The Jealousy of Venus: Renewal (Part 2)

He cannot ravish; He can only woo

(The Screwtape Letters, Letter 8)

By God's own rules He cannot reveal His true self to His humanity. Doing so would immediately thwart their free will forcing them to be robots and automatons, not the sons He wants us to become. Hence, Venus, goddess of love and beauty, and stand-in for God in Till We Have Faces, cannot ramp up her own beauty to outshine Psyche. She must woo Glome into loving her.

Accomplishing this task is the punishment of Psyche as well as Orual. But for Glome to truly recognize Ungit/Venus more beautifully than in their pagan ways, more than Venus has to change. Glome has to change as well. That change we've discussed earlier. Glome's governance, economy, and mode of worship are enlightened by Orual so that Glome can now accept a God more beautiful than that of the pagans. 

But that final step, ushering God into an enlightened world, needs to be done by someone who loves God. Someone who does not love God would simply enjoy the economic prosperity and order and reject that its purpose is to comprehend God more fully, not less. This is Psyche's final test. Bringing beauty from the underworld. However, the question remains why beauty from the underworld would make Venus more beautiful in the eyes of the people?

Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (the goddess of agriculture), was kidnapped by Hades and made queen of the underworld. In her distress over her daughter, Demeter causes a draught until Zeus is forced to allow Persephone to return home. However, because Persephone ate of the good of the underworld she must return there every year. When she does, during the winter, Demeter neglects to cultivate the earth until Spring when Persephone, the goddess of Spring, once again emerges from the underworld.   

In Till We Have Faces, Psyche becomes Persephone, as Orual hears the details from the old priest:

But, Stranger, the sacred story is about the sacred things — the things we do in the temple. In spring, and all summer, she is a goddess. Then when harvest comes, we bring a lamp into the temple in the night and the god flies away. Then we veil her. And all winter she is wandering and suffering; weeping, always weeping...

All winter Psyche suffers from having been abandoned by husband, but she emerges every Spring as the goddess of renewal.  

With this we can understand why Psyche must retrieve beauty from the queen of the underworld. It is there where Persephone is found and it is she that enables the renewal. Of course, Venus does not need renewal, but she needs the people to experience renewal, the reconnection with and rededication to the gods that is possible and present. 

Psyche, as an ardent follower of the gods herself becomes the tool for the renewal for Glome to return to Venus. 

With this we have seen two levels of the story. The Greek story of Psyche in which the jealousy of Venus is paramount, and Lewis' story of Psyche in which the people must renew their love for Venus. In our next post we must address the true story, the love between God and Israel as told in Song of Songs. 

The Jealousy of Venus: The Task (Part 1)

I don't usually like writing my ideas when they are only half-baked, but with Purim and Pesach I haven't written in a while so here goes...  

This is about Till We Have Faces (TWHF). Elsewhere, I've explained my general contention about this work that Lewis calls his best work, but now I'm attempting to come to terms with the following challenge which I think may help demonstrate the purpose of this work. Let me quickly note that I am in no way an expert on Greek and Roman mythology so I may be way off here anyway... 

Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. No doubt this is very important to Lewis who, as we've spoken about, enables the half-gods to take their place when the true God is ascendent. If, as Lewis believes, God is Love (as explained, for example, in Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain) then of all the half-gods Venus must be the most important and that's why it makes sense that it is Venus/Aphrodite/Ungit who is the god of Glome. 

However, the story of Psyche presents the following question, how can Psyche be worshipped at the expense of Venus? Can't Venus just ramp up the beauty leaving Psyche's beauty in the dust? Can't Venus just make everyone love her? How can it be that people turn to Psyche's beauty and ignore the source of all beauty? And how does getting beauty from the Underworld help at all? 

I think the questions are in some way, self-answering. Of course, Venus could do all of that, but the problem isn't Psyche, it's the people. Just like the problem isn't God, but that people don't recognize God. So, Venus strikes out with vengeance against the object of people's worship, just like God struck out against the idols of the Egyptians (as we read about in the Passover Haggadah). Psyche must work for Venus to make Venus lovable. 

In truth, God is love, even if He is not always beloved. It is the task of His Nation to demonstrate His love and beauty to humanity.

OK, that's a start... not great, but we'll continue and see where this takes us...   

Before Till We Have Faces

Pints with Jack has released a great episode called a primer for Till We Have Faces (TWHF), Lewis' most complex work of fiction and, according to Lewis, his greatest work. I wanted to add some notes that may help a Jewish reader approach this work (please note that R' Mark Gottlieb has already written an introduction to TWHF here, and I've already shared a lot of my thoughts on TWHF here). If you haven't read TWHF, please check out those other resources because what I write here is just some notes. 

TWHF is, as Lewis says, the myth of Psyche and Cupid retold. In many printings of TWHF a recounting of the myth is included at the end. But to weigh in on the debate, I definitely think you should read the myth first - Lewis assumed that any educated adult would be familiar with it.

OK, some things to know: 

1) Lewis was generally a fan of paganism and the willingness of pagans to sacrifice for their gods. The straight line he draws between paganism and Christianity contrasts sharply with the Jewish view of Judaism as being a complete break from paganism (or paganism being a corruption which must be fixed). 

2) TWHF works on two levels, the personal and the societal. On the personal level Queen Orual embodies the warnings of the Four Loves. She spurns each of the loves before eventually learning that the Gods love her and, perhaps, she could have loved them. 

On the societal level, TWHF is the story of the beginning of the evolution from paganism to Christianity and from barbarism to Western Civilization. The goal is to make the gods beautiful so that Glome will be able to accept Christianity. This can only be done thanks to Orual's transformation of Glome into a prosperous society. Lewis' concentration is much more on the first level than on the second. Orual attains grace only because she eventually learns the gods love her, not because of the prosperity and happiness she brought to her people. I think Judaism, with its concentration on works would celebrate Orual and the good she does for society despite her faults. The bible has a number of heroes who play this role. 

3) Correctly, Psyche is the only one that can bring beauty to the gods. For only one who loves God can enable others to love Him as well. To do this, Psyche must become a goddess herself, which she does. In Judaism it is people who bring about love of God, redemption, and forgiveness. Not so in Lewis' view.

I hope this helps! Happy reading... 

Why Did Psyche Sin?

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to be interviewed by David Bates for the Pints with Jack podcast. I hope you will enjoy the episode with is scheduled to come out on the intermediate days of Passover.  Of course, we spent a good amount of time talking about Narnia, but we spent some time on Lewis' other books as well including Till We Have Faces (TWHF).

In our discussion of TWHF I mentioned a question to which we did not probe further: Why did Psyche sin? She knew her husband was a god, she knew she was in the right, and she should have been willing to sacrifice even Orual (who was threatening suicide) for her husband. So why didn't she?

Actually, Psyche explains why to Orual. She says, in reference to her husband, "He cannot be cruel like you. I'll not believe it. He will know how I was tortured into my disobedience. He will forgive me." But he doesn't and she knew that he might not saying, "before sunrise, all my happiness may be destroyed forever." So, Psyche is banished and subject to hunger, thirst, and hard roads. 

But in fact, if Psyche truly loved her husband, the question of punishment is irrelevant. We honor the words of He who we love, not for reward or fear of punishment, but because He commanded them. And this is so even at the expense of one's relatives, as Moses describes the proper actions of the tribe of Levi and the Fox tells Orual, "And mother and wife and child and friend will all be in league to keep a soul from being united with the Divine Nature." So why did Psyche disregard his words?

I have a couple of suggestions which, along with everything else I've written about TWHF, should be regarded as speculative. Hopefully I'll expand on them at some other time, but for now I just want to say what they are:

(1) Psyche did truly love the god of the West Wind but did not fear him. The Torah commands that we both love and fear God, and it is fear that the Psalmist identifies as the beginning of wisdom. Of course, fear need not be fear of punishment, though it could be that too, but it may be awe. Or it may be fear of losing one's love. Either way, Psyche, though she pays lip-service to fear saying she is "afraid - no ashamed, to disobey him," does not fear her husband and is thus willing to sin against him. 

(2) Psyche realized there is ugliness in the gods. Could it be that Psyche finally saw the gods from Orual's perspective and realized there was ugliness about them? Or that if she could not convince Orual (or, presumably, others) of their true nature there was no point?

Anyway, I'm not sure for now, but perhaps something to think about. 

Till We Have Faces (Part 4)

In our last post we discussed how Orual transformed the three pillars of Glome society and thus made the gods beautiful. The three pillars she transformed were Glome’s government, economy, and the House of Ungit itself, and the efforts of transforming them paralleled the three tasks of Psyche. Unlike Psyche who performed her tasks with joy, Orual did them without knowing why and even without the knowledge that her efforts would bring beauty to the gods. Nonetheless, this was her destiny as pronounced by the god of the West Wind, “You also shall be Psyche.”

There is one final task of Psyche, however, that Orual sees in her vision to get beauty in a casket from the Queen of the Deadlands and bring it back to Ungit. Here Orual does not assist Psyche, she fights against her. Why?

Orual’s efforts can very much be cast, not as religious, but as Hellenizing. Her efforts were not to make the gods beautiful, but to civilize Glome. Certainly, had Orual been asked the purpose of her efforts she would have given that, or something similar, as her answer. How could it then be claimed that her efforts were for godly purposes?

Let’s pause for a moment to note that the Talmud addressed the very same question. 

The Talmud foretells that at the end of time the various nations will come before the Almighty to claim how righteous they were in the toil of God’s Torah. Rome will come first before God:

The Holy One, Blessed be He, says to them: With what did you occupy yourselves? They say before Him: Master of the Universe, we have established many marketplaces, we have built many bathhouses, and we have increased much silver and gold. And we did all of this only for the sake of the Jewish people, so that they would be free to engage in Torah study.

However, God doesn’t buy it:

Fools! Are you attempting to deceive Me? Everything that you did, you did for your own needs. You established marketplaces to place prostitutes in them; you built bathhouses for your own enjoyment; and as for the silver and gold that you claim to have increased, it is Mine.

Is Orual any different? She too did everything for herself, to keep herself busy and not pay attention to her true nature, and certainly not for the gods!

But there is hope for Orual just as there is hope for Ungit. If, due to Orual’s actions, Glome is prepared to recognize the beauty of the gods, everything she did will be redeemed. Orual will have accomplished the purpose of beautifying the gods and be beautified herself.

The Jews could have redeemed Rome. Had they not assimilated into Roman culture, fallen to divisiveness, but rather adhered to their own religion and engaged in Torah study. Rome’s assertion that they did everything for the Jewish people would have been proven de facto. But they didn’t…

Psyche is the parallel to the Jewish people in the Talmud’s vision. It is she who must be the bearer of truth and beauty. It is she, as the one chosen by the gods, who will inspire others and catalyze the beautification of the gods.

And Psyche succeeds. She is not influenced by the philosophy of the Greeks or the materialism of the everyday world. Through her dedication and single-mindedness, Psyche brings beauty to the gods, inspiring Orual, and, presumably, the rest of Glome. The true religion is to emerge, and the divine nature will be revealed to all.

Revisiting Till We Have Faces

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I've been updating the Till We Have Faces posts to, hopefully, make them more readable. I have one more post (also in the works) on Till We Have Faces before returning to world of Narnia. 

Till We Have Faces (Part 3)

In our last post we posited that because Orual, "also shall be Psyche," she shares in Psyche's task of making the gods beautiful. This is supported by the fact that in her visions, Orual sees herself assisting Psyche in her tasks. 

How does Orual go about this not in visions, but in the physical world?

Orual makes the gods beautiful by beautifying the people and the society that worships them. She does this by transforming, perhaps revolutionizing, the three pillars of Glome society: its government and laws, its economy and learning, and the House of Ungit itself. 

Under King Trom the palace was, in the words of Orual, “sprawled with the slaves' babies and my father's bastards.” The king appreciated the male slave who would impregnate many females, as it led to more slaves. Thus, the castle was essentially chaos: there was no order and not even a sense of family. The king had his way and then it was left to everyone to fend for themselves. No wonder there were thieves, sluts, and blackmailers in the castle!

Unlike King Trom, a proper biblical monarch will guide his nation towards great spiritual stature. To ensure constant awareness of this mission the biblical king must keep with him at all times a Torah scroll. Furthermore, he is limited in number of wives, wealth, and number of horses (strength of army). The king must never think of himself as divine, as King Trom does, but instead he must reflect the divine. 

Orual succeeds in transforming the castle such that it reflects the divine. How does she accomplish this? She first hangs Batta the blackmailer and mafia kingpin amongst the slaves and servants of the castle. This is not only a just punishment, as Batta's manipulations certainly led to the death of others, but also serves as warning to everyone else. Second, Orual reduces the overall number of slaves. Some slaves she sells, others she frees. She plays matchmaker and marries them off and they become her most loyal subjects. In this way she established order and justice in the palace. 

With order established in the palace Orual could (without hypocrisy) reinvigorate Glome’s code of laws. The Queen revised and publicized the laws enabling everyone to discern right from wrong. The importance of this should not be overlooked. Moral people must follow a moral code, but murky, subjective, and unclear principles and laws leads to immorality. By bringing civil order to Glome, Queen Orual reflects the pious biblical monarchs who guided their people towards justice and righteousness. Thus, she makes the gods beautiful. 

The accomplishments of Orual in this sphere parallel Psyche’s task of separating seeds. Psyche too needs to transform chaos into order. She needs to discern one type of seed from another. Should the seeds have been planted as they the crops would be bastards, all mixed up, and the farmers who planted them would not know how to treat the mixture and help them grow. Psyche (with the help of the ants) brings order and clarity to the seeds.  

The economy of Glome under King Trom was agricultural, relying on growing crops, animal husbandry, and hunting. While the kingdom had silver mines they were chiefly used, according to Orual, as a punishment rather than as a source of income. Under Queen Orual the mines became both a source of prosperity and a means of turning productive slaves into productive freemen. Other ventures of the Queen also improved the Glome economy. She deepened the Shennit river, opening Glome to greater trade, she built a bridge and cisterns, and brought in good bulls and rams to improve the animal stock.

Glome’s economic improvement came hand-in-hand with educational changes. Orual has the Fox buy books and men start learning to read. The knowledge learned further catalyzes economic development and, as we will see below, brings direct changes to the House of Ungit. 

All of this work of Orual parallel’s Psyche’s second task, that of getting fleece from the golden rams. The fleece is, presumably, to be used by Ungit to make beautiful clothes. In Glome, the solid economic base spurred by Orual again beautifies Ungit. People have more to give to the gods, people are happier with the gods, and, with improved education, people can study the stories of the gods. By making Glome prosperous Orual again makes gods beautiful.

Finally, Orual beautifies the House of Ungit itself. In fact, perhaps her first decision as “queen” is to give the good farmland known as the Crumbles to the House of Ungit. This helps ensure Ungit's self-sufficiency. Orual also supports the elevation of Arnom to the office of the High Priest. Arnom, in turn, brings beauty and light to Ungit's house. He opens windows and lets in more light and generally makes the house cleaner and more becoming. Most revolutionary, Queen Orual helps the House of Ungit purchase a new Ungit, an idol of Aphrodite. This statue, in the eyes of Glome, was “wonderfully beautiful and lifelike,” and the marvel of pilgrims. Clearly, this made the gods beautiful in the eyes of the people.

What may have been an even more significant change in the House of Ungit was the attitude of the High Priest Arnom. How the friendship arose between Arnom and the Fox is not shared in TWHF. Nonetheless, Arnom is the only one in the entire book who uses the Fox’s actual name (though at that point in time he still as slave). The influence of the Fox on Arnom is transformational. Arnom is the first to read the new books purchased by the Fox. Further, Arnom learns from the Fox to speak of God as a philosopher.

The synthesis of paganism and Greek philosophy within Arnom and into the House of Ungit itself, results in the rise of a truer religion (as expanded upon by Dr. Ronda Chervin here). This, then, catalyzes the emergence of the real beauty of the gods.

This task of Orual parallels Psyche’s task of retrieving a cupful of the water of death. For Orual’s introduction of philosophy into Glome cannot, by itself, bring about a proper society. It must be tempered by belief in the gods and an objective moral code, or it too will lead to death.

The final task of Psyche is to retrieve beauty in a casket from the Queen of the Deadlands and bring it back to Ungit so that Ungit will become beautiful. This has no apparent parallel performed by Orual. Yet, it turns not only Ungit beautiful, but Orual as well. We’ll talk about how next time.

Till We Have Faces (Part 2)

In our previous post we introduced C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces" (TWHF) and addressed the question of why a Christian man would see fit to retell the story of Cupid and Psyche. We also outline what we would expect to see from this Christianized version of the story and noted how, if we are correct, that it is due to those who persuaded Psyche to rebel against her lover, are in fact the ones who spur the manifestation of the true religion. 

So, let's see how well TWHF fulfills our expectations. 

We start with a quick review of Glome’s society pre-Queen Orual.

Glome is a small kingdom on the Shennit river ruled by a monarch (King Trom) who is of “divine blood.” The kingdom, like the other kingdoms surrounding it, is uncivilized when compared to Greece. It is an agricultural society with no books, art, or any sort of standard education. The people of Glome worship the goddess Ungit, a black stone “without head, hands, or face” who sits in the dark, bloody, inner recesses of her house. The worship of Ungit is sacrificial, usually birds and animals, and occasionally humans, and punctuated by regular pagan rituals. Ungit is served by a band of priests and a group of girls. The head priest has a bird’s mask which usually hangs from his neck, but which he wears on special occasions. The girls are heavily masked with makeup and apparently prostituted during ritual worship. The House of Ungit has its own land and army and may sometimes be at odds with the monarch.

Let's consider the loathsome mode of worship to the gods of Glome. Human sacrifice, prostitution, darkness, and the stench of blood. Who is Ungit that she is worshiped in this way?

Perhaps it will be helpful to compare the gods of Glome to the gods of another of Lewis’ pagan societies, Calormen. The main Calormen god, Tash, is four-armed and bird-faced (like the mask of the Glome High Priest). It too is served by human sacrifice, and it is said that the rulers of Calormen, the Tisrocs, descend directly from Tash.

However, as we have seen previously but much to the surprise of the Narnians, Tash is not a false god! Instead, he is Aslan’s opposite. Aslan is the force of holiness and good, Tash is the force of impurity and evil.

Identifying Ungit with Tash enables us to contrast the story of Glome with that of Calormen. With respect to Calormen we asked, “How can a society descend to the point of actually worshiping evil, which is Tash? Yet by posing evil as good Calormen did just that. In Glome we struggle with the opposite question. How can a society be raised from serving Tash/Ungit to serving Aslan? How can the religion of Glome become beautiful?

To explore this question, we should look at the different relationships people have with Tash and Ungit:

The rulers of both Calormen and Glome claim to descend from the gods. Thus, both exhibit much evil and unholiness just like their gods.

The common folk, on the other hand, likely treat the gods as the Glome general Bardia does, “I’m not impious. I wouldn't… [list of actions forbidden by the gods]... or do anything else that's unchancy and profane, even if the King himself were to bid me. And as for sacrifices, I've always done all that can be expected of a man on my pay. But for anything more — I think the less Bardia meddles with the gods, the less they'll meddle with Bardia.” One could imagine Arsheesh (though a much less noble man than Bardia) saying something similar.

Yet others can take comfort from the imperfections of the gods, like the woman who prays to the plain Ungit rather than the Greek statue of Ungit/Aphrodite. They see in the unshapeliness and grotesqueness of the gods something of themselves and relate to them through ugliness.

A precious few, however, rejoice in the gods and love them. Their vision completely pierces through the ugliness of the gods. For though the gods are not yet beautiful they can become so. Emeth and Psyche both loved the pagan gods. Emeth enters Alsan’s country and perceives that it had been Aslan he was worshiping all along. There was no opportunity to make Tash beautiful. Psyche sins against the gods despite her love for them and is tasked with making the beauty of the gods obvious to everyone.

Finally, there are those who see the ugliness of the gods and hate them. This is Orual. She does right to hate the gods in their current form. However, by rejecting the gods completely, and corrupting the vision of Psyche, she is also tasked with making the gods beautiful. As the god of the west wind declares Orual, "also shall be Psyche."

The tasks of Psyche herself are well-known, they are the stuff of myth and legend. In Lewis’ retelling she performs the tasks joyfully for she knows the happiness she will attain should she succeed 

Orual’s tasks are parallel but different. Against her will and without her knowledge she prepares Glome for the beauty of the gods.

Till We Have Faces (Part 1)

In preparation for my upcoming discussion with David Bates of Pints with Jack, I have been listening to a number of the Pints with Jack podcast episodes. Specifically, I have recently concluded their careful reading of “Till We Have Faces,” certainly one of the most difficult and intricate works in Lewis’ oeuvre. Besides a chapter-by-chapter analysis of Till We Have Faces (TWHF), the podcast features a couple of episodes with Andrew Lazo who provides insightful analysis to the book as a whole.

Though I have only read TWHF a few times (which is clearly not enough) I would like to write down some thoughts, all subject to future scrutiny.

TWHF has been highly praised by the likes of Andrew Lazo, Rabbi Mark Gottlieb, not to mention Lewis himself. Nevertheless, there is a lot about this book that bothered me. Two issues stand out. First, there is too much paganism in this tale for my taste. Lewis himself believed that paganism was the pathway to the true religion (Christianity in Lewis’ opinion), but I have my doubts. Nonetheless, the transition from paganism to Christianity by "making the gods beautiful" is certainly a major theme of TWHF, so we’ll have to go work with this assumption.

Second, I think Lewis is too hard on his main character, Queen Orual of Glome. Yes, she made some grave mistakes, ruined a few lives, and did her best to hide her true nature. Still, at the end of the day she truly was, “the most wise, just, valiant, fortunate and merciful of all the princes known in our parts of the world.” Perhaps more importantly, she was central in the quest to "make the gods beautiful" as we will see below. Thus, I humbly suggest, even before her deathbed repentance, Orual is much more of a positive character than a negative one.

For the next handful of posts on TWHF I will assume the reader is more or less familiar with the plot. If you're not, you can find summaries in all the usual places. Either way, our focus will be on Lewis' goal of writing TWHF as a retelling of the myth of Psyche and Cupid. I'll start in this post by trying to formulate my thoughts on why Lewis wanted to rewrite the story of Psyche and Cupid.  What spiritual insight could a Christian man like Lewis gain from this ancient myth? 

The overriding theme of TWHF is that of Love. In many ways, TWHF is straightforwardly the fairytale analogue of Lewis’ “The Four Loves.” The central character, Orual, Queen of Glome, interrupts and generally corrupts, each of the loves described in the latter work. She completely disrupts the Eros love between Psyche and the god of the West Wind. She is completely overbearing in her Friendship loves with Bardia and the Fox, and she is overpoweringly possessive in her affection for her half-sister Psyche. In fact, pointing to where and how Orual turns love into a demon or otherwise attempts to get in love’s way is relatively simple.

The harder part of TWHF is to figure out what else is going on. To do so, let's quickly review the myth of Cupid and Psyche. In the myth, the human Psyche betrays the trust of her husband, the god Cupid, and is left wretched and miserable. After much wandering and misery, she falls into the hands of Venus, who is jealous of Psyche's beauty. Psyche is given a series of almost impossible tasks ending with the task to bring to Venus (the goddess of love) the beauty of the Queen of the Dead. 

We expect TWHF to tell the same story yet modified in a way that has meaning for the religious persona. How can Lewis accomplish this goal? 

Clearly in only one way. Psyche’s tasks to bring beauty to the pagan goddess must result in transforming pagan gods and pagan worship into Christian trinitarianism and Christian worship. This makes sense for Lewis was a pretty big fan of paganism and viewed Christianity as a means of curing its ills. Thus, in Lewis' myth, the success of Psyche will result in Christianity growing out of paganism. Furthermore, the attainment of the true religion will redeem paganism, retroactively casting paganism not as a dark folly of man, but as a step towards Christianity. 

Why can paganism give birth to the true religion? Because (1) pagan belief proffers a morality that differentiates right from wrong, and (2) paganism decrees that deeds matter. While perhaps ugly when still in their pagan chaff, these are seeds that can grow into the true religion. Proof that this is the primary goal of TWHF, and that the true religion redeems paganism, is practically explicit in TWHF. The following observation is put in the mouth of the (dead) Fox, “The Divine Nature can change the past. Nothing is yet in its true form.”

With this in mind, we can outline of what we expect from TWHF. We should start in a pagan world, the characters in the story worship pagan gods. The worship is, even perhaps to them, horrifying and revolting. However, the characters and their worship can be redeemed, they can be made beautiful despite their present ugliness. The question is how and by whom? 

The plot of the story should then follow the myth: there must be romance between a pagan god and the beautiful human, Psyche. Psyche should betray the god due to the persuasion of a sister. Psyche should then be punished by the gods with the tasks of making the gods beautiful, meaning, setting the stage for Christianity.

There is, however, a problem inherent in this retelling. In the original myth Psyche’s punishment is her redemption and aims to make Venus, who is jealous of Psyche's beauty, beautiful. But there is no real gain to anyone else. In Lewis’ retelling of the myth quite a bit more is at stake. Should Psyche succeed in making the gods beautiful the true religion can be actualized. This will change the future for all of humanity forever, and also beautify the past. However, this opportunity arises only if Psyche betrays the god. Had she not, perhaps she simply would have remained the rest of her life as the wife of the god the true religion would not have been born.

This ultimate purpose justifies Psyche’s disloyalty and the actions of those who convince her to perpetrate her unfaithfulness. Is this possible? Could Psyche's reliance on Orual to doubt her husband truly have been the appropriate response?  Let’s consider this as we go on.