One of the most important books on Christianity published in recent times, but one that is less well-known than it should be, is Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature by Anthony Esolen. Although the focus of this book is on literature, Dr. Esolen’s specialty, it also gets to the heart of Christianity and of the very meaning of life. God Himself is rational – He makes sense. He is divine, perfect, infinite and completely self-sufficient, requiring nothing but Himself. And yet, He chose to create a universe subject to entropy, life subject to death, and free beings, both angels and humans, who could choose to deny Him, to prefer creaturely pleasures over eternal beatitude. He even went one step further:
For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.
He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. (Phil 2:5-8 DRA)
It was not enough for God to create an unnecessary world whose creatures could die and whose free beings, made in His image and capable of participating in His very divine life for all eternity, could choose to hate Him and reject all His promises. He even went so far as to take on human nature, becoming a member of the ironically-named “Chosen People” who were one of the least powerful and noteworthy peoples in the world at the time, making Himself wholly dependent on His human family, prey to villainous kings, pagan rulers and even corrupt Jews who claimed to serve Him, feeling all of the pain, sorrow, humiliation, temptation and death that all humans experience and doing so to an extreme degree. And He did all of this for one reason: to save those who betrayed Him, to reconcile with those who abandoned Him.
What could be more ironic?
This irony at the heart of the Gospel and of history was also central to Tolkien’s legendarium. As a devout and learned Catholic, Tolkien understood the importance of irony and of foolishness, keeping in mind the words of St. Paul, who made this theme one of the keys to his theology:
For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God… For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world, by wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness: But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For see your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble: But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong. And the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his sight. (1 Cor 1:18, 21-29)
Through Jesus Christ, God proved that even when He is utterly powerless, insignificant, unknown, helpless, ridiculed and put to death, He is wiser, stronger and more assured of victory than ever, and ultimately conquers all those considered powerful or successful in the eyes of the world.
The main instruments for this ironic foolishness in Tolkien’s stories are the hobbits. The good people of Middle-earth, for whom true heroism consists as much in moral virtue as in knowledge or skill (which even orcs can possess), routinely underestimate hobbits. The dwarves who make up the company in The Hobbit think little of Bilbo, who shares their belief that he lacks the martial prowess or experience of the world to liberate their home and treasure from Smaug the dragon. Nevertheless, by the end, Bilbo is the true hero of the story, freeing the dwarves from the trolls, the spiders and the elves of Mirkwood, tricking Smaug into leaving the Lonely Mountain and thereby detecting the weakness in his scaly armour, which allows him to be defeated by Bard the Bowman, and finally saving Thorin from dragon-sickness by burglarizing the Arkenstone.
In The Lord of the Rings, this ironic foolishness is even more apparent. Four hobbits are chosen to bring the One Ring to Rivendell, none of whom had ever ventured farther from the Shire than Bree or ever encountered an orc, much less a Ringwraith. And yet, they succeed, with Frodo resisting temptations that no one else, including most hobbits, could have. They are again chosen as members of the Fellowship of the Ring, going on a mission to destroy the Ring which has no real hope of success, as Gandalf told Pippin: “There never was much hope… Just a fool’s hope, as I have been told. [Ironically, by Denethor]”[1] But, as he also says, “It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy!” - Sauron never dreams that they would want to destroy the Ring, assuming that, in practical, worldly wisdom, they would, like Boromir, Denethor and even Saruman, want to use the Ring against him, to gain power of their own.[2]
Yet it is the very humility of the hobbits, their indifference to power or worldly acclaim which make them largely immune to its temptations, with the extent of Sam’s ambitions shown to be, while he carries the Ring during Frodo’s imprisonment in Cirith Ungol, to have a very large garden, but he still chides himself for this and freely returns it to Frodo. Even Gollum, who once was the hobbit Smeagol, unfathomably carried the Ring for four hundred years without becoming a wraith or using it for more than bodily necessities. Tolkien called this “the ennoblement (or sanctification) of the humble”.[3]
Gandalf, as the prophet of the story and the primary messenger of God, knew that their quest had no real chance, but still trusted in God’s Providence, believing that it would not be through conquest, as attempted in the Last Alliance millennia before, but through the humility and decency of the simple hobbit-folk that God would work His salvation, and He did so in the most unlikely way, rewarding Frodo’s mercy toward Gollum by fortuitously causing Gollum, in perfect accordance with his free will, with the Ring to fall into the fires of Mount Doom, thus destroying the Ring and banishing Sauron to the Void with his master, Morgoth the Devil. Even more so than Morgoth’s past banishment by the Valar, this demonstrated God’s infinite power and wisdom, using what was ironic and foolish to the world to overcome it, just as He would Himself as Jesus Christ many millennia later, showing that His “power is made perfect in infirmity.” (2 Cor 12:9)
Many fans of fantasy, especially of those books that have imitated the style of Tolkien’s works, do not like hobbits. They prefer the more obvious power of elves, dwarves and men, of great armies and learned magicians, as in the works of George R.R. Martin, Terry Goodkind and others. They see hobbits as silly, childish and unrealistic. In truth, these same people usually fail to appreciate the ironic foolishness of Jesus Christ, whose armies, as described in the Apocalypse, consist of ordinary men and women who “have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Rev 7:14) They are led by a wounded lamb and face off against a demonic horde of dragons, multiheaded beasts and other monsters which are far more visually impressive.
And yet, we all know who wins.
Precisely through their weakness and humility, Jesus and His Church triumph over all adversity, just as did the hobbits and the members of the Fellowship in Tolkien’s great tale. This truth continues to be a scandal to those today who rely solely on human reason, including atheists, as well as others, such as pagans and Muslims, who think like them, unable to appreciate the divine value of humility and the centrality of irony in God’s Creation. Ultimately, this irony is love, the motive and meaning for all things, and it is this love that has enabled Christian martyrs to succeed even in death while the powerful of this world are condemned by their riches and “success.” This is the lesson Tolkien teaches in his stories, particularly those concerning hobbits, one which everyone, especially those considered wise or powerful in the eyes of the world, would do well to heed.
(Cover image source: By Lída Holubová: https://tolkiengateway.net/w/index.php?curid=61400)
[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, 2004), 813-814. Kindle.
[2] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 268-269.
[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," in The Tolkien Reader (Great Britain: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1964), 78.