Fellowship & Fairydust

In the previous article I discussed the parallel between the Christian and Tolkien’s version of the myth of creation. Another point to consider about it is how the world actually came into existence according to Tolkien, or better said, what happened after the initial exclamation. It is known that all things firstly originated in Ilúvatar’s mind and only later were given substantial form. So the creation of Eä is described in the following quote: “Ilúvatar gave to [the] vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World.” (Tolkien, 1992, p. 15, my emphasis). Most important is especially the second, accentuated  part of it. One possible explanation of what the Secret Fire was may be that it just represented the earth core which is also some kind of fire, consisting of fiery magma and molten rocks. It is even placed in the middle of the Earth like a heart that is often considered to be a metaphor to symbolize the centre of whatever. That would be a scientific approach, but there is a rub in it. It would go, if there was not written that the Secret Fire “was sent”. Logically, this collocation then evokes that the Secret Fire is something alive when it can be sent. Consequently, this knowledge directs us to a spiritual and religious interpretation of the whole quote. 

Considering the Christian motives, the Secret Fire may then represent the Holy Spirit, the third person of God that often appears in the form of fire or flame. The best evidence for this claim is the scene in Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was sent unto the apostles: “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 2, 3-4). The fire, as a symbol of the Holy Spirit, is still used in Christian churches to signify the presence of God in there. Even the epithet “secret” is appropriate, because the Holy Spirit is very mysterious and secret and does not reveal Himself, so we do not know much about Him (Catechism, Section Two, Chapter Three). Tolkien also uses another name for the Secret Fire; that is “The Fire Imperishable” to express his eternal nature. He existed from the very beginning, even before the universe was made, and he is permanent, as well as the Holy Spirit is. Also the lamp, always turned on, that has to represent the flame of the Holy Spirit in the church is familiarly called “the eternal flame” or “everlasting light” what actually means the same as “the Fire Imperishable”, just in different words.

Indeed, all what we know about the Holy Spirit is that He is a primary source of life, apart from His blessings, and that He intervened in the process of creation. Likewise, elsewhere in The Silmarillion it is stated that the Secret Fire is needed to give life to the created things. It burns in them then and without it the things would die. That is exactly the same doctrine like the one that the Christian have about the Holy Spirit. Like when God created the man, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul,” (Genesis 2, 7). The “breath of life” is here also a denomination of the Holy Spirit and in this scene it can be clearly seen how the man started living when the Holy Spirit entered his body.

However, some dissimilarity occurs between these two versions of the story of creation and it concerns the location of the Holy Spirit that was in Tolkien’s case renamed to the Secret Fire. In The Silmarillion the Secret Fire was placed in “the heart of the World”, while the Bible says that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” (Genesis 1, 2). According to Augustinian theories, from which even Tolkien derived some of his ideas, the water is sacred ever since then, because the Holy Spirit moved so close to it (St. Augustine, Confessions). As a result of this it has some magical power – a power to purify, and it is therefore used at the Christian act of baptising as a mean through which a man is redeemed from the original sin. Why Tolkien chose to put his Secret Fire into the middle of the Earth, has been already explained when I discussed its understanding as an ultimate source of life. But he neither forgot about the special denotation of water. And he attributed it with mysterious attraction, because the sound of the waters is the last living echo of the Great Music in which the universe was pre-imagined and pre-created (Tolkien, 1992, p. 8). The miracle of creation is present in it as some audible memory and gives the water divine characteristics. In this manner it is then sacred, too.

Resources:

Catechism of the Catholic Church
St. Augustine, Confessions
TOLKIEN, J.R.R., The Silmarillion, 1992, London: HarperCollins, 1992. 480 pp.            ISBN 978-0-261-10273-6