A third reading of the Ninbad couplet

The fourth couplet of "With?" is:

Ninbad the Nailer -- there he stood

And did the only thing he could.

I wrote this with Martin Luther in mind -- the "nailer" who nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, and who famously said, "Here I stand. I can do no other."

In "Up against the wall" I proposed another reading, in which Ninbad the Nailer is Trent Reznor, whose band name -- Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated NIN -- is a link to both Ninbad and Nailer. Reznor was raised Lutheran, though oddly he is named after an ecumenical council of the anti-Lutheran Counter-Reformation. I saw hints of Luther in the lyrics to "Head Like a Hole":

Luther basically said to Pope Leo X, "I'd rather die than give you control," and the inveighing against "God Money" (not included in the mashup but prominent in the original) fits right in with the content of the 95 Theses against a church that was selling forgiveness in exchange for cold, hard cash. "God Money," together with the refrain "Bow down before the one you serve / You're going to get what you deserve," evokes the Sermon on the Mount: "No man can serve two masters . . . You cannot serve God and mammon," mammon being money.

Today I found a third reading.

This afternoon I was reflecting on the career of Mormon, the compiler of the Book of Mormon. He led the armies of the Nephites at a time of utter moral depravity, when rape, human sacrifice, and cannibalism were rife. In the context of this pervasive evil, the nature of the last straw which finally made him unwilling to lead so wicked a people is surprising:

And they did swear by the heavens, and also by the throne of God, that they would go up to battle against their enemies, and would cut them off from the face of the land. And it came to pass that I, Mormon, did utterly refuse from this time forth to be a commander and a leader of this people, because of their wickedness and abomination. . . . they had sworn by all that had been forbidden them by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Morm. 3:10-11, 14).

Really? That was the one thing too evil for Mormon to overlook? It made me think of James's similar vehemence on the subject:

But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath (James 5:12).

Really? "Above all things"? Today, listening to an audio recording of the Book of Mormon, I found a similar sentiment expressed in the Book of Ether:

And it came to pass that they all sware unto him, by the God of heaven, and also by the heavens, and also by the earth, and by their heads, that whoso should vary from the assistance which Akish desired should lose his head; and whoso should divulge whatsoever thing Akish made known unto them, the same should lose his life. . . . And it came to pass that they formed a secret combination, even as they of old; which combination is most abominable and wicked above all, in the sight of God (Ether 8:14, 18).

"Most abominable and wicked above all" -- not the murders and whoredoms committed by this secret oath-bound fraternity, but the fact that they had formed such a fraternity in the first place. Again the things they swore by are emphasized -- all that was forbidden by Jesus in the Sermon at Bountiful (3 Ne. 12:34-36, slightly different from the Sermon on the Mount list).

As a former member of the Great and Unabbreviable Church, and one who has been through the temple, I too have been part of a secret oath-bound fraternity. (We didn't swear by that particular list of forbidden things, but I'm not sure that technicality counts for much.) When I became an atheist in 2002, I renounced these oaths, considering myself no longer bound by promises, elicited under false pretenses, to what I had come to see as a non-existent Being. Since emerging from the mists of atheism, I am once again troubled by those oaths and have sometimes wondered if I am right to consider myself no longer bound by them. Not that keeping oaths already broken is an option anyway.

Today I read in Words of Them Which Have Slumbered of those who had made oaths to the Dark Lord, "under delusion and by self and Melkor deceived." Those "bound to Melkor in mind, heart, or by oath-everlasting, unbreaking" receive this message:

Do you today renounce your oaths?

Evil-taken, known to yourselves to whom made,

Or otherwise, Eru cares not --

For he promises in our work to bring about

Release from bonds evil-set to crookeding

Thy souls corrupt. If yea, then we

Shall attend to thy release, and the bond's

Unchaining, by breaking; If nay, then here

Thou remain, until summoned, by one

Whose voice thou knowest, neither denied

In the command's taking up, may you be; . . .

Some accepted this offer and were "relieved of chains." The others

who remained enchained -- as nails driven into a board, only to stand in witness, a testimony of the hammer's pounding them in -- stayed

Later we read of "orcs (as the 'nails' became)."

I think we have to see in this a deliberate allusion to the oaths of the temple, the "highest" of which are associated with the symbolism of the nail, and particularly with Isaiah's expression "a nail in a sure place" (Isa. 22:23).

The "nails" in Slumbered "remained . . . only to stand," considering themselves bound by their satanic oaths and therefore unfree.

Ninbad the Nailer -- there he stood

And did the only thing he could.

Even that phrase from Isaiah suggests that release from such oaths is possible, though, for the prophet goes on to say:

In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the Lord hath spoken it (Isa. 22:25).

The Tolkienian context of Slumbered made me think to look at Ninbad as Elvish. In Sindarin, nîn means "tear, weeping," and bâd means "road, way, path." Ninbad thus suggests the Via Dolorosa ("Sorrowful Way"), the path which Jesus walked, carrying his cross, to the site of his execution. In the temple, too, the "nail in a sure place" is identified with the nails used in the crucifixion. (It is widely believed, despite Reznor's denial, that the name Nine Inch Nails has a similar meaning.)

The nails were removed from Jesus' hands, but the wounds remained, even after the resurrection.

And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends (Zech. 13:6).