The Paths of the Dead: Aragorn and the Harrowing of Hell

An interesting moment occurs towards the midpoint of the final book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Having received Gondor’s call for aid against the approaching armies of Sauron, the host of Rohirrim are riding to relieve the siege. With them is Aragorn, son of Arathorn, the rightful kind of Gondor, who is returning to claim his throne. On the eve of battle; however, Aragorn leaves the camp of Rohan in order to “walk the Paths of the Dead” and recruit an army of souls to fight against Sauron.

I remember being rather startled when I read this part of The Return of the King, especially since my parents (I was fourteen at the time) had basically said, “You can’t read Harry Potter. Read Tolkien because he was a Catholic.” It seemed to me that Aragorn was engaging in some kind of necromancy by summoning an army of the dead to fight Sauron.

However, this scene actually deepens the Catholic theme of Tolkien’s masterpiece, rather than overturning it. Rather than writing a direct allegory like his friend C.S. Lewis did with The Chronicles of Narnia, Tolkien weaved his allegorical material like a tapestry, with one character representing more than one figure or multiple characters being representative of the same character or theme. For example, Smeagol represents Judas in his betrayal, but Denethor personifies the despair of Judas. Similarly, The Lord of the Rings presents three characters as Christ figures, with each one representing one of the of the aspects of His anointing. Frodo is the Priest, Gandalf is the Prophet and Aragorn is, of course, the King.

Aragorn’s eponymous return has obvious apocalyptic overtones, with the King who has been away from his throne so long, and appointed stewards to rule in his stead, finally returning to save his people from the overwhelming force of the Enemy that threatens to destroy them. However, especially paired with Frodo’s journey into Mordor and the destruction of the Ring on March 25 (traditional date of Our Lord’s Passion and Death), there are aspects to the first coming of Our Lord that are typified in Aragorn’s arrival as well. For example, in the book Aragorn does not enter the city of Minas Tirith immediately after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields but instead sends heralds throughout the surrounding areas announcing his coming and gathers forces for the last stand at the Black Gate. There is a certain triumphal entry quality to these actions. Aragorn’s journey on the Paths of the Dead and summoning the dead to fight for him against Sauron fits into this context as well.

The Apostles’ Creed states that “He descended into Hell.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains,

Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him (CCC 633)

In his first epistle, St. Peter writes that Our Lord, “went and preached to the spirits in prison.” (3:19). Generally, at least biblically speaking, prisons are temporary and a person is released once they have paid the just sentence for their infractions. Another name for the place to which Our Lord descended is Limbo, which has come to mean a “state of waiting.”

Despite this, medieval thought (by which Tolkien was heavily influenced) still saw Limbo/Sheol as part of the realm of Satan. Limbo is the first circle of Hell in Dante’s famous Inferno. Medieval legends developed and apocryphal stories were written to expound on the brief description of this event in Scripture, which came to be called the Harrowing of Hell. The name of the location of Rohan’s camp, from which Aragorn and his companions begin their journey on the Paths of the Dead, is Dunharrow.

In the book, Aragorn’s waking of the dead to fight is part of the prophecy of the return of the heir of Isildur, the king who cut the Ring from the hand of Sauron in the Second Age. When Eowyn tries to dissuade Aragorn from taking the Paths of the Dead, Aragorn tells her “I go on a path appointed.” (p.46) Aragorn also explains to Gimli the identity of the dead whom he will summon to fight against Sauron.

The oath they broke was to fight against Sauron, and they must fight if they are to fulfill it. For at Erech there stands yet a black stone that was brought, it was said, from Númenor by Isildur, and it was set upon a hill, and upon it the King of the Mountains swore allegiance to him in the beginning of the realm of Gondor. When Sauron returned and grew in might again, Isildur summoned the Men of the Mountains to fulfill their oath, and they would not: for they had worshipped Sauron in the Dark Years. (p.44)

Aragorn is not engaging in necromancy in order to raise an army of the dead to fight Sauron. As king of Gondor, he has the authority to lift the curse imposed by his ancestor Isildur. This would be similar to the difference between a priest asking questions of a demon in the course of an exorcism and a random civilian attempting to inquire of the same demon. Moreover, this lifting of the curse is actually part of his messianic mission of saving Gondor, as it has been prophesied.

Aragorn’s power comes from being the prophesied “Heir of Isildur,” a great though flawed king who is his ancestor. In the Gospels, Our Lord is referred as the “Son of Daivd,” who was also a flawed though nevertheless great king, of whom Our Lord is a descendant. All the human beings who had ever lived until the death of Our Lord had been held in the realm of the dead due to the curse imposed as a result the sin of Adam and Eve, and were thus not at rest. The important difference, of course, is that Aragorn announces to the dead that they have a chance to redeem themselves and gain their rest, while Our Lord announced to the “spirits in the prison” that He had redeemed them and they could now be at rest. This fits with Tolkien’s theme of not having perfect figures of Christ, in order to emphasize that these Christ figures are not actually Christ.

While the souls of the Old Testament saints have been released from Limbo and now enjoy the Beatific Vision, there are still “spirits in the prison.” These have died in the state of grace but have not been purged of either their attachment to sin or the temporal punishment due to their sins. Thus they must make expiation for these by suffering in Purgatory. During this month of November, the Church  reminds us of these “poor souls” and calls us to, in a way, walk the paths of the dead as we pray and gain indulgences for them. We, as members of the Church Militant, must remember our brothers and sisters in the Church Suffering, and pray for and gain graces for them as we continue our battle against the Enemy of all our souls.