SIR,—May I say, with reference to Mrs. Williams-Ellis's review (July
8, page 52), that the Lion Asian in Professor C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia has most emphatically not the 'nature and functions' of an archangel, and for that reason has not been given the form of one? In these tales of the Absolutely Elsewhere, Asian is shown as creating the worlds (The Magician's NepheW), slain and risen again for the redemption of sin (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), incarnate as a Talking Beast among Talking Beasts (passim), and obedient to the laws he has made for his own creation (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, page 146). His august Archetype— higher than the angels and 'made a little lower' than they—lis thus readily identified as
the 'Lion of the Tribe of Judah' Apart from a certain disturbance of the natural hierarchies occasioned by the presence in the story of actual human beings, Professor Lewis's theology and pneumatology are as accurate and logical here as in his other writings.
To introduce the historical 'form' of the Incarnate into a work of pure fantasy would, for various reasons, be unsuitable. Whether, on the other hand, a Talking Beast should be credited with the power of song is a matter for the esthetics of Fairyland, where cats play the fiddle, horses have the gift of prophecy, and little pigs build houses and boil the pot for dinner. There would seem to be no very valid objection to it.—Yours faithfully,
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