The Religion of Tolkien
...arillion 4). Throughout the third book of The Silmarillion, the Quenta Silmarillion, Melkor is the tempter, the father of evil, the one who turned the hearts of the elves away from their own god as he “would often walk among them, and amid his fair words others were woven, so subtly that many who heard them believed in recollection that they arose from their own thought” (Tolkien, Silmarillion 73). This is the role that Satan plays in the Christian society, leading the hearts of man away from God, and the same is for the elves and men of Tolkien’s world for the First Age. Satan thought to “ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High” (Bible 880, vs 14). Satan wanted to play god, but instead can only make a mockery of the things, which are of God in the Christian world, being “spirits of devils, working miracles” (Bible 1581, vs 14). So it is with Melkor, who thought he could create, but could only corrupt and pervert the things already created of God, for example he “bred the Orcs out of Elves he captured” (Colbert, 106). Melkor did “breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves” and it was, of all his deeds, “the most hateful to Ilúvatar” (Tolkien, Silmarillion 50). Although Tolkien’s mythology had the Valar, angelic spirits who ruled the earth, it also had something most mythologies do not; an all-powerful God who alone could create things instead of merely change them. This God was known as Ilúvatar, which means ‘Father of all’ (Tolkien, Silmarillion 419). In most Christian sects, including Tolkien’s own Catholic Religion, God is the creator of man and beast and all creatures that dwell on earth. Tolkien’s Ilúvatar created the Ainur, the elves, and man. The only beings he did not create were the dwarves, the were created by Aulë who only had power to make creatures who would do what he told them to, “but because Aulë understands he did wrong, Ilúvatar forgives him and gives the Dwarves the gift of life” (Colbert, 26). He is portrayed as Eru, the One, who created the Ainur and “through their music founded the realm of Arda” (Fisher, Online). Just as God is portrayed as a merciful father of all in the Bible, so Eru is for the elves and the younger children of Ilúvatar men. The finally, and probably most powerful, evidence of the Christian influence in The Silmarillion are the plot changing characters that have the ideals of loving all beings, charity, and mercy held within their personalities. The one who brings about the fall of Melkor, though not the ending of all evil, is Eärendil the mariner who “came at last to Elvenhome the green and fair” and went “in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer” there he spoke “words unheard were spoken then of folk of Men and Elven-kin, beyond the world were visions showed forbid to those that dwell therein” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings 251-252). Eärendil left his two sons and beloved wife to sail to Valinor, not for himself, but to save those that would have killed him for the Silmaril that he possessed. He loved all the creatures of Ilúvatar and risked all the he held most dear to seek Valinor and save all from Melkor’s power. Two hardly mentioned characters, Ect...