Speaker 1: Up to this point, Mythic Mind Fellowship has taken a
Speaker 1: fairly eclectic approach, in that the Mythic Mind podcast may
Speaker 1: be doing one thing, the Games podcast doing another, Mythic
Speaker 1: Mind Movies doing another, and this sometimes we also have
Speaker 1: a course that's not directly related to what's happening elsewhere.
Speaker 1: But I decided that moving forward, I really want to
Speaker 1: have some more cohesion and what we're doing across the board,
Speaker 1: and so starting this fall, we're going to be moving
Speaker 1: in seasonal themes, seasonal emphasis, in which all that we're
Speaker 1: doing across movies, games, the main show, courses that may
Speaker 1: be happening, book clubs, that everything in articles that we write,
Speaker 1: everything is gonna be oriented around some common themes. And so,
Speaker 1: because I was already planning on leading the Cureityguard study
Speaker 1: this fall on the concept of anxiety and the sickness
Speaker 1: unto death, looking at anxiety to spare how to live
Speaker 1: in an authentic, integrated human life, it made sense to
Speaker 1: me to go ahead and give this fall a psychology focus,
Speaker 1: for as I'm calling it, exploring the psyche, to have
Speaker 1: some some mythological nods there. We're going to be looking
Speaker 1: at different aspects of how to be a human self
Speaker 1: who is living a good life. And I'm being pretty
Speaker 1: big about that because we'll be hitting at this from
Speaker 1: so many different angles right here on the main Mythic
Speaker 1: Mind podcast. So we'll be having a number of conversations
Speaker 1: that deal with things like, what does it mean to
Speaker 1: live a good life? How do we handle anxiety? What
Speaker 1: is the psychological importance of the idea of home? How
Speaker 1: do you live a grounded life? Like, all these different
Speaker 1: aspects of what it means to live well all we
Speaker 1: be playing out in various conversations. And then you know,
Speaker 1: over in Mythic my Movies, Mythic My Games, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a heavily psychological focus in what we're doing over there,
Speaker 1: as well as with the articles that we're writing. And
Speaker 1: so as we get that together to really kick off
Speaker 1: in September, things are a little bit slow regarding immediate
Speaker 1: production in August, just because we are working on getting
Speaker 1: this new season put together really well. And so for now,
Speaker 1: what I want to provide you with is a reading
Speaker 1: from the ink. Well, this is going to be a benefit,
Speaker 1: or this already is actually a benefit that is exclusively
Speaker 1: available to fellows and companions over at our new site
Speaker 1: at Mythicmindfellowship dot com, which you should check out if
Speaker 1: you haven't done so already. And so fellows and companions
Speaker 1: have this private podcast feed that provides readings from the
Speaker 1: articles that I write and that other members of the fellowship, right,
Speaker 1: and so this is a special benefit for fellows and companions.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to make some of these available for
Speaker 1: you in the month of August as we're getting this
Speaker 1: new season together. And so if this is something that
Speaker 1: you appreciate, something you enjoy, then make sure that you
Speaker 1: head over to Mythic Mindfellowship dot com sign on as
Speaker 1: a fellow or companion. And by the way, those tiers
Speaker 1: also include access to certain courses from Mythic Mine Academy.
Speaker 1: Right now you get access to Platohistoicism until we have
Speaker 1: Faces the Lord of the Rings and the fiction and
Speaker 1: Philosophy of C. S. Lewis, and then you'll also have
Speaker 1: access to the upcoming course on Kukyguard which begins in October.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of good stuff there. We've definitely
Speaker 1: expanded the value that you get for your dollar over
Speaker 1: at Mythicmindfellowship dot com. But even if you don't sign
Speaker 1: on as a paid member right now. I recommend that
Speaker 1: you still sign on as a free member just to
Speaker 1: stay up to date with all the various things that
Speaker 1: we are doing. So again Mythic Mindfellowship dot com or
Speaker 1: to click that link in the show notes. But now
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get to our first reading from
Speaker 1: the Inkwell. Welcome to the Inkwell, the member exclusive podcast
Speaker 1: where we read articles written for Mythic Mind by Andrew
Speaker 1: Snyder and other members of the Fellowship. We hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2: So today I will be reading my essay that I
Speaker 2: posted on the Mythic Mind substack. I'd like to thank
Speaker 2: Andrew Snyder for the opportunity to do this. I really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. So the
Speaker 2: title of my essay is Arta Healed, not Arta Unmarred.
Speaker 2: Deep Christian anthropology in Tolkien's Athrobeth. Many, if not most,
Speaker 2: people are well aware of the fact that J. R. R.
Speaker 2: Tolkien was a Christian, specifically a devout Roman Catholic. While
Speaker 2: some Christians may remain suspicious of fantasy as such for
Speaker 2: religious reasons, and many secular fans may try to pretend
Speaker 2: that Tolkien's Legendarium is a book haunted by the spirits
Speaker 2: of the old Gods. Most folks that know anything about
Speaker 2: Tolkien seem to know that he was a devout Christian.
Speaker 2: If they know a little more than they might know
Speaker 2: of his friendship with the great Christian apologist C. S. Lewis,
Speaker 2: If they've really begun to wade into the waters of
Speaker 2: tolkien nerdom, then they might have read some of his letters,
Speaker 2: or perhaps an essay or two. If you're one of
Speaker 2: these people, then you do not need me to convince
Speaker 2: you of his Christianity. And I'm not here to do that. However,
Speaker 2: I do hope to introduce you to a rather obscure
Speaker 2: work of Tolkien's and help you understand not only that
Speaker 2: Tolkien's work is Christian, but how and why exactly. The
Speaker 2: Legendarium is quote a fundamentally religious and Catholic work using
Speaker 2: a short little philosophical dialogue by Tolkien and published posthumously
Speaker 2: by his son called the Athrabeth Finrod Andreth sometime in
Speaker 2: the early sixties. Christopher has a hard time dating it exactly.
Speaker 2: Tolkien penned this work seemingly in an effort to explain
Speaker 2: some of the philosophical problems that he created for himself
Speaker 2: in the lore surrounding the Elves and Men in Middle Earth.
Speaker 2: It takes the shape of a philosophical dialogue and much
Speaker 2: the same tradition as those of Plato, Cicero, or Barkley
Speaker 2: and others, though the drama of the dialogue is distinctly Tolkienian.
Speaker 2: Athrabeth translates to converse or debate, and so the title
Speaker 2: is the Debate of Finrod and Andreth. It's set very
Speaker 2: early in the history of Arda, prior to the Battle
Speaker 2: of Sudden Flame in the first Age of the World,
Speaker 2: and the debate is between a high eleven lord, Finrod
Speaker 2: Felgund and a human wise woman named Andreth of the
Speaker 2: House of Bayor. Finrod, who is one of the Elvin
Speaker 2: lords most friendly with men, opens the dialogue mourning the
Speaker 2: swift passing of men. Finrod is grieved by this brevity,
Speaker 2: but Andreth observes that their passing was swifter before we
Speaker 2: found this land. Finrod, surprised, then, asks, then are you
Speaker 2: content here? Content? Said Andreth, No heart of man is content.
Speaker 2: All passing and dying is a grief to it. But
Speaker 2: if the withering is less soon than that is some amendment,
Speaker 2: a little lifting of the shadow thus begins the dialog.
Speaker 2: Tolkien created a world in which death is no less
Speaker 2: a tragedy than it is in the primary world, and yet,
Speaker 2: according to the Lore of the Eldar, death is Eru's
Speaker 2: gift to men. In his night famous nineteen fifty one
Speaker 2: letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien explains that the doom of
Speaker 2: elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of
Speaker 2: the world, to last well it lasts, never leaving it
Speaker 2: even when slain. The doom or gift of men is mortality,
Speaker 2: freedom from the circles of the world. This creates attention
Speaker 2: in Tolkien's lore. If death is a gift of error
Speaker 2: to men, then why do men fear it so? If
Speaker 2: death means freedom from the circles of the world, why
Speaker 2: does it strike them and us as unnatural and abominable.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, if the Eel's immortality is so
Speaker 2: wonderful and enviable, then why does Tolkien, via the Lore
Speaker 2: of the Eldar, frame death as a gift from the creator. Tolkien,
Speaker 2: by creating these two peoples who are essentially kin and
Speaker 2: yet essentially estranged because of the problem of mortality, sets
Speaker 2: the background and creates opportunity for a poignant and rich
Speaker 2: reflection on Christian anthropology. A highly sophisticated and deeply Christian
Speaker 2: anthropology rooted in Patristic theology, is woven into the fabric
Speaker 2: of Tolkien's Arda. Tolkien's Athrobeth reveals the theology in which
Speaker 2: the fall is seen primarily as ontological and cosmological, not
Speaker 2: merely as a breach of command and punishment. Tolkien's theology
Speaker 2: therefore necessitates, within the secondary world of Arda, the resurrection
Speaker 2: of the body and the incarnation of the Son of God.
Speaker 2: In the midst of his grief, Finrod attempts to account
Speaker 2: for the lore of his people. Concerning the children of men,
Speaker 2: he says, claim that ye are our kin, and a
Speaker 2: kinship far closer than that which binds together all other
Speaker 2: creatures of Arda. If we consider the briefness of life
Speaker 2: in all Middle Earth, must we not believe that your
Speaker 2: brevity is also part of your nature. In typical high
Speaker 2: Elvish fashion, he completely fails to understand the weight of
Speaker 2: the fear and hatred of death which men experience. For him,
Speaker 2: it is easy to see death as a gift ages
Speaker 2: of life bound to the earth, and which elves witness
Speaker 2: the marring of Arda have yielded a kind of grief
Speaker 2: in memory of things past. For the elves, being bound
Speaker 2: to the circles of the world is not a problem,
Speaker 2: and death is seen as something of an escape not
Speaker 2: allotted to them. But Andreath, for whom the human experience
Speaker 2: of death is all too near, maintains that men are
Speaker 2: not now as they were, nor as their true nature
Speaker 2: was in their beginning. The wise say plainly that men
Speaker 2: are not by nature short lived, but have become so
Speaker 2: through the malice of the Lord of darkness. In response
Speaker 2: to this, Finrod assumes that if this be so, then
Speaker 2: men shared a fate more akin to the elves, i e.
Speaker 2: The life which endures as long as the world, but
Speaker 2: no longer, but that the Shadow took that from them.
Speaker 2: He asks, you say, we were not made for death,
Speaker 2: nor born ever to die. What do you mean that
Speaker 2: ye were as we are or otherwise? Andreth is surprised
Speaker 2: by this. She says, we considered only dying, and not
Speaker 2: dying of life as long as the world, but no longer.
Speaker 2: We had not heard. Tolkien thus introduces two types of immortality.
Speaker 2: The immortality of the elves is such that they last
Speaker 2: as long as Arda, and as Arda will have an end,
Speaker 2: soll the elves. But Andres speaks of another kind of immortality.
Speaker 2: We knew that in our beginning we had been born
Speaker 2: never to die, and by that, my Lord, we meant
Speaker 2: born to life, everlasting, without any shadow of any end.
Speaker 2: Finrod disputes this. He says, you claim to have had
Speaker 2: imperishable bodies, not bounded by the limits of Arda, and
Speaker 2: yet derived from its matter and sustained by it. And
Speaker 2: you claim, also, though this, you may not have yet
Speaker 2: perceived to have had roar in fear that we're from
Speaker 2: the beginning out of harmony. And as a footnote, these
Speaker 2: terms roar and fay a are defined than a footnote
Speaker 2: of Tolkien's proa or plural roar, corresponds roughly to the
Speaker 2: body of one of the incarnates, in which is housed
Speaker 2: the faa or plural faar, which corresponds roughly to the soul.
Speaker 2: Tolkien explicitly and importantly states that the Elvish conception of
Speaker 2: the self includes both. Moving on with a quote. Yet
Speaker 2: harmony of the heroa in Fea is we believe essential
Speaker 2: to the true nature unmarred of all the incarnate. From
Speaker 2: Finnrod's perspective, death represents the separation of the soul from
Speaker 2: the body, and therefore true immortality would necessitate the immortality
Speaker 2: of the body, not only of the soul. This is
Speaker 2: inconsistent with the Lore of the Elder, which states on
Speaker 2: one hand that Arda will have an end, and on
Speaker 2: the other that the gift of men lies in their
Speaker 2: not being bound to Artis's fate. But if the true
Speaker 2: fate of men is to have life, which is truly everlasting,
Speaker 2: then this would necessitate Arda being everlasting. Therefore, the fate
Speaker 2: and nature of men is bound up with the fate
Speaker 2: of Arda. This is where we begin to see Tolkien's
Speaker 2: Christian theology really come to the forefront. In the early
Speaker 2: fourth century AD, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a treatise
Speaker 2: entitled On the Incarnation of the Word. I have chosen
Speaker 2: to focus on this text as the voice of Patristic
Speaker 2: theology in the essay for a few reasons. For one,
Speaker 2: it is vastly influential on Christian theology both East and West,
Speaker 2: and is widely respected as one of the great defenses
Speaker 2: of Christian orthodoxy related to the incarnation of the Son
Speaker 2: of God for another. As will be seen, its themes
Speaker 2: of death as an ontological enemy of human nature and
Speaker 2: the restoration of that corrupted nature resonate deeply with Tolkien's themes,
Speaker 2: as expounded on explicitly Indiathbeth. It is certainly the case
Speaker 2: that Tolkien was deeply acquainted with patristic and of course
Speaker 2: medieval theology, especially that of the West, and my central
Speaker 2: claim is that Tolkien weaves this theology into the very
Speaker 2: fabric of his legendarium. At the beginning of the on
Speaker 2: the Incarnation, st Athanasius makes its interesting claim. He explains
Speaker 2: that by virtue of being created, humans are brought from
Speaker 2: non existence into being. This initial state of non being
Speaker 2: means that quote, by the principle of its own coming
Speaker 2: into being, it would not be able to endure eternally,
Speaker 2: and so Athanasius seems to be saying that men are
Speaker 2: by nature mortal. He even states this explicitly, for the
Speaker 2: human being is by nature mortal, having come into being
Speaker 2: from nothing. However, Athanasius emphasizes that because of his likeness
Speaker 2: to the One who is, he would have remained incorruptible.
Speaker 2: That is, the grace of being in the image of
Speaker 2: the Creator makes man incorruptible in spite of his mortal nature.
Speaker 2: Athanasius then makes clear that the cause of death then
Speaker 2: is sin quote. But human beings turning away from things eternal,
Speaker 2: and by the counsel of the devil turning us towards
Speaker 2: things of corruption, were themselves the cause of corruption in death.
Speaker 2: And so Athanasius has presented the fall as a consequence
Speaker 2: of sin, but he clarifies that repentance and moral purity
Speaker 2: are not enough to rect to fire our nature. He writes,
Speaker 2: what should God do demand repentance for human beings for
Speaker 2: their transgression. One might say that this is worthy of God,
Speaker 2: claiming that just as they were set towards corruption by
Speaker 2: the transgression, so by repentance they might again be set
Speaker 2: towards incorruptibility. But repentance does not recall human beings from
Speaker 2: what is natural, but merely halt's sins. If then there
Speaker 2: were only offense and not the consequence of corruption, repentance
Speaker 2: would have been fine. And so, much like Tolkien, Athanasius
Speaker 2: has presented a philosophical problem that is not limited to
Speaker 2: a transgression and penalty, but rather as concerned with death
Speaker 2: as an ontological infection of human nature. Andreth and Athanasius
Speaker 2: both agree that we had been born never to die,
Speaker 2: but the evil one call him Melchor or Satan, has
Speaker 2: changed the doom of a whole people and robbed them
Speaker 2: of their inheritance. In the Aphabeth, then Tolkien offers further
Speaker 2: philosophical explanation of this problem. Finrod argues that due to
Speaker 2: the nature of man and his intended fate, eternal life
Speaker 2: is something of an ontological necessity. Speaking of the proa
Speaker 2: or body and Fea or soul, he says that to
Speaker 2: divide them is a grievous hurt, and yet each must
Speaker 2: fulfill its right nature without tyranny of the other. Then
Speaker 2: this must surely follow. The Fea when it departs, must
Speaker 2: take with it the proa as its eternal spouse and companion,
Speaker 2: into an endurance everlasting beyond Aa and beyond time. This, then,
Speaker 2: I propound, was the errand of men, not the followers,
Speaker 2: but the heirs and fulfillers of all, to heal the
Speaker 2: marring of Arda, For that Arda healed shall not be
Speaker 2: arda unmarred, but a third thing and greater, and yet
Speaker 2: the same. If this be so, then grievous was the
Speaker 2: wounding of man's nature. Tolkien, in the voices of Finrod
Speaker 2: and Andrath, meditates on the calamity of the fall. Finrod says,
Speaker 2: mighty indeed, under erru were men made in their beginning,
Speaker 2: and dreadful beyond all other calamities was the chain in
Speaker 2: their state. This is not a matter of mere transgression
Speaker 2: and penalty, but a calamity affecting the whole cosmos. Thus
Speaker 2: Finrod and Andreth are left to speculate how the nature
Speaker 2: of men might be restored, forced to rely on hope
Speaker 2: or estelle, that Christian virtue which does not rely on
Speaker 2: uncertain expectation of good, but rather trust in him who
Speaker 2: quote will not suffer himself to be deprived of his own,
Speaker 2: not by any enemy, not even by ourselves. Athenaxious writing
Speaker 2: from the other side of the great yu catastrophe can
Speaker 2: give us the answer. And yet Andreth speaks of a rumor,
Speaker 2: an inkling of the salvation to come espoused by those
Speaker 2: of the old Hope. When asked of this, Andreth says
Speaker 2: that it was not in the might of men, nor
Speaker 2: in any of the peoples of Arda that the old
Speaker 2: hope was grounded. They say that the One will himself
Speaker 2: enter into Arda, heal men, and all the marring from
Speaker 2: the beginning to the end enter. Athanasius Tolkien has thus
Speaker 2: explicated the central problem of the human condition and how
Speaker 2: it affects the cosmos, and imply the solution. Man, whose
Speaker 2: nature contains both roa and phaia, body and soul, was
Speaker 2: created to be immortal, but death has brought us unto corruptibility.
Speaker 2: The death inflicted upon us as bound up with the
Speaker 2: fate of the world, and marred our nature in all
Speaker 2: of creation. Therefore, the solution must come from without, from
Speaker 2: outside Aea itself, from the one who must enter his
Speaker 2: creation in order to heal it. And Athanasius teaches us
Speaker 2: about this. He says, being the Word of the Father
Speaker 2: and above all, he alone consequently was both able to
Speaker 2: recreate the universe and was worthy to suffer on behalf
Speaker 2: of all, and to intercede for all before the Father.
Speaker 2: For this purpose, then the incorporeal and incorruptible and the
Speaker 2: immaterial Word of God comes into our realm by taking
Speaker 2: on our corruptible nature, delivering it over to death on
Speaker 2: behalf of all, he offered it to the Father. He
Speaker 2: gave them life from death by making the body his own,
Speaker 2: and by the grace of the resurrection, banishing death from
Speaker 2: them as straw from a fire. For Athanasius, the very
Speaker 2: purpose of the incarnation of the Word is to heal
Speaker 2: his own creation and to heal our nature, because he
Speaker 2: will not suffer himself to be deprived of his own
Speaker 2: The resurrection of the body, by defeating death, undoes the
Speaker 2: marring of Arda and restores the grace bestowed upon our
Speaker 2: nature of being in the image true children of a Luvitar.
Speaker 2: In this essay, I hope to use this text of
Speaker 2: the Athrobeth, Finrada and Dreth to demonstrate the degree to
Speaker 2: which Tolkien's fantasy is foundationally Christian and points to the
Speaker 2: mysteries of our sylation. Tolkien's project of the escape and
Speaker 2: consolation of fantasy, as describes in his Essay on Fairy Stories,
Speaker 2: is not meant to deprive us of reality, nor to
Speaker 2: distract us from the truth. Rather, through the medium of
Speaker 2: stories told of a secondary world, Tolkien points to the
Speaker 2: true story of the primary world. If I've convinced you
Speaker 2: of nothing else, reader or listener, I hope I have
Speaker 2: convinced you toley leg take up and read these words
Speaker 2: of Tolkien and of Saint Athanasius. I've only scratched the
Speaker 2: surface of these works. They bear reading and rereading. So
Speaker 2: once again i'd like to thank Andrew Snyder for the
Speaker 2: opportunity to read this to you all.