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In chapter nine with the introduction of Ork and the priests, the five members present several different views of
religion.
Ork, The Eldest Priest
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Ork is the blind elder priest who believes he has met the “Great Destroyer,” who is actually Grendel.
At the beginning of their conversation, Ork presents himself as the one priest who has thought out all the mysteries, “‘I
know all mysteries,’ the priest says. ‘I am the only man who has thought them all out’” (130) and
presents himself as a theologian. In this is the fact that Ork has combined his reason with his faith in order to rationalize
his beliefs, an idea introduced by St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was a 13th century Italian philosopher who argued
that Aristotelian reason and Christianity could coincide without conflict.
Also, with the presentation of the King of Gods, Gardner
creates a bridge between polytheism and monotheism. He introduces a singular, all-powerful entity above the rest. This is
built on as Ork even refers to the King of Gods as “Him,” “He,” and even going as far as to calling
him “God.”
Ork references the dragon’s ideas in that everything ends, but he offers a different outcome. Instead of everything
not having meeting in the end, to ork everything maintains its purpose after it ends. Existence is utilized in the universe
and “nothing, nothing is lost” (133).
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The Other Priests
With the three different priests that come to Ork’s side, three different, yet common, views of religion are
presented. From the first sentence of each priest you can tell his stance on religion.
The first priest begins with, “It is written that the old shall keep to the comfort of their beds!”
(133) With this it becomes obvious that this priest is the type of person that always refers to the texts of religion. In
his next quote, “ ‘Worship is the work of priests. What the gods do is the business of the gods.’ You know
the text” (134), it becomes apparent that he adheres strictly to the text as he even quotes directly from one of his
religious books.
The second priest comes off a little less clear on his position as he only talks of Ork’s nightly wanderings,
“It’s a bad habit, beloved friend, this wandering about at night when monsters prowl” (133). But his next
quote, “Think what shape you’ll be in for you morning devotions,” (134) establishes his position as one
who is only concerned with maintaining one’s rituals, and later shows his concern with the visual of the church, “I
hate being up after midnight. It ruins me the whole next day. It makes me put my clothes on wrong, and scramble the service,
and eat incorrectly-“ (134). He believes they should all look good and go to prayer with actual faith sitting in the
backseat.
The third priest starts off very cynical of Ork,
“Senility. I’ve been telling you the old fool’s gone senile,” (133) and continues to discredit the
man’s meeting with the god. His only worry is the public appearance of the church as he says that Ork should proclaim
his ravings “in public, where it does us some good” (134) and their credibility with the public, “Lunatic
priests are bad business. They give people the willies. One man like him can turn us all to paupers” (134).
There is one last priest that shows a converted view, how one person can come to realize how the old religion
and Ork’s reason can coincide. He is the only one that actually believes Ork. First, he says that before listening to
Ork’s revelations he thought that Ork’s reason would isolate him and that religion could not work with rationalism.
He could only look to the past and rationalized in a “closed and ossified system” that could only “extrapolate
from the past” (135). But Ork’s new ideas open doors and allow more people to join for salvation.
Bibliography:
Murphy, Tom. The Grendex:
An index to John Gardner’s Grendel. 18 March 2005. 8 November 2006. http://www.brtom.org/gr/ork.html
Page done BYAH Raymond Dawson
On
November 8, 2006
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