Christian Concepts in the Narnia Tales:

A Summary

CHAPTER EIGHT

"A man may well discover truth in what he wrote; for he was dealing all the time with things that came from thoughts beyond his own." -George MacDonald, "The Fantastic Imagination"

Many readers cannot help but notice how Aslan "reminds" them of Christ, or how the stories "teach" them certain religious values. In fact, a monk named Brother Stanislas wrote to the New York C. S. Lewis Society that he had read the Narnia tales three times in three years. "They have been for me about the most spiritual books I have read in my 16 years as a monk," he commented. But did Lewis intentionally include these theological elements in the stories? In Of Other Worlds Lewis wrote: "Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument; then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine." The Christian elements welled up more or less unconsciously into the narrative as Lewis wrote it.

What Lewis did see is how stories like the Narnia tales could "steal past" the inhibitions and traditional religious concepts we are often raised with in childhood: "Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. And obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons?"8 If a reader does not discover any religious parallel whatsoever, "Don't put one in," warns Lewis. The moral inherent in them should arise unconsciously from "whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life."

Although biblical principles are very much present in the Narnia series, they are certainly not allegory-characters and events in Narnia do not "represent" anything. If one tries to find such correspondences-for example, a comparison of Aslan's sacrifice with Christ's crucifixion-he will be disappointed. Instead, Lewis believed that a writer, as "creator" in a sense, "rearranges" elements God has already provided in his world and which already contain his meanings. George MacDonald, a writer who greatly influenced Lewis, explains this process in his essay on "The Fantastic Imagination":

One difference between God's work and man's is, that, while God's work cannot mean more than he meant, man's must mean more than he meant. For in everything that God has made, there is layer upon layer of ascending significance; also he expresses the same thought in higher and higher kinds of that thought: it is God's things, his embodied thoughts, which alone a man has to use, modified and adapted to his own purposes, for the expression of his thoughts; therefore he cannot help his words and figures falling into such combinations in the mind of another as he had himself not foreseen, so many are the thoughts allied to every other thought, so many are the relations involved in every figure, so many the facts in every symbol-9

Furthermore, Lewis believed that the world of the supernatural and spiritual was both an important element of good stories and a way to create believable and significant "other worlds." To him, the plot, which is really only a series of events in the story, is important merely as a "net" to catch something else. That something else is the "numinous," the sense of the spiritual, of God. Since spiritual truths are often profound and beyond our experience, our attempts to describe them must be constantly changed in order to avoid the narrowness of any one description. Lewis's books help us see these truths from totally new perspectives. Several terms might be used to describe his techniques. One, of course, is supposition: what if God were to appear in a different form in a different world? Seeing the aspects of a Lion-gentleness, majesty, awesomeness, terribleness-may help us learn to understand, know, and love Christ in a new way. Another way to describe this method is "transposition, " the restatement of ideas in new terms, just as piano music can be transposed and scored for other instruments.

Lewis also uses vivid illustrations that serve to make deep spiritual concepts concrete. A perfect example is Eustace's undragoning by the process of peeling away layer after layer of skin-a marvellous picture of salvation and spiritual regeneration. The gift of description, particularly of Aslan's country and the World's End, is an aspect unique to Lewis. What other author can so unfailingly depict for us what heaven and true joy and purity may be like? His imagery-the garden, tree, and stream, for example-is biblically rooted, yet used in a unique way to give us a totally new perception. All of these methods will be discussed later in this chapter.

As we discuss the various biblical concepts that Lewis's books echo, our effort will be to show how they may remind us of these ideas or help us understand, perhaps through a simple illustration, what the Bible means. In no way are the Narnia events exact biblical parallels. But perhaps through seeing Aslan, evil, and many Christian virtues in another world, we may relate them better to our own.

Creation In Genesis, God created the world by his Word: first, the heaven and earth- once a shapeless, chaotic void-then light, sky and water, dry land; grass, plants and trees; sun and moon; sea creatures and birds; wild animals and reptiles; and at last, man. Aslan also creates Narnia from an empty world- "Nothing." It is dark and cold, but there is cool, flat earthy substance underfoot. Then Aslan sings the world into creation: first the stars, planets and sun; then rivers, valleys, hills, rocks and water; grass and vegetation; trees; and finally, animals and insects. God's "Let there be's" are echoed by Aslan's "Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters." Fledge also echoes the Genesis chapters when Aslan asks him about his flying: "It is good . . . . It is very good."

Instead of creating man as the ruler of all living things, Aslan chooses two of each animal and touches their noses with his. This, of course, reminds us of Noah in Genesis 6:19 choosing two of each animal, who are to multiply and inhabit the world after the Flood. With Aslan's breath comes a flash like fire upon the chosen animals. This image seems to be used throughout the Narnia tales as a signal of the Holy Spirit, or of Aslan's empowering of his followers. His warning to them is like that which God makes to man: "Creatures, I give you yourselves .... I give to you forever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods, the fruits, the rivers. I give you the stars and I give you myself. The Dumb Beasts whom I have not chosen are yours also. Treat them gently and cherish them but do not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts. For out of them you were taken and into them you can return." Adam and Eve are told that all the earth is to be subdued under them. But in Genesis 3:19 after their Fall, God tells them that as they were made from the ground, to the ground they will return.

Although man himself is not created in Narnia, he plays an important role there. Just as he was on earth, man is directly responsible for the entrance of evil into the new world: " 'You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,' said Aslan. 'And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.' " When Digory succumbs to the temptation to know, he awakens the Witch. Appropriately, she enters Narnia before it is even five hours old by Digory's grabbing onto her heel. She kicks him with her heel and cuts him in the mouth. This is reminiscent of God's punishment of Satan and Eve: "He shall strike you on your head, while you will strike at his heel" (Gen. 3:15, TLB). Just as Adam and Eve are told that they must struggle to extract a living from the soil, Aslan asks King Frank if he can "use a spade and plough and raise food out of the earth." But man is also able to bring about the help Narnia needs: "Evil will come of that evil, but it is still a long way off, and I will see to it that the worst falls upon myself .... As Adam's race has done the harm, Adam's race shall help heal it." Is this not like Christ's cure for sin through be coming a man himself? "Death came into the world because of what man (Adam) did, and it is because of what this other man (Christ) has done that now there is the resurrection from the dead" (I Cor. 15:21, TLB). Only members of Adam's race can be Kings or Queens of Narnia; but they are entreated to rule the creatures kindly and fairly since all Narnians are free subjects.

The Tree and the Garden God planted the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. But because man disobeyed and ate of the second tree, God punished him, separating him from both trees (Gen. 2:17, 3:24). Some day, however, believers will be restored to partake of the Tree of Life (Rev. 22:2), because of Christ's sacrifice on a tree on a hill. Lewis uses these same ideas in Narnia. Digory goes to the Western Wilds where he finds a steep green hill. On top is a garden with a tree at its center. The apples of this tree cast a light of their own, and roosting in its branches is a bird, larger than an eagle,. with saffron breast, head crested with scarlet, and purple tail. Like Aslan himself, this garden is permeated with a warm, sweet, golden smell that brings tears to Digory's eyes. The hill itself is surrounded by a high wall of green turf and trees of blue and silver. Facing east-toward Aslan's country-are the golden gates.

Unlike Adam and Eve, Digory does not succumb to the temptation to eat the fruit. Instead, he takes the apple straight to Aslan. Since Digory has "hungered and thirsted and wept" for this fruit, he is permitted to sow the seed in Narnia himself by simply tossing it into soft soil.

This tree protects Narnia from the Witch for many years. It grows quickly, casting a light from its apples of silver and sending forth a breath-taking smell. Like the Tree in Eden, the fruit of this tree can bring joy, healing, and protection when used in the right way, but death and horror and despair when taken in selfish disobedience. For example, it is called the "Apple of Life" for Digory's mother because it is eaten in the right way and time, but gives an endless life of misery to the Witch because she plucked the apple in her own way, for herself. These same symbols reappear in the last moments of Narnia's story, as we shall see later.

Sacrifice and Resurrection The events of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe remind us in many ways of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection but in no way exactly parallel the account in the Bible. They do, however, give us a new understanding of atonement and rebirth in Christ.

With Aslan, Christmas comes for the first time in 100 years. The time between his first arrival in Narnia and the coming of spring is appropriately about 3 months-when Easter occurs. According to Narnian history, the EmperorOver-Sea sent a Deep Magic into the world from the "Dawn of Time." This Magic permits the Witch to kill every traitor, and unless she has blood, Narnia will perish in water and fire. This Law is written on (1) the Stone Table, (2) the Trunk of the World Ash Tree, and (3) the Emperor's sceptre and is similar to God's Old Testament Law which is written on the stone tablets, requiring death and the shedding of blood as the penalty for sin.

But further back in time is a Deeper Magic about which the Witch knows nothing. This Law states that when a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in the traitor's stead, the Stone Table will crack and Death will start working backwards. What a marvelously succinct expression of the New Testament message! According to New Testament "Law," the Law of Love, when Christ is sacrificed as the perfect substitute for man, the Old Testament Law is "cracked"--God's demand is met, paid for, and Death no longer has a hold on us: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord .... Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious ideal; yet now God declares us 'not guilty' of offending him, if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins. For God sent Christ Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to end all God's anger against us. He used Christ's blood and our faith as a means of saving us from his wrath" (Romans 6:23; 3:23-26, TLB).

Aslan is sacrificed only for Edmund, though; and this is different from the biblical idea of one individual's atonement for all mankind. Yet this brings down to earth the very personal sacrifice involved. Christ died, and would have died, even for one individual.

Just as Christ's disciples expected him to help them as their savior who would deliver them from earthly oppression then and there, so too the children talk happily of the future battle and of Aslan's leading them in deliverance from the Witch's forces. "You will be there yourself, Aslan," says Peter. But Aslan promises nothing. He is, in fact, strangely sad and deep in thought, for he knows he must pay the price for the Judas-like traitor, Edmund. Like Jesus' evening in the Garden of Gethsemane, Aslan's last night is expectant and troubled. Lucy and Susan, like Christ's faithful disciples, follow Aslan into the woods, but "his tail and head hung low and he walked slowly as if he were very, very tired." For perhaps the first time in our lives, we can visualize what it was like for Christ to know he would have to die: "Oh, children, children, children, why are you following me?" Aslan asks. He tells them to promise to stop when he bids them to, so he can go on alone. Until then, they "walk with him" and comfort him (and themselves) by burying their hands in his mane.

Then they watch him go on quietly and alone to confront the Witch and her band of horrible creatures. Just as Christ was, Aslan is mocked, kicked, hit, spit on, and jeered: "Puss, Puss! Poor Pussy." "How many mice have you caught to-day, Cat?" But even when muzzled Aslan looks beautiful and patient. Just as Christ could have called the angels to rescue him, so too Aslan could have broken out of his bonds if he had wanted to, Lucy observes.

Aslan is not sacrificed on a cross but on a Stone Table located on the middle of an open hilltop in the Great Woods. It is a slab of grey stone supported by other stones, with strange lines and figures inscribed on it. Stabbing him with a strange and evilly shaped stone knife, the Witch jeers, "You have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his." In Lewis's book Till We Have Faces he uses the stone as a symbol of an ancient, pagan religion. So he may be using the stone slab, with its strange writing, and the stone knife as symbols for God's law, which requires death as a penalty for sin. When the sacrifice is over, the Table is divided in two as was the veil in the Tabernacle after Christ's crucifixion.

Lucy and, Susan, who have looked away during the "hopeless and horrid" murder, later return sadly to the scene of dead calm. They remind us of the women who returned dejectedly on Easter morning to Christ's tomb. But very gradually, changes begin to happen. The sky slowly lightens; the mice nibble away at the cords which hold Aslan to the table. Then they see Aslan himself-resurrected- more full of life than ever: " 'It's more magic.' They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane . . . stood Aslan himself." Is he a ghost? The warm breath and rich, perfumy smell assure them he is not!

Salvation While Aslan's sacrifice may not exactly parallel the events of Christ's crucifixion, it does illustrate his personal sacrifice for Edmund's sin. After privately walking and talking with Aslan, Edmund is his real self for the first time in his life. Eustace's undragoning, though, is one of the most striking episodes in the Chronicles and a wonderful image of salvation and consequent penetration to the true self. Eustace Clarence Scrubb, the typical stuffed shirt snob, is turned appropriately into a dragon, in whose likeness, through loneliness, he learns about friendship.

But the real change-his undragoning-can only come from Aslan himself. First he feels Aslan commanding, "Follow me." Then Aslan takes him (from the description we assume he is taken to the mountains of his Country) to a garden with a well at the center. Next, the Lion tells him to undress: "So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana."

But as he starts going into the well to bathe, he looks down and sees "that it was all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before .... So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one." But the exact same thing happens, and he scratches off yet another layer. "You will have to let me undress you," says Aslan. When Aslan tears off the skin with his claws, it "hurt worse than anything I've ever felt;" but it feels good to have the ugly, dark, knobbly stuff gone. Aslan then tosses him into the stingingly cold, clear water, and the pain in his arm disappears. He also finds himself somehow dressed in new clothes. "The cure had begun." Everyone notices the change in Eustace's behavior after his undragoning.

This episode is a perfect illustration of what happens when Christ gets hold of a sinner and makes him a new creature. We ourselves are unable to peel away our layers of sin and selfishness; in fact, we find that such ugliness has penetrated to the very roots, the center of our lives. The experience of letting Christ do it for us may hurt, but he bathes us in the water of new life, and reclothes us as new creations. Our behavior cannot help but be changed: "When someone becomes a Christian he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same any more. A new life has begun!" (2 Corinthians 5:17, TLB). In another vivid example, Lewis uses the same biblical symbol of water to show the regenerating power of salvation. In John 4:13-14 (RSV), Jesus tells a woman, "Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Throughout the Bible, living water and the river of living water flowing from the throne of God are used to symbolically describe new life and the blessings flowing from the heart of the believer, which find their source in God (Revelation 22:1-2; John 7:37-39). In The Silver Chair, Jill is thirsty but afraid to approach a stream because a great Lion is standing on the other side: "I daren't come and drink," said Jill. "Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion. "Oh dear! said Jill, coming up another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then." "There is no other stream," said the Lion. So Jill kneels and drinks the coldest and most refreshing water she has ever had and it quenches her thirst at once.

Similarly, after Shasta meets and communes with Aslan on the mountain-side, he notices the deep, large footprint left in the grass. "But there was something more remarkable than the size about it. As he looked at it, water had already filled the bottom of it. Soon it was full to the brim, and then overflowing, and a little stream was running downhill, past him, over the grass." This little stream provides Shasta with the refreshment he needs. In The Last Battle, Tirian and his band of followers, while hiding near the Stable by a white rock, discover a trickle of water flowing down the rock face into a little pool. Just when they need it most in the heat of battle, they are provided with "the most delicious drink they had ever had in their lives, and while they were drinking they were perfectly happy and could not think of anything else." Appropriately, the way to Aslan's Country is across a river from all countries, and Aslan calls himself the great Bridge Builder. To arrive there, the children scale a Waterfall that leads them to the Golden Gates. In "The Weight of Glory," Lewis writes, "What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink from the fountain of joy."

The idea of spiritual refreshment also seems to be depicted by Aslan's Table which the children discover during their adventures on the Dawn Treader. Perhaps an image of the communion table, Aslan's Table is set by Aslan's bidding for those who come that far to the World's End. This sumptuous banquet is more magnificent than the children have ever seen. Like the manna God provided for the Israelites, the food is "eaten, and renewed, every day," for large white birds carry away all uneaten morsels. Ramandu is brought a small fruit, like a live coal, which is set on his tongue-a fireberry which takes his age away little by little. This episode is very reminiscent of Isaiah 6:6, in which a seraphim takes a coal from the altar and lays it in Isaiah's mouth, thus purging him of sin.

End Times and Final Judgment In Matthew 24, Jesus warns what events will signal his return and the end of the world: "Jesus told them, 'Don't let anyone fool you. For many will come claiming to be the Messiah, and will lead many astray. When you hear of wars beginning, this does not signal my return; these must come, but the end is not yet. The nations and kingdoms of the earth will rise against each other . . . you will be tortured and killed and hated all over the world because you are mine, and many of you shall fall back into sin and betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and lead many astray" (Matthew 24:4-11, TLB) .

How similar this account is to the changes Narnia undergoes in its final days. Shift's mock-Aslan is an almost ridiculous anti-Christ figure. There are false rumors about Aslan; talking animals are sold into slavery and hard labor; there are wars and betrayals. The centaur tells the children that the stars do not prophecy the coming of Aslan but rather the coming evil.

Then in Matthew 24:29-31(TLB), Jesus describes the end of the earth: "Immediately after the persecution of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give light, and the stars will seem to fall from the heavens, and the powers overshadowing the earth will be convulsed .... And I shall send forth my angels with the sound of a mighty trumpet blast, and they shall gather my chosen ones from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven."

The end of Narnia is much like this. Father Time blows his horn, producing each change in the landscape, just as Aslan's song had created it. First comes a downpouring of stars, leaving the sky empty. Aslan's acceptance into his Country of those animals truly faithful to him is like a final judgment scene: those who love him pass by him, to his right, into the Door. Those who hate and fear him cease to be Talking Animals, passing to his left and into his enormous and terrible Shadow. Giant Dragons and Lizards consume the vegetation, and a wall of water rises to cover the earth. The red and dying sun and moon burn to nothing, creating a steam that rises from the blood-red waters. Similarly, in Acts 2:19- 20 (RSV), Jesus prophesies, "I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood." At last, Time has ended; Eternity has begun.

Resurrection Life In The Silver Chair, we join the children in a wonderful glimpse of the afterlife in Aslan's Country, and the means by which one can truly experience it. During Caspian's funeral in Narnia, the children are taken to Aslan's Mountain to walk by that significant stream. Then, in a striking image of the saving power of Christ's blood and the thorns which pierced his brow to shed some of that blood, Eustace is told to drive a thorn into Aslan's paw. The blood splashes onto the dead Caspian and then the miraculous change begins as we see death truly working backward, fulfilling the Deeper Magic: "His white beard turned to grey, and from grey to yellow, and got shorter and vanished altogether; and his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped up and stood before them." Knowing he has died, they think he is a ghost, just as Lucy and Susan had thought Aslan a ghost when he appeared before him after his sacrifice. But "one can't be a ghost in one's own country." Caspian now has the freedom of no longer wanting or doing the wrong things, and of never being afraid. This is his real home now, and the children have been promised that they too will come here to stay one day.

Indeed, they do come home, leaving our world forever through a train accident. Alive in Aslan's Country, their end on earth is the beginning of an even greater and never ending Story. Everyone they have ever heard of or loved and thought dead is there-except Susan, of course. What will our resurrected bodies be like? Lewis suggests that we will look the same, only better, just as the lands the children see in Aslan's Country are the reality of which Narnia and England were incomplete reflections. The children and animals can run faster without getting hot or tired, and can even scale a waterfall! But they are not yet as happy as Aslan means for them to be!

The Stable, Door and Garden In his image of heaven, Lewis brings together several rich biblical symbols which tie all the books together. The children first enter Aslan's Country through a Stable Door: "In our world, too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world." In John 10:9, Jesus said, "I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture." The Stable seen from within and without are two different places. Through the door they see only darkness, the bonfire, and the disbelieving Dwarfs squatting just inside it. Inside is Aslan's Country.

It is interesting that Shift had first used this Stable for his false Aslan and later that Tash hides within it. Lewis may here be illustrating his belief that many Pagan and false religions in a sense "prefigure" Christianity, containing elements of truth, even pointing the way to the real God. A hill and garden appear not only just inside the Stable Door, but later, "further up and further in" in Aslan's country. This garden with golden gates and a delicious smell is also "far larger than it had seemed from outside." Here is the perfect garden, the image of which Digory had entered to obtain the apple, the garden (in the story about a cup, a sword, and a green hill) which Lucy had longed for in the Magician's Book. Whereas Digory had seen a bird sitting in the tree, larger than an eagle, with saffron breast, head crested with scarlet, and a purple tail, here we learn that it is a Phoenix. The Phoenix is a mythological bird said to be larger than an eagle with brilliant gold and reddish purple feathers. At the end of its 500 year life cycle, it is said to burn itself on a funeral pyre. Another Phoenix then rises from the ashes with renewed youth and beauty. This traditional symbol of rebirth and immortality is fitting for the conclusion-or shall we say, the real beginning-of the children's adventures.

Lewis uses the Door, not only here, but in several of his other writings, as a symbol for the reality we have always longed for and for which Lewis, as we have seen, longed all his life. We long to be "inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside . . . to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache." Some day, we shall join the children, Digory, Polly, Reepicheep, Puddleglum, and all the others and be permitted to "get in . . . pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects. And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life."