Letter 156

This is a wide-ranging draft to Fr. Robert Murray, S.J. It speaks of Gandalf humbly accepting his death in “abnegation of himself in conformity to ‘the Rules’...” He was an incarnate angel, and as with all the Istari, subject to fear, pain and weariness and temptation in his physical form. One of the temptations the Istari were to resist was the using of their powers to force other wills. They had no complete knowledge of the future and none at all “where other wills are concerned.” Gandalf passes the moral tests that no one else does and was sent back with greater powers which had become necessary in the deepening crisis with Sauron. He was still forbidden to use those powers except in circumstances of absolute necessity such as twice rescuing Faramir and opposing the Lord of the Nazgûl from entering the Citadel of Minas Tirith. His advanced powers were also the way Théoden was healed and Saruman stripped of powers. He was not “sent back” by the Valar though he was originally sent by them: “He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or governors; but Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure. ‘Naked I was sent back...’ Sent back by whom, and whence? Not by the ‘gods’ whose business is only with this embodied world and its time; for he passed ‘out of thought and time’.” The moment of failure is the Bridge of Khazad dûm when the Valar’s plan had come to the farthest point it could and God then took over. “He [Gandalf] was handing over to the Authority that ordained the Rules, and giving up personal hope of success.

“That I should say is what the Authority wished, as a set off to Saruman. The ‘wizards’, as such, had failed; or if you like: the crisis had become too grave and needed an enhancement of power. So Gandalf sacrificed himself, was accepted, and enhanced, and returned.”

The letter also speaks of the creation of Elves and Men being totally outside the power of the Valar. “...hence Elves and Men were called the Children of God; and hence the gods either loved (or hated) them specially: as having a relation to the Creator equal to their own, if of different stature.”

“Men have ‘fallen’... But the peoples of the West, the good side are Re formed...descendants of Men that tried to repent and fled Westward from the domination of the Prime Dark Lord [Morgoth], and his false worship, and by contrast with the Elves received (and enlarged) their knowledge of the truth and the nature of the World. They thus escaped from ‘religion’ in a pagan sense, into a pure monotheist world, in which all things and beings and powers that might seem worshipful were not to be worshiped, not even the gods (the Valar), being only creatures of the One. And He was immensely remote.

“The High Elves were exiles from the Blessed Realm... (after their own particular Elvish fall) and they had no ‘religion’ (or religious practices rather) for those had been in the hands of the gods, praising and adoring Eru, ‘the one’, Ilúvatar the Father of All on the Mt. of Aman.”

Covered also is the founding of Númenor, the Pillar of Heaven, the ban against sailing West and the longing to do so to achieve immortality and invade the Blessed Realm which was almost but not quite within sight of Westernesse. After Sauron is captured and taken to the land of gift as a prisoner, he seduces the king to finally break the ban and claim the immortality that Sauron said awaited all who came to the Undying Lands. “This was a delusion of course, a Satanic lie.” No land or even the Valar themselves could bestow immortality on a body meant to be mortal. Mortality was a natural part of men and not a punishment.

“A good Númenórean died of free will when he felt it to be time to do so.” That they were so close to the Blessed Realm, loved life, and had such a long span of it (triple that of other men) is what made them begin to “hanker after immortality” and this is what Sauron excited and also the fear of death in the king, which caused the invasion of the Undying Lands and the destruction of Númenor.

Sauron also corrupted other men, saying God was just made up by the Valar and established instead the temple and worship of Morgoth. Of those Faithful who resisted, many were sacrificed at that temple, but the remnant that survived the destruction of Westernesse and made it to Middle earth earned “the hatred of Sauron, the friendship of the Elves, the knowledge of the True God...”

It goes on to say that God was not openly worshiped or prayed to and had no place of worship except the ‘hallow’ on Mindolluin used in ancient days but forgotten. The men were too scarred by the abomination of Morgoth’s temple to build a temple to anyone else and that held while their influence lasted, even until Aragorn’s time. However “[i]t is to be presumed that with the re emergence of the lineal priest kings...the worship of God would be renewed and His Name (or title) be again more often heard.” (pg 206 207). Also mentioned is that Elbereth was the “especial friend” of the Elves and called upon in times of peril, as Frodo did.

This is the last time that evil will be “incarnate as a physical enemy” as Sauron was, but he will still be around to direct men. But while Evil was incarnate in him, Tolkien notes “...physical resistance to it is a major act of loyalty to God...” I would add the same is true today.