How does Aluin fit into the Ainur hierarchy?

[Sangahyando]

Aluin, Danuin, Ranuin and Fanuin: BolT: Part One.

Nay, it is but the Music of the Ainur:for behold, who are we, Danuin, Ranuin and Fanuin, Day and Month and Year, but the Children of Aluin, of Time, who is the oldest of the Ainur, who is beyond and subject to Illuvatar; and thence came we and thither do we go now.

-Book of Lost Tales - Volume I

How can Aluin possibly be Time when he is subject to Illuvatar? Because time must have past when Illuvatar was alone. And all the Ainur were created at once so even by counting time on Arda it would not change anything since Aluin is in the Timeless Halls. Please help me????!!!!

Sangahyando, great-grandson of Castamir the Usurper

 

[YayGollum]

I always liked that bit. Random extra Ainur types showing up and expertly showing off how cool they are, not caring about how cool the Valar types think that they are.

Anyways, why must time have past while the Eru dude was alone? From what you write, it seems to me to be that you have no large problem with entertaining the idea that time can only exist in the Arda area. When the Eru dude comes up with the idea of using time in the Arda area, this Aluin character poofs into being. He is the idea of time, personified, not time itself.

Also, is it actually specified that all of the Ainur types were imagined into being at the exact same time? I don't remember seeing that, but maybe I am just crazy. I have no large problem with the idea of the Eru dude sitting for a while, coming up with individual Ainur types over a period of many Ages.

 

[Lhunithiliel]

One of my favourite tales, too!

Anyway, on the issue of Time and subjection to it even on part of the Ainur, Christopher Tolkien writes:

In the present tale the works of Danuin, Ranuin, and Fanuin are said to be the cause of 'the subjection of all things within the world to time and change'.
But the very notion of a history, a consecutive story, self-evidently implies time and change; how then can Valinor be said only now to come under the necessity of change, with the ordering of the motions of the Sun and Moon, when it has- undergone vast changes in the course of the story of the Lost Tales? Moreover the Gods now know 'that hereafter even they should in counted time be subject to slow eld and their bright days to waning'. But the very statement (for instance) that Ómar-Amillo was 'the youngest of the great Valar' who entered the world (p. 67) is an assertion that the other Valar, older than he, were 'subject to eld'. 'Age' has of course for mortal beings two aspects, which draw always closer. time passes, and the body decays. But of the 'natural' immortality of the Eldar it is said (p. 57): 'nor doth eld subdue their strength, unless it may be in ten thousand centuries'. Thus they 'age' (so Gilfanon is 'the most aged that now dwelt in.the isle' and
is 'one of the oldest of the fairies', p. 195), but they do not 'age' (do not become enfeebled). Why then do the Gods know that 'hereafter' they will be 'subject to slow eld' --which can only mean ageing in the latter sense? It may well be that there is a deeper thought here than I can fathom; but certainly I cannot explain it.

("Commentary on The Hiding of Valinor" - BoLT - I)

 

[Sangahyando]

Gollum and Lhun, my point I am trying to make is that even if Aluin is the personification of Time, since he was time how could he actually function in the Timeless Halls?

Gollum, when you say "When the Eru dude comes up with the idea of using time in the Arda area, this Aluin character poofs into being," this isn't possible as Aluin must have existed or else Eonwe and the son of Tulkas, I think must have aged from children to adults in Valarian stature. Danuin, Ranuin and Fanuin may have just "poofed" into being as because of the Sun and Moon.

Sangahyando, great-grandson of Castamir the Usurper

 

[YayGollum]

Ah, excuse me, Sangahyando person, but the name that I go by in this place is YayGollum, not Gollum, who was a superly cool character thought up by some crazy writer dude. I am expressing my interest and enthusiasm for the coolness of one of the coolest characters of all time, not trying to equate myself to him. That would be crazy and disrespectful of me.

Anyways, I would not write that the Aluin dude was time itself. just the Ainur dude in charge of coming up with all of the ideas for it. Lots of Ainur type things came up with lots of ideas to use in the Arda place, but I see nothing that tells me that the particular Ainur types who came up with particular ideas had to be present in the Arda bubble to make their particular ideas work. Did not everything that the Ainur dudes thought up poof into being before they even jumped into the Arda bubble?

Also, what was your question about what I wrote before? What about the Eonwe and some son of Tulkas characters makes it impossible for this guy to have been poofed into being before any other Ainur thing?

 

[Lhunithiliel]

Gollum and Lhun, my point I am trying to make is that even if Aluin is the personification of Time, since he was time how could he actually function in the Timeless Halls?

Gollum, when you say "When the Eru dude comes up with the idea of using time in the Arda area, this Aluin character poofs into being," this isn't possible as Aluin must have existed or else Eonwe and the son of Tulkas, I think must have aged from children to adults in Valarian stature. Danuin, Ranuin and Fanuin may have just "poofed" into being as because of the Sun and Moon.

As Christopher Tolkien writes:

"It may well be that there is a deeper thought here than I can fathom; but certainly I cannot explain it."

I am sorry! I know that perhaps this is not a satisfactory answer, but still, you shall probably have in mind that the BoLT contains the early vision of Master T. of the mythlogical world he wished to create. And while working on this initial version of his mythology, he changed it substantially and essentially.... I'd say, so much did he in fact change it, that from a heathen-type mythology, it ended up being strongly Christianity-type mythology.

 

[Sangahyando]

You are obviously right, Lhunithiel and may I just continue speaking to YayGollum.

YayGollum, what I meant was that, Eonwe was the son of Manwe Sulimo, so if Aluin did not exist, Time did not exist, how could Eonwe have grown into a 'man' or change from childhood?

Sangahyando, great-grandson of Castamir the Usurper

 

[Walter]

Aluin and its rejected predecessor Lúmin are given in the appendix as related to GL lûm 'time', luin 'gone, past', lu 'occasion, time', lûtha 'pass (of time), come to pass'.

It might thus well be, that Tolkien with Aluin attempted an allusion to Kronos, who in later readings often is considered as Chronos, 'time'. A further speculation would be, that he abandoned the idea when he eventually realized, that the name Kronos means (or is related to) - as Graves maintains - rather 'Crow' than 'time'....

Kronos too was at first "beyond" and later "subject to" Zeus, the Hellenistic all-father ....

 

[Mith]

Kronos too was at first "beyond" and later "subject to" Zeus, the Hellenistic all-father ....

It's just a bit different: Kronos is the father of Zeus, and he is beyond as he lived before Zeus. Whereas, as I've read, Ilùvatar wasn't born after Aluin...

 

[Walter]

It's just a bit different: Kronos is the father of Zeus, and he is beyond as he lived before Zeus. Whereas, as I've read, Ilùvatar wasn't born after Aluin...

That wasn't quite what I meant. Kronos and the race of the Titans represent an older - pre-hellenistic and pre-olympian "generation" of myths and Kronos was at that time the highest divinity. Comparable and probably related to the first generation of offsprings of Tiamat in the Mesopotamian mythology...

 

[YayGollum]

Ah. Got it, Sangahyando person. I see no reason to not believe my crazy idea that any Ainur type thing can change his form to suit his personality. Is that not what was written about how they took physical forms? In my brain, time and biologically growing up had nothing to do with any Ainur type thing deciding to change his form a bit to better match what his spirit is like. Looks like the Eonwe character gained a bit of experience, so his physical form got to look a bit older. I don't remember reading much about this Eonwe character or him appearing in little kid and later, adult forms, so maybe I am just crazy. But then, you brought up him aging, so I am guessing that there must be some mention of it somewhere that I don't remember reading.

 

[Walter]

Hold on!
Is this Aluin character time or an idea to personify time?

Is Helios the sun or an idea to personify the sun?

Is Donar the thunder or an idea to personify the thunder?

Is Eärendel/Lucifer/Phosphoros the evening star or an idea to personify the evening star?

And second all time would have began when Ea was created so than that would mean that Aluin would have been born when Ea was created. So how the heck could Aluin be older than God.
We don't even know how old god is!

Where was the sun before Helios was born?

Can Eru be possibly older than Tolkien?

Can the the Judeo/Christian god be possibly older than the first tribe that decided to omit the multitude of Babylonian deities and to further worship only one of them (which seems to have happened some 3000 years ago)?

Questions over questions...

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