Tolkien, Newman, and the elder race

So for various reasons I found myself reading John Henry Newman's Dream of Gerontius yesterday, and I was interested to discover these bits sung by the Angelicals (if you know the tune, hum along: it's "Praise to the Holiest in the Heights"):

PRAISE to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!

To us His elder race He gave
To battle and to win,
Without the chastisement of pain,
Without the soil of sin.

[snip loads]

The Angels, as beseemingly
To spirit-kind was given,
At once were tried and perfected,
And took their seats in heaven.

For them no twilight or eclipse;
No growth and no decay:
‘Twas hopeless, all-ingulfing night,
Or beatific day.

But to the younger race there rose
A hope upon its fall;
And slowly, surely, gracefully,
The morning dawned on all.

And ages, opening out, divide
The precious and the base,
And from the hard and sullen mass,
Mature the heirs of grace.

Tolkien worshipped at the Birmingham Oratory for several years in his youth, so it's perhaps not that surprising. But where did Newman get this idea of an "elder race" from? Aquinas? Dante? Wikipedia, alas, gives no clue. So over to you, my friends, your THORTS and NOLIJEZ welcome.

(Not so much the idea of the angelic hierarchy in itself, but that phrase, "elder race".)