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"Surely You Don't Disbelieve": Tolkien and Pius X: Anti-Modernism in Middle-earth

2006; Mythopoeic Society; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

0146-9339

Andrew Raymond Bossert,

Violence, Religion, and Philosophy

The early Twentieth Century was an exciting time to be raised Roman in England. Historian Sheridan Gilley writes, Catholic England came of age, when Pope Pius X in his Constitution Sapienti Consilio of 29 June 1908 declared England no longer a missionary territory (34). English Catholics witnessed consecration of Westminster Cathedral in 1910, but optimism of its growth and renewed strength was tainted by external persecution--a procession of Blessed Sacrament was cancelled due to Protestant sentiment in 1908--and by suspicions of disloyalty among members mounted from within Church itself (Leonard 270-1). In 1907, Pius X issued encyclicals Lamentabili and Pascendi dominici gregis to combat what he called a faith-corrupting force. In 1910, Pius X's witch-hunt climaxed with Sacrorum antistitum, an oath against Modernist philosophy to be taken by all clergy and theologians. Tolkien was young when all of these documents were first published, but scholarly fathers following rule of St. Philip would have discussed them in Oratory, where J.R.R. Tolkien lived and visited with his friend and guardian Fr. Francis Morgan. (1) An intellectually sophisticated and orthodox Catholic, Tolkien also exhibited awareness of early twentieth-century Church policies later in his life. The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of Rings all parallel anti-modernist rhetoric of Pascendi dominici gregis in their assertion of truth in ancient stories, suspicion of historical criticism with its glamour of intellectualism, and their condemnation of a tool that is too dangerous to be used. is not to be confused with larger Modernist movement in Western culture. Pius X used term to describe what he perceived was a unified attack on Church by its own members; the criticism We are concerned with is an agnostic, immanentist, and evolutionist criticism. Hence anybody who embraces it and employs it, makes profession thereby of errors contained in it and places himself in opposition to (Pascendi [section]34). (2) Indeed, danger of simply embracing and employing tools of already sounds like hobbits' forbidden relationship to Ring, an object that can ensnare one simply by being carried too closely. Agnostism and immanentism represent negative and positive sides of Modernist thought, former arguing human reason can only consider scientific phenomenon, latter arguing that religion comes entirely from within human psyche (Jodock 4). Darrel Jodock explains that Modernism wrongly asserts, according to Pascendi, that religion arises out of human subconscious and that faith has no basis outside this internal religious sentiment (4-5). By evolutionist criticism, Jodock says Pope means any notion that dogma may have evolved or that it may need to change again; related to evolution is the historical criticism of Bible (5). Jodock outlines other heresies of Modernism, all of which appear to be favorite topics of Tolkien's letters to Michael: views of faith and science, of dogma and sacraments, of inspiration of Scripture, of church, and of church-state relations (6). This paper will first examine how Tolkien's personal letters during Second Vatican Council in 1960s actually reiterate language and arguments devised by Pius X. Connecting Tolkien's religious philosophy to his fantasy reveals anti-modernist influences through The Silmarillion and conclusion of The Hobbit, which specifically re-inscribes anti-modernist faith in Providence despite human involvement in history. Moving to The Lord of Rings, paper shows how Pius X's descriptions of Modernist thought resonates with depictions of Saruman and Boromir. The paper concludes by discussing how Pascendi might explain disappearance of explicitly religious imagery in Middle-earth despite its retention in Tolkien's scholarship. …