[davem]

The Secret Fire is, I suppose, the Holy Spirit, in its Middle Earth form. So Gandalf is saying he is a servant of God. The Flame of Anor could be Narya, but Anor is the Sun, & the Sun was made from the last fruit of Laurelin. So it is filled with the same Holy Light as the Silmarils, which is the light which originally came from Illuvatar & appeared in Arda in a pure form in the Two Lamps which were broken by Morgoth. This pure, 'single', constant light becomes 'divided' & fluctuates in the light of the Trees. It is then divided again, in the Silmarils & the Sun, & Moon. So you have a movement from a single, pure light, to lesser, weaker, fluctuating forms, a movement away from single to multiple ('The White Light may be broken' Saruman tells Gandalf. It may, but should it?). The light becomes weaker & moves towards darkness as it fragments. Maybe there is something in the confrontation between the Light of Glorfindel, who has returned to Middle Earth purified of his sin in the rebellion, with the Light of the Trees in his face, & the Nine 'fragments' of Darkness, the Nazgul, who cannot stand between his light & Frodo's invocation of Elbereth, the Star Kindler who brought Light into Middle Earth?

The same process happens with Language, as the Quenya of the High Elves is forsaken by the returning Exiles, under command of Thingol the King of the Grey Elves (ie, Elves who had never seen the Light of Valinor), the same Elves who Tolkien says could not learn Quenya (they had never been to Paradise & dwelt with the Valar in the Light of the Trees, so they could not understand the concepts which Quenya was designed to express, or see the world in the way the High Elves did.) Then Men arise, & in the Second Age, Sindarin is replaced with Adunaic, another 'fall' away from the purity of Quenya, language of the 'Speakers of Light'. The High Elves, are the Calaquendi -lit. Light speakers, the Grey Elves are Moriquendi, speakers of Darkness. Adunaic is a 'darker' language still, further from the Light. It 'decays' into Westron, which is corrupted by Orcs into its foulest form, & at the ultimate extreme there is the Black Speech of Sauron. As the Primal Light moves towards darkness, Language follows the same trajectory, but the Light still shines amid the darkness - Earendel bears the Silmaril above Middle Earth, Frodo bears the Phial, & Gandalf 'wields the Flame of Anor'.