Tolkien, Newman, and the elder race

[altariel]

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".)

Comments

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

I think I've read far too much Lovecraft to take these lyrics as the author intended.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Lovecraft.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

Lovecraft's Elder Race

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it's old theology that the angels were created first, or even came into being at the same time as God, depending on who you talk to. I think it's in Augustine.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hoped you'd have some thorts. Perfect icon.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Hang on, I will ask my facebook.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

The definitive answer from the religious historian:

The notion of the angels having been created before humanity was pretty common. I'd recommend that you have a look at Silano's translation of the Sentences for a more detailed "scholastic" angelology. Also, you might want to check the Glo...ssa Ordinaria on Genesis and the days of creation. IIRC it's going to be in Book 2.

So there you go. Looks like I was maybe wrong about the angels coming into existence at the same time as God, though - God is the 'first mover' and before everything.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Your FB friends/colleagues are the business. Many thanks from me. The bit about Aquinas being controversial was particularly fascinating.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I certainly agree with them about vampire fiction.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

"Then all the sons of God shouted for joy" is another 19th century hymn reference to the idea that the angels were created before mankind
I've always known of a tradition that there were "sons of God" created before mankind was created - and associated it with the nineteenth century, although it was presumably originally Jewish - e.g. the angels that ascendned and descended jacob's ladder
Wasn't it Aquinas who speculated about angels and pinheads
(I presume that this was about relationship to physical objects rather thna size?)

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Tolkien's friend C S Lewis who gave the name "eldila" to incorporate beings, and I've always wondered if he was thinking about "elder race"

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think Tolkien used to get a bit testy with Lewis for "borrowing" names etc. from his unpublished writing; "Numinor" is another one.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Really? That I didn't know - but have always known more about L than T

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

have just thought - perhaps the problem was that JRRT took so long to get into print - didn't he keep on and on revising? So perhaps CSL assumed that it would be obvious that he was borrowing?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think that could be the case. IIRC, Tolkien used to get a bit testy about how easily Lewis wrote and published too :-)

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Just remembered that odd referecne in Genesis to the sons of god falling in love with the children of men - in Genesis - which led to the Pauline reference to women covering their hair because of the angels.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I recognised the first verse, which was later on borrowed for a well-known hymn, but not the rest. Now I'm wondering if the hymn was also by Newman or if someone waited until his work was out of copyright and plagiarized it. Looking at it again, I think that the hymn may have "works" in the third line rather than "words", though.

(I was also going to suggest that the "elder race" were the angels, but I see that about half a dozen other people have beaten me to it. :)

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Not plagiareized - that's his too - which is why it was sung at the beatifiacation

[altariel.livejournal.com]

In the poem, there are five separate sections that start "Praise to the Holiest", and the hymn seems to use the lyrics of the fifth and last section.

I think there are several settings of the words (see here for one, and perhaps with more familiar words). The most famous setting of the whole poem is by Edward Elgar (see here).

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks for going to such trouble to satisfy my idle curiosity. :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I love looking things up ;-)

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

It made me think of that bit in C. S. Lewis (the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?) where they refer to Adam's first wife Lilith, and Jadis being of that line. But I can't remember if either Lilith or Jadis are referred to as an elder race, nor where the story of Lilith comes from.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Lilith in G B Shaw is Adam's first wife - but I don't know where he got her from

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It seems that Lilith comes from Assyrian myth, by way of Jewish tradition.