Charles Williams: The Place of the Lion. Introduction

In a letter dated Feb. 26, 1936, to his close friend Arthur Greeves, C. S. Lewis writes:

I have just read what I think a really great book, “The Place of the Lion” by Charles Williams.  It is based on the Platonic theory of the other world in which the archetypes of all earthly qualities exist: and in the novel, owing to a bit of machinery which doesn’t matter, these archetypes start sucking our world back.  The lion of strength appears in the world & the strength starts going out of houses and things into him.  The archetypal butterfly (enormous) appears and all the butterflies of the world fly back into him.   But man continues and ought to be able to rule all these forces: and there is one man in the book who does, and the story ends with him as a second Adam ‘naming the beasts’ and establishing dominion over them.

It is not only a most exciting fantasy, but a deeply religious and (unobtrusively) a profoundly learned book.  The reading of it has been a good preparation for Lent as far as I am concerned: for it shows me (through the heroine) the special sin of abuse of intellect to which all my profession are liable, more clearly than I ever saw it before.  I have learned more than I ever knew yet about humility.  In fact, it has been a big experience.  Do get it, and don’t mind if you don’t understand everything the first time.  It deserves reading over and over again. It isn’t often now-a-days you get a Christian fantasy.

Lewis’s summary is a good introduction to a fascinating book.  His warning that it has difficult passages is well taken, as Williams’s sentences may at times appear to be overly packed with obscure significance, but his insights can be penetratingly true and very helpful.  

I intend to post commentaries on the following dates:

January 9: The Place of the Lion, Chapters 1- 3 

16:  Chapters 4 - 7.

23:  Chapters 8 - 10

30:  Chapters 11 - 14

February 6:  Chapters 15 - end

To read Charles Williams’s works is a mind-stretching experience.  It can be an exciting and life-changing one, but a person has to understand his basic convictions.  Williams’s primary conviction is that all life is sacramental, that is, there a sense in which something of God is present in all the phenomena of life. To see reality aright is to see that  there is no distinction between the natural and the supernatural, that they are one, that all phenomena are incarnations of supernatural reality. Williams was fond of quoting from one of the Church fathers: “This also is Thou; neither is this Thou.” This should be said about everything, both in nature an in one’s experiences.  Everything reveals God; but nothing is a substitute for Him. 

Combined with this is the principle  that love is the ultimate force and power in life; to learn to love, to learn to have all actions  motivated  by it, is its ultimate purpose.  The principle is most evident in lover’s attitudes; love between the sexes is ordained by God to be the central experience of life, and rightly received is a model of spiritual reality.  When a person beholds one’s beloved, what one sees is an aura of charm–an idealization or mythic reality which is quite beyond the actual flesh-and-blood person.  It is hint of Divine perfection.  This is combined with sexual desire, that is,  a desire for unity.      

Hence, this exaltation of the experience of love, its sublime beauty, and its desire to give oneself completely to the beloved in an experience of unity, is a paradigm of an individual’s relation to God.  This thinking is quite in line with the Scriptural description of the husband and wife relationship as being a basic metaphor for Christ’s relation to His Church, and God’s relation to his chosen people.     

Closely related to this is that of co-inherence; that is, that everything in life is closely inter-related and interdependent. It is true of all people and all societies.  Think of all the people that were involved in the construction of the building in which you are sitting: All those made the basic materials, those that drew the plans, those that did the construction, etc.  The same is true of the food you have eaten lately, and of the clothes you are wearing. 

  Williams insists that this interdependence should be especially true of the church.  He is fond of quoting Paul’s instructions to the Galatians, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (6:2).  The human body is in a sense a diagram of this interdependence.

    The activity of interdependence Williams calls the way of exchange, and he has an essay with that title.  He sometimes uses the term substitution and sees it as the very law of life.  The ultimate substitution is Christ’s life for ours.  

To resist these principles by being egotistical and selfish is to reap solitude and impotence, and ultimately to face the wrath of God.  Gladly to practice servitude–love in all its forms–is  to know joy and fulfillment here and hereafter.