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Melkor also corrupts Sauron, one of the maiar. He is called the Lord of the Rings because he has forged the gemstone Rings of Power: nine for men and seven for dwarves. Far from being evil, these rings enable their owners to accomplish considerable good.

Treacherously, however, Sauron also forms the plain gold band of the Ruling Ring in order to control all the other rings. Into it he builds much of his own guile, and with it he purposes to dominate Middle-earth.

The power of the Ruling Ring is so fatally tempting that it usually overwhelms the wills of those who possess it, addicting them to its use.

A hobbit named Sméagol, for example, becomes so obsessed with the Ring that he breaks off relations with his fellow hobbits. He becomes "Gollum," living in self-absorbed solitude, talking only to himself, communing with none but his "Precious," as he calls the Ring. Gollum is himself possessed by Sauron's seductive instrument.

Evil, Tolkien reveals, is never freeing, always enslaving. To sin is not to set the will at liberty but to put it into captivity.

To do the Good, by contrast, is to enable the will, to enlarge its freedom. As in Romans 7, so in Tolkien's world: the imprisoning power of evil can be broken only by the transcendent power of Good.

In a pre-Christian epic such as The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien cannot have recourse to Israel and Christ and the church as the means of deliverance from evil, but he can and does create remarkable parables of divine redemption. The chief of these Gospel echoes concerns the surrender of coercive power by means of radical self-sacrifice, even death.

For reasons beyond his fathoming, a middle-aged hobbit named Frodo Baggins has been chosen to perform such a drastic act of self-surrender. He has been summoned to cast Sauron's Ring back into the Cracks of Mount Doom, the volcanic flames where it was originally forged. If the Ring is not destroyed, Middle-earth will fall under the Dark Lord's control, and all the Free Peoples of the world will be enslaved. Only with the destruction of the Ring can Sauron's power be broken and he himself consumed.

Frodo can succeed in his Quest—his vocation not to find a treasure but to be rid of one—only through companionship, not by solitary endeavor. Frodo's closest hobbit friends—Sam and Merry and Pippin—will not let him undertake his perilous journey alone. The four of them are joined by the wizard Gandalf, the elf Legolas, the dwarf Gimli, plus two men—the kingly Aragorn and the brave Boromir. Together, they become the Company of Nine Walkers, "set against the Nine Riders that are evil."

Frodo and his companions constitute a radical community of the Good, whose character often resembles a true church. They are not a company of mighty and outsized conquerors but a band of small and frail mortals.

As in the Gospel, however, their weakness becomes their strength. Elrond the elflord articulates this central truth: "Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."

Like the early Christians, the Company dwells in remarkable solidarity. When one of the Company suffers, they all suffer. When one enjoys a momentary triumph, they all rejoice. To restore their failing strength, they eat lembas, the airy elven-bread that possesses unmistakably eucharistic qualities.

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