So that’s what happens when you get 3 hours of sleep!
Last night I had one of my dreaded insomnia attacks. Good conversation with my wife before bed, I tried to wind down as usual by reading a book. This past week I have been reading for the umpteenth time The Lord of the Rings. Elven – oops, sorry, I mean Eleven – o’clock… Midnight… not even slightly sleepy. Uh oh. Choose not to take one of my sleeping pills because they sometimes leave my groggy the next day.
And in the wee hours of the morning – or biblically we should say in the waning hours of yesterday evening because there was morning and there was evening – I noticed something for the first time.
Elves – in J. R. R. Tolkien’s mythology – do not eat meat.
Now I need to confirm this – I admit I have not scanned every work by J. R. R. Tolkien including the apocryphal publications prepared by his son Christopher Tolkien. The other Races – Dwarves, Men, Hobbits – do eat meat. Not all the time. But sometimes they eat meat. (Again – I have not scanned every work by Tolkien to confirm that either.)
Why is this important?
For the last few months I have been trying to practice the Orthodox Christian discipline of (partial) fasting. Which is to say no animal products on Wednesdays and Fridays. It’s one thing to be a vegetarian and still include eggs and dairy. Great sources of protein! But we’re talking Vegan baby. No eggs. No milk on your morning cereal. Not even butter on your toast.
(Bishop) Kallistos Ware explains the rationale for fasting in the context of warfare against the passions (defined as “any disordered appetite or longing that violently takes possession of the soul”). Kallistos continues:
This effort to purify the passions needs to be carried out on the level of both soul and body… On the level of the body they are purified above all through fasting and abstinence… Knowing that man (sic) is not an angel but a unity of body and soul, the Orthodox Church insists upon the spiritual value of bodily fasting. We do not fast because there is anything in itself unclean about the act of eating and drinking. Food and drink are, on the contrary, God’s gift, from which we are to partake with enjoyment and gratitude. We fast, not because we despise the divine gift, but so as to make ourselves aware that it is indeed a gift. (The Orthodox Way
, rev. ed. [Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1995], 116)
Kallistos does not (at least here) explain why one fasts from animal products. But note that he emphasizes fasting for the purpose of increasing awareness (that food and drink are a gift).
Other Orthodox writers take a somewhat harsher position on why one should fast. In a section entitled “On Fasting” the book A Lenten Cookbook for Orthodox Christians explains:
Fasting, therefore, should always be understood as a thing most necessary in our battle with the evil one… In the final analysis he who does not fast does not believe in God, for he does not really believe in the existence of the enemy and the great victory gifted to us over him by our Saviour. (attributed to Holy Transfiguration Monastery, in A Lenten cookbook for Orthodox Christians
[Seattle, Washington: Saint Nectarios Press, 1982: 10-11])
The anonymous writer strongly criticizes Christian traditions in which either fasting is no longer taught or fasting is understood differently, describing them as “those who fell away from our Holy Faith through schism and heresy” (op cit., 12).
And yet there has been a renewed interest in and practice of the discipline of fasting among non-Orthodox Christians. Lauren Winner writes: “In recent years some American Protestants have begun to recover this venerable Christian practice… Whole communities have taken up fasting for repentance, fasting for discernment, fasting for purification” (Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Disciplines
I rather like how her (former?) rabbi puts it: “‘When you are fasting… and you feel hungry, you are to remember that you are really hungry for God’” (91). Winner concludes, “The fast accomplishes and repositioning… When I am hungry, it is possible to remember where my dependence lies” (ibid.). Here the emphasis is on how (among other things) fasting reminds us that the first and deepest need of a human being is for God: “Human beings do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 3:4).
Let me add that fasting also reminds us of those who are live in a constant state of hunger – even to the point of death. (This point was made rather nicely by a member of University Baptist Church a few years ago during Wednesday night prayer meeting and Bible study. That evening the topic was “prayers of fasting”. At the time I thought he was missing the point – rather my point. But multiple truths can co-exist simultaneously!) Not terribly long ago I preached a sermon on the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness in which I noted that Jesus did not have to go hungry. He had the power to make bread. And there is nothing inherently evil about using one’s power to make food. One could argue that if Jesus had turned stones to bread that would have been a sinful act simply because Satan was the one who made the suggestion (Matthew 3:2-3). Perhaps. (And I like to believe biblical texts can be interpreted more than one way – and the multiple meanings can all be “true” at the same time. Even those that appear contradictory.) The point is Jesus chose to be hungry (and thirsty) – for a time. And there are people who live always with hunger. Jesus chose to journey where some people live. Fasting can be a means of remembering and practicing (even if imperfect) solidarity with people experiencing malnutrition or starvation.
But – and there is a reason I save this for last – there is yet another way to understand the rationale for fasting. And this one addresses the issue of not just “why fast?” but “why fast from animal products?” In a significant article entitled, “The Importance of Knowing What’s Unimportant”, Andy Crouch (who knows Lauren Winner, by the way, and described her to me as his “partner in crime”) refers to his interview with Orthodox Christian writer and speaker Frederica Mathewes-Green, where she explains how she and her family fast twice a week. Crouch then offers this rich paragraph:
Long before anyone invented the word vegan, Christians called this diet the “Daniel fast”—because it essentially replicates the diet Daniel and his friends adopted upon arrival in Babylon. The Christian version of the Daniel fast does not require us to abstain permanently from meat, Frederica pointed out. But it is a twice-weekly reminder that we are in exile and that our use of animals for food is itself tainted with echoes of the Fall. The Daniel fast is not just a discipline to develop self-control and dependence on God; it is a reminder that the abundance we enjoy cannot, in this life, be entirely separated from the alienation we endure from God and from God’s creatures. It is a small act of reorientation, a small act of exilic consciousness in the middle of every week. (emphasis added; “The Importance of Knowing What’s Unimportant” at http://www.christianvisionproject.com)
Ah – fasting as a discipline that (among other things) reminds us of the Fall. We are broken human beings living in a broken creation. The world is not the way it is supposed to be. We are not supposed to eat critters. We are not supposed to – okay this part is less clear – to use them to produce some of our food (eggs and dairy). And the mission of the Triune God is to heal creation, to “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20).
And that brings us back to Elves in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.
On the “Daniel Fasting” I was with Andy and Frederica until the reference to the Fall. Daniel and the Boyz ate what they did because they were in exile (good, I am with that) and because <i>all meat would have been sacrificed to idols</i>. So their not eating meat is more akin to principles Paul outlines in 1 Cor. 8. Given Peter’s vision in Acts 10 I would suggest that Bishop Ware’s understanding is more in keeping with Scriptural evidence.
BTW, the division of posts has worked to your favor here. :^) I will now move on to the elves!
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Targuman: I understand your point and agree 99-100% that,
I think we need to distinguish between the motive for the “Daniel fast” in, well, the (context of the) book of Daniel… and for the “Daniel fast” in Orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy may have borrowed the form of the fast from Daniel, and yet practice that form of the fast for rather different reasons.
Btw – you are the very first person to leave a comment on any of the posts on this website. So thanks! and congratulations!
Rick, I am honored to be the first to leave a comment! And “Chris” or “Targuman” is fine.
Now, to the point at hand. I was referring to the chain of logic, at least as presented in Andy’s quote above, that Mathewes-Green seems to be making directly from the fast of Daniel and its reasons to the reminder that Christian’s live in exile as a result of the fall. So I of course understand that often something will inspire a movement and that it will then move far from its origins. But if one is looking for a biblical justification then I think this is tenuous at best, since I would argue the original context must remain somehow relevant for its continued application. Otherwise, it merely serves as an exegetical “hook” from which a new interpretation is hung.
Umm actually, they do… In the Hobbit when the Dwarves and Bilbo are in Mirkwood and they see the 3 campfires of the Elves there is an animal roasting on a spit, can’t remember what animal, and I can’t check as I lent my copy to my cousin. And I have scanned every Tolkien book =P
Wow – a comment on an article from 2 years ago.
Since that time I have come across a few exceptions. You are correct. There is reference to elves eating meat in The Hobbit – precisely the scene you mention. And also in History of Middle Earth XI(?) Morgoth’s Ring. In an obscure discussion of the differences between elven men and women it says men hunt. I *think* I have come across references to hunting even in Valinor although it is not entirely clear.
In no way does this detract from your fine point – but this raises the issue of “canon”. If something is in the early manuscripts that does not end up in The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, or even The Silmarillion – is that because Tolkien had an idea that eventually he set aside? And in what sense does Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion take priority over The Hobbit? In The Hobbit elves in Rivendell appear rather silly. I would venture that the image of elves in the other books is more authoritative. The Hobbit might be the “exception” rather than the “rule”.
It is still fair to say *in general* elves are not shown hunting or eating meat. But there are a few exceptions and obscure references that I need to take into account.