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Dumbledores explanation that only one who wanted t o find the Stone find it, but not use it would be able to get it draws attention to Harrys truly virtuous conduct ( PS, p.323). The very same idea of obtaining powerful magical objects, but resisting their lure is taken up again in the final part.

Much of the existing religious criticism has been inspired by fundamentalist Evangelical movements that seek to condemn the books as the work of the devil rather than to acknowledge their inherent Christian morals.

Deathly Hallows Series Being Thinly

For example, in the polemical account of the influence of the occult on children, Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace behind the Magick (2001), Richard Abanes misquotes entire passages, which leads to misleading interpretations, such as the series being thinly veiled propaganda for Wicca and Satanism.

Other vehement critics of Harry Potter, who admit to not having read any of the novels, demand their ban from libraries on the grounds that they introduce children to occultism.

Theological critics in support of the series have emphasized the significance of Christian morals; however, the y have failed to recognize the Christian origin of the underlying systematic structure up on which the entire narrative arc has been built.

Prior to the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, N.C.

Baumgart claimed that the Harry Potter -novels contain no theology nor do the y tread theological paths.

This is the consensus in the according secondary literature 4 (Baumgart, 2006, p.96).

In deliberate opposition to these interpretations, however, I would like to argue that there is clear evidence of Christian morality throughout the seven volumes, which is easy to identif y because each instalment is crafted after the principle of the psychomachia.

The term psy chomachia translates directly as battle of the soul.

It originates from the Latin ballad Psychomachia, which was written by Prudentius, a monk who lived in fourth -century Spain.

The psychomachia became widely popular during the Middle Ages and influenced various morality plays, such as The Castle of Perseverance (ca.

Earl y Modern English play Ma sque of Virtues, thus contributing to the continued success of this dramatic genre (see Jones, 1983, p.249; Cutts, 1985, p.161).

The key ingredient in these plays, as in the original Psychomachia, is the fight between the allegorical warriors of virtues and vices.

Additionally, a commoner, usually by the name of Everyman, be comes the concrete vessel through which the warriors conduct their battle for human salvation or destruction.

Eventually, the vices destroy themselves in their grapple for his soul 6 because, unlike the virtues, they can neither support each other nor do they work together as one bod y.

By the twentieth century, the psychomachia has dropped out of ge neral popularity, but literary texts such as C.S.

Lewiss The Screwtape Letters (1942) and The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56) still depend on this genre for their narrative structures.

Although intertextual references to the psychomachia in Harry Potter have been acknowledged in previous criticism, scholars have so far neglected to discuss their importance for the narrative structures of Rowlings novels.

Suman Gupta, for example, regards the regularity of sequence as a mere means of both deferring information and illustrating character developments (see Gupta, 2003, p.94).

In like manner, the Austrian theologian Gottfried Bachl identifies individual virtues and vices in the Potter series, but he fails to relate their appearance to the premeditated framework of the psychomachia (2002, p.110, 112, 117).

The idea that Harry Potter is actually modelled on the psychomachia was first proposed by a contributor to the MUGGLENET i nternet editorials, writing under the pseudonym Lady Alchymia, in advance of the publication of Harry Potter and the Half- Blood Prince in 2005.

In The Battle for the Soul, she anal yses the first five novels according to their structure and the basic moral themes of each volume in an effort to predict the stories of the then two remaining unpublished instalments.

Lady Alchymias editorial d oes not form the basis of my further analysis, since her focus lies solel y on the prediction of themes in the still unpublished.

Both structures consist of the following stages: first, virtue and vice are presented as opponents; second, virtue is challenged by vice in an actual battle; third, virtue is triumphant over its corresponding vice.

This sequence is repeated seven times in order to deal with seven vices and their seven remedial virtues, respectively.

This way, what critics have perceived as the weak point in the narrative structure of the series can be understood as the decisive struc tural element that allows for reading the Potter series as a ps ychomachia.

Du e to the lack of critical commentary on Harry Potter in ge neral and on the psychomachia in particular, I have considered sources from diverse academic discourses so as to include the work of authors who either a re experts on the subject of the ps ychomachia as a particular literary genre, or have conduc ted research in the fields of ethics, politics, and theology.

Not only is t he character of Harr y Potter reminiscent of the psychomachian Everyman because of his nasty, common name as his aunt Petunia Dursley puts it ( PS, p.13), but Harry also performs like an average student during his first years at Hogwarts, struggling throu gh the same classes like everyone else, wishing not to be a complete failure ( PS, p.146-8).

Additionally, the whole novel series is based on the structure of the psychomachia.

In the end, humilit y cures pride because he recognizes that, despite his special status, he is merely a vessel and not the driving mechanism through which the battle between good and evil is fought, because it was Voldemort who chose Harry as his opponent, not the other way around ( OoP, p.925).

In Half-Blood Prince, diligence cures sloth.

Aquinas lists faith, hope and charity as the theological virtues, as established by Paul the Apostle (I Corinthians 13:13), and completes the list with the cardinal virtues, which are prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.

The portrayal of charity i n the Harry Potter series corresponds to Aquinass description of virtue.

He defines charity as a set of acts, such as love, joy, peace and mercy; in regard to friendship, Aquinas recalls Augustine when he claims that the demands of charity are most perfectly satisfie d by men uniting together in the bonds that the various ties of friendship require, so that the y may live tog ether in a useful and becoming amit y (Aquin as, 1921, p.154).

The set of vices opposing charit y encompasses hatred, envy, discord and war.

One of the prominent biblical references for the dichotom y of virtues and vices can be found in the Song of Solomon: For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the.

Furthermore, their opposition is repeated in an epistle by John the Apostle who writes that charity envieth not (I Corinthians 13:4).

In the first part of the Harry Potter serie s, Harry protects the Philosophers Stone from theft and thu s defeats greed, the material representation of envy, through the application of largesse, the m aterial branch of charity.

Dumbledores explanation that only one who wanted t o find the Stone find it, but not use it would be able to get it draws attention to Harrys truly virtuous conduct ( PS, p.323).

The very same idea of obtaining powerful magical objects, but resisting their lure is taken up again in the final part.

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