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[Melkor] had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Iluvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Iluvatar.

jaimez said:


To tap into the universal mythic is at the heart of LOTR's power, endurance and especially it cross cultural/religious appeal.

Jaimez

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The relationship between Melkor and Lucifer probably warrants its own thread. Melkor is more closely a match for Satan (the 'Adversary' ) than Lucifer.

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The joy that I take form Tolkien is that he has stripped away overt religious references and and left a core of moral decisions and lessons. Lesson's in devotion, love, sacrifice and perserverance which are common themes to all spritual lives and the exclusive preserve of no individual religion.

To tap into the universal mythic is at the heart of LOTR's power, endurance and especially it cross cultural/religious appeal.

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laureanna : Tolkien, though, had Melkor weave discord and evil into the very fabric of the world, before the Children arrived. But the Children (Elves and Men) were created from Iluvatar’s music only, and had no discord in them. Melkor then corrupted some of the elves, either completely (into orcs) and or partly (the various elves with F- names). By the time of the kin-slaying, it appears the discord of Middle Earth had permeated the Elven population. Men, though, were given “virtue to shape their life beyond the music of the Ainur, which is the fate to all things else.” This would indicate that for Middle Earth, Tolkien placed the “stain” of original sin in the earth (and thus in Elves), rather than in Men, and Men had the virtue to resist it (sometimes). So does anyone (elf, human, dwarf) have original sin in Middle Earth?

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To gain domination over Arda, Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the physical constituents of the Earth - hence all things that were born on Earth and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate spirits, were liable to be 'stained'.

'Myths Transformed', Text VII , Morgoth's Ring .

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'Matter' is not regarded as evil or opposed to 'Spirit'. Matter was wholly good in origin. It remained a 'creature of Eru' and still largely good, and indeed self-healing, when not interfered with: that is, when the latent evil intruded by Melkor was not deliberately roused and used by evil minds . Melkor had concentrated his attention on 'matter', because spirits could only be dominated completely by fear; and fear was most easily exerted through matter (especially in the case of the Incarnates, whom he most desired to subjugate). For example by fear that material things that were loved might be destroyed, or the fear (in Incarnates) that their bodies might be hurt. (Melkor also used and perverted for his purposes the 'fear of Eru', fully or vaguely understood. But this was more difficult and perilous and required more cunning. Lesser spirits might be lured by love or admiration of himself and his powers, and so led at last into a posture of rebellion against Eru. Their fear of Him might then be darkened, so that they adhered to Melkor, as a captain and protector, becoming at last too terrified to return to the allegiance of Eru, even after they had discovered Melkor and had begun to hate him.)

Note 10 , 'Author's Notes on the 'Commentary' on the Athrabeth .' Morgoth's Ring .

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As I say, the legendary Silmarillion is peculiar, and differs from all similar things that I know in not being anthropocentric. Its centre of view and interest is not Men but 'Elves'. Men came in inevitably : after all the author is a man, and if he has an audience they will be Men and Men must come in to our tales, as such, and not merely transfigured or partially represented as Elves, Dwarfs, Hobbits, etc. But they remain peripheral – late comers, and however growingly important, not principals.

In the cosmogony there is a fall : a fall of Angels we should say. Though quite different in form, of course, to that of Christian myth. These tales are 'new', they are not directly derived from other myths and legends, but they must inevitably contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or elements. After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear. There cannot be any 'story' without a fall – all stories are ultimately about the fall – at least not for human minds as we know them and have them.

So, proceeding, the Elves have a fall, before their 'history' can become storial. ( The first fall of Man , for reasons explained, nowhere appears – Men do not come on the stage until all that is long past, and there is only a rumour that for a while they fell under the domination of the Enemy and that some repented.) The main body of the tale, the Silmarillion proper, is about the fall of the most gifted kindred of the Elves , their exile from Valinor (a kind of Paradise, the home of the Gods) in the furthest West, their re-entry into Middle-earth, the land of their birth but long under the rule of the Enemy, and their strife with him, the power of Evil still visibly incarnate. It receives its name because the events are all threaded upon the fate and significance of the Silmarilli ('radiance of pure light') or Primeval Jewels. By the making of gems the sub-creative function of the Elves is chiefly symbolized, but the Silmarilli were more than just beautiful things as such.

[...]

But the chief artificer of the Elves (Fëanor) had imprisoned the Light of Valinor in the three supreme jewels, the Silmarilli, before the Trees were sullied or slain. This Light thus lived thereafter only in these gems. The fall of the Elves comes about through the possessive attitude of Fëanor and his seven sons to these gems . They are captured by the Enemy, set in his Iron Crown, and guarded in his impenetrable stronghold . The sons of Fëanor take a terrible and blasphemous oath of enmity and vengeance against all or any, even of the gods, who dares to claim any part or right in the Silmarilli. They pervert the greater part of their kindred , who rebel against the gods, and depart from paradise, and go to make hopeless war upon the Enemy.

Letter 131 , (1951).

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'A darkness lies behind us,' Bëor said; 'and we have turned our backs upon it, and we do not desire to return thither even in thought. Westwards our hearts have been turned, and we believe that there we shall find Light.'

But it was said afterwards among the Eldar that when Men awoke in Hildórien at the rising of the Sun the spies of Morgoth were watchful, and tidings were soon brought to him; and this seemed to him so great a matter that secretly under shadow he himself departed from Angband, and went forth into Middle-earth , leaving to Sauron the command of the War. Of his dealings with Men the Eldar indeed knew nothing, at that time, and learnt but little afterwards; but that a darkness lay upon the hearts of Men (as the shadow of the Kinslaying and the Doom of Mandos lay upon the Noldor) they perceived clearly even in the people of the Elf-friends whom they first knew .

'Of the Coming of Men into the West,' The Silmarillion .

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[...] Longer recensions of the Athrabeth , evidently edited under Númenórean influence, make her [Andreth] give, under pressure, a more precise answer. Some are very brief, some longer. All agree, however, in making the cause of disaster the acceptance by Men of Melkor as King (or King and God ). [...]

Note 9 , 'Author's Notes on the 'Commentary' on the Athrabeth .' Morgoth's Ring .

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[...] More strictly speaking, he [Finrod] would say that Melkor had not 'changed' Men, but 'seduced' them (to allegiance to himself) very early in their history, so that Eru had changed their 'fate' . For Melkor could seduce individual minds and wills, but he could not make this heritable, or alter (contrary to the will and design of Eru) the relation of a whole people to Time and Arda. But the power of Melkor over material things was plainly vast. The whole of Arda (and indeed probably many other parts of Eä) had been marred by him. Melkor was not just a local Evil on Earth, nor a Guardian Angel of Earth who had gone wrong: he was the Spirit of Evil, arising even before the making of Eä. His attempt to dominate the structure of Eä, and of Arda in particular, and alter the designs of Eru (which governed all the operations of the faithful Valar), had introduced evil, or a tendency to aberration from the design, into all the physical matter of Arda. It was for this reason, no doubt, that he had been totally successful with Men , but only partially so with Elves (who remained as a people 'unfallen' ). His power was wielded over matter, and through it. ( Author's Note 10 , [see above]) But by nature the fëar of Men were in much less strong control of their hröar than was the case with the Elves. Individual Elves might be seduced to a kind of minor 'Melkorism': desiring to be their own masters in Arda, and to have things their own way, leading in extreme cases to rebellion against the tutelage of the Valar; but not one had ever entered the service or allegiance of Melkor himself , nor ever denied the existence and absolute supremacy of Eru . Some dreadful things of this sort, Finrod guesses, Men must have done , as a whole ; but Andreth does not reveal what were Men's traditions on this point. ( Reference to Author's Note 9) [part reproduced above]

Finrod, however, sees now that, as things were, no created thing or being in Arda, or in all Eä, was powerful enough to counteract or heal Evil: that is to subdue Melkor (in his present person, reduced though that was) and the Evil that he had dissipated and sent out from himself into the very structure of the world.

Only Eru himself could do this. Therefore, since it was unthinkable that Eru would abandon the world to the ultimate triumph and domination of Melkor (which could mean its ruin and reduction to chaos), Eru Himself must at some time come to oppose Melkor. But Eru could not enter wholly into the world and its history, which is, however great, only a finite Drama. He must as Author always remain 'outside' the Drama, even though that Drama depends on His design and His will for its beginning and continuance, in every detail and moment. Finrod therefore thinks that He will, when He comes, have to be both 'outside' and inside; and so he glimpses the possibility of complexity or of distinctions in the nature of Eru, which nonetheless leaves Him 'The One'. ( Author's Note 11, p. 345 )

Since Finrod had already guessed that the redemptive function was originally specially assigned to Men, he probably proceeded to the expectation that 'the coming of Eru', if it took place, would be specially and primarily concerned with Men: that is to an imaginative guess or vision that Eru would come incarnated in human form. This, however, does not appear in the Athrabeth .

[Author's] Note 11

This is actually already glimpsed in the Ainulindalë , in which reference is made to the 'Flame Imperishable'. This appears to mean the Creative activity of Eru (in some sense distinct from or within Him), by which things could be given a 'real' and independent (though derivative and created) existence. The Flame Imperishable is sent out from Eru, to dwell in the heart of the world, and the world then Is, on the same plane as the Ainur, and they can enter into it. But this is not, of course, the same as the re-entry of Eru to defeat Melkor. It refers rather to the mystery of 'authorship', by which the author, while remaining 'outside' and independent of his work, also 'indwells' in it, on its derivative plane, below that of his own being, as the source and guarantee of its being.

'Commentary' to the Athrabeth ', Morgoth's Ring.

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laureanna : Melkor then corrupted some of the elves, [...] partly (the various elves with F- names).

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wilko185 : The "Marring" of Arda which was there from the start, is present in the Elves in some way. Premature death of elves is attributed to it, for example.

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Now the Eldar learned that, according to the lore of the Edain, Men believed that their hröar were not by right nature short-lived, but had been made so by the malice of Melkor. It was not clear to the Eldar whether Men meant: by the general marring of Arda (which they themselves held to be the cause of the waning of their own hröar ); or by some special malice against Men as Men that was achieved in the dark ages before the Edain and the Eldar met in Beleriand; or by both. But to the Eldar it seemed that, if the mortality of Men had come by special malice, the nature of Men had been grievously changed from the first design of Eru; and this was a matter of wonder and dread to them, for, if it were indeed so, then the power of Melkor must be (or have been in the beginning) far greater than even the Eldar had understood; whereas the original nature of Men must have been strange indeed and unlike that of any others of the dwellers in Arda.

'Introductory Text to the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth ,'
(typescript C ), Morgoth's Ring.