Does the Silmarillion Contradict Third age History? How Powerful Were Those First age

[Eldy]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

EDIT: I believe Christopher Tolkien thinks that the term "Maiar" was first used in 1958 (according to Morgoth's Ring) but that doesn't prove much about finding a date for the idea of what would eventually be called "Maiar".

You're probably thinking of the footnotes to the first section of the Annals of Aman in which Christopher comments (note 4): "AV 2 had here (V.110) 'these are the Vanimor, the Beautiful', changed in the later rewriting (see note 3) to 'these are the Mairi...', and then to 'these are the Maiar...' This was probably where the word Maiar first arose." In the introduction to that chapter he dates the text to probably 1958, but acknowledges his uncertainty about that. I can't recall offhand anything to suggest that the idea of a new catch-all category for lesser spirits emerged much earlier than 1958, though of course the categories that it subsumed had for the most part been around for a very long time.