The Ainur
The Ainur of Tolkien’s Legendarium were beings of spiritual nature who, actually, played the most important role in the forming of the World after Ilúvatar. But their understanding is rather ambiguous.
The Ainulindalë gives the first account of them already in its beginning lines: “There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar, and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad,” (Tolkien, 1992, p. 3). And in one of his letters Tolkien gives an exact explanation about what they were intended to be: “angelic powers, whose function is to exercise delegated authority in their spheres (of rule and government, not creation, making or re-making). They are ‘divine’, that is, were originally ‘outside’ and existed ‘before’ the making of the world. Their power and wisdom are derived from their Knowledge of the cosmogonical drama, which they perceived first as a drama (that is as in a fashion we perceive a story composed by some-one else), and later as a ‘reality’,” (Carpenter, 2006, p. 146)
From these excerpts it can be plainly seen that the Ainur were also created by Ilúvatar and that they accompanied him even before he decided to make the World. And Tolkien himself called them “the Holy Ones” by what he points out that they were saint or ‘divine’. This whole concept then very much resembles the Christian vision of angels. Although the Bible does not mention when the angels were created, they must had already existed before the events that are described in the Genesis. And doubtlessly they were created by God too and lived with Him in His house just like the Ainur lived in Ilúvatar’s house. Angels are saint, spiritual creatures; immortals with great wisdom who “do always behold the face of [the] Father which is in heaven,” (Matthew 18, 10). Similarly, Tolkien writes about his Ainur that they were “rational spirits or minds without incarnation, created before the physical world,” (Carpenter, 2006, p. 284). And they are immortal too, what, naturally, results from the fact that they are spirits.
The task of angels, apart from the celebration of God, is to be His messengers. They appear several times in the Bible when they have some important message to reveal to people. And since they do not have the human limitations, they can act in His name and mediate His will. Also, the Ainur mediate the will of Ilúvatar as a representative of God; or in Tolkien’s own words, they “exercise” his “delegated authority” in the World. However they do it in such a way that they are allowed to participate in the process of creation, what is a really extraordinary idea in comparison with the Christian doctrines about angels.
This conception contradicts what the Bible says, as it does not mention the angels playing any role within the creation; it states that God made everything absolutely on His own. On the contrary, the Ainur were directly asked by Ilúvatar to join the Great Music and supplement it with their ideas. “[A]nd they perceived that they themselves in the labour of their music had been busy with preparation of this dwelling [the World], and yet knew not that it had any purpose beyond its own beauty,” (Tolkien, 1992, p. 6). For the Secret Fire was burning in them as well and it presented Ilúvatar’s will through their pseudo-inventions (ibid., p. 3). This thesis is further confirmed by the author when he claims that “they interpreted according to their powers, and completed in detail, the Design propounded to them by the One,” (Carpenter, 2006, p. 284). Yet, several Church Fathers held an opinion, that God used his angels as instruments in creating the physical world, and even though this is not an official teaching of the Church, Tolkien might have been acquainted with it, thus intentionally making his Ainur directly involved in the creation.
Nevertheless, the role and perception of the Ainur changed rapidly after they entered the physical world. Because not only that they took part in the creation while it was still just a thought. They also had the privilege to help it become real. For Ilúvatar made the Earth Eä shapeless and uninhabitable and it was their task to work on it in order to give it such form as it had in the vision in the Great Music. This was the major purpose of their lives; therefore, some of them descended from the Outer Circles onto Eä. Firstly thereafter they had to take on a visible form. They could appear in various shapes, but they mostly preferred a human-like body, what would not be any big contradiction to the concept of angels, who similarly, often showed themselves in a human-like shape when they had to deal with people.
But the difference was in something else. The number of the Ainur who descended to Eä was fourteen; the Kings and Queens of the Earth. The Earth was consequently renamed to Arda, what means “the Realm” (Tolkien, 1992, p. 380) and signifies that it is now under their dominion. These fourteen Ainur are since then called Valar, “the Powers” (ibid., p. 427). And each of them had a special area of interest and power: Manwë rules the winds and sky, Ulmo governs the waters, Yavanna cares about plants, Tulkas is a fighter, Lórien is the lord of dreams, Nienna is the lady of grief, Mandos is the keeper of the death, Oromë is a friend of beasts and a hunter of demons, Vairë records the history, Estë has healing power, Aulë is interested in ground and metals, and Varda in stars. Such organisation reminds rather some chorus of pagan gods, like those from ancient Greek or Roman mythologies, than angels. Albeit, there do exist some Christian theories that claim that some angels may also be “specialized” and assigned only to a certain task, area or group of critters. This idea was supported by Saint John’s vision, which is described in the Book of Revelation, as he writes: “angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire,” (Revelation 14, 18).
However, according to how the Valar act and function and how they are later perceived in Arda, they are closer to the ancient gods. Only that the ancient Greek and Roman gods often seem to be quite egoistic, malicious, lascivious and cruel, these all being rather negative and very human qualities. Peter Kreeft explains, that the European pagan gods are usually half-good and half-bad and their superiority over humankind is not due to their goodness “but only in power – in fact, in three powers: power over nature by a supernatural or “magical” technology, power over ignorance (cleverness, farsight and foresight), and power over death (immortality)” (Kreeft, 2005, p. 179). On the other hand, Tolkien’s Valar do not manifest their superiority by force and display predominantly positive qualities, such as countenance, mercy, and kindness – more of the kind as we would expect the just yet strict gods to be. So possibly the Valar can be understood as an attempt to combine the Christian and pagan motives, giving the pagan gods a nicer and more humanistic face in the Christian image.
The Maiar
The Maiar are another kind of Ainur that are present in The Silmarillion. They are described as being lower, less mighty and with smaller power than the Valar. And they interact with people much more easily. If we assent that the Ainur represent angels and use the Christian hierarchy to classify them, then the Maiar could be related to the ordinary angels while the Ainur would feature some higher degree, probably archangels. This comparison may be acceptable, because archangels, like the Ainur in The Silmarillion, are better known to us since most of the angelic creatures that appear in the Bible are exactly of this kind. Contrary, the ordinary angels, to whom the guardian angels belong, are not much discussed there. But they are believed that they often help people in their everyday lives and take care of them. Similar it is with the Maiar, who do not play any significant role in The Silmarillion. However, they became more important in The Lord of the Rings where they appear in human bodies as the wizards. Tolkien says that they were sent to Middle-earth to help its peoples fight against the evil (Tolkien, 2000). So the mission of both the Maiar and guardian angels is to help the mortals.
Resources:
CARPENTER, H. (ed.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 2006, London: HarperCollins, 1981. 502 pp. ISBN 978-0-261-10265-1
KREEFT, P., The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings, 2005, Ignatius Press, 2005. 237 pp. ISBN 1-58617-025-2
TOLKIEN, J.R.R., The Silmarillion, 1992, London: HarperCollins, 1992. 480 pp. ISBN 978-0-261-10273-6
TOLKIEN, J.R.R., The Unfinished Tales, 2000, London: HarperCollins, 2000. 611 pp. ISBN 978-0-261-10215-6