BIBLICAL PARALLELS TO MIDDLE-EARTH VI. THE COMING OF MEN
(SPOILER ALERT! This blog summarizes the chapters "Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor," "Of Men," "Of the Return of the Noldor," "Of Beleriand and its Realms," "Of the Noldor in Beleriand," "Of the Coming of Men into the West," and "Of the Ruin of Beleriand" in The Silmarillion.)
The Story
As the Noldor came to Middle-Earth, the Valar thought of them and of the Dark Elves who had never come to Valinor. To aid them in their wars against Morgoth, the Valar planned to give light again to the world at large. Yavanna, the power of vegetation, and Nienna, the power of mourning, again used their power on the dead Trees. Telperion yielded a single silver blossom; Laurelin, a single golden fruit. The silver blossom rose into the sky as the moon; the golden fruit, as the sun.
Out of fear of inadvertently destroying Men's birthplace, the Valar forebore to attack Morgoth. The moon and the sun dismayed him, though. Morgoth's servants could not stand sunlight. (Neither, because of Ulmo, the power of water, could they easily cross streams, as Frodo and his companions would learn when Black Riders chased them.) From slag of his forges Morgoth build the volcano Thangorodrim to blot out sunlight with ash. Morgoth's effort to blot out the sun worked no better than Sauron's would work two ages of the world later.
As a guard against Morgoth's or the Noldor's returning to Valinor, the Valar set the Enchanted Isles in the Shadowy Seas east of the Undying Lands. All who sailed through the seas would be lost; all who set foot upon the isles would sleep till the world changed. Not till the half-Elven mariner Earendil made his desperate voyage would the enchantment be overcome.
At the sun's rising, the first Men awoke in Middle-Earth's east. Because the sun first rose in the west, Men's eyes turned there. There would Men's feet lead them. Nonetheless, no Vala came from Valinor to guide men, as Orome had guided the Elves. Men learned from of the Valar from the Dark Elves, whom they met in the east. From the Dark Elves, Men learned to fear the Valar. Of all of the Valar, the Men of the east would meet only Morgoth. Just a handful of Men, with light in their hearts, would seek the Valar.
After his first battle with the Noldor and Feanor's death, Morgoth sent the Elves a false offer of peace. Maedhros, Feanor's oldest son, agreed to meet Morgoth. Like Morgoth he planned to attack under a flag of truce. Morgoth, more treacherous than the Elf, took Maedrhos prisoner and chained him to Thangorodrim. Fingon, a son of Fingolfin, Feanor's younger brother whom Feanor had betrayed by burning the ships, daringly rescued his cousin Maedhros. Out of gratitude Maedhros abdicated the Noldor's kingship to Fingolfin. The Doom of Mandos, though, would always lie between Feanor's sons and the rest of the Noldor.
The Noldor built strongholds in Beleriand's north to guard it from Morgoth while they gathered strength to overthrow him. Thingol, king of the enchanted land of Doriath, only reluctantly welcomed the Noldor back to Middle-Earth. Deceptively, they told him that they had come from the Valar to free Middle-Earth from Morgoth. They carefully never mentioned around Thingol the Kinslaying, for it had been Thingol's kinsmen that the Noldor had killed to steal their ships.
For many years the Noldor and the Sindar, the Grey Elves ruled by Thingol, kept Morgoth at bay. Beleriand became a land of peace and beauty greater than any that would ever again be outside Valinor. During this time of peace Galadriel stayed in Doriath with the Maia Melian. There, Galadriel met and fell in love with one of Thingol's kinsmen, Celeborn. In time he would marry Galadriel and join her in Lothlorien as its lord.
Two of Galadriel's brothers, though, built strongholds against a day when Morgoth would overwhelm the Elves. Turgon, led by a vision from Ulmo, the power of the sea, built a hidden stronghold called Gondolin, the City of Stone, in a circle of mountains known but to the eagles. Finrod Felagund, visiting Galadriel in Thingol's cave-city, was moved to build his own cave-city, Nargothrond. Nargothrond and Gondolin would both be the scenes of great tales of the Elves in their wars against Morgoth.
From time to time Morgoth tested the Elves' strength. The Elves, knowing that his power was growing, felt a sense of doom. From the hidden city of Gondolin, Turgon sent messengers into the West. Getting lost in the Shadowy Seas and the Enchanted Isles, they never brought their pleas for help to the Valar.
Meanwhile, tension between the Noldor and the Sindar grew. Melian the Maia and her husband, King Thingol, had always suspected that the Noldor had not come to Middle-Earth for its people's sake. Melian wormed out of Galadriel that the Noldor had come to Middle-Earth as refugees from the destruction of the Two Trees. Galadriel, though, kept from Melian the Kinslaying and the Oath of Mandos. When Galadriel's brothers came to Doriath to visit her, Thingol, suspecting that worse lay behind Galadriel's tale, forced them to tell him the whole story.
They blamed all on Feanor and his sons. Indeed, neither the Sindar nor most of the Noldor fully trusted Feanor's sons. Thingol, though, believed that because of their hatred for Morgoth they would be faithful allies. As things turned out, he would be wrong.
In a setting of war and mistrust, Men arrived. A shadow lay upon them, for Morgoth had touched them in the East. Still, the Men who came into Beleriand had but vague and confused memories of their fall. The Elves would never learn its story.
The first men whom the Elves met became Elf-friends, ancestors of the men of Gondor in Frodo's time. The Elf-friends were led by Beor, Aragorn's first named Human ancestor. Beor, out of love for Felagund, King of Nargothrond, swore himself to his service. Beor's family and Felagund's family would share a bond till Aragorn's day. The bond was sealed with a ring that Felagund gave Beor's son, Barahir. The Ring of Barahir would come through three ages of the world to Aragorn and give him a claim on the hospitality of Felagund's distant kinsman, Elrond, and his sister, Galadriel.
The Men of the West received lands from the Elves and joined them in the wars against Morgoth. The Dark Enemy, though, ever mindful of the power of a lie, spread a new one among Men. Learning that they had come into the West to meet the Valar, and were dismayed at learning that they lived beyond an impassable sea, Morgoth sent messengers among Men to spread the message that there were no Valar; neither was there a Dark Enemy in the North. Both were just lies that the Elves had told to keep Men in subjection. Most Men rejected Morgoth's lies, but some believed them.
In time Beor grew old and died. The Elves, who had never seen natural death, mourned their friend, but could not understand his fate. Not even the Valar knew the meaning of the Gift of Iluvatar, or the destiny of Men after they left the world.
The High King, Fingolfin, seeing Men as a reinforcement that might tip the balance against Morgoth, wished to assault Angband. The Elves of Nargothrond and Gondolin, though, were content to stay in their hidden cities; the sons of Feanor were unwilling to follow Fingolfin. Thus, the Elves were unready when Morgoth struck first.
After a terrible eruption of Thangorodrim, the Dragon Glaurung led a host of Balrogs and Orcs through the gates of Angband. One by one, with fire, whip, and sword, Glaurung's host destroyed the Elves' fortresses till just the hidden realms of Doriath, Gondolin, and Nargothrond remained. Three ages of the world later, the Wizard Gandalf, recalling tales of Glaurung, would send Bilbo Baggins and thirteen Dwarves on a quest to kill the Dragon Smaug lest he repeat Glaurung's terror.
Fingolfin, in despair at the ruin of his realm and his plans, rode off to challenge Morgoth to single combat. Fearful of losing face before Sauron and the Balrogs, Morgoth came to battle with the hammer Grond, with which Sauron's army would much later smash the gates of Minas Tirith. With Grond, Morgoth slew Fingolfin, but not before the Elven King had given the Dark Enemy seven wounds that would maim him till time's end. The kingship of the Dark Elves passed to Fingolfin's son, Fingon.
All of the men of war of Beor's house went to the Battle of Sudden Flame. Of this house, just a handful, led by Barahir's son, Beren, lived on as outlaws in the wild. Beren's immortal adventures will be told next in The Tale of Beren and Luthien.
The Parallels
In the story of the Elves and Men at war with Morgoth we see at work one of Tolkien's favorite Biblical themes. This is providence, God's unseen hand at work in history to lead it towards His ends for His children's ultimate benefit. Although we'll see providence at work most clearly in the lives of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, it shows up also in the Elves' lives. Providence is best shown in the Book of Esther (a book in which, in its Hebrew text, the name of God never appears!), when Mordecai tells Esther, "If you hold your peace just now, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place ... and who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 5:13-14)
Providence in The Silmarillion appears in the works that the Valar, who won't fight openly for the Noldor, do for them indirectly. The most spectacular display of providence is the making of the moon and the sun. Although the account of their creation owes nothing to the Bible (as far as I know, the concept of the moon as a flower and the sun as a fruit is original to Tolkien), their being set in the sky as a check on Morgoth's power is purely providential. So is Ulmo's leading Turgon to build the hidden city of Gondolin, from which the Elves' deliverance, as we'll see, will come beyond all hope in the end.
Tolkien borrows yet another theme from the Garden of Eden when he has the Valar shut Valinor against the exiled Noldor. In the Bible, God sets cherubim (guardian angels) and a flaming sword as barriers against Adam and Eve's return to the garden (Genesis 3:24). In The Silmarillion, the Valar set the Shadowy Seas and the Enchanted Isles as a barrier against the Noldor's return to Valinor. In both cases, as we'll see, it'll take an intercessor's sacrificial work to open the way for a return to Paradise.
Tolkien's theme of treachery, and the treacherous betrayed, is universal. Persons of any culture in any time could understand the game of deception and counter-deception that Morgoth and Maedhros played. We speak of what happened to Maedhros as "the biter bit." The Bible speaks of this in the verse, "All those who take the sword shall perish by the sword." (Matthew 26:52). In general, as we watch the consequences of the Kinslaying and the Doom of Mandos unfold, we can see a Biblical principle at work: "When desire has conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death" (James 1:13-15).
The prophetic dreams that guide Turgon and others of the Free Peoples (Elves and Humans) throughout Tolkien's works are also universal, occurring in all of the mythologies that Tolkien knew. Such dreams, though, do have parallels in Scripture. The most famous of such dreams occur to Joseph, the son of Jacob (Genesis 37:5-11) and to his namesake, Joseph, Jesus' stepfather (Matthew 2:13, 19-20).
Again, it's a universal human experience that wrongdoers hope that they can hide knowledge of their wrongs. Nonetheless, it comes out. Thus, the Noldor cannot hide knowledge of the Kinslaying, and gain a reputation for deception as well as violence. Jesus said, "Nothing is concealed, that will not be revealed, nor hid, that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in darkness will be heard in light, and what you have spoken in the ear in the inner chamber will be proclaimed on the housetops" (Luke 12:2-3).
Throughout the false peace, Morgoth is consistent with what he has been from the start. Thus, he persists in a course of lies, false promises, and murder to gain his ends of dominion over all of Middle-Earth. In his consistency he is like his Biblical original, of whom Jesus said, "You are from your father, the devil, and you will to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not stand in the truth, for the truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own, for he is a liar and the father of it" (John 8:44).
Last, you may find it strange that the Valar know nothing of Men's destiny after they receive the Gift of Iluvatar, death. The Valar's ignorance leads the Elves to pity Men for their short lives in the world. In contrast with compassion, a "feeling-together" with another's suffering, pity is something that only someone better off can feel for someone worse off. The one who pities feels superior to the one who is pitied. The one who is pitied often picks up on the feeling of superiority in the one who pities, and becomes estranged from the pitier. Thus, the Elves' pity of Men, based on the Elves' ignorance of Men's true destiny, leads to mistrust and misunderstanding between Elves and Men. The Elves cannot know that Men have a destiny as high as, if not higher than, their own.
In showing the Valar as ignorant of Men's final destiny, Tolkien is being faithful to the Bible's teaching on angels. These, like the Valar, live in the presence of the One and see His will more clearly in many ways than humans can. Still, the angels, deathless creatures who cannot fall and be saved, are puzzled by the salvation that is open to humans. The Apostle Peter wrote, "[This salvation] the angels desire to look into" (I Peter 1:10-12).
The Story
As the Noldor came to Middle-Earth, the Valar thought of them and of the Dark Elves who had never come to Valinor. To aid them in their wars against Morgoth, the Valar planned to give light again to the world at large. Yavanna, the power of vegetation, and Nienna, the power of mourning, again used their power on the dead Trees. Telperion yielded a single silver blossom; Laurelin, a single golden fruit. The silver blossom rose into the sky as the moon; the golden fruit, as the sun.
Out of fear of inadvertently destroying Men's birthplace, the Valar forebore to attack Morgoth. The moon and the sun dismayed him, though. Morgoth's servants could not stand sunlight. (Neither, because of Ulmo, the power of water, could they easily cross streams, as Frodo and his companions would learn when Black Riders chased them.) From slag of his forges Morgoth build the volcano Thangorodrim to blot out sunlight with ash. Morgoth's effort to blot out the sun worked no better than Sauron's would work two ages of the world later.
As a guard against Morgoth's or the Noldor's returning to Valinor, the Valar set the Enchanted Isles in the Shadowy Seas east of the Undying Lands. All who sailed through the seas would be lost; all who set foot upon the isles would sleep till the world changed. Not till the half-Elven mariner Earendil made his desperate voyage would the enchantment be overcome.
At the sun's rising, the first Men awoke in Middle-Earth's east. Because the sun first rose in the west, Men's eyes turned there. There would Men's feet lead them. Nonetheless, no Vala came from Valinor to guide men, as Orome had guided the Elves. Men learned from of the Valar from the Dark Elves, whom they met in the east. From the Dark Elves, Men learned to fear the Valar. Of all of the Valar, the Men of the east would meet only Morgoth. Just a handful of Men, with light in their hearts, would seek the Valar.
After his first battle with the Noldor and Feanor's death, Morgoth sent the Elves a false offer of peace. Maedhros, Feanor's oldest son, agreed to meet Morgoth. Like Morgoth he planned to attack under a flag of truce. Morgoth, more treacherous than the Elf, took Maedrhos prisoner and chained him to Thangorodrim. Fingon, a son of Fingolfin, Feanor's younger brother whom Feanor had betrayed by burning the ships, daringly rescued his cousin Maedhros. Out of gratitude Maedhros abdicated the Noldor's kingship to Fingolfin. The Doom of Mandos, though, would always lie between Feanor's sons and the rest of the Noldor.
The Noldor built strongholds in Beleriand's north to guard it from Morgoth while they gathered strength to overthrow him. Thingol, king of the enchanted land of Doriath, only reluctantly welcomed the Noldor back to Middle-Earth. Deceptively, they told him that they had come from the Valar to free Middle-Earth from Morgoth. They carefully never mentioned around Thingol the Kinslaying, for it had been Thingol's kinsmen that the Noldor had killed to steal their ships.
For many years the Noldor and the Sindar, the Grey Elves ruled by Thingol, kept Morgoth at bay. Beleriand became a land of peace and beauty greater than any that would ever again be outside Valinor. During this time of peace Galadriel stayed in Doriath with the Maia Melian. There, Galadriel met and fell in love with one of Thingol's kinsmen, Celeborn. In time he would marry Galadriel and join her in Lothlorien as its lord.
Two of Galadriel's brothers, though, built strongholds against a day when Morgoth would overwhelm the Elves. Turgon, led by a vision from Ulmo, the power of the sea, built a hidden stronghold called Gondolin, the City of Stone, in a circle of mountains known but to the eagles. Finrod Felagund, visiting Galadriel in Thingol's cave-city, was moved to build his own cave-city, Nargothrond. Nargothrond and Gondolin would both be the scenes of great tales of the Elves in their wars against Morgoth.
From time to time Morgoth tested the Elves' strength. The Elves, knowing that his power was growing, felt a sense of doom. From the hidden city of Gondolin, Turgon sent messengers into the West. Getting lost in the Shadowy Seas and the Enchanted Isles, they never brought their pleas for help to the Valar.
Meanwhile, tension between the Noldor and the Sindar grew. Melian the Maia and her husband, King Thingol, had always suspected that the Noldor had not come to Middle-Earth for its people's sake. Melian wormed out of Galadriel that the Noldor had come to Middle-Earth as refugees from the destruction of the Two Trees. Galadriel, though, kept from Melian the Kinslaying and the Oath of Mandos. When Galadriel's brothers came to Doriath to visit her, Thingol, suspecting that worse lay behind Galadriel's tale, forced them to tell him the whole story.
They blamed all on Feanor and his sons. Indeed, neither the Sindar nor most of the Noldor fully trusted Feanor's sons. Thingol, though, believed that because of their hatred for Morgoth they would be faithful allies. As things turned out, he would be wrong.
In a setting of war and mistrust, Men arrived. A shadow lay upon them, for Morgoth had touched them in the East. Still, the Men who came into Beleriand had but vague and confused memories of their fall. The Elves would never learn its story.
The first men whom the Elves met became Elf-friends, ancestors of the men of Gondor in Frodo's time. The Elf-friends were led by Beor, Aragorn's first named Human ancestor. Beor, out of love for Felagund, King of Nargothrond, swore himself to his service. Beor's family and Felagund's family would share a bond till Aragorn's day. The bond was sealed with a ring that Felagund gave Beor's son, Barahir. The Ring of Barahir would come through three ages of the world to Aragorn and give him a claim on the hospitality of Felagund's distant kinsman, Elrond, and his sister, Galadriel.
The Men of the West received lands from the Elves and joined them in the wars against Morgoth. The Dark Enemy, though, ever mindful of the power of a lie, spread a new one among Men. Learning that they had come into the West to meet the Valar, and were dismayed at learning that they lived beyond an impassable sea, Morgoth sent messengers among Men to spread the message that there were no Valar; neither was there a Dark Enemy in the North. Both were just lies that the Elves had told to keep Men in subjection. Most Men rejected Morgoth's lies, but some believed them.
In time Beor grew old and died. The Elves, who had never seen natural death, mourned their friend, but could not understand his fate. Not even the Valar knew the meaning of the Gift of Iluvatar, or the destiny of Men after they left the world.
The High King, Fingolfin, seeing Men as a reinforcement that might tip the balance against Morgoth, wished to assault Angband. The Elves of Nargothrond and Gondolin, though, were content to stay in their hidden cities; the sons of Feanor were unwilling to follow Fingolfin. Thus, the Elves were unready when Morgoth struck first.
After a terrible eruption of Thangorodrim, the Dragon Glaurung led a host of Balrogs and Orcs through the gates of Angband. One by one, with fire, whip, and sword, Glaurung's host destroyed the Elves' fortresses till just the hidden realms of Doriath, Gondolin, and Nargothrond remained. Three ages of the world later, the Wizard Gandalf, recalling tales of Glaurung, would send Bilbo Baggins and thirteen Dwarves on a quest to kill the Dragon Smaug lest he repeat Glaurung's terror.
Fingolfin, in despair at the ruin of his realm and his plans, rode off to challenge Morgoth to single combat. Fearful of losing face before Sauron and the Balrogs, Morgoth came to battle with the hammer Grond, with which Sauron's army would much later smash the gates of Minas Tirith. With Grond, Morgoth slew Fingolfin, but not before the Elven King had given the Dark Enemy seven wounds that would maim him till time's end. The kingship of the Dark Elves passed to Fingolfin's son, Fingon.
All of the men of war of Beor's house went to the Battle of Sudden Flame. Of this house, just a handful, led by Barahir's son, Beren, lived on as outlaws in the wild. Beren's immortal adventures will be told next in The Tale of Beren and Luthien.
The Parallels
In the story of the Elves and Men at war with Morgoth we see at work one of Tolkien's favorite Biblical themes. This is providence, God's unseen hand at work in history to lead it towards His ends for His children's ultimate benefit. Although we'll see providence at work most clearly in the lives of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, it shows up also in the Elves' lives. Providence is best shown in the Book of Esther (a book in which, in its Hebrew text, the name of God never appears!), when Mordecai tells Esther, "If you hold your peace just now, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place ... and who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 5:13-14)
Providence in The Silmarillion appears in the works that the Valar, who won't fight openly for the Noldor, do for them indirectly. The most spectacular display of providence is the making of the moon and the sun. Although the account of their creation owes nothing to the Bible (as far as I know, the concept of the moon as a flower and the sun as a fruit is original to Tolkien), their being set in the sky as a check on Morgoth's power is purely providential. So is Ulmo's leading Turgon to build the hidden city of Gondolin, from which the Elves' deliverance, as we'll see, will come beyond all hope in the end.
Tolkien borrows yet another theme from the Garden of Eden when he has the Valar shut Valinor against the exiled Noldor. In the Bible, God sets cherubim (guardian angels) and a flaming sword as barriers against Adam and Eve's return to the garden (Genesis 3:24). In The Silmarillion, the Valar set the Shadowy Seas and the Enchanted Isles as a barrier against the Noldor's return to Valinor. In both cases, as we'll see, it'll take an intercessor's sacrificial work to open the way for a return to Paradise.
Tolkien's theme of treachery, and the treacherous betrayed, is universal. Persons of any culture in any time could understand the game of deception and counter-deception that Morgoth and Maedhros played. We speak of what happened to Maedhros as "the biter bit." The Bible speaks of this in the verse, "All those who take the sword shall perish by the sword." (Matthew 26:52). In general, as we watch the consequences of the Kinslaying and the Doom of Mandos unfold, we can see a Biblical principle at work: "When desire has conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death" (James 1:13-15).
The prophetic dreams that guide Turgon and others of the Free Peoples (Elves and Humans) throughout Tolkien's works are also universal, occurring in all of the mythologies that Tolkien knew. Such dreams, though, do have parallels in Scripture. The most famous of such dreams occur to Joseph, the son of Jacob (Genesis 37:5-11) and to his namesake, Joseph, Jesus' stepfather (Matthew 2:13, 19-20).
Again, it's a universal human experience that wrongdoers hope that they can hide knowledge of their wrongs. Nonetheless, it comes out. Thus, the Noldor cannot hide knowledge of the Kinslaying, and gain a reputation for deception as well as violence. Jesus said, "Nothing is concealed, that will not be revealed, nor hid, that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in darkness will be heard in light, and what you have spoken in the ear in the inner chamber will be proclaimed on the housetops" (Luke 12:2-3).
Throughout the false peace, Morgoth is consistent with what he has been from the start. Thus, he persists in a course of lies, false promises, and murder to gain his ends of dominion over all of Middle-Earth. In his consistency he is like his Biblical original, of whom Jesus said, "You are from your father, the devil, and you will to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not stand in the truth, for the truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own, for he is a liar and the father of it" (John 8:44).
Last, you may find it strange that the Valar know nothing of Men's destiny after they receive the Gift of Iluvatar, death. The Valar's ignorance leads the Elves to pity Men for their short lives in the world. In contrast with compassion, a "feeling-together" with another's suffering, pity is something that only someone better off can feel for someone worse off. The one who pities feels superior to the one who is pitied. The one who is pitied often picks up on the feeling of superiority in the one who pities, and becomes estranged from the pitier. Thus, the Elves' pity of Men, based on the Elves' ignorance of Men's true destiny, leads to mistrust and misunderstanding between Elves and Men. The Elves cannot know that Men have a destiny as high as, if not higher than, their own.
In showing the Valar as ignorant of Men's final destiny, Tolkien is being faithful to the Bible's teaching on angels. These, like the Valar, live in the presence of the One and see His will more clearly in many ways than humans can. Still, the angels, deathless creatures who cannot fall and be saved, are puzzled by the salvation that is open to humans. The Apostle Peter wrote, "[This salvation] the angels desire to look into" (I Peter 1:10-12).
posted by Alfred D. Byrd at 4:17 PM
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