At the close of Book 3 there is a conversation between Satan and the Archangel, Uriel. With compliments and cunning, Satan coaxes the angel to tell him the location of man among all the stars and planets. (660) I find Milton's description of the give-and-take of this conversation in lines 680-690 to be very enlightening. "So spake the false dissembler unperceived; For neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, Except to God alone, by his permissive will, through heaven and earth: And oft though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps at wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems..." Hypocrisy can beguile even angels, apparently, and only God can see through hypocrisy's invisibility cloak. A very relevant warning.
It really is interesting to think about angels being deceived because we know that humans are as well. Angels are heavenly beings, but they are not God! Thank you for drawing our attention to that passage, Teri.
I love the old quote, "Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue." It is the residue of the awareness that we live in a moral universe and that everyone is aware that there is a moral order. What is so striking is that in all of this Satan is so consumed with (possessed by?) his sense of free will that he is blind to fact that he has long since relinquished it. Even here, he manipulates order constructed by God in order to facilitate his own designs. In all of this, he is oblivious to the fact that he will never be free of God's universe. Each action proves that he is a deluded slave and yet his pride demands he not face this reality.
This is the line that stood out most to me as well. If nothing else, it made me feel a little better for being gullible at times! But warned just the same.
I too was struck by that passage. It was as though Uriel had no certain knowledge of who Satan was, for “to the fraudulent Impostor foul / In his [Uriel’s] uprightness answer thus return’d.” (III: 692-93) Surely Uriel knows of the previous defeat of Satan and his minions! So “the false dissembler unperceiv’d” must be able to conceal his true identity even from his fellow angels. Scary, no?
Satan is skilled at directing Uriel's attention to God. I noticed that Satan's silky-smooth appeal to Uriel closed with the same type of approach that Herod used on the Magi: "That I may find him, and with secret gaze, Or open admiration him behold, On whom the great creator had bestowed Worlds, and on whom hath all these graces poured; that both in him and all things, as is meet, the universal maker we may praise;" (671-676)
Having received my copy a week late, it took until now to catch up! In order to do so, I had to make a commitment to stop underlining every passage along the way. Once I crossed that hurdle, I then had to constrain myself to reading only one short passage aloud per page, rather than the entirety of the book. I feel like a child again, picking up Shakespeare's plays for the first time.
With that said, it is Milton's use of silence that most affected me.
Man cannot save himself, but can lose himself. Once-heavenly beings can lead him to the path of damnation, and escort him down it, but they cannot—and will not—turn him away from it. The souls of the Elect (184) require one perfect redeemer, who can dwell among them, live a life contrary to theirs and yet beset by all of its temptations and trials, and then die in their place.
God seeks such a one:
"He asked, but all the Heavenly Choir stood mute,
and silence was in Heaven; on man's behalf
Patron or intercessor none appeared."
— III. 217-219
Milton's poetic license covers a very different vehicle here than a clergyman's license ever could, and so he uses all the horsepower at his disposal to drive the point home. This event never happened, but the effects remain the same. No created being in heaven or earth could redeem the breaking of the world, and all the effects that ricocheted off as a result. The fall damns the man.
But...
I am sure others will cover the following passages and so I'll end there. Milton's silence struck me, because that very same silence stands before every salvation. Andrew Peterson sums this up beautifully:
"Is anyone worthy? Is anyone whole?
Is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll?
The Lion of Judah who conquered the grave
He was David's root and the Lamb who died to ransom the slave"
We realise our guilt, are confronted by our shame, our sin covering our hands and feet. Suddenly, we ask, can anyone take this from me? Can anyone save me?
If you're reading this, and you're wondering.
There is. Run to him.
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill
P.S. Goodness me, that was longer than I intended. Thank you so much Karen for putting this together. What a terrific read.
“I feel like a child again.” This makes me so happy, Adsum! I’m so very glad that you are reading and enjoying this work and that you are joining us here on this journey. What a blessing your input, and your sheer delight are.
I actually meant to mention this silence from the angels. Whenever I teach this work in a classroom, I always pause at that passage and draw attention to it. The scene is so easy to imagine the way Milton paints it. What else is there to do but to be silent in that moment? There is the element of awe for God. And there’s also the element of silence in the sense that none among the angelic choir are going to speak up and meet the need that only Christ can. It’s beautiful, but also a little funny in the best way. (“I’m not going to do it!” “Don’t look at me!”)
I also love that contrast between poetic license and clergyman’s license. Different rules for different roles.
Unlike books 1 and 2 which are anchored in time and place, this book seems to me to be full of (dizzying) shifts in time and perspective. We see events in Heaven that involve God's explanations of what he knows will happen to man, then we jump to Satan trying to make sense of the universe God has created and hearing of its creation from chaos. The history of man's sin and folly are foretold and the plan of salvation is revealed while Satan draws close to his target in Eden. I think Milton's purpose in these shifting viewpoints is to help us see as God sees, unbound by time and space, everything past, present, and future all at once. And, perhaps to break us out of our earthbound present-centric limitations to make us more aware of all that is simultaneously happening unseen in God's Heaven.
Book 3 is my favorite. I have read PL several times and in between readings, if I think of the book, I always think of that moment when God the Father anticipates the fall of Man and announces that he will need a redeemer, and Jesus offers himself. That puts me in awe of Christ’s love every time.
Thinking further - the problem of spiritual insight - certainly an issue for Milton who wants only to serve God faithfully; and an issue for us who (I hate to say it) are somewhat easily led astray. I have always resisted preachers who claim they know exactly why God allows or directs certain events (ah, see God is punishing you for abortion!) Even the wise men of the Bible needed to be diverted so they didn’t spill the beans to Herod about the Christ child. So Herod embarked on his killing spree, ignorant of an essential piece of information. I wrote a poem about a soldier coming home from slaughtering the innocents and trying to wash the blood off his hands - Out, Out Damned Spot! He wanted to keep his bloody actions from his innocent wife and two year old son who only wanted to grow up to be just like papa. Our spiritual blindness can only be remedied by an openness to God’s Word and the work of the Spirit - and this is so very tough to do especially if we have our physical sight and take our world for what it appears to be.
Ugh. This brings to mind a certain preacher and certain direct causations made…you are right of course. But so many are not and so many are misled by the same.
I also found the reference to our inability to detect hypocrisy relevant to our lives and culture. How easy it is to claim we know what is in someone else’s heart - look how good Satan was in hiding his true intentions, at least according to Milton.
Another part of the book that interested me is at the beginning when Milton speaks of his blindness and its disadvantage as well as its advantage - “So much the rather thou Celestial light Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers irradiate, there plant eyes . . . that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.” What an encouragement to people who are handicapped by blindness or deafness! To realize that Milton wrote all this with limited physical sight (or none at all) but such great spiritual insight! (Lines 36-55)
The passage that caught my attention the most was how just after he speaks of God's light at the beginning, Milton asks if he dares speak of him, making reference to his own blindness.
Milton's powers of imaginative description are impressive, but when I got to that crack about the Fool's Paradise and friars, I was reminded of the words of Johannes Brahms, an 19th century German composer: "It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table." It's a gratuitous swipe at Catholicism that takes the reader completely out of the otherwise awe inspiring narrative. These early writers didn't have editors to steer them off rabbit trails - that could be said to have left more room for their genius but it also left more room for their pet peeves.
As you know I've been on high alert for Milton's heretical views, but where I noticed it was not the conversation between Father and Son, which I understood as a poetic rhetorical device, but in the hymn of praise the hosts of heaven sing, in lines 383-4:
"...next they sang of all creation first, Begotten Son, divine similitude,"
Milton seems to be saying the Son is the Father's first creation. By contrast, here is the relevant line from the Nicene Creed:
"Begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father."
I noticed the Son in 'PL' says he will die for man and rise again, so that part of the Gospel is at least included. I would say 'Paradise Regained' is more obviously heretical, as there the Father speaks of the Son as "this perfect man, by merit called my Son". Milton's theological opinions may well have further evolved between the two.
The other theological point I noticed about this whole scene is that the Holy Spirit is conspicuous by absence. I mean, if I was writing an epic poem full of rich description that included the earth's formation, I would definitely have brought in reference to that incredibly dramatic line in Genesis 1, "And the earth was without form and void and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Milton has the formless and void earth, but not the brooding Spirit.
Milton really hated Catholics and that’s a good reminder to appreciate the guiding eye of a good editor!
I could be wrong because I don’t know Arianism all that well, but I think that this idea of Christ being created by God is a key element of that heresy.
I think Milton would point to his invocation of the “Muse” as the presence of the Holy Spirit in the poem, but as you point out, that’s not the same as depicting the Spirit’s presence in the description of creation.
Yes, I am not a theological expert, but I also understand that Arianism said the Son was created, although there are variations on it that have appeared over the centuries, for example, subordinationism, which concedes that the Son isn't created but claims the Son is still subordinate in essence to the Father.
I would say Milton's mention of spirit is of an impersonal one, an inspiration, an idea, not a Person. The point at which I actually started to wonder where the Spirit was was during the hymn scene. When we sing a Trinitarian hymn - like Holy, Holy, Holy - and mention the Father in one verse and the Son in the next verse, there will be third verse about the Spirit. In Milton's day, they sang Psalms, but early English Psalm were sung with a Trinitarian Doxology at the end of every Psalm. [That is why the hymn 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow', is sung to the same tune as the well known Doxology 'All people that on earth do dwell' - 'Praise God' is a versification of Psalm 100 and the Doxology was meant to be sung as the last verse.] I don't know if it was the Puritans who removed the Doxology from the Psalms, but I cannot help seeing a connection between Milton's vehement opposition to Catholicism and his rejection of Trinitarian orthodoxy, as if he perceived even the Nicene Creed to be tainted by Rome, a throwing the baby out with the bathwater scenario. After all, the Puritans also wanted to detach the marriage ceremony from the church for the same reason - and succeeded in New England, where marriage was only a civil ceremony.
Here I was hoping to get out of this series without once mentioning ESS. 😏 (Not really…)
Now I want to look up some other things about Milton and the Holy Spirit and his treatment elsewhere. Will if I get a chance! I agree that the invocation of the Muse is nothing like what a Trinitarian hymn/poem so powerfully expresses.
There's a beautiful image in lines 352-362 of the angels' crowns, "inwove with amaranth and gold." Amaranth is apparently a mythological flower that blooms eternally. Milton says it "first grew" in Heaven, but God transplanted it to Eden where it blossomed beside the Tree of Life. "But soon for man's offense to Heaven removed where first it grew, there grows, and flowers aloft shading the Fount of Life." Amaranth seems to be a symbol of what was lost in Eden because of sin: eternity and the fragrance of Heaven. And yet it also represents the hope of seeing that rare flower once again if we can make our way back to Heaven.
Book 3 was sincerely the most beautiful thing I’ve read .
Line 410-415
Oh unexampled love,
nowhere to be found less than divine!
Hail, son of God, Saviour of men, thy name
Shall be the copious matter of my song
Henceforth, and never shall my harp thy praise
Forget, nor from thy Father’s praise disjoin.
Wow.
Line 240
on me let death wreck all his rage;
So powerful.
Sure, I see where there are some theological things, but like all works of creativity that include God or Jesus there’s always going to be those issues. Because as humans, we can’t fathom what heaven is like, how can we possibly describe God on his throne talking to Jesus? There are not really words to express that kind of glory. And so for him to be able to find the words and put it in prose form, it’s just brilliant.
What an eye for beauty, Mel. Thank you for seeing and sharing. These are indeed beautiful lines! (And I know you won’t mind my making the pedantic note that this is poetry; prose is regular, non-poetry.)
Yes to both! Basically prose is regular writing that isn’t poetry. But, as with all things in late modernity, blurring boundaries is more common. The prose poem is a pretty recent genre. And we one can alway say that prose is poetic (or not). Also think of the word “prosaic”—ordinary, dull.
The question which always tempts an answer is where free will ends and determinism begins. We should note that this is ultimately a mystery, and that there will always be an aspect, indeed the largest aspect, which lies beyond our ability to understand. It is so funny that we talk so much about predestination and yet seldom do we talk about the aseity of God. This is the theological concept which talks about God's quality of being self-existent and independent. Luther loved to speak of the "deus revelatus" and "deus absconditus," the parts which God reveals to us and the parts which are known only to God Himself. We may be indignant that God dares to have secret qualities to Himself, but that is born out of envious pride and not wounded love. None of us truly know one another. (We are even a mystery to ourselves, if we are honest.) So it would be even more concerning if we knew fully the identity of the great Other.
All that is to say, I humbly have not resolved this issue satisfactorily for myself. Arguments within my own denomination fall down on one side or the other. The truce is to be seen in the Formula of Concord which states that God provides the means by which we can be saved through the work of Christ and through the activity of the Holy Spirit; but human beings can only reject these things, they cannot seek them out. Human free will, corrupted by original sin, is incapable of spiritual conversion or righteousness. Scripture teaches that conversion and faith are entirely dependent on God’s grace and the Holy Spirit, not human effort. While humans can outwardly engage with spiritual teachings, true understanding and belief come only from divine enlightenment.
Free will, is paradoxically a fiction and a necessary fiction. It is not the resolution itself, but is close enough to the real thing to help us arrive at the destination of the real thing. Yet, in imagining a "one-to-one" correlation, we rely upon wisdom and our human nature to free us from our prison. This prison can take the form of a thriving community, safe neighborhood, and successful family life; but it is still just an ersatz paradise, which Milton hints at vis-a-vis his declaration of the light of heaven.
Bonhoeffer's "Ethics" properly dissects our honest inquiry into the heart of God from our sinful use of reason to present our motivations as blameless. A Christian ethic is rooted in the reality of God revealed in Jesus Christ, challenging the notion that human goodness or worldly improvement are the ultimate goals. The question of good is not about evaluating individual actions or societal structures but about participating in the indivisible whole of God’s reality, encompassing motives, works, and the entire created order. This understanding of good as reality grounded in God’s revelation in Christ offers a holistic approach to ethics, rejecting the limitations of abstract moral frameworks.
This is what Milton's Christ does before God. Though an iteration of Arianism, it still holds to the fact that Christ's work is done out of an imitation that is not flattery but love. Christ takes on the imprint of God, because His love for God is the highest motivation of His being.
So much for Faulkner-esque pseudo theology. The quote that struck me was "Till they enthrall themselves." What does that even mean? This gets back to the statement about the importance of the aesthetic. In our mechanistic world, a meaning must have one meaning. However, poetry can have more than one. Those meanings don't have to just be superficial and deeper; but can also be paradoxical. The "freedom" and "enthrallment" can be both freedom from God and enthrallment to their Fallen delusions while at the same time being freedom in Christ and enthrallment in Him. Of course it doesn't actually have to mean either of those things or it can mean more than that. It paradoxically has a definite meaning while at the same time being fully up to our interpretation.
In any case, playing softly in the background of this story is a question which, like all great epic poetry, never truly gets asked (let alone answered): If God is all powerful and all good, what drives our rebellion? Milton appears wise enough to offer a journey and a story; but not a straightforward answer. We can never know, since we are not fully in line with our identity in the created order. To once again bring in Bonhoeffer's "Ethics," "For Christian ethics, the mere possibility of knowing about good and evil is already a falling away from the origin. Living in the origin, human beings know nothing but God alone. They know other human beings, things, and themselves only in the unity of their knowledge of God; they know everything only in God, and God in all things. Knowledge about good and evil points to the prior disunion and estrangement from this origin." Bonhoeffer continues by asserting that in judging between good and evil, a quality which is reserved for God alone, we have declared our opposition to God and challenged His assertion that He has our best interests at heart. This is the madness of the rebellion that runs through all who oppose God's plan and Milton brilliantly exploits our common cause with the rebel faction to highlight our own blindness to our culpability.
What a thoughtful reflection, Philip. It’s so helpful and productive of more thoughts and reflections!
Two points I will respond to specifically: I love what you bring in about the aesthetic and the layered meanings of words. This is crucial. (And isn’t “enthrall” a great word?). Second, your question about the origin of rebellion against a wholly good God is interesting and vexing. I think Milton tries to get at a related question in Book 4 when he sets Adam and Eve up for temptation in their yet in fallen state. I wonder what you will think about that.
As we’re getting into book 3, I’m finding it easier to get into the flow of Milton‘s writing and getting a better sense of the rhythm of it. The sections about Satan feel different and have a darker, halting, foreboding anxiety like the approach of a villain in a movie whereas the sections about God, the Son and Heaven have a richer, fuller, sublime, glorious but achingly beautiful and bittersweet aesthetic.
I keep thinking about Milton writing this as he was blind! I appreciate, Karen, the pictures you added to this week’s post.
Thank you to everyone in the community for your comments. I value them and am learning a lot from all of you.
This is the thing! It is true even for me as someone who has been reading literature professionally and personally my whole life: it takes habituation, attention, familiarity…and then it kicks in. Or at least gets a bit easier.
It’s so true how Milton achieves a different tone for the different settings and themes, too. You described those differences here so well, Nancy. I’m so glad you are here and chiming in.
Thanks, too, for commenting on the pictures. I will try to include more each week. No one had yet commented on them, so I didn’t know if folks were liking them. 😀
I really love the pictures! The one by William Blake reminded me of an edition I have of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress that is illustrated with 12 watercolors by William Blake. They are exquisite and add so much to my understanding and appreciation of the story. The publisher is The Heritage Press out of Connecticut.
I would LOVE to read Pilgrim’s Progress together. I read it for the first time over the Christmas holiday and can’t believe I waited so long! It would be wonderful to read as a community. I vote yes and, of course, support whatever choice you make.
It has been quite a week, and I don't have anything particularlt insightful to share, but I'm enjoying finishing up book three and reading everyone's comments. Hoping to get an earlier start on book four next week!
This has been my favorite book so far (and by far). An ocean of passages in which to dive and swim with the theology, agree or not. But the one passage that hit me the hardest I found to be more pastoral than theological (266 - 271):
“His words here ended, but his meek aspect Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love To mortal men, above which only shone Filial obedience: as a sacrifice Glad to be offered, he attends the will Of his great Father.”
We have just read the Son’s beautiful and powerful words but it’s his “meek aspect”, his willingness to submit to his father for the sake of others, that speaks in the silence, almost as if louder than His words.
Milton obviously doesn’t take this next step in the poem, but if we are to image Jesus’ character then this willingness to submit on behalf of others must be true of us as well.
It brings to mind the St. Francis (maybe) quote “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”
Thanks again for your insight, Karen. I look forward to each Tuesday now!
Must be careful when dosing the beauty one imbibes. Whew. First, let me thank you for this guided tour and the community that comes with it. I am sure that I would never have ventured down this path without your guidance.
I must admit that choosing which parts of Book III to mention is more than I can bear. I hope you'll indulge my request to ask for a single point of clarification and then some questions from Lewis' Preface.
v. 59: "His own works and their works at once to view" Whose works is JM including in what the Almighty Father views?
Regarding Lewis' Preface, a comment and a question: Lewis explains, "It is not the least necessary to go to the very bottom of these verse sentences as you go to the bottom of Hooker's sentences in prose." I find everything that Lewis says in this section so affirming of my experience with poetry and how to read it. Delightful.
At the same time, I wonder if Lewis has taken pot shots at one of my favorites! "Now if the sort of things he was saying were at all like the things that Donne or Shakespeare say, this would be intolerably tiring." (p. 56-7) On first reading I assumed that this was a reference to style that was above my pay grade, and well it may be. But then on page 74, "Bad poets in the tradition of Donne..." I am a novice at literary style and struggle to comprehend how it is described, but I am happy for the opportunity to ask if CSL has no appreciation for J Donne's brilliance.
Lewis had very pungent opinions when he didn't like a great author. I remember reading him eviscerating Charles Dickens. It is the thing I like least about Lewis, a point of pettiness in an otherwise brilliant thinker. By contrast, Chesterton could see all a writer's flaws, yet still enjoy the genius in their writing.
If I may: I think "theirs" in line 59 refers to Adam and Eve, who have already been created (line 64). The narrative of their creation occurs in Book 7.
I don't have a copy of Lewis's history of 16th Century English literature to see his fullest thoughts, but every reference I recall to Donne has been unfavorable.
Not that Lewis was squeamish, but I don't think he liked Donne's sexual metaphors and metaphors for sex. I think he found them aesthetically inappropriate.
Readers who don't like Donne often don't like him for aesthetic reasons. Another reason, noted by Shakespeare's and Donne's friend Ben Jonson, is his complicated syntax and verse forms.
I got my copy of Lewis's English Literature in the 16th Century out and found this, Jack. Might be a passage you were thinking of. (It's on page 548 in my edition). The context is Donne's satirical verse, specifically:
"In Donne if any simile or allusion leads us away from the main theme, it leads us only to other objects of contempt or disgust--to coffins, 'itchie lust,' catamites, dearth, pestilence, a condemned wretch 'at Barre,' vomit, excrement, botches, pox, 'carted whores.' Instead of a norm against which the immediate object of satire stands out, we have vistas opening on corruption in every direction."
I don't remember having read this before, but I think Lewis has made similar comments elsewhere. I vaguely recall that his comments I read on Donne were in response to T. S. Eliot's appreciation of Donne.
At the close of Book 3 there is a conversation between Satan and the Archangel, Uriel. With compliments and cunning, Satan coaxes the angel to tell him the location of man among all the stars and planets. (660) I find Milton's description of the give-and-take of this conversation in lines 680-690 to be very enlightening. "So spake the false dissembler unperceived; For neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, Except to God alone, by his permissive will, through heaven and earth: And oft though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps at wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems..." Hypocrisy can beguile even angels, apparently, and only God can see through hypocrisy's invisibility cloak. A very relevant warning.
It really is interesting to think about angels being deceived because we know that humans are as well. Angels are heavenly beings, but they are not God! Thank you for drawing our attention to that passage, Teri.
I love the old quote, "Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue." It is the residue of the awareness that we live in a moral universe and that everyone is aware that there is a moral order. What is so striking is that in all of this Satan is so consumed with (possessed by?) his sense of free will that he is blind to fact that he has long since relinquished it. Even here, he manipulates order constructed by God in order to facilitate his own designs. In all of this, he is oblivious to the fact that he will never be free of God's universe. Each action proves that he is a deluded slave and yet his pride demands he not face this reality.
What an insightful connection you make with that maxim. Thank you for expanding on it in the context of Paradise Lost.
This is the line that stood out most to me as well. If nothing else, it made me feel a little better for being gullible at times! But warned just the same.
Add me to the list of those who were struck by this passage.
Yes!
I too was struck by that passage. It was as though Uriel had no certain knowledge of who Satan was, for “to the fraudulent Impostor foul / In his [Uriel’s] uprightness answer thus return’d.” (III: 692-93) Surely Uriel knows of the previous defeat of Satan and his minions! So “the false dissembler unperceiv’d” must be able to conceal his true identity even from his fellow angels. Scary, no?
Satan is skilled at directing Uriel's attention to God. I noticed that Satan's silky-smooth appeal to Uriel closed with the same type of approach that Herod used on the Magi: "That I may find him, and with secret gaze, Or open admiration him behold, On whom the great creator had bestowed Worlds, and on whom hath all these graces poured; that both in him and all things, as is meet, the universal maker we may praise;" (671-676)
For some reason the “like” button doesn’t work on my browser, so 👍.
😄
Oh wow. That is a terrific insight that I had not noticed.
Very.
Having received my copy a week late, it took until now to catch up! In order to do so, I had to make a commitment to stop underlining every passage along the way. Once I crossed that hurdle, I then had to constrain myself to reading only one short passage aloud per page, rather than the entirety of the book. I feel like a child again, picking up Shakespeare's plays for the first time.
With that said, it is Milton's use of silence that most affected me.
Man cannot save himself, but can lose himself. Once-heavenly beings can lead him to the path of damnation, and escort him down it, but they cannot—and will not—turn him away from it. The souls of the Elect (184) require one perfect redeemer, who can dwell among them, live a life contrary to theirs and yet beset by all of its temptations and trials, and then die in their place.
God seeks such a one:
"He asked, but all the Heavenly Choir stood mute,
and silence was in Heaven; on man's behalf
Patron or intercessor none appeared."
— III. 217-219
Milton's poetic license covers a very different vehicle here than a clergyman's license ever could, and so he uses all the horsepower at his disposal to drive the point home. This event never happened, but the effects remain the same. No created being in heaven or earth could redeem the breaking of the world, and all the effects that ricocheted off as a result. The fall damns the man.
But...
I am sure others will cover the following passages and so I'll end there. Milton's silence struck me, because that very same silence stands before every salvation. Andrew Peterson sums this up beautifully:
"Is anyone worthy? Is anyone whole?
Is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll?
The Lion of Judah who conquered the grave
He was David's root and the Lamb who died to ransom the slave"
We realise our guilt, are confronted by our shame, our sin covering our hands and feet. Suddenly, we ask, can anyone take this from me? Can anyone save me?
If you're reading this, and you're wondering.
There is. Run to him.
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill
P.S. Goodness me, that was longer than I intended. Thank you so much Karen for putting this together. What a terrific read.
“I feel like a child again.” This makes me so happy, Adsum! I’m so very glad that you are reading and enjoying this work and that you are joining us here on this journey. What a blessing your input, and your sheer delight are.
I actually meant to mention this silence from the angels. Whenever I teach this work in a classroom, I always pause at that passage and draw attention to it. The scene is so easy to imagine the way Milton paints it. What else is there to do but to be silent in that moment? There is the element of awe for God. And there’s also the element of silence in the sense that none among the angelic choir are going to speak up and meet the need that only Christ can. It’s beautiful, but also a little funny in the best way. (“I’m not going to do it!” “Don’t look at me!”)
I also love that contrast between poetic license and clergyman’s license. Different rules for different roles.
Thanks, Karen! I'm just sorry it has taken me so long, both to catch up, and to have gotten around to reading the book I the first place.
It makes sense that it would be funny, it foreshadows a comedic end, so to speak.
Thanks again for writing this series, it has been such a blessing so far.
You are just in time and I couldn’t be more delighted!
Unlike books 1 and 2 which are anchored in time and place, this book seems to me to be full of (dizzying) shifts in time and perspective. We see events in Heaven that involve God's explanations of what he knows will happen to man, then we jump to Satan trying to make sense of the universe God has created and hearing of its creation from chaos. The history of man's sin and folly are foretold and the plan of salvation is revealed while Satan draws close to his target in Eden. I think Milton's purpose in these shifting viewpoints is to help us see as God sees, unbound by time and space, everything past, present, and future all at once. And, perhaps to break us out of our earthbound present-centric limitations to make us more aware of all that is simultaneously happening unseen in God's Heaven.
Oh, I like that. I think that’s exactly right.
Book 3 is my favorite. I have read PL several times and in between readings, if I think of the book, I always think of that moment when God the Father anticipates the fall of Man and announces that he will need a redeemer, and Jesus offers himself. That puts me in awe of Christ’s love every time.
It really is a powerful and memorable scene.
Thinking further - the problem of spiritual insight - certainly an issue for Milton who wants only to serve God faithfully; and an issue for us who (I hate to say it) are somewhat easily led astray. I have always resisted preachers who claim they know exactly why God allows or directs certain events (ah, see God is punishing you for abortion!) Even the wise men of the Bible needed to be diverted so they didn’t spill the beans to Herod about the Christ child. So Herod embarked on his killing spree, ignorant of an essential piece of information. I wrote a poem about a soldier coming home from slaughtering the innocents and trying to wash the blood off his hands - Out, Out Damned Spot! He wanted to keep his bloody actions from his innocent wife and two year old son who only wanted to grow up to be just like papa. Our spiritual blindness can only be remedied by an openness to God’s Word and the work of the Spirit - and this is so very tough to do especially if we have our physical sight and take our world for what it appears to be.
Jack
Ugh. This brings to mind a certain preacher and certain direct causations made…you are right of course. But so many are not and so many are misled by the same.
I also found the reference to our inability to detect hypocrisy relevant to our lives and culture. How easy it is to claim we know what is in someone else’s heart - look how good Satan was in hiding his true intentions, at least according to Milton.
Another part of the book that interested me is at the beginning when Milton speaks of his blindness and its disadvantage as well as its advantage - “So much the rather thou Celestial light Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers irradiate, there plant eyes . . . that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.” What an encouragement to people who are handicapped by blindness or deafness! To realize that Milton wrote all this with limited physical sight (or none at all) but such great spiritual insight! (Lines 36-55)
Jack
I love this, Jack. Limited sight indeed (of all kinds).
I am enjoying this memorable language. "Sufficient to have stood, though free to fail."
I had a sort of pleasant visceral reaction to the lines about the ambrosial fragrance and joy that fills heaven when the Son of God is seen.
I didn't realize how many lines from hymns are nearly lifted right out of Paradise Lost.
Great connection to the hymns, Kevie!
The passage that caught my attention the most was how just after he speaks of God's light at the beginning, Milton asks if he dares speak of him, making reference to his own blindness.
Milton's powers of imaginative description are impressive, but when I got to that crack about the Fool's Paradise and friars, I was reminded of the words of Johannes Brahms, an 19th century German composer: "It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table." It's a gratuitous swipe at Catholicism that takes the reader completely out of the otherwise awe inspiring narrative. These early writers didn't have editors to steer them off rabbit trails - that could be said to have left more room for their genius but it also left more room for their pet peeves.
As you know I've been on high alert for Milton's heretical views, but where I noticed it was not the conversation between Father and Son, which I understood as a poetic rhetorical device, but in the hymn of praise the hosts of heaven sing, in lines 383-4:
"...next they sang of all creation first, Begotten Son, divine similitude,"
Milton seems to be saying the Son is the Father's first creation. By contrast, here is the relevant line from the Nicene Creed:
"Begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father."
I noticed the Son in 'PL' says he will die for man and rise again, so that part of the Gospel is at least included. I would say 'Paradise Regained' is more obviously heretical, as there the Father speaks of the Son as "this perfect man, by merit called my Son". Milton's theological opinions may well have further evolved between the two.
The other theological point I noticed about this whole scene is that the Holy Spirit is conspicuous by absence. I mean, if I was writing an epic poem full of rich description that included the earth's formation, I would definitely have brought in reference to that incredibly dramatic line in Genesis 1, "And the earth was without form and void and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Milton has the formless and void earth, but not the brooding Spirit.
Milton really hated Catholics and that’s a good reminder to appreciate the guiding eye of a good editor!
I could be wrong because I don’t know Arianism all that well, but I think that this idea of Christ being created by God is a key element of that heresy.
I think Milton would point to his invocation of the “Muse” as the presence of the Holy Spirit in the poem, but as you point out, that’s not the same as depicting the Spirit’s presence in the description of creation.
Yes, I am not a theological expert, but I also understand that Arianism said the Son was created, although there are variations on it that have appeared over the centuries, for example, subordinationism, which concedes that the Son isn't created but claims the Son is still subordinate in essence to the Father.
I would say Milton's mention of spirit is of an impersonal one, an inspiration, an idea, not a Person. The point at which I actually started to wonder where the Spirit was was during the hymn scene. When we sing a Trinitarian hymn - like Holy, Holy, Holy - and mention the Father in one verse and the Son in the next verse, there will be third verse about the Spirit. In Milton's day, they sang Psalms, but early English Psalm were sung with a Trinitarian Doxology at the end of every Psalm. [That is why the hymn 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow', is sung to the same tune as the well known Doxology 'All people that on earth do dwell' - 'Praise God' is a versification of Psalm 100 and the Doxology was meant to be sung as the last verse.] I don't know if it was the Puritans who removed the Doxology from the Psalms, but I cannot help seeing a connection between Milton's vehement opposition to Catholicism and his rejection of Trinitarian orthodoxy, as if he perceived even the Nicene Creed to be tainted by Rome, a throwing the baby out with the bathwater scenario. After all, the Puritans also wanted to detach the marriage ceremony from the church for the same reason - and succeeded in New England, where marriage was only a civil ceremony.
Here I was hoping to get out of this series without once mentioning ESS. 😏 (Not really…)
Now I want to look up some other things about Milton and the Holy Spirit and his treatment elsewhere. Will if I get a chance! I agree that the invocation of the Muse is nothing like what a Trinitarian hymn/poem so powerfully expresses.
There's a beautiful image in lines 352-362 of the angels' crowns, "inwove with amaranth and gold." Amaranth is apparently a mythological flower that blooms eternally. Milton says it "first grew" in Heaven, but God transplanted it to Eden where it blossomed beside the Tree of Life. "But soon for man's offense to Heaven removed where first it grew, there grows, and flowers aloft shading the Fount of Life." Amaranth seems to be a symbol of what was lost in Eden because of sin: eternity and the fragrance of Heaven. And yet it also represents the hope of seeing that rare flower once again if we can make our way back to Heaven.
That’s a lovely little exposition of a lovely touch included by Milton!
Book 3 was sincerely the most beautiful thing I’ve read .
Line 410-415
Oh unexampled love,
nowhere to be found less than divine!
Hail, son of God, Saviour of men, thy name
Shall be the copious matter of my song
Henceforth, and never shall my harp thy praise
Forget, nor from thy Father’s praise disjoin.
Wow.
Line 240
on me let death wreck all his rage;
So powerful.
Sure, I see where there are some theological things, but like all works of creativity that include God or Jesus there’s always going to be those issues. Because as humans, we can’t fathom what heaven is like, how can we possibly describe God on his throne talking to Jesus? There are not really words to express that kind of glory. And so for him to be able to find the words and put it in prose form, it’s just brilliant.
What an eye for beauty, Mel. Thank you for seeing and sharing. These are indeed beautiful lines! (And I know you won’t mind my making the pedantic note that this is poetry; prose is regular, non-poetry.)
I’m really glad you loved this book!
I don’t mind! I want to learn.
🙋🏽♀️Karen, is there such thing as a prose poem? Or poetic-like prose? Would that just then make it a poem? 🤷🏽♀️
Yes to both! Basically prose is regular writing that isn’t poetry. But, as with all things in late modernity, blurring boundaries is more common. The prose poem is a pretty recent genre. And we one can alway say that prose is poetic (or not). Also think of the word “prosaic”—ordinary, dull.
They trespass, Authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I formd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree
Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd
Thir freedom, they themselves ordain'd thir fall.
The question which always tempts an answer is where free will ends and determinism begins. We should note that this is ultimately a mystery, and that there will always be an aspect, indeed the largest aspect, which lies beyond our ability to understand. It is so funny that we talk so much about predestination and yet seldom do we talk about the aseity of God. This is the theological concept which talks about God's quality of being self-existent and independent. Luther loved to speak of the "deus revelatus" and "deus absconditus," the parts which God reveals to us and the parts which are known only to God Himself. We may be indignant that God dares to have secret qualities to Himself, but that is born out of envious pride and not wounded love. None of us truly know one another. (We are even a mystery to ourselves, if we are honest.) So it would be even more concerning if we knew fully the identity of the great Other.
All that is to say, I humbly have not resolved this issue satisfactorily for myself. Arguments within my own denomination fall down on one side or the other. The truce is to be seen in the Formula of Concord which states that God provides the means by which we can be saved through the work of Christ and through the activity of the Holy Spirit; but human beings can only reject these things, they cannot seek them out. Human free will, corrupted by original sin, is incapable of spiritual conversion or righteousness. Scripture teaches that conversion and faith are entirely dependent on God’s grace and the Holy Spirit, not human effort. While humans can outwardly engage with spiritual teachings, true understanding and belief come only from divine enlightenment.
Free will, is paradoxically a fiction and a necessary fiction. It is not the resolution itself, but is close enough to the real thing to help us arrive at the destination of the real thing. Yet, in imagining a "one-to-one" correlation, we rely upon wisdom and our human nature to free us from our prison. This prison can take the form of a thriving community, safe neighborhood, and successful family life; but it is still just an ersatz paradise, which Milton hints at vis-a-vis his declaration of the light of heaven.
Bonhoeffer's "Ethics" properly dissects our honest inquiry into the heart of God from our sinful use of reason to present our motivations as blameless. A Christian ethic is rooted in the reality of God revealed in Jesus Christ, challenging the notion that human goodness or worldly improvement are the ultimate goals. The question of good is not about evaluating individual actions or societal structures but about participating in the indivisible whole of God’s reality, encompassing motives, works, and the entire created order. This understanding of good as reality grounded in God’s revelation in Christ offers a holistic approach to ethics, rejecting the limitations of abstract moral frameworks.
This is what Milton's Christ does before God. Though an iteration of Arianism, it still holds to the fact that Christ's work is done out of an imitation that is not flattery but love. Christ takes on the imprint of God, because His love for God is the highest motivation of His being.
So much for Faulkner-esque pseudo theology. The quote that struck me was "Till they enthrall themselves." What does that even mean? This gets back to the statement about the importance of the aesthetic. In our mechanistic world, a meaning must have one meaning. However, poetry can have more than one. Those meanings don't have to just be superficial and deeper; but can also be paradoxical. The "freedom" and "enthrallment" can be both freedom from God and enthrallment to their Fallen delusions while at the same time being freedom in Christ and enthrallment in Him. Of course it doesn't actually have to mean either of those things or it can mean more than that. It paradoxically has a definite meaning while at the same time being fully up to our interpretation.
In any case, playing softly in the background of this story is a question which, like all great epic poetry, never truly gets asked (let alone answered): If God is all powerful and all good, what drives our rebellion? Milton appears wise enough to offer a journey and a story; but not a straightforward answer. We can never know, since we are not fully in line with our identity in the created order. To once again bring in Bonhoeffer's "Ethics," "For Christian ethics, the mere possibility of knowing about good and evil is already a falling away from the origin. Living in the origin, human beings know nothing but God alone. They know other human beings, things, and themselves only in the unity of their knowledge of God; they know everything only in God, and God in all things. Knowledge about good and evil points to the prior disunion and estrangement from this origin." Bonhoeffer continues by asserting that in judging between good and evil, a quality which is reserved for God alone, we have declared our opposition to God and challenged His assertion that He has our best interests at heart. This is the madness of the rebellion that runs through all who oppose God's plan and Milton brilliantly exploits our common cause with the rebel faction to highlight our own blindness to our culpability.
What a thoughtful reflection, Philip. It’s so helpful and productive of more thoughts and reflections!
Two points I will respond to specifically: I love what you bring in about the aesthetic and the layered meanings of words. This is crucial. (And isn’t “enthrall” a great word?). Second, your question about the origin of rebellion against a wholly good God is interesting and vexing. I think Milton tries to get at a related question in Book 4 when he sets Adam and Eve up for temptation in their yet in fallen state. I wonder what you will think about that.
As we’re getting into book 3, I’m finding it easier to get into the flow of Milton‘s writing and getting a better sense of the rhythm of it. The sections about Satan feel different and have a darker, halting, foreboding anxiety like the approach of a villain in a movie whereas the sections about God, the Son and Heaven have a richer, fuller, sublime, glorious but achingly beautiful and bittersweet aesthetic.
I keep thinking about Milton writing this as he was blind! I appreciate, Karen, the pictures you added to this week’s post.
Thank you to everyone in the community for your comments. I value them and am learning a lot from all of you.
This is the thing! It is true even for me as someone who has been reading literature professionally and personally my whole life: it takes habituation, attention, familiarity…and then it kicks in. Or at least gets a bit easier.
It’s so true how Milton achieves a different tone for the different settings and themes, too. You described those differences here so well, Nancy. I’m so glad you are here and chiming in.
Thanks, too, for commenting on the pictures. I will try to include more each week. No one had yet commented on them, so I didn’t know if folks were liking them. 😀
I really love the pictures! The one by William Blake reminded me of an edition I have of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress that is illustrated with 12 watercolors by William Blake. They are exquisite and add so much to my understanding and appreciation of the story. The publisher is The Heritage Press out of Connecticut.
Which reminds of the looming question: do we do Pilgrim’s Progress next….????
I would LOVE to read Pilgrim’s Progress together. I read it for the first time over the Christmas holiday and can’t believe I waited so long! It would be wonderful to read as a community. I vote yes and, of course, support whatever choice you make.
Your vote is duly noted! Thank you!
It has been quite a week, and I don't have anything particularlt insightful to share, but I'm enjoying finishing up book three and reading everyone's comments. Hoping to get an earlier start on book four next week!
Mere enjoyment is the best. 🩵
This has been my favorite book so far (and by far). An ocean of passages in which to dive and swim with the theology, agree or not. But the one passage that hit me the hardest I found to be more pastoral than theological (266 - 271):
“His words here ended, but his meek aspect Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love To mortal men, above which only shone Filial obedience: as a sacrifice Glad to be offered, he attends the will Of his great Father.”
We have just read the Son’s beautiful and powerful words but it’s his “meek aspect”, his willingness to submit to his father for the sake of others, that speaks in the silence, almost as if louder than His words.
Milton obviously doesn’t take this next step in the poem, but if we are to image Jesus’ character then this willingness to submit on behalf of others must be true of us as well.
It brings to mind the St. Francis (maybe) quote “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”
Thanks again for your insight, Karen. I look forward to each Tuesday now!
That is a beautiful observation, Kyle. Thank you. What a challenge and encouragement.
Must be careful when dosing the beauty one imbibes. Whew. First, let me thank you for this guided tour and the community that comes with it. I am sure that I would never have ventured down this path without your guidance.
I must admit that choosing which parts of Book III to mention is more than I can bear. I hope you'll indulge my request to ask for a single point of clarification and then some questions from Lewis' Preface.
v. 59: "His own works and their works at once to view" Whose works is JM including in what the Almighty Father views?
Regarding Lewis' Preface, a comment and a question: Lewis explains, "It is not the least necessary to go to the very bottom of these verse sentences as you go to the bottom of Hooker's sentences in prose." I find everything that Lewis says in this section so affirming of my experience with poetry and how to read it. Delightful.
At the same time, I wonder if Lewis has taken pot shots at one of my favorites! "Now if the sort of things he was saying were at all like the things that Donne or Shakespeare say, this would be intolerably tiring." (p. 56-7) On first reading I assumed that this was a reference to style that was above my pay grade, and well it may be. But then on page 74, "Bad poets in the tradition of Donne..." I am a novice at literary style and struggle to comprehend how it is described, but I am happy for the opportunity to ask if CSL has no appreciation for J Donne's brilliance.
Thank you.
Lewis had very pungent opinions when he didn't like a great author. I remember reading him eviscerating Charles Dickens. It is the thing I like least about Lewis, a point of pettiness in an otherwise brilliant thinker. By contrast, Chesterton could see all a writer's flaws, yet still enjoy the genius in their writing.
“pungent opinions”
Excellent.
That’s a great point of contrast between the two that I hadn’t put my finger on. I think it’s absolutely correct.
If I may: I think "theirs" in line 59 refers to Adam and Eve, who have already been created (line 64). The narrative of their creation occurs in Book 7.
I don't have a copy of Lewis's history of 16th Century English literature to see his fullest thoughts, but every reference I recall to Donne has been unfavorable.
By the way, Richard Hooker is a fantastic writer. His Sermon on Justification is excellent.
I wonder why.
Not that Lewis was squeamish, but I don't think he liked Donne's sexual metaphors and metaphors for sex. I think he found them aesthetically inappropriate.
Thank you. I will continue to appreciate Lewis anyway.
Readers who don't like Donne often don't like him for aesthetic reasons. Another reason, noted by Shakespeare's and Donne's friend Ben Jonson, is his complicated syntax and verse forms.
I hope I helped with line 59.
Very helpful. Thank you.
😂
Thank you for asking this clarifying question, Peter, and for your enthusiastic reading of Milton’s beauty.
I got my copy of Lewis's English Literature in the 16th Century out and found this, Jack. Might be a passage you were thinking of. (It's on page 548 in my edition). The context is Donne's satirical verse, specifically:
"In Donne if any simile or allusion leads us away from the main theme, it leads us only to other objects of contempt or disgust--to coffins, 'itchie lust,' catamites, dearth, pestilence, a condemned wretch 'at Barre,' vomit, excrement, botches, pox, 'carted whores.' Instead of a norm against which the immediate object of satire stands out, we have vistas opening on corruption in every direction."
I don't remember having read this before, but I think Lewis has made similar comments elsewhere. I vaguely recall that his comments I read on Donne were in response to T. S. Eliot's appreciation of Donne.
Another helpful post from Andrew Roycroft detailing more of Lewis’s Preface to Paradise Lost: https://open.substack.com/pub/andrewroycroft/p/lost-with-lewis-pt2?r=90e4e&utm_medium=ios