Rings of Power
August 01, 2020
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
The plot of The Lord of the Rings is driven by the eponymous One Ring. Forged by Sauron in the fires of Mt. Doom, it contained much of the Dark Lord’s power. This powerful artifact became a vulnerabilty for Sauron and ultimately the cause of his demise. Sauron’s motivation for creating the One Ring revolves around the nineteen lesser Rings of Power. The history of the Rings of Power dates back to the Second Age of Middle-earth, some five thousand years before the Fellowship of the Ring began their journey to destroy the One Ring.
In the wake of the War of Wrath—when Morgoth was defeated—Sauron fled from the Valar and hid in Middle-earth. After centuries of biding his time he eventually reveals himself, disguised as a servant of the Valar, to the Noldorin Elves living in Eregion. Under the pretense of sharing his knowledge of crafting and magic with their smiths, he manipulates them into forging the Rings of Power. Nine of the rings were given to Men who used them to increase their power, wealth, and influence, eventually becoming sorcerors and kings. The rings also extended the lifespan of the bearers indefinitely.
After Sauron returns to Mordor and creates the One Ring his will begins to cast a shadow over the lesser ring bearers. The Men are corrupted by his influence, eventually fading into wraiths and becoming bound to the realm of the Unseen. They become known as the Nazgûl, the most powerful and terrifying of the Dark Lord’s servants, and notable antagonists throughout the Lord of the Rings. The Nazgûl are characterized by their dark, hooded forms, their ability to wield cursed weapons and powerful magic, and their lack of a distinct physical presence. Also known as Ring-wraiths, they are inhabitants the Wraith-world of the Unseen realm which makes them invisible and unable to interact with the Seen realm. Only through the powers of their master, Sauron, are they able to manifest in the physical world.
The irony of the rings is that as the Nazgûl obtain more riches and authority in the physical world, they begin to lose their actual presence in the Seen. As they become more detached from the physical, they also lose their ability to view the Seen realm, dwelling almost entirely in the Wraith-world. This is analogous to the effects of indulging in sin. As we become more deeply entangled in sin, we become more detached from reality. In some sense we can be blind to our own sin, much like the Nazgûl were no longer able to see into the very world which they sought to dominate. And just as the Ring-wraiths were enslaved to the will of Sauron, unfettered sin will lead us to becoming slaves to sin (Jn 8:34).
Similarities can also be drawn between the Nazgûl and the heresy of Christian Gnosticism. Gnostics believed in a separation between the physical and the spiritual worlds. They saw the physical as lesser in comparison, even going so far as to condemn the material as evil or corrupt, seeking only esoteric and spiritual wisdom. They thought that leaving the physical behind would lead them to a greater existence, comparable to how the Nazgûl’s lust for power led them to become immaterial wraiths. The condemnation of the physical world stands in direct contradiction to the creation account in Genesis in which God finds all that he has created to be “very good” (Gn 1:31).
Even as modern Catholics we can be tempted to pseudo-gnostic beliefs; to believe that our bodies are somehow holding us back from the spritiual, or perhaps lamenting the weakness of our own flesh to resist sin. We can find recourse to these misguided thoughts in Jesus Christ, who united humanity and divinity at the Incarnation. Jesus came to redeem the physical and the spiritual and to lead us to share in his Resurrection—a restoration and glorification of his physical body. Our flesh has indeed become marred by the effects of sin, inherited from the Fall of our parents in the Garden of Eden. But no amount of sin can negate the inherent beauty in the human person, and neither is there a sin so grave that it cannot be healed and forgiven by the merciful love of God.