Hi Simeon,

Thank you for sharing the videos, this is an interesting topic. I listened to all of the first one and much of the second thus far.

I'm noticing one argument running through the first video can be summed up as follows: "Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a myth (or written in a mythic "fantasy" style), myths have no use for a Catholic (according to select biblical and Church Father quotes), therefore the Lord of the Rings and other similar works have no use for a Catholic." The inference of the speaker is that Catholics should never read myths or mythic stories, whether from Tolkien or other sources (presumably Greco-Roman as well), and that no benefit can be gained by reading them.


However, this mindset actually appears to be quite alien to the traditional structure of the "classical education" that was championed by Catholic institutions for centuries. Dante could never have written the Divine Comedy if he had first not read the mythic works of Virgil and others. And before the Rennaissance in the profoundly medieval period, not counting Meister Eckhart, inferences to Greco-Roman mythology are actually numerous throughout its literature. Notably, they did not believe the myths literally (i.e. as a pagan worldview), but they had to have been reading them. And even more recently, literary figures such as John Senior (author of The Death of Christian Culture) and Andrew Senior who were Traditional Catholic advocated for a return to the "classical education" that included works like Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid, both of which are saturated with mythology. These were included along with other works of an overtly Catholic nature such as The Confessions of St. Augustine etc.


As a polite criticism, I think a possible misstep of the videos (and perhaps some of Paula Haigh's works as well) is that they overlook the following: there appears to be more than one way a Catholic can approach myths and mythology. Some of these ways are bad, and some are good. A "bad" way would of course be to literally adopt the myths as a theology or try to "force fit" the pagan theology into the Catholic theology. This is the error most of the quoted scriptural/Church Father quotes appear to be referring to when they speak against "myths" etc. However, the "good" way to approach the Greco-Roman myths (at least as espoused by a traditional Catholic classical education) would be as follows: admit from the outset that the pagan theology within is false, and read the myths not for the purpose of finding any kind of literal theological truth, but to better recognize (A) what these civilizations got wrong (i.e., the consequences of the pagan theology) (B), what these civilizations got right in a general sense (i.e., glimmers of morality/justice), and (C) appreciate the literary/poetic value of the works, which came to leave an indelible mark on artistic endeavor throughout Catholic Western Civilization. It is worth noting that this Western Civilization the Catholic Church flourished in ultimately was more influenced culturally by the Greco-Roman civilizations than the Judaic ones. Hence why the Mass ended up persisting in the "pagan" Roman language of Latin rather than being in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Yiddish...


With regard to (B), it is is interesting to explore how even the ancient pagans got some things surprisingly right. For example, in Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas's unlawful relations with queen Dido lead to nothing but chaos and destruction. The Greek tragedies basically explore the consequences of sin, guilt, and the chaos caused by it, albeit without a proper resolution via forgiveness.


And then there are some themes with an uncanny resemblance to what would come later.  For example, in Homer's Odyssey, Athena is basically a mediator between "the gods" such as Zeus and "men" like Odysseus. Interesting. I'm not necessarily saying this was some kind of "preparation" for the coming of Christ, something which St. Eusebius apparently does not agree with (at least per the speaker in the video ; would be worthwhile to look up the actual quote). However, the "foreshadowing" in some cases is certainly curious. Perhaps in the same way some of the Greeks were great philosophers/logicians (even to the point that St. Thomas Aquinas relied heavily on Aristotle's methods for his theological works), maybe some of the Greeks/Romans that wrote those myths ruminated on things enough that they got some things right, even within the bounds of their flawed false theology. This doesn't make them Catholic, but it is interesting to observe. 


Obviously, some would argue that the Tolkien is in a different category, as it is not an ancient work and was written after the coming of Christ. However, if I remember correctly (and Tolkien scholars out there correct me if this is wrong), part of the reason Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings etc. in a mythic style was due to the British lamenting there was no uniquely "English" mythology which influenced the world/Western Civilization in the same way the Greco-Roman mythology/civilization did. Tolkien was motivated to create a speculative "mythology" that would have existed in England before Christ; an imaginative English "equivalent" to what was going on in Greece and Italy Therefore, Tolkien's works represented a theoretical perfect English mythology, the "ideal" mythology that England "would have had" before the coming of Christ. If true, that would explain a lot about the way he wrote it the way he did; he wanted to make it "authentic" as a theoretical BC mythology, so he purposely made the Catholic concepts more covert than overt, and included the Scandinavian-esque theological elements that might also have been prevalent in ancient England. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but an interesting thought.

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This is a really, really good post. And yes, Tolkien stated a major motivation of his was to create a folklore for the Anglo people. 

Simeon,

I'm content to say that Tolkien's work are a generalized allegory-- if you want to call it ambiguous fine, but you're proving too much. The "si si no no" rhetoric would undermine even the linguistic character of the Gospels, which are densely parabolic.  In your studies on the desert fathers I'm sure you've encountered a variety of interpretations for the same passages of scripture. There is hardly anything intrinsically problematic about expressions from which multiple meanings can be drawn.  

There is no singular Catholic linguistic structure, either.  Logic and precision are the appropriate structures for works that aim to catechize or instruct.  St. Augustine did not use that structure when writing Confessions. St. Theresa of Avila did not use that structure.  Christ's parables certainly do not use that structure.  

I disagree with pretty much everything you've said in your last few posts, but it's all so aphoristic that it seems kind of vain to go through it all point by point. I'm sure the most important points will come back up in a further reply.