting (and long) discussion. While admitting I didn't quite read through the whole thing, did anyone mention that the Numenoreans worshipped Iluvatar?

: : And one other point to mention, unlike in the real world, the Elves actually had "proof" of the existence of the Valar. They met them and talked with them, lived with them etc. Then they were "cast out" of their "paradise." Thus they had neither a reason nor desire to "worship" them in the sense that people in the real world worship deities that they believe in, but have no physical proof of. The idea of faith was very different for the Eldar than it is for us, I think. But this doesn't diminish the idea that LOTR was highly influenced by the Judeo-Christian religious model. It was applied in a very unusual way perhaps, but such was Middle-Earth.

: Not so much cast out, but went into voluntary exile has always been my view. : Bt yes, I agree to a lrage part with whjat you say, except that I think you can draw apralells across the religious spectrum as well as Judaeo-Christianity (which I do not personally believe to be intrinsically linked) : Don Q

I just found something of interest in HoME, volume V: The Lost Road and Other Writings. In it Christopher Tolkien notes:

"In 'The Silmarillion' the Gods are 'physically' present, because (whatever the actual mode of their own being) they inhabit the same physical world, the realm of the 'seen'; if, after the Hiding of Valinor, they could not be reached by the voyages sent out in vain by Turgon of Gondolin, they were nonetheless reached by Earendel, sailing from Middle-Earth in his ship Wingelot, and their physical intervention of arms changed the world for ever thtough their physical destruction of the power of Morgoth. Thus it may be said that in 'The Silmarillion' there is no 'religion', because the Divine is present and has not been 'displaced'; but with the physical removal of the Divine from the World Made Round a religion arose (as it had arisen in Numenor under the teachings of Thu [Sauron] concerning Morgoth, the banished and absent God), and the dead were despatched, for religious reasons, in burial ships on the shores of the Great Sea." (p.22)

The passage refers to an earlier version of The Fall of Numenor than the final one that was published as the Akallabeth, but it is interesting nonetheless. C.Tolkien also notes the 'religion' that sprang up among the non-Edain Men of Middle-Earth around the worship of Sauron before (and perhaps after?) he went to Numenor. I'm not sure what light this casts on the discussion, but its interesting.