# the valar being gods or angels of illuvatar



## John stefan (Oct 30, 2020)

are the valar and maiar gods that serve the one supreme god Eru Illuvatar or are they angels of illuvatar? also are morgoth and sauron also a type of fallen angels in the works of tolkien?


----------



## Erestor Arcamen (Oct 30, 2020)

Morgoth is a Valar, he just went his own way. Sauron is an Maiar which is a lower order of Valar, he followed Morgoth. Here's a description of the Valar, Maiar and the enemies as described in The Silmarillion:



> _*Of the Valar*_
> 
> The Great among these spirits the Elves name the Valar, the Powers of Arda, and Men have often called them gods. The Lords of the Valar are seven; and the Valier, the Queens of the Valar, are seven also. These were their names in the Elvish tongue as it was spoken in Valinor, though they have other names in the speech of the Elves in Middle-earth, and their names among Men are manifold. The names of the Lords in due order are: Manwë, Ulmo, Aulë, Oromë, Mandos, Lórien, and Tulkas; and the names of the Queens are: Varda, Yavanna, Nienna, Estë, Vairë, Vána, and Nessa. Melkor is counted no longer among the Valar, and his name is not spoken upon Earth.
> 
> ...


----------



## Aldarion (Nov 2, 2020)

John stefan said:


> are the valar and maiar gods that serve the one supreme god Eru Illuvatar or are they angels of illuvatar? also are morgoth and sauron also a type of fallen angels in the works of tolkien?



They are angels. Now, Valar are often _worshipped as_ gods, and "queens and kings" of Valar are intentionally similar to pagan dieties. But Tolkien was a Christian, and it is clear that Eru is not just "first among equals" as e.g. Zeus or Perun are, but rather a being of a completely different order.


----------



## Sulimo (Nov 2, 2020)

While Tolkien was a christian and his belief permeated his work, and there are easily several parallels to angels and demons in ainur and balrog. Does this indicatively mean that they are supposed to be angels. I am fairly rusty on my Tolkien facts, it's been a few years, so you guys may know something in the Letters or HOME I am not aware of, but I see it that Tolkien was building a mythology. What I do not know is where does the mythology end and his own worldview begin. This reminds me of verse from the book of Romans 1:19-20


> since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made...


Is this purely a mythos, or is there an intended degree of bastardizing divine truth. I do not know the answer to this question. However, because I am unaware of the answer to this I am unwilling to say that these beings are an equivalent of angels and demons. I believe that Tolkien as a devout catholic would believe that angels and demons are not myths and legends, but entities that actually exist. I have faced similar dilemmas on contemplating the ultimate fate of man in Middle Earth leaving Ea and joining Iluvatar. In this are several parallels to Christianity, but does this mean that it is constructed from Christian myth or belief? I am hesitant to say. This is fairly abstract and I hope I was clear and this made sense.


----------



## 1stvermont (Nov 2, 2020)

I believe it was an interview of Tolkien [avalibel online] in the 1960s where he said the Valar/Maiar are like saints and angels. I would also add the difference between Maiar and Valar is not as great as many make it out to be and some maiar became more powerful than the Valar. The categories were not as stiff as many imagine.


----------



## Alcuin (Nov 2, 2020)

Tolkien did _not_ replicate a “Christian” world in his mythos. 

In the long _Letter_ 131 to publisher Milton Waldman, Tolkien wrote,
​[T]he legendary _Silmarillion_ is peculiar… Its centre of view and interest is not Men but “Elves”…​​In the cosmogony there is a fall: a fall of Angels we should say. Though quite different in form, of course, to that of Christian myth. These tales are “new”, they are not directly derived from other myths and legends, but they must inevitably contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or elements…​​And later in _Letter_ 165, he wrote,
​[_The Lord of the Rings_] is not “about” anything but itself… The only criticism that annoyed me was one that it “contained no religion”… It is a monotheistic world of “natural theology”… I am in any case myself a Christian; but the 'Third Age' was not a Christian world.​​Tolkien’s view of “natural religion” seems to be heavily informed by that of Andrew Lang, whom Tolkien frequently references in his lecture and essay “On Fairy Stories” and who preceded him at Oxford University by a generation. 

“_Letter_ 212” (not an actual letter, but apparently an unsent draft of _Letter_ 211) says that
​[A] difference between this Myth [i.e., Tolkien’s mythos] and what may be perhaps called Christian mythology is this. In the latter [“Christian mythology”] the Fall of Man is subsequent to and a consequence … of the “Fall of the Angels”: a rebellion of created free-will at a higher level than Man… … Even the “good” Valar inhabiting the World could at least err; as the Great Valar did in their dealings with the Elves; or as the lesser of their kind (as the Istari or wizards) could in various ways become self-seeking.​​_Mythology_ in this sense is not the same as how we use the word today: We use the word _mythology_ to indicate, in part, that a story is a work of whole fiction or at least substantially fiction. Tolkien and CS Lewis used it in its older, traditional sense, to mean something akin to “the study of [or ‘body of’. ‘collection of’] (λογος, _-logos_) tales/narratives/stories (μʋθος, _mythos_)”. (The root of the word _myth_ is not known, but it might be related to _myo_, “to teach”, “to initiate into [cultic or religious] mysteries”.) _Mythology_ in its tradition sense was _not_ considered false; this connotation arose beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, when historians and the literati began to question the veracity of all the old tales handed down from the ancients. “Troy is a myth, therefore it never was,” they said: then Schliemann found Troy. “Jesus is a myth, there never was such a person,” they said; now no _reputable_ historian denies that he lived. Everything ever taken as _a priori_, as patently obvious, as basic to nature and especially to human nature, has come under “critical analysis” by people whose only real accomplishments in life are scoffing at the work of others, mocking the world, pretending to be knowledgable skeptics because that allows them to decieve themselves into believing they are intellectually superior to the _hoi-polio_ instead of the faux-intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals they truly are. “Critical analysis” in this sense means “criticizing without purpose and without ceasing to no particular end except ruin and destruction of the targeted precept.” 

But yes, the Ainur, Tolkien’s term that includes both the Valar (greater spiritual beings) and Maiar (lesser spiritual beings), are “angels”: Tolkien describes Gandalf as “an αγγελος” in _Letter_ 156:
​G[andalf] is not … a human being (Man or Hobbit). There are … no precise modern terms to say what he was. I w[oul]d venture to say that he was an _incarnate_ “angel” – strictly an α_γγελος_: that is, with the other _Istari_, wizards, “those who know”, an emissary from the Lords of the West, sent to Middle-earth, as the great crisis of Sauron loomed on the horizon. By “incarnate” I mean they were embodied in physical bodies capable of pain, and weariness, and of afflicting the spirit with physical fear, and of being “killed”, though supported by the angelic spirit they might endure long, and only show slowly the wearing of care and labour.​​


----------



## Sulimo (Nov 2, 2020)

That's interesting if its like saints and angels. Reminds me of Revelation 19:9-10 


> Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
> 
> 10 At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers and sisters who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For it is the Spirit of prophecy who bears testimony to Jesus.”



The divine divide between angel and saint may be smaller than we think as well. I need to think on this thanks for the response.


----------



## 1stvermont (Nov 2, 2020)

Sulimo said:


> *The divine divide between angel and saint may be smaller than we think as well*. I need to think on this thanks for the response.



I think a devout Catholic like Tolkien might very well agree. But it might be better to ask a Catholic.


----------



## Sulimo (Nov 2, 2020)

Alcuin, I did not see your response when I responded. That is very much in line with my perception, but I in particular appreciate you explaining the evolution of the term mythology, and the way in which Tolkien and Lewis use it. That makes me more comfortable applying the term to intermixing Christian, Nordic, and other culture's traditions. What I am curious about now is in regards to Gandalf being an angel. Based on the quote you used in Letter 156, Tolkien was providing an approximation to relate a concept, and not a direct correlation. It brings me back to my question about is this some bastardization of divine truth, or something wholly unique. 
I want to stress that I understand your point that his mythos is unique to itself. I am merely wondering about what degree of divine truth based on Tolkien's worldview is imbued into the mythos, what is his own creative approximation of lost cultural identity for Britain, and whether or not he believes that aspects of the divine could be incorporated in another culture's mythology.


----------



## Alcuin (Nov 3, 2020)

Sulimo said:


> What I am curious about now is in regards to Gandalf being an angel. Based on the quote you used in Letter 156, Tolkien was providing an approximation to relate a concept, and not a direct correlation.


I can only agree. English _angel_ from Latin _angelus_ from Greek _angelos_/_aggelos_/αγγελος, literally “messenger, envoy, one that announces”. It might be a loan-word from the Semitic _engirta_, “missive, letter; contract”, and Akkadian _eggarta_, “letter, document”. Its religious sense comes from the use of αγγελος in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew מלאר, _m’lakh_, “messenger”, human or divine.


Sulimo said:


> It brings me back to my question about is this some bastardization of divine truth, or something wholly unique. ... I am ... wondering about what degree of divine truth based on Tolkien's worldview is imbued into the mythos, what is his own creative approximation of lost cultural identity for Britain, and whether or not he believes that aspects of the divine could be incorporated in another culture's mythology.


I think Tolkien would be very circumspect about any “divine truth” to be found in his _mythos_. He would not, I believe, deny that it was there, nor that he eventually made it an intentionally Catholic work, as he wrote to his Jesuit friend Father Robert Murray in _Letter_ 142:
​_The Lord of the Rings_ is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like “religion” … in the imaginary world.​​The “grace” at meat to which Faramir introduces Frodo and Sam in “Window on the West” in _Two Towers_, along with the visit by Gandalf and Aragorn to the secluded hallow on Mindoluin above Minas Tirith where Aragorn finds a sapling of the White Tree, are the only exceptions that come immediately to mind that were published during Tolkien’s lifetime. After Tolkien’s demise in 1973, his son Christopher published information about the three annual public religious festivals of the Númenóreans atop the Meneltarma, alluding to them in _ Silmarillion_ in 1977, describing them more fully in _Unfinished Tales_ in 1980, and again mentioning them without much detail in _Letters of JRR Tolkien_ in 1981.

As for whether or not Tolkien “believes that aspects of the divine could be incorporated in another culture’s mythology,” I believe that is precisely the discussion Tolkien and CS Lewis had in 1929 along Addison’s Walk beside the River Cherwell at Magdalen College, Oxford, where the atheist Lewis became in his own words the “most reluctant convert in all of England.” (By the way, the River Cherwell is the model Tolkien used for the Withywindle of the Old Forest.)

And to whether Tolkien’s mythos rings true for many people is attested by The Tolkien Forum itself, where readers of Tolkien from around the world, and especially from those cultures across northern Europe from Iceland to the Urals, congregate to discuss these minutia.


----------



## Sulimo (Nov 3, 2020)

Great points all around Alcuin, and I am amazed by your knowledge on this subject. Thank you very much for your answers. Now I have much to ponder as I go to bed tonight.


----------

