On J.R.R. Tolkien and “Egyptian Catholicism”
Concerning the subject of Hermeticism and Oxford University, Giordano Bruno deserves mentioning, and some remarks concerning Bruno’s beliefs may help to better elucidate the context of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hermeticism. Bruno’s controversial visit to Oxford in the late sixteenth century came almost exactly at the middle of the seven centuries separating the lives of Roger Bacon and J.R.R. Tolkien. So controversial was the figure of Giordano Bruno that he was not long after his visit condemned by the Catholic authorities of his day and burned as a heretic in his Italian homeland. Since that time, even the evaluation of his heretical views has been a matter of some controversy. Bruno has been celebrated as a martyr for scientific progress, since he maintained a position in defense of Copernican Heliocentrism. Yet Frances Yates has properly identified Bruno’s heliocentrism as an expression of a rather more conservative belief, a belief which preferred the Catholic rites to the reforms of the new Protestantism. In fact Bruno hoped for a very different reform of religion, a reform under the influence of Hermeticism which would give rise to what Yates has called “Egyptian Catholicism.”(i)
Of course, even the traditional cosmology of Hermeticism admits a certain heliocentricity, since the position of the sun is considered to be at the fourth and therefore central sphere of the seven planetary spheres. In the Hermetic perspective of Alchemy, the completion of the Work is solar, since among metals gold corresponds to the sun; and so both gold and the sun are assigned a symbol which expresses the idea of centrality:
In Tolkien’s work, the solar exaltation of The Return of the King takes place at the center or “heart of the greater realm,” the circular Minas Tirith or Tower of the Sun, as is discussed in Alchemy in Middle-earth.
In connection with the expression “Egyptian Catholicism,” it is remarkable that Tolkien linked the emblems of his king to ancient Egypt:
The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar, and archaic, and I think are
best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms. In many ways they resembled “Egyptians”
– the love of, and power to construct, the gigantic and massive. And in their
great interest in ancestry and in tombs. (But not of course in “theology:” in which
respect they were Hebraic and even more puritan – but this would take long…to
explain indeed why there is practically no overt “religion”…in The Lord of the
Rings.) I think the crown of Gondor (the South Kingdom) was very tall, like that
of Egypt…The North Kingdom had only a diadem. Cf. the difference between
the North and South kingdoms of Egypt.(ii)
The relationship of Egypt with Númenor-Atlantis has already been noted in Alchemy in Middle-earth. Here it is important to recognize that in the above letter Tolkien alludes to the problem of theology in the context of Egypt. Indeed the contrast of Egyptian and “Hebraic” theology recalls the history of the Exodus, when a Pharaoh’s tyranny against Moses and his community ruptured the accord of Egypt with Abrahamic theology which had existed in the time of Joseph. And while Tolkien called the leader of his Númenórean Faithful “Noachian,”(iii) there is no doubt that the flight of the Faithful from Númenor recalls not only the Flood of Noah, but also the Exodus from Egypt, especially since the tyrant ruler of Númenor is named “Ar-Pharazôn,” and whose watery demise may be compared with that of the Pharaoh in the Red Sea.
Included within the category of Hermeticism are cosmological sciences that may be traced to ancient Egypt, such as Alchemy; even the Arabic term “alchemy” may refer literally to the land of Egypt.(iv) Of course, such sciences are not essentially incompatible with the Abrahamic religions; European Hermeticists included Moses among their ancient authorities. The proper relationship of theology to these sciences has been summarized by Titus Burkhardt: “In reality alchemy, which is not a religion by itself, required to be confirmed by the revelation – with its means of grace – which is addressed to all men.”(v) So Hermeticism or “Egyptianism” may be in harmony with religion or not. Tolkien exemplifies these two possibilites with his Faithful of Númenor and the enemies of the Faithful, from Ar-Pharazôn to the “Black Númenórean” Witch-king of The Lord of the Rings. For Bruno, the proper relationship of Egyptianism to revelation seems confused, and the pretense of a Hermetic reform of religion is indistinguishable from the subjugation and even replacement of religion by magical science.
Even though his evoking of Egypt recalls the context of Bruno’s Hermeticism, as well as Bruno’s preference for the Catholic rites, Tolkien was no heretic. His rejection of religious reform is expressed clearly in letter 306, in which he compared religion to a tree. So while The Lord of the Rings is “cosmological” and not theological, Tolkien does admit that the renewal of the White Tree of Gondor signals a religious revivification, in keeping with his comparison.(vi) Yet this religious renewal takes place beyond the pages of The Lord of the Rings, and so may be compared with the promise of spiritual realization for the Ring-bearers in the “Divine Realm” of Aman. So it may be observed that the Hermetic concerns of Tolkien’s work open onto the spiritual concerns which belong to religion. In this Tolkien is very much in accord with Roger Bacon. In his efforts to convince the Christian West – and even the Pope – of the legitimacy of the Hermetic sciences which he sought to transmit from the world of Islam, Bacon maintained that the benefits of these sciences for the human microcosm support the quest for salvation;(vii) that is, the role of a Hermeticism illuminated by revelation is to prepare man for the spiritual benefits of religion.
Tolkien’s statement that “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work” and that “the religious element is absorbed into the story and its symbolism,”(viii) refers to the manner in which Hermeticism depends upon and is passive in relation to religion. Still, it is perhaps not surprising that Christian theology has been sought in The Lord of the Rings in vain, since in it “there is practically no ‘overt’ religion,” while the only overt expression of religious ritual performed by the Faithful “recalls Islam more than Christianity,” as a Christian commentator recently admitted.(ix) Yet the failure to discover its cosmological symbolism suggests how far removed the Christian West is from the understanding of Roger Bacon and J.R.R. Tolkien alike. This is all the more remarkable since one need look no further than Oxford to recognize the relationship of Tolkien’s Great Work to Bruno’s “Egyptian Catholicism,” and more importantly its reaffirmation of the “Catholic Hermeticism” of Roger Bacon, which in some measure accounts for the traces of Islam in The Lord of the Rings. Of course, by the time of Bruno’s visit to Oxford, both Egypt and the Hermetic sciences alike had belonged to Islam for nearly a thousand years.
(i) Cf. especially her essays collected in Lull and Bruno, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982.
(ii) The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Houghton Mifflin, number 211.
(iii) Cf. Alchemy in Middle-earth, chapter 2.
(iv) So "alchemy" wouls derive from the designation "Khem" for Egypt. It is of interest to also note that the Arabic name for the pyramids - Haram - may derive from the name Hermes.
(v) Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, Element Books, 1986, page 21.
(vi) Cf. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, number 156.
(vii) Bacon's purported role in the discovery of gunpowder in his alchemical studies contrasts with the evil for which it has since been used. Perhaps this contrast is embodied in Gandalf's fireworks and Saruman's "fire of Orthanc," respectively.
(viii) The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, number 142.
(ix) Hollywood Jesus’ Greg Wright, in “Spiritual Connections: a Spiritual Analysis of Tolkien’s Fiction.”
Copyright 2003, Temple of Justice Books