It weds the divine and depraved, choice and election, fire and water (in the name), magic with muggle. Not to mention it’s practically the Holy Grail, and a symbol of sorts for the cup of the Eucharist. If we’re talking sacraments – natural or synthetic – I think the goblet takes the cup.

Thoughts?

What disappoints me, then, is that our eschatology – namely the return of Christ – is downplayed in the books. The redemption of all Creation, that has not yet regained the inherent sacramentality we’ve laid out here, is downplayed in the books. What we get is just a glimpse of a world without prejudices, of a golden world.

As for the New Jerusalem, we expect to have some sort of dance with the transcendent and immanent – the pure intimacy of Jesus. We will see with unveiled eyes and hearts, or as I like to say, the lap we will sit on will sit on a throne. The importance, being then, that God will be our light – and we will not need sun. God will be our bread – and we will not need food. This sort of sustenance, the wedding of the transcendent and immanent, left me wanting more in the books – a book eight – not for the sake of simply reading more (as most people are wont to say), but for the redemption of all that went wrong in 1-7.

So, having established the prior-ness (or as you say, the “here-ness”) of the wands, I’m curious as to wands earning their place with the hallows as a part of some magical trinity that beats death. Given, wands have a piece of transcendence within immanence (unicorn hair in holly, for instance), now what of wands earning a right on the hallows?

And I do mean “earn”, for the Elder Wand is a very powerful tool – albeit stolen and used for heinous crime. Harry could not beat death without any of the three, assuming the submission of the Elder to the other.

Put simply – the Hallows are the link to the HP eschatology. The not-yet of the HP eschatology is realized eventually through the Hallows, for the dept. of mystery’s veil shows life after death – but NOT the there-and-back-again of Harry’s journey. So, then, wands have a spot on the hallows, hallows are the key to the eschatology, how do they play in? Or do they still not?

All this, primarily, to get at the part wands played in the ‘table of nations’ in the great hall, and the epilogue – which is a glimpse at the should-have-been book eight.

[Disclaimer: Apologies for any instances of all caps below, I know it is annoying - but I don't know/remember how to do italics in this interface)

I agree with Lancelot that there is, in HP, no "not yet" or "next world" that is definitive of eschatology proper, but I also think there is a point to be made, or at least clarified (and possibly related to HP) regarding the original author's statement on the medieval Church's "over-realized eschatology" (IE I think he notes a real difference between medieval sacramental theology's eschatology and Protestant eschatology, the latter of which seems to me to bear more resemblance to Jewish eschatology, and I think the difference can have some intersection with Harry Potter ... although I would disagree with the author on the "over" part: I believe that with Christ, the second person of the eternal Trinity, entering space and time in a concrete historical place, time and body, the eternal, which is what the eschaton is for Christianity, has impacted the present historical world in a real and concrete way, which is at the core of sacramentality as such)

Basically, in 2nd Temple Judaism the primary example of eschatology is in the Apocalypses (major examples: 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra ... the issue of how properly "eschatological" the Biblical prophets are is a debated issue, which is the specific matter of one of my comp questions). There are primarily 2 strands within the apocalypses: temporal and spatial. The temporal strand is about the not yet: the need to believe that following Torah etc will yield blessing, given such circumstances as political/religious oppression making fulfillment of promised freedom seem unattainable in the current situation (such as the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD, see below), makes it necessary to envision a "next world" in which the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked punished, following some cosmic upheaval and final judgment. In the spatial strand, the visionary is led by some heavenly agent on a cosmic tour. (In my experience none of the apocalypses can be fit solely into one or the other category, and thus I use the term "strands", although often one or the other is the more dominant strand). In my understanding the spatial usually always serves the temporal (such as in 1 Enoch, Enoch is shown the places in the "earth" where the unrighteous will be put upon judgment). Thus I would say that the "next world" is the key defining characteristic for all eschatology (including Christian, but I will get to that in a moment). And I do not see a CONCRETE "next world" in HP (What is beyond the veil in the department of mysteries or what it would mean for Harry to go "on" from King's Cross station is never really addressed, so, as far I can tell we have no image in-text to wrk with to see if it is eschatological).

However, to my understanding, the distinction between Christian eschatology and Jewish is that in the Christian, because Christ (being the eternal second person) has entered history, the eschaton has entered history. In a sense, while the next world MUST remain a distinct world (in order to avoid something like a Marxist sort of "eschatology" in which the definitive finality is still a this world resolution of this world classes), that eschaton CAN breach our history (it did once and, in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox sacramental thought it does continually in the Eucharist, since the Christ present in the Eucharist is still the second person of the Trinity).

So, as I understand it, in Jewish Eschatology the "next world" remains SOLELY a next world, and in Christianity we see the next world as also breaking back into this one (as it did originally in Jesus Christ) - which is similar to the thinking of multi-valence when considering Advent. (Christ came into the world in history in Bethlehem, He comes into our daily lives and lives within us now, He will come again in a unique way at the "end of time".)

Now, I do think there is a concept that can be seen as present in HP, particularly as we are talking about wands here, and can be viewed as analogous to the eschatological - which is transcendence. What I was just speaking about as the eschaton breaking into historical materiality COULD be called a sort of "Immanent Transcendence" (I believe this was the term coined by the Catholic Theologian Karl Rahner, but I have not really studied Rahner much, have just heard that from somebody who read a little more of him, and Rahner is generally pretty dense stuff - the joke goes that Rahner's brother's job was to translate Rahner into German ... Rahner was German and wrote in German). While what I was saying about Jewish concept of the eschatological being strictly other worldly holds true, there are some instances in which this sort of transcendence becoming immanent can be glimpsed maybe in seed form. In 2 Baruch especially, the TRUE Temple is not either the first of the second Temple in Palestine. To preserve the idea of the uniqueness of the Temple even in the circumstances of such a drastic destruction as that by the Romans in 70 AD, the true Temple is said to be the one in the heavens with God. Those on earth are models built on that heavenly one, a model which was shown to likes of Adam, Moses, Solomon (and maybe Abraham - I'm rusty on that particular passage) ... thus the Temple is never truly destroyed. It's unclear how well the "participation" of the earthly instances with the heavenly model can be compared to the "realism" of Catholic and Orthodox sacramental theology (those concepts are dicey, as the language of "participation" is heavily drawn from and impacted by Platonist thought and there is debate on whether Plato himself was the same sort of dualist as middle-Platonism became) ... but all that just to say that, while I think such "immanent transcendence" is distinctly Christian, you can see seeds in some places in Jewish apocalyptic eschatology.

THE HARRY POTTER POINT (Finally)

In short, what I would propose is that the "transcendent" can be construed as ANALOGOUS to the eschatological (and in the case of that which is TRULY transcendent, not just transcendence as a concept, namely God, since he is eternal, transcendence and eschatological are one), and since the wand cores could be viewed as symbols of the transcendent (being as they come from magical creatures, something beyond the mere connection of the witch or wizard with a piece of natural wood), they could be said to be analogously eschatological.

As I said, I disagree with the original author (Dave? ... or at least what it seemed to me was the original author in the way that quote was presented) on whether medieval thinking OVER eschatologized, and I think it proper in its eschatology (which is my natural disposition as a Catholic and one of the reasons I converted from Protestantism) ... but, for these purposes here, that is, to the best of my understanding, what the debate is over medieval eschatologization (given my initial assumption that Protestant eschatological thinking is far more akin to Jewish than to medieval Catholic/Orthodox, and far more akin to Jewish eschatological thought than either Catholic or Orthodox thought are). ... As well as how I think it could relater to the question of wands in HP (I hope I didn't take too long of a way around and really apologize if I did)

ANOTHER RELATED CONSIDERATION FROM THAT PASSAGE:

As far as that scene in particular in Priori Incantatem (and stepping away from the question of the wand cores), while I have thought of the shades as a having the "communion of the saints" as their image SOURCE (they are the "dearly departed" who circle round the pair, whispering encouragement to Harry and derision to Voldy - apologies to John if I picked this up from his books and am failing to cite ... it has been a while since I read them - I think I came up with the communion of the saints myself, but we all know how tricky a thing memory can be), and that SOURCE, by its nature, has eschatological dimensions to it, I have never thought of them as "next worldly" either in their material nature on the page, nor their function literarily.

Materially they seem to be a sort of "psychic residue" imbibed by the killing wand (much the same as Harry's wand imbibed some of Voldy's wand/magic, "which is to say, that it contained a little of Voldemort himself" [DH 711]), and thus strictly “this worldly” (psychic residue imbibed from a person living, at the time of death, only in this world, not having passed beyond the veil). As far as how they function literarily I think they represent the “dearly departed” FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THIS WORLD.

I was put on to this from a material inconsistency noted by Red Hen – the notorious missing 14 feet (btw, I use this passage to introduce certain concepts of textual criticism in my Intro to OT course, in a handout I call “Harry Potter and the Handout of Text Criticism” … lots of fun, keeps undergrads from thinking your totally boring). I think Harry’s wand moves 14 ft because it is next to Cedric’s body, and Cedric’s body must eventually be outside of a circle of 30 or so death eaters, necessitating about 20 feet in diameter (the original 6 ft distance earlier is, I believe, due to her being making another point then, that we need to hear how coldly and quietly Voldy says “kill the spare” and because of 3rd person limited-omniscient narrative perspective – well noted thanks to John – Harry, along with his dropped wand, and thus Cedric’s body, must be only about 6 feet away, and I think she simply didn’t catch an inconsistency between the two schemes – in my thinking chronos [clock time - material detail a narrative is encased in] always breaks down under the weight of kairos [unique/special time - the inner meaning of the narrative]).

The reason the body must be outside the circle is that he represents the “dearly departed” and the death eaters will always exclude them, put them outside their circle (they even close up ranks to exclude their own fallen or captured from their ranks). When the duelers get transplanted to a plateau, the circle of the song-cage now reverses the situation: the death eaters are trapped outside while the shades of the departed reign inside.

But as regards the question of whether their function is eschatological, I think they remain simply shades, rather than even ghosts (the ghost, while sharing the “hereness” of the shades, maintains the personal center of the original person, whereas these shades do not), let alone an intrusion of a truly departed (moved on beyond this world, through the veil) spirit. The point is the relation the two (Harry and Voldy) have to them (in systematic theology/philosophy terms, if it is not too outlandish to apply these categories to a properly literary mode of discourse, they may be transcendental but are not transcendent as such)

But I think it still doesn’t hit the specific niche of “eschatology” – for the priori incantatum has a now and before, but where is the not-yet?

“One of the more important things the Reformation accomplished, which is resented by docents across Europe and Britain as well as by Anglo-Catholics and Romanists everywhere, was the de-sacralization of the world. By “sacralize” I mean to “enchant” the world, to make creation per se more than it is, to make the world sacramental and to endow it with power to communicate divinity to us….The medieval church made the world a magical place by endowing it with power, either by nature or by divine fiat. In short, the medieval church tended to an over-realized eschatology.”

I believe that was the quote on David’s blog. I’m curious as to your thoughts on a couple of things, John.

First, I come from a thick protestant tradition, but do not claim all of the baggage. For instance, growing up with harry potter (even in age – 12 years old when he was 12 and so forth) has shown me one thing about my generation: we are inherently sacramental. We resonate with the Psalms in ways that our elders don’t – or at least don’t care to as much as other things, which is great for them. Yet I continually notice how many of my protestant friends (less catholic than myself) will still recognize these intersections where divinity collides with depravity – shown most readily in the name of the Switchfoot album title “beautiful collision.” So, being born in the late 80′s, grants me the grace of being inherently sacramental.

What I’m curious about, then, is not so much the seven sacraments, but the inherent sacramentality of a now-but-not-yet kingdom. The eschatology, in my estimate, of the Harry Potter series is seen most readily in wand lore where the wand picks the wizard, even though the wizard (much like David’s mention of the priests) speaks the incantation. Yet even this doesn’t get at the core of wand lore, simply because the Elder Wand and the twin cores point to some intersections that trump incantations. In other words, do incantations become more of a faithful speaking – much like the priests – syncing us up to what is already going on at the core? Do the cores have this deep sacramentality and intersection of the divine and depraved? Are they a beautiful collision?

or more concisely:

How is eschatology related to wand lore?

As a Catholic I would like to point out that Catholics do not believe the mass is either “magic” nor a matter of “legalism.” The Mass is a “participation of men” in union with God – that is, after all, the meaning of the word “liturgy” – “work of the people”. The authoritative teaching of Catholicism is easily found for anyone on the internet by Googling the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I’m actually not sure if MacDonald ever officially became Anglican. He was too liberal for the Congregationalists, which is why he was forced to give up his pulpit, right? And I know he was influenced by his friendship with F.D. Maurice, a rather prominent Anglican (I’m guessing the influence went both ways). I guess we could say he had at least one foot in the Anglican camp!

My apologies for any slight given to the Anglican tradition, which, as you correctly note, has given us most of the Inkling writers and, correct me if I’m wrong here, five of ‘The Seven,’ Chesterton and Tolkien being the only exceptions (oops, MacDonald wasn’t Anglican, was he?).