Un mot en passant sur le Libre arbitre et la Connaissance. Il me semble que la notion de péché originel consiste à user de celui-ci pour atteindre celle-là... donc de ne pas s'en remettre, en toute confiance, à la divinité.
C'est en ce sens que j'évoquais l'Innocence.
Le fruit défendu, dans lequel il ne faut pas mordre, serait le libre arbitre (le fruit de l'arbre de la Connaissance).
Il est là, à portée de main, mais il ne faut pas y toucher puisqu'il n'est d'aucune utilité à celui qui a totalement confiance dans son Dieu.
La première bouchée est la perte de l'Innocence et la possibilité de remettre en cause la loi divine.
Antique débat et paradoxe passionnant quand on s'interroge sur le projet d'un Dieu Créateur quel qu'il soit : pourquoi donner aux hommes le libre arbitre si c'est pour les condamner irrémédiablement s'ils en usent? Quant au terrifiant concept d'Interdit et de Tentation, c'est encore autre chose...:-l
Je me permets de citer quelques extraits de la Lettre n° 131 évoquée plus haut:
- "The Doom (or the Gift) of Men is mortality, freedom from the circles of the world. Since the point of view of the whole cycle is the Elvish, mortality is not explained mythically: it is a mystery of God of which no more is known than that 'what God has purposed for Men is hidden': a grief and an envy to the immortal Elves."
La mortalité n'est pas expliquée dans le Silm. qui est un point de vue elfe.
Mais on note que la mortalité est une 'libération'.
- "In the cosmogony there is a fall: a fall of Angels we should say. Though quite different in form, of course, to that of Christian myth. These tales are 'new', they are not directly derived from other myths and legends, but they must inevitably contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or elements. After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear. There cannot be any 'story' without a fall – all stories are ultimately about the fall – at least not for human minds as we know them and have them."
- à propos du Second Age et de la longévité des Númenóréens : "The Men of the Three Houses were rewarded for their valour and faithful alliance, by being allowed to dwell 'western-most of all mortals', in the great 'Atlantis' isle of Númenóre. The doom or gift of God, of mortality, the gods of course cannot abrogate, but the Númenóreans have a great span of life."
- "The Downfall is partly the result of an inner weakness in Men – consequent, if you will, upon the first Fall (unrecorded in these tales), repented but not finally healed. Reward on earth is more dangerous for men than punishment! The Fall is achieved by the cunning of Sauron in exploiting this weakness. Its central theme is (inevitably, I think, in a story of Men) a Ban, or Prohibition".
- "Their long life aids their achievements in an and wisdom, but breeds a possessive attitude to these things, and desire awakes for more time for their enjoyment. Foreseeing this in pan, the gods laid a Ban on the Númenóreans from the beginning: they must never sail to Eressëa, nor westward out of sight of their own land. In all other directions they could go as they would. They must not set foot on 'immortal' lands, and so become enamoured of an immortality (within the world), which was against their law, the special doom or gift of Ilúvatar (God), and which their nature could not in fact endure.
There are three phases in their fall from grace. First acquiescence, obedience that is free and willing, though without complete understanding. Then for long they obey unwillingly, murmuring more and more openly. Finally they rebel".
Silmo