Another understanding of man reflected back to us from Middle-earth is homo viator, the traveling man, the man on the journey of life, the man whose purpose is to get home by taking the adventure life throws at him. The archetypal homo viator in Western culture is perhaps Odysseus, but in Christian terms, the archetype is the medieval Everyman, who gets to heaven through his good works and the help of the Christian sacraments. For the Christian, every man is homo viator, whose sole purpose (and soul’s purpose) is to travel through the adventure of life with the goal of getting to heaven, his
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