Garden of Eden: Take Two

In C.S. Lewis'  Perelandra, we find the planet Venus, or Perelandra as it is know outside our own world, in a state of unmarred, virginal paradise similar to the Garden of Eden. Venus is populated by two human beings, Tor and Tinidril, the King and Queen of this paradise where animals are friendly and obedient,  plants bear such abundant food that one need only reach out for it at any time to satiate hunger, and no words exist to describe things such as pain, evil, or death. As in our own paradise there was a seemingly arbitrary mandate to not eat the fruit of a certain tree, there was also a mandate in Venus that, though they might visit the fixed land during the day, the man and woman must return to their bounteous and caressing  floating islands to rest for the night. This command was not difficult for the man and woman to keep, because the fixed land was comparatively hard and rocky, and it was generally much more pleasant to be on the floating islands.

Cue the tempter. Again, he sought out the woman when she was alone to whittle down her strength and pit his faulty rhetoric against her naiveté. This time he came, not as a snake, but in the body of a possessed man from earth. Day and night he argued with the woman and sought to teach her the "superior" ways of thinking that had developed on Earth, a much older and wiser planet. The tempter argued that Maledil, the name for God in that world, was trying to teach her to be independent and free and to think for herself. Maledil had only given the command to not sleep on fixed land in order that she might break the command thereby becoming truly free as Maledil certainly wanted her to be. She could then teach her husband the same, and become like the progressive earthly women who were also typically smarter and more bold than earthly men, according to the tempter. The woman was hesitant and reluctant to believe what the tempter said and had many questions, but the tempter was clever; he met her objections with half-truths and conversed with her, day-in and day-out, until it seemed that the temper must eventually win by his sheer relentless pestering.

Fortunately for the woman, the possessed man was not the only earthly human who had been brought to Venus. Another man, by the name of Ransom, had also been spirited to this infant planet. He witnessed the arguments between the woman and the tempter. He would interject, sometimes successfully, and try to make the woman see that every other mandate from Maledil, such as to eat, or to sleep, or to teach the animals, was something that had a clear purpose and  came naturally, giving joy in its own right. This special command not to sleep on the fixed land seemed to have no such purpose, but instead was a chance to love and obey Maledil strictly for the sake of love and obedience, thereby giving a unique joy that comes from willingly submitting to the One Whom It Is Joy To Obey. Ransom's words seemed good and reasonable to the woman, yet the tempter always had some quick rebuttal for Ransom's position. At long last, Ransom realized that the tempter could not be allowed to continue to wear the woman down, and so with a pure and yet perfect and rightful hatred he provoked a death fight between himself and the tempter.  Ransom was ultimately victorious and Venus was spared from great evil.

Meanwhile the Tor, Venus' Adam, was allowed to watch from afar what was happening to his wife. He saw that if she listened to the tempter she would bring suffering to the world and would eventually die. He saw that he could follow her, whom he loved as himself, and join in her evil and share her fate to the end. Or he could repudiate her action and hope that perhaps by continuing to obey Maledil, perhaps there would be some way to save her also, but perhaps not. There was no way to know. He would have to choose. As his wife persistently resisted the tempter, Tor decided that, regardless of what she eventually did, he would not follow her if she chose wrongly. Though the one half of himself would be crippled and die, the other half of himself must stay healthy that he might love and nurse his wounded  bride, and provide a just rule over the rest of the planet rather than committing total suicide by condemning his whole self and his whole world to death.

Venus was spared our earthly fate. The woman resisted temptation long enough to be rescued by a friend, and the man chose not to follow his beloved partner and companion if she fell. Though this story is fictional, we have much to learn from it of the joy of obedience out of love, the value of friends, both earthly and heavenly, in combating the tempter, and of the incredible caliber of love shown by the man Tor, who knew that the best thing he could do for his beloved wife would be not to follow her into error, but to do right himself. If he also disobeyed, he could never love her so well or care for her as he ought, as he could if he remained obedient, hoping against hope to save her, somehow.

Image courtesy of: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/04/the-man-who-showed-us-perelandra-a-short-tribute-to-c-s-lewis/