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Re: Help on Saruman and Radagast question

Subject: Re: Help on Saruman and Radagast question
by Jlong on 2012/7/29 9:34:08

Entry for "Angels" in Tolkien Encyclopedia (written by Jared Lobdell):

In The Silmarillion, in Tolkien’s
description of the creation of the Ainur—the Valar
and Maiar before the beginning of time—we find
that the ‘‘Wisest of the Maiar was Olo´ rin,’’ a name
Gandalf said (S, 30, 279) was his ‘‘in his youth, in the
West that is forgotten.’’ In the chapter ‘‘The Istari’’ in
Unfinished Tales is a rough version of a narrative
describing the council of the Valar in which they
discuss sending emissaries (messengers ¼ [Gk] aggloi
¼ angels) to Middle-earth to help in the struggle
against Sauron: ‘‘Who would go? For they must be
mighty, peers of Sauron, but must forego might, and
clothe themselves in flesh so as to treat on equality
and win the trust of Elves and Men’’ (UT, 393). A
peer being someone of equal stature with another,
and Sauron being himself a Maia (‘‘in his beginning
he was of the Maiar of Aule¨’’ in The Silmarillion), the
Valar clearly intended to send other Maiar as their
emissaries (Istari). Tolkien wrote elsewhere that ‘‘we
must assume that they [the Istari] were all Maiar.’’