Christianity In Middle-earth
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Christianity In Middle-earth
Christianity is a central theme in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional works about Middle-earth, but always a hidden one. This allows the book to be read at different levels, and its meaning to be applied by the reader, rather than forcing a single meaning on the reader. J. R. R. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic from boyhood, and he described ''The Lord of the Rings'' in particular as “unconsciously” a "fundamentally religious and Catholic work". While he insisted it was not an allegory, it contains numerous themes from Christian theology. These include the battle of good versus evil, the triumph of humility over pride, and the activity of grace. A central theme is death and immortality, with light as a symbol of divine creation, but Tolkien's attitudes to mercy and pity, resurrection, the Eucharist, salvation, repentance, self-sacrifice, free will, justice, fellowship, authority and healing can also be detected. Divine providence appears indirectly as the will of the Valar, go ...
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Themes Of The Lord Of The Rings
Scholars and critics have identified many themes of ''The Lord of the Rings'', a major fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, including a reversed quest, the struggle of good and evil, death and immortality, fate and free will, Addiction to power in The Lord of the Rings, the danger of power, and various aspects of Christianity such as the presence of three Christ figures, for Threefold office, prophet, priest, and king, as well as elements like hope and redemptive suffering. There is also a strong thread throughout the work Tolkien's languages, of language, its sound, and its relationship to peoples and places, along with moralisation from descriptions of landscape. Out of these, Tolkien stated that the central theme is death and immortality. In addition, some commentators have criticised Tolkien for supposed failings in ''The Lord of the Rings'', such as not including significant women, not being relevant to city-dwellers, not overtly showing any religion, and Tolkien and race, fo ...
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Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in ''The Lord of the Rings''. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly as "uncle", and undertakes the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor. He is mentioned in Tolkien's posthumously published works, ''The Silmarillion'' and ''Unfinished Tales''. Frodo is repeatedly wounded during the quest, and becomes increasingly burdened by the Ring as it nears Mordor. He changes, too, growing in understanding and compassion, and avoiding violence. On his return to the Shire, he is unable to settle back into ordinary life; two years after the Ring's destruction, he is allowed to take ship to the earthly paradise of Valinor. Frodo's name comes from the Old English name '' Fróda'', meaning "wise by experience". Commentators have written that he combines courage, selflessness, and fidelity, and that as a goo ...
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Paul H
Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Christian missionary and writer *Pope Paul (other), multiple Popes of the Roman Catholic Church *Saint Paul (other), multiple other people and locations named "Saint Paul" Roman and Byzantine empire *Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus (c. 229 BC – 160 BC), Roman general *Julius Paulus Prudentissimus (), Roman jurist *Paulus Catena (died 362), Roman notary *Paulus Alexandrinus (4th century), Hellenistic astrologer *Paul of Aegina or Paulus Aegineta (625–690), Greek surgeon Royals *Paul I of Russia (1754–1801), Tsar of Russia *Paul of Greece (1901–1964), King of Greece Other people *Paul the Deacon or Paulus Diaconus (c. 720 – c. 799), Italian Benedictine monk *Paul (father of Maurice), the father of Maurice, Byzan ...
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Animism
Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, Soul, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct Spirituality, spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—Animal, animals, Plant, plants, Rock (geology), rocks, River, rivers, Weather, weather systems, human handiwork, and perhaps even Word, words—as animated and alive. Animism is used in the anthropology of religion, as a term for the Belief, belief system of many Indigenous peoples, especially in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions. Animism focuses on the Metaphysics, metaphysical universe, with a specific focus on the concept of the immaterial soul. Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples, that they ofte ...
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Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular God who is, in most cases, transcendent. In religions that accept polytheism, the different gods and goddesses may be representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles; they can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator deity or transcendental absolute principle (monistic theologies), which manifests immanently in nature (panentheistic and pantheistic theologies). Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally; they can be henotheists, specializing in the worship of one particular deity, or kathenotheists, worshiping different deities at different times. Polytheism was the typical form of religion before the development and spread of the Abrahamic religions of Ju ...
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Tolkien's Legendarium
Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his ''The Lord of the Rings'', and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of ''The Silmarillion'' and documented in his 12-volume series ''The History of Middle-earth''. The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps, and inventing languages and names as a private project to create a unique English mythology. The earliest story drafts (of ''The Book of Lost Tales'') are from 1916; he revised and rewrote these for most of his adult life. ''The Hobbit'' (1937), Tolkien's first published novel, was not originally part of the larger mythology but became linked to it. Both ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1954 and 1955) took place in the Third Age of Middle-earth, while virtually all of his earlier writing had been set in the first two ages of the world. ...
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Paganism In Middle-earth
Despite J. R. R. Tolkien's assertion that ''The Lord of the Rings'' was a fundamentally Christian work, paganism appears in that book and elsewhere in his fictional world of Middle-earth in multiple ways. These include a pantheon of god-like beings, the Valar, who function like the Norse gods, the Æsir; the person of the wizard Gandalf, who Tolkien stated in a letter is an " Odinic wanderer"; Elbereth, the Elves' "Queen of the Stars", associated with Venus; animism, the way that the natural world seems to be alive; and a '' Beowulf''-like "northern courage" which is determined to press on, no matter how bleak the outlook. Tolkien was as a Christian interested in religion, and placed many hints of Christianity in ''The Lord of the Rings'', but given that Middle-earth is the Earth in the distant past, he could not make his characters Christian, even the most virtuous pagans among them. He was in addition a philologist, a scholar of Old English language and literature, especi ...
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Patrick Curry (author)
Patrick Curry (born 1951) is a Canadian-born British scholar who has worked and taught on a variety of subjects from cultural astronomy to divination, the ecology movement, and the nature of enchantment. He is known for his studies of J. R. R. Tolkien. Biography Patrick Curry was born in Winnipeg, Canada. He took his B.A. in psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1978. He gained his M.Sc. in logic and scientific method at the London School of Economics in 1980, and his Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science at University College London in 1987. He lectured on cultural astronomy and on astronomy at Bath Spa University from 2002, and on cosmology and divination at the University of Kent at Canterbury from 2006. He is the editor-in-chief of ''The Ecological Citizen''. He writes book reviews for British national newspapers. He appeared in interviews on two of the extended DVDs on Peter Jackson's film trilogy of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings''. ...
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Society Of Jesus
, image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = , founding_location = , type = Order of clerics regular of pontifical right (for men) , headquarters = Generalate:Borgo S. Spirito 4, 00195 Roma-Prati, Italy , coords = , region_served = Worldwide , num_members = 14,839 members (includes 10,721 priests) as of 2020 , leader_title = Motto , leader_name = la, Ad Majorem Dei GloriamEnglish: ''For the Greater Glory of God'' , leader_title2 = Superior General , leader_name2 = Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ , leader_title3 = Patron saints , leader_name3 = , leader_title4 = Ministry , leader_name4 = Missionary, educational, literary works , main_organ = La Civiltà Cattoli ...
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Baptists
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before God), ''sola fide'' (salvation by just faith alone), ''sola scriptura'' (scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice) and congregationalist church government. Baptists generally recognize two ordinances: baptism and communion. Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today differ widely from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other Christians, and their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship. For example, Baptist theology may include Arminian or Calvinist beliefs with various sub-groups holding different or competing positions, while others allow for diversity in this matter within t ...
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King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the title may refer to tribal kingship. Germanic kingship is cognate with Indo-European traditions of tribal rulership (c.f. Indic ''rājan'', Gothic ''reiks'', and Old Irish ''rí'', etc.). *In the context of classical antiquity, king may translate in Latin as '' rex'' and in Greek as '' archon'' or '' basileus''. *In classical European feudalism, the title of ''king'' as the ruler of a ''kingdom'' is understood to be the highest rank in the feudal order, potentially subject, at least nominally, only to an emperor (harking back to the client kings of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire). *In a modern context, the title may refer to the ruler of one of a number of modern monarchies (either absolute or constitutional). The title of ''king'' is us ...
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Priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the 'priesthood', a term which also may apply to such persons collectively. A priest may have the duty to hear confessions periodically, give marriage counseling, provide prenuptial counseling, give spiritual direction, teach catechism, or visit those confined indoors, such as the sick in hospitals and nursing homes. Description According to the trifunctional hypothesis of prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society, priests have existed since the earliest of times and in the simplest societies, most likely as a result of agricultural surplus and consequent social stratification. The necessity to read sacred texts and keep temple or church rec ...
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