Noble Enemies at War?

I do not know that there need be any war between you and us.

To understand Peter’s above reply to Emeth let us examine Peter’s context and perspective. At this point in “The Last Battle,” Peter himself does not know whether he will be sent back to our world, or even where he is. His answer, then, cannot reflect what we might expect from the finality of history at which time all truths will be revealed, and all falsehood will be buried.

Perhaps due to this uncertainty, Peter does not answer Emeth’s implied question. He does not know as of yet, whether Emeth is a friend or enemy. He does not know whether Emeth has met Aslan and has been converted to his side. Peter suggests “there need not be war between you and us.” Why?

The ambiguity in Peter’s response could arise for one of two reasons:

First, it could be that, unsure of Emeth’s status, he is unsure whether war is necessary. If, however, it is later revealed that Emeth is not a friend but an enemy, war becomes necessary.

Second, perhaps Peter is suggesting that, because Emeth is a noble enemy, war is not necessary. This idea would counter Emeth’s worldview. Emeth (later) states, “Now when I first heard that we should march upon Narnia I rejoiced; for I had heard many things of your Land and desired greatly to meet you in battle.” Of course as a noble enemy Emeth feels shame in how he comes to Narnia, “... when I found that we were to go in disguised as merchants (which is a shameful dress for a warrior and the son of a Tarkaan) and to work by lies and trickery…” But the desire for battle with a noble enemy is there.

Perhaps Peter is hinting that noble enemies need not engage in war. Rather they must engage in partnership to find the truth.

Calormene Poetry: Noble Enemies

Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble enemy the next best?

We have spent quite some time analyzing Calormene poetry. Lewis appears to have been rather dismissive of this literary genre despite its apparent similarities to biblical works such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Our studies of this poetry have revealed why this is so. While perhaps superficially appealing, the ideas conveyed by Calormene poetry are subtly but deeply flawed or conveniently misapplied.

There is, however, one line of Calormen poetry that should be differentiated from the rest. The narrator of this poetic line is Emeth, who’s name (in Hebrew) means truth. The circumstances for his quotation of Calormene poetry are thus.

As we have seen, The Last Battle starts with the Ape Shift posing as the prophet of the recently arrived Aslan (actually the Donkey Puzzle dressed in a lion’s skin). Shift’s motivation appears to be simple greed, he wants oranges and bananas and is willing to sell his fellow Narnians as slaves to Calormen to achieve those selfish desires. The ‘new Aslan’ movement, however, quickly outgrows Shift. The Calormenes become aware of it and (correctly) perceive an opportunity to destabilize Narnia and, with select Narnians, devise an Aslan-Tash composite ‘Tashlan’ to convince the Narnians of their friendship and common purpose. Tashlan is housed in a Stable and emerges only occasionally allowing the Narnians to pay homage.

One evening the Narnians and newly arrived Calormenes are gathered around the Stable and Shift gives permission for anyone to go inside and see Tashlan, but only one at a time. The first to enter is the Cat Ginger, who at this point is the actual Narnian leading the movement. Ginger enters confidently but with a ‘horrible caterwaul,’ races out, and has clearly ceased to be a Talking Beast. It is at this point that Emeth requests to enter the Stable. The Calormene Captain is unwilling, but Emeth insists that, as a servant of Tash, he must be allowed to look upon the face of Tash once, even at the cost of death.

Emeth’s loyalty to his god and his willingness to risk death for his love of Tash, strikes King Tirian and those loyal to him. "By the Lion's Mane,” says Jewel the Unicorn, “I almost love this young warrior, Calormene though he be. He is worthy of a better god than Tash." And, indeed, he is, for upon entering the Stable Emeth finds himself in the afterlife reserved for the worthy. He wanders those heavenly lands until he meets Aslan. Emeth is now sure he has met his death, but Aslan explains that it is not Tash but He who Emeth has spent his life truly seeking with such love and dedication.

After a time, Emeth is come upon by the Seven Lords of Narnia and their entourage. He bows before them and, addressing the High King Peter quotes the Calormene poet:

I know not whether you are my friend or my foe, but I should count it my honour to have you for either. Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble enemy the next best?"

Now, given the high regard Lewis has for Emeth given his name, we should take care to understand Emeth's words. We can plainly understand the value of a noble friend. Lewis spends quite a bit of time defining friendship in his book The Four Loves. Paraphrasing, a friend is one with whom one shares a common interest or insight that separates them from others. A noble friend would be such a person who is also idealistic, moral, and perhaps even illustrious. No doubt that a noble friend is the best gift.

But what is a noble enemy?

Presumably a noble enemy, in contrast to one that is not noble, is moral, idealistic, and a person of principle. Perhaps we might say that noble enemies, given their nobility, are seeking truth. Of course, as enemies their pursuit has not led them to the same conclusion and thus they are not friends. Nonetheless, while perhaps at odds, noble enemies strive towards the same ends.

The Calormene poet properly places the noble enemy as the “next best gift.” Noble enemies will motivate each other to fight harder, to do better, to seek more diligently. A noble enemy will not take short-cuts, will not stab you in the back after slipping on a tussock, nor attempt trickery or even bribery. Ignoble enemies seek to win at all costs, even at the cost of ideals and principles, noble enemies seek to discover the truth.

In The Last Battle Shift, Ginger, and the Calormene captain are ignoble enemies. Their goal is not truth but material gain and they seek to achieve their goals through deceit and disguise. In doing so they compromise their religious principles and even basic decency. They exploit the naive, torture the innocent, and confuse those seeking understanding.

Emeth, in contrast, is indeed a noble enemy. He strives for truth and perceives himself as a true servant of Tash. He seeks war with Narnia to prove the greatness of Tash against (in his mind) the falsehoods portrayed by the fiend which is Aslan, and he is willing to die for his ideals. Of course, his views are incorrect, but because he seeks truth, he eventually finds it. For when noble enemies finally reach the truth they have been seeking all along, they can no longer be enemies. Each must recognize the truth and the noble enemies are transformed noble friends.

Emeth is yet unsure whether that finality has been achieved. Has he become the noble friend of the Seven Lords? We await the response of Peter in our next post.

Thanksgiving Class (Part 3)

We’ve been discussing how to read the verse in Micah (4:5) which foretells that the nations will walk in the name of their gods, while the Jews will forever walk in the name of the Lord our God. The classical commentaries read the two halves of the verse as contrasting. The nations worship of their gods will last only until the end of days (when they recognize the true God), or, even worse, the false gods will lead those nations to ruin and destruction. Yet, both R’ Morris J. Raphall in his Thanksgiving sermon of 1858 and R’ Shmuel Rabniowitz addressing Pope Benedict XVI at the Western Wall in 2009 read the verse as affirming, opening a door to religious inclusivism.

Is there room for such inclusivism or pluralism in Jewish theology?

A thesis that accepts this approach was formulated by the 18th century German Talmudic scholar, and anti–Sabbatean, R’ Yaakov Emden. In his work Luach Eres (see article on page 531 here), he asserts that the blessing of the Amidah prayer against heretics is not referring to anyone of another (non-Jewish) religion. In fact, he says, anyone who truly believes in a different religion (even the most distorted and confused of them) with a full heart has not sinned. However, if one were to convert from the religion they believe in for external reasons, such as for money, fame, revenge, or lust, such a person is a meshumad, a rebel or destroyer. Even were that person to convert from the religion they truly believe to Judaism, such a person is not a convert.

R’ Emden continues providing theological opening for R’ Raphall and R’ Rabinowitz:

However, one who worships their god since he knows nothing else and recognizes no other, if he does so from a pure heart, he is free from sin. And we do not hold back from him the rewards he deserves for his proper intent. For our Sages say as follows, “the righteous of the nations of the world have a share in the world to come.” Furthermore, Jeremiah praises them, “Does a nation rebel against its god, though it is not truly God?” (unless, of course, one forsakes their original religion for they believe they have found the truth elsewhere for then they do so not as a rebellion). And it says, “All the nations shall walk each in the name of their god,”... For God wants the (proper intentions of the heart, for he seeks all hearts.

R’ Emden’s thesis leaves many unanswered questions. How can the prohibition against idol-worship be violated if one who truly believes in their own religion is free from sin? What if a Jew believes in the truth of another religion, is such a person free from sin? Perhaps R’ Emden would limit his contention to monotheistic religions, similar to R’ Raphall’s reading of Micah, “Each denomination may follow its own ideas of divine worship,” the divine is the one God, the style of worship is different. However we address these issues R’ Emden’s theology is (perhaps unknown to R’ Raphall) a basis of unity to R’ Raphall’s vision.

I have no stake in the internal Christian controversy of salvation by works or by grace. While there may be Jewish scholars who would be uncomfortable with the formulation of R’ Emden, it is the rare traditional Jew that would exclude the righteous of other faiths from eternal reward. Lewis, however, has to deal with this question and does in The Last Battle. We have discussed this elsewhere, but in our context Lewis’ inclusion of Emeth in the Narnian eternity suggests he agrees with R’ Raphall’s pluralistic statement, “Every religious body adopts practically the same rendering of the words of the prophet. (Micah iv.5.) “Each denomination may follow its own ideas of divine worship and we will adhere to our idea!”

Next, we'll turn back to our Narnian Ba'alei Teshuva (those who have repented)! 

Thanksgiving Class

In my annual Thanksgiving class this past Thursday, we studied the first section of a Thanksgiving sermon given by Rabbi Morris J. Raphall on the Thanksgiving commemorated in New York in November 1858. R' Raphall quoted the verse in Micah (4:5), "Though all the nations walk each in the names of its gods, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever." R' Raphall, against the reading of the traditional commentators, uses this verse to speak of interreligious unity. 

In that context I quoted the story of Emeth, the Carlomene in The Last Battle who achieves salvation. I think Emeth is a fascinating character and one who we will speak about in greater length in the future. 

Unfortunately, I failed to record the class so I'm considering writing up the relevant sections here over the next few days. Stay tuned... 

Emeth and the Worship of Evil

In our last post we attempted to learn the true nature of the Calormene god Tash. We saw that Tash is not simply an imaginary chieftain god in the made-up mythology of Calormen. Rather, Tash is an actual being who is Aslan’s opposite, evil incarnate. Speaking from the perspective of other works of Lewis, we would say that Tash is the Chief devil, occupying the lowest rung of the Lowerarchy. He is the dark Oyarsa who rebelled against God, and transformed the world into a battleground between good and evil. Our question was, if so, how were the Calormenes to know that what they thought was a god, was really the devil? 

Let us begin our analysis with Emeth. We will have much to say about Emeth (whose name translated from Hebrew means Truth) in future posts, but for now we would like to understand how he finds his way into the Narnian post-world paradise. Emeth is a Calormene and a devoted servant of Tash. Yet, because his worship of Tash was not vile and because he strove to find truth, he is called a servant of Aslan and attains salvation. Understandably, this has caused much consternation especially amongst Evangelical Christians (see for example here and here) who believe that salvation is attainable only through faith in Christ and not through works. Nonetheless, the existence of someone like Emeth demonstrates that one can have been fooled into thinking that Tash, evil incarnate, is actually good. Evil can and will pose as good and develop arguments as to why he is good, while all the time subtly promoting evil. 

When evil poses as good it will ensnare and sometimes trap innocent lives. In the That Hideous Strength, N.I.C.E. poses as a source of law and order while at the same time torturing innocents, brutally enforcing police law, and murdering dissenters. What posed as good, was actually the worship of evil - and not just in these actions. But as we learn later in the story, the core of N.I.C.E. is the true worship of Satan. 

The worship of Tash presumably started in a similar way. By mixing in some good morals with the evils of human sacrifice and the like, Tash convinced common folk to worship him, while actually leading them towards the side of evil. Some, like Emeth, do not succumb to the temptation of evil and believe that they worship a kind and just god. Such people are eventually shown the truth (as Emeth's name suggest) and are accepted by Aslan. Others, like Aravis, see the evil and escape. Most, however, eventually fail. Arsheesh adopted the foundling Shasta, certainly a moral and righteous deed, but later sold him into slavery. 

Shift also attempts to pose evil as good. He convinces innocent Narnian citizens to kill the dryads. He argues that the selling of Narnians to Calormen as slaves is for their own good, He declares that, “True freedom means doing what I tell you.” All in the name of the good Aslan! However, he is actually serving Tash. It is no wonder Shift eventually declares Aslan and Tash are one. For Shift, the antichrist, is attempting to merge the two so that worship in the name of Aslan will actually be worship of Tash. 

Were evil obviously so, most people would simply reject it. It is when evil poses as good that it becomes such a danger. Unfortunately, and throughout Lewis' writings, we see that this strategy is successful and by the time evil is recognized as such, many have been completely corrupted.