Ainu/Fea

[piosenniel]

Can someone explain if the concepts 'ainu' and 'fea' are related in any way.

If Ainur are the primordial spirits of creation, are the fear of the same substance, but lesser spirits?

[Birdland]

Pio, I always considered the Ainur to be the equivalent of the Order of Angels in the JudeoChristian doctrine. There are six orders of Angels ranging from the "Seraphim" to your garden variety "Angel" Angel.

But the one thing they would have in common, at least as far as my own belief system goes, is that Angels, (and by literary extension, the Ainur) have never had a physical body, and have never been "born" or "died." Even the "bodies" of the Atari are mere illusion - though a pretty good illusion - judging by what happened to Saruman's when he was slain in the Shire.

In contrast, a "fea" would be the equivalent to a "soul", which (again, my belief) is the energy which animates the earthly body of every mortal on earth. And that's as far as I'm gonna go on THAT particular topic. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[piosenniel]

Bird

What I'm wondering, then, is if the Ainur are pure Spirit, is the fea made of this same Spirit, or is it something totally different.

[Birdland]

Pio - Would you like to know how many Ainur can dance on the head of a pin? [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Eol]

I would place my bets on that fea and the ainur are made of the same stuff. Just as the Elves and Men are made of the stuff of the earth.

My question would to follow, if they are made of the same stuff, then could an ainu become a fea?

[ September 08, 2002: Message edited by: Eol ]

[piosenniel]

It was my thought that they were probably of the same substance - can anyone give any references to this?

[mark12_30]

(Feeling rather unqualified since she's only beginning to delve into HoME and she's forgotten almost all of her catholic mystical theology on this point (alas, the short-term memory is the first to go!)-- Helen takes a wild stab in the dark:

Well, evengelical thought would quote the scripture that references "spirit, soul and body", and would divide it thusly: Body, obvious. Soul= intellect, emotions, and will; has a lot to do with personality. (Sama and more, I guess.) And Spirit = that part of us that is made in the image of God. (Fea.)

My HoME-uneducated guess is that like Sama, all Fea is of the same stuff and varies in strength and purity and intensity and... you get the drift.

However, the Spirit/Soul/Body outlook is evangelical thought and I'm not certain of the catholic stance. I need rescue by those who remember their catholic doctrine, JOTC or Teresa of Avila (or even the Baltimore chatechism, the latin version of which Tolkien would probably have been heavily influenced by. But I forget it all.)

Gandalf the Grey! Bethberry! Or other catholic doctrine experts! Help!

--Helen

[Gandalf_theGrey]

At the kind request of mark12_30,

* bows * ... please permit me a couple of musings and quotes on the topic of angels and how their spiritual being relates to the spiritual souls of men.

To my mind, these definitions can certainly apply to piosenniel's question of how to relate the ainur to the fea, too! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Firstly, angels are spiritual beings who possess intellect and will. In humans, the soul's intellect and will is what animates/gives life to the physical body.

I differ a bit from Birdland in that I was taught there were nine choirs of angels:

Seraphim
Cherubim
Thrones
Dominions
Virtues
Powers
Principalities
Archangels
Angels

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather, their union forms a single nature.

page 93, CCC, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994

Also noteworthy:

Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people "wholly," with "spirit and soul and body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming. The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.

page 93-94, CCC, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Gandalf_theGrey ]

[Birdland]

Whoops! Dropped three angels, there. Throne, Dominion, and Principalities always sounded like places, not "things" to me anyway.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Pio--

I am not aware of anything in Tolkien which directly compares ainu and fea. But Gandalf the Grey's definitions seem to suggest that the whole issue of "intellect" bears some part in this discussion. Tolkien calls this component the "mind" or "sama." And the Osanwe-kenta essay does address this directly. Let me quote a few pertinent points. By the way, these are all taken from Pengolodh's discussion (some of which appear in Morgoth's Ring, but the bit on osanwe was in Vinyar Tengwar).

First, Pengolodh says "all minds (sama, pl. samar) are equal in status, though they differ in capacity." He then goes on to discuss at some length various attributes of the mind and will, and how these bear on the communication of thought.

All these things, says Pengolodh, are true of all minds, from the Ainur in the presence of Eru, or the great Valar such as Manwe and Melkor, to the Maiar in Ea, and down to the least of the Mirroanwi. But different states bring in limitations which are not fully controlled by the will.

"Mirroanwi", by the way, means "Incarnates", literally those put into flesh (hroa).

He continues:

The Valar entered into Ea and Time of free will, and they are now in Time, so long as it endures. They can perceive nothing outside Time, save by memory of their existence before it began: they can recall the Song and the Vision. They are, of course, oen to Eru, but they cannot of their own will "see" any part of His mind. They can open themselves to Eru in entreaty, and He may then reveal His thought to them (note 4)

The Incarnates have by the nature of sama the same faculties; but their perception is dimmed by the hroa, for their fea is united to their hroa and its normal procedure is through the hroa, which is in itself part of Ea, without thought.

The essay goes on to analyze specialized cases such as when a Valar assumes bodily raiment. There is lengthy discussion of this and other issues which affect a being in its ability to communicate mind-to-mind.

Leaving aside all such details, however (and there are many), I will simply say this. It seems to me that the whole concept of osanwe-kenta rests on a basic compatibility between the souls of the Ainur and those of Incarnates. The possibility of mind-to-mind communication assumes an ability to relate to each other that would not be possible unless both the Ainur and Incarnates were created in the image of Eru. And this fact, that we share the common image of Eru, represents, to me, the link between the Ainu and the fea, whether we express that in Tolkien's terms or in those of personal belief.

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[piosenniel]

I am working here sans any books from which to reference ('Morgoth's Ring' & the essay on Osanwe are in the mail, so I've heard!) - so bear with me.

Some further questions: The term 'mirroanwi', that applies to fear incarnate in hroas only, correct? And not the Ainur who 'take on bodily raiment?

Does incarnate mean any sort of embodiment? Or is it more specifically some sort of humaniform body - Elves, Men, Hobbits, Dwarves?

All these things, says Pengolodh, are true of all minds, from the Ainur in the presence of Eru, or the great Valar such as Manwe and Melkor, to the Maiar in Ea, and down to the least of the Mirroanwi.

Do animals such as eagles, for example, have a fea incarnate in their eagle form hroa? What about Ents?

Do the seemingly inanimate parts of Eru's creation participate in this scheme at all? Trees, rivers, rocks, etc? Or are they considered only 'part of Ea & without thought', and by extension I presume out side the realm of spirit/mind/fea?

[Bêthberry]

pio,

I hesitate to post this as I am not sure this kind of letter can stand beside some of the more extensive arguments elsewhere in Tolkien, but here is a letter which he wrote to the Daily Telegraph 29 June 1972. Tolkien writes to object to the phrase "Tolkien gloom" that had been used to describe deforested areas.

In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their enemies. Lothlorien is beautiful because there the trees were loved; elsewhere forests are represented as awakening to consciousness of themselves. The Old Forest was hostile to two legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries. Fangorn Forest was old and beautiful, but at the time of the story tense with hostility because it was threatened by a machine-loving enemy.

The bold is mine. How this relates to fea I cannot say.

I also must demur when Helen calls on me as a as a possible "Catholic doctrine expert". [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Although I am interested in the doctrine, I am not Catholic and so cannot speak with much authority. I've got lots of online links to it, though, which I would be happy to provide if I see something relevant. One of my past interests is how various Christian doctrines inform novels, and, conversely, how knowledge of doctrinal differences affects reading of those novels.

Bethberry

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[mark12_30]

Bethberry,

I see we stand on similar footing; I also love understanding the doctrines and their development from experience and scripture; although my emphasis tends to be on how it affects mysticism, there is so much in LOTR that I would call mysticism that it applies, in that roundabout way. It's the mystical novels, or the novels that seem mystical to me, that I reread.

I'm still pondering C7A's answer, Gandalf's answer, and the contrast between soul and spirit. I'd quote parts of 1 Corinthians 1 & 2 here, but... well... y'all can check it out if you feel so inclined.

--Helen

[Mister Underhill]

This quote from The Silmarillion suggests that Ents, and probably Eagles too, have fëar:

And Manwë said: 'O Kementári, Eru hath spoken, saying: "Do then any of the Valar suppose that I did not hear all the Song, even the least sound of the least voice? Behold! When the Children awake, then the thought of Yavanna will awake also, and it will summon spirits from afar, and they will go among the kelvar and the olvar, and some will dwell therein, and be held in reverence, and their just anger shall be feared. For a time: while the Firstborn are in their power, and while the Secondborn are young." But dost thou not now remember, Kementári, that thy thought sang not always alone? Did not thy thought and mine meet also, so that we took wing together like great birds that soar above the clouds? That also shall come to be by the heed of Ilúvatar, and before the Children awake there shall go forth with wings like the wind the Eagles of the Lords of the West.'

(Side note: *shock* -- Eagles, the Eldest "race"!)

Also, in Letter 131, Tolkien refers to the Ents as "rational creatures" which, in Tolkien vernacular, usually signifies a soul (putting aside the soul/spirit distinction).

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[Child of the 7th Age]

Pio ---

Does incarnate mean any sort of embodiment? Or is it more specifically some sort of humaniform body - Elves, Men, Hobbits, Dwarves?

Some further questions: The term 'mirroanwi', that applies to fear incarnate in hroas only, correct? And not the Ainur who 'take on bodily raiment?

Osanwe-kenta doesn't discuss this issue in relation to "non-human" beings. Moreover, the definition of "mirroanwi" is brief, and doesn't make any distinctions.

However, once your copy of the essay comes, Pio, take a look at note 5 on page 30 which goes on for paragraphs, discussing the use of hroar by the Valar. It goes into many details, but the point you may find most interesting is this:

Re the Valar who take on bodily rainment..... "Though in origin a "self arraying", it may tend to approach the state of "incarnation", especially with the lesser members of that order (the Maiar). 'It is said the longer and the more the same hroa is used, the greater is the bond of habit, and the less do the self-arrayed desire to leave it. As rainment may soon cease to be an adornment, and becomes (as is said in the tongues of both Elves and Men) a habit, a customary garb.....Pengolodh also cites the opinion that if a spirit (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a hroa for the furtherence of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the hroa The things that are most binding are those that in the Incarnate have to do with the life of the hroaitself....Most binding is begetting or conceiving.

You may also find this interesting. In note 7, Tolkien seems to equate the fea and the sama as well as the "heart":

enda. This we translate "heart", though it has no physical reference to any organ of the hroa It means "centre", and refers (though by inevitable physical allegory)to the fea or sama itself, distinct from the periphery (as it were) of its contacts with the hroa; self aware; endowed with the primeval wisdom of its making which made it sensitive to anything inimical in the least degree.

Hope this helps.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[Evenstar1]

I have LOVED reading this thread! Great topic, Piosenniel! Very interesting commentaries so far! Very well-put, Gandalf_theGrey, Bethberry, Child of the 7th Age, mark 12_30, Birdland and Mr. Underhill! (And now I will now add my own 2 cents [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Considering that Tolkien as a devout Catholic would have been very Thomistically-centered, I refreshed my memory of the Summa and confirmed my hunch that St. Thomas asserts that angels were made up entirely of soul:

There must be some incorporeal creatures. For what is principally intended by God in creatures is good, and this consists in assimilation to God Himself. And the perfect assimilation of an effect to a cause is accomplished when the effect imitates the cause according to that whereby the cause produces the effect; as heat makes heat. Now, God produces the creature by His intellect and will (14, 8; 19, 4 ). Hence the perfection of the universe requires that there should be intellectual creatures. Now intelligence cannot be the action of a body, nor of any corporeal faculty; for every body is limited to "here" and "now." Hence the perfection of the universe requires the existence of an incorporeal creature.

--Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part, question 50, article 1.

By this notion, the Ainur would be considered pure fea.

Secondly, as an idea as to how Tolkien would have perhaps conceptualized the existence of trees, eagles, dwarves, etc., I recalled something my father explained to me as a child: the notion that God holds each of us constantly in His consciousness. If He were ever to forget you, you would suddenly cease to exist. This thought is stated more permanently in Aquinas:

Corporeal forms, therefore, are caused, not as emanations from some immaterial form, but by matter being brought from potentiality into act by some composite agent. But since the composite agent, which is a body, is moved by a created spiritual substance, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 4,5), it follows further that even corporeal forms are derived from spiritual substances, not emanating from them, but as the term of their movement. And, further still, the species of the angelic intellect, which are, as it were, the seminal types of corporeal forms, must be referred to God as the first cause. But in the first production of corporeal creatures no transmutation from potentiality to act can have taken place, and accordingly, the corporeal forms that bodies had when first produced came immediately from God, whose bidding alone matter obeys, as its own proper cause. To signify this, Moses prefaces each work with the words, "God said, Let this thing be," or "that," to denote the formation of all things by the Word of God, from Whom, according to Augustine [Tract. i. in Joan. and Gen. ad lit. i. 4, is "all form and fitness and concord of parts."

--Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part, question 65, article 4.

I think the best understanding of this concept I've come across so far is the conversation between Eru and Aule, when Aule is about to destroy the Dwarves he's just created and Eru lovingly stops him, saying that he already holds them in his own consciousness, pointing out to Aule that the Dwarves were cowering in fear from Aule's impending death sentence upon them.

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Evenstar1 ]

[piosenniel]

A further question - if we assume that 'fea=spirit', then all the spirits summoned for the olvar and kelvar are of the same substance as the 'primordial' spirit of the ainu.

If so, then should a Half-elven be killed somehow, and the fea summoned to the Halls of Mandos - then when that fea is re-embodied, is the newly re-embodied person still only Half-elven? Or does 'Half-elven' refer only to the physicality, the genetics of the now dead body?

[Child of the 7th Age]

Oh, my. This IS an interesting question in view of our RPG. I have no idea off the top of my head. Let me think about it. sharon

[Mister Underhill]

Tracing the development of the prof's ideas on 'Elvish reincarnation' is a complex matter. HoME X and HoME XII hold most of the relevant writings. As a very preliminary answer, the latest ideas seem to indicate that the body, exactly as it was before, is simply restored or reconstituted:

HoME XII: "[The] last discussion of Elvish reincarnation refers [...] to the 'restoration' or 'reconstitution' of the former body by the Valar..."

So the "restored" Half-elven body would be more or less exactly as it was prior to death.

[Mister Underhill]

Thinking over this issue further, it occurred to me that there's another, more interesting question which precedes the issue of re-embodying, namely -- would a true Half-Elven who had died suddenly and unexpectedly (i.e., without having chosen which race with whose fate he will cast his lot), even be summoned to the Halls of Mandos in the first place? Or would he be required to make a snap decision on which Fate he wants?

I don't think there's any definitive answer to that question. You might speculate that the Valar would hardly send a houseless spirit packing off to the unknown fate of Man without giving him an ample chance to make his choice, and thus likely would rehouse the unfortunate fëa and return him to Middle-earth for further contemplation. Or you might say that the Valar would be able to "know the heart" of the "newly deceased" ( [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]) and send them in the appropriate direction.

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[Bêthberry]

I hear angels dancing on heads of pins. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[mark12_30]

Evenstar1:

Very intruguing! In terms of Eru holding things together in his mind I thought I'd add the evangelical side which compliments that nicely:

"In Him we live, and move, and have our being." Acts 17:something

"And he is before all things, and in him all things consist." Col 1:17
And:
"...upholding all things by the word of his power..." Heb. 1:3

Fascinating. Good point. Now I wonder: are even spirits/ fea considered as "Things"? Certainly matter is, and so all creation is held together by The One. But are all spirits also held together by The One?

Bethberry, I think they do the Foursome Reel. With lots of High Cuts and Backstepping and PaddyBarrs. And I think there's an angel playing the bagpipes. Loudly.

[piosenniel]

Mister Underhill

One last question, the offspring of a half-elven and mortal - would they always be mortal?

[Bêthberry]

LOL, Helen.I wonder if there's any pieces called 'Angel's Hornpipe.' [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
*ducks for cover for being off topic*

Bb

[Mister Underhill]

Well, I'm way out on a limb of speculation here already, so I may as well continue. I would guess that barring unusual circumstances, if a Half-Elven and a Man were to mate and have offspring, it would mean that the Half-Elven half of the dance would have already cast his/her lot with Man, and thus would produce Mannish children. That's off the cuff, without getting into arcane matters of lineage and quarters, eights, sixteenths, and so on of Elvish blood and heritage.