Jack's comment about this being a poetic composition (agreed!) ought to remind us that Milton is not writing a theological treatise but an imaginative work intended to speak to sin and redemption, God's sovereignty and authority and his plan for the salvation of his creation after the fall. Whatever Milton's theology of the Trinity, I think it's more interesting to contrast the "begotten" nature of creation with Satan's boast in lines 853 and following:
"That we were formed then say'st thou? and the work
Of secondary hands, by task transferred
From Father to his Son? strange point and new!
Doctrine which we would know whence learnt: who saw
When this creation was? remember'st thou
Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being?
We know no time when we were not as now;
Know none before us; self-begot, self-raised
By our own quick'ning power, ...
Our puissance is our own, our own right hand
Shall teach us highest deeds...."
The ultimate folly of Satan and men is to deny that God has any authority over creation and us by claiming that all we are and possess is owed solely to our own strength and wisdom and wit. And here is Satan doing just that. He is self-begot, or in the modern vernacular, he is a self-made man.
Holly, you beat me to this point! I was slightly annoyed with Milton for having Eve do all of the "kitchen work" especially since it seems that they worked together rather equally in the garden. The "second shift" indeed.
I also thought of Jesus' words to Mary when she listened to him teach instead doing the serving work like Martha.
I have to keep reminding myself that Milton’s god is not God, but Milton’s interpretation and am interested that C.S. Lewis wrote on Paradise Lost as he also is somewhat sexist, I never agreed that Peter rather than Lucy should rule Narnia
Any thoughts on the seraphim Abdiel's confrontation and opposition to Satan? This begins about line 803 when Satan is trying to convince angels to rebel against God. I thought that in this poem which has rebellion as an ongoing theme, it was refreshing to read about one who remained a faithful servant of God. Brought to mind the truth that God will not leave himself without a witness of some kind. (Acts 14:17)
Teri, in many ways that is probably the most important part of this book and I was hoping someone would bring it up. Every week I sit down and try to figure out what I can tackle and do justice too, and I knew it would be this or something else, but not everything. I do think this is an interesting and insightful nuance Milton offers. Another comment here made it obvious to me (when it wasn’t before) that this refusal to conform despite great pressure is exactly what my post today was about!
Yes, I saw your post, Karen, and thought of this part of the poem. In my edition of Paradise Lost, which is an Oxford's World Classics from 2004, the text reads, "Abdiel... Stood up, and in a flame of zeal severe The current of his (Satan's) fury thus opposed." (808) I pictured you as a light of truth in a dark, oppressive place as well, friend.
I found myself enjoying the language itself more and more this week- perhaps my “comprehension muscle” is getting stronger. I found the passage in lines 528- 539 on free will particularly interesting and lovely: “Our voluntary service he requires, not our necessitated, such with him finds no acceptance . .. Freely we serve because we freely love.”
God is not pleased with mere obedience because he is not a tyrant, but he finds joy in our love for him.
Are the lines following 468 referencing the Great Chain of Being? That was my first thought in reading it through and when you mentioned it perhaps that was confirmation that my instincts were right.
You asked whether we would enjoy (tolerate) another long book such as The Pilgrim’s Progress. I for one would relish such a move. I began this study of Milton more or less out of discipline and now find myself looking forward to each week’s revelation. I am also reading (have read, actually) Dr. Jeff Bargeau’s book on C.S. Lewis, “The Last Romantic.” Many of Barbeau’s concerns about art and poetry have helped me see Milton’s work as poetic composition that forms a pathway to truth. Lewis was careful about making the subjective into a “suffocating” subjectivity, but much of his writing has a very subjective quality that somehow speaks to us in objective reality. - Jack
Two comments, Karen. First, I would love to go through Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in the same way. I've never read it, and a slow read by easy stages would be the spur I need, as it has been with Paradise Lost.
Second, though I hate to nitpick at a footnote, your note 3 this week makes an observation that is controverted in my edition. As I've mentioned before, I'm using Hackett's reprint of Milton's Complete Poems and Major Prose, edited by Merritt Y. Hughes (first published in 1957). Merritt's note on Book V, lines 603–615, cites Maurice Kelley's 1941 book This Great Argument for the claim that "the meaning of *begot*" is "figurative," meaning that Christ was not literally called into being just then, when the Father says "This day I have begot whom I declare / My only Son" etc. Instead (quoting Hughes quoting Kelley!) "it means that Christ was exalted, and it is used because God, 'in proclaiming the Son ruler over the angels, is metaphorically generating a new thing—a king.'"
Yes, this is one Milton scholar from 68 years ago citing another from 84 years ago, and I have no idea what the scholars have said about it since. But at least here we have one or two modern commentators taking issue with the view that Milton is here expressing the Arian heresy. For my part, I don't know enough to say . . .
Thank you for adding this gloss, Matt! I am checking the (lengthy) Riverside note right now and it lists numerous Bible verses Milton was likely drawing on in using the words “begot” and “decree.” I was distracted more by “today” as though Christ weren’t eternal. I honestly have never really understood what “begotten not made” means (the orthodox teaching). And I honestly don’t know enough to land definitively on one interpretation or another of what Milton says here. I just know that since I’ve been introduced to the current evangelical teaching called ESS (eternal subordination of the Son) I am very wary of Arianism and its adjacent teachings.
A book I found very helpful on the Trinity is Dorothy L. Sayers' 'The Mind of the Maker'. It doesn't explain the mystery of the Trinity, rather helped me think of the indescribable. In particular, her chapter 'Scalene Trinities' really helps picture why warping the Trinity in any number of ways is dangerous. But my most helpful instructor in the Trinity was an unknown pastor, who, for a decade and a half in in my adolescence and young adulthood, in the course of his exegetical preaching through entire books of the Bible, criticized ESS and other warpings of Trinitarian theology. I didn't even know ESS was a widespread problem until years later, after the pastor had retired and I started reading a lot about the wider Christian world online. There is no substitute for a good pastor.
I am using my father's 1941 edition, with notes by Harris Fletcher. The edition is of Milton's complete poetical works. Fletcher doesn't comment a lot on Milton's theology, but what he does say makes it clear that he is aware Milton's theology is questionable in its orthodoxy. For Book V of 'Paradise Lost', on line 469, where Raphael starts speaking to Adam - "O Adam, one almighty is, from whom All things proceed, and up to him return...", Fletcher says "One of the most important passages in the poem for its statement of Milton's theology."
There is other evidence for Milton's heterodoxy outside of his poetic work. In 1825, a prose manuscript purported to be by Milton was discovered, 'De Doctrina Christiana' (Of Christian Doctrine). Scholars have debated its authenticity, but the general consensus is that Milton wrote at least part, if not all, of it. 'De Doctrina' clearly states Arian views that the Son of God was created. This fits with the Son's portrayal in the heavenly scene of Book III of Paradise Lost, where it is quite apparent that Milton treats the Son as being created: "next they sang of all creation first, Begotten Son..." (Line 383).
This is all very interesting. My book has selections from Christian Doctrine, with the editor treating it as given that it’s Milton’s. And he cites Maurice Kelley as the authority on it! Kelley’s full title was This Great Argument: A Study of Milton’s De Doctrina Christiana as a Gloss upon Paradise Lost. It sure looks like Milton is playing with Arian fire in chapter 5 of Christian Doctrine, so I don’t know why Kelley resists that reading of PL V: 603. But now I’m starting to feel sorry for going down a rabbit trail with Karen’s footnote instead of discussing her main point!
I noticed that it is Eve preparing and serving the food, while Raphael (once again, shouldn't it be Gabriel as messenger?) talks to Adam. I'm not reading ahead, so is this leaving Eve out of the discussion also leaving her open to temptation?
By the way, that line about Raphael "the sociable spirit, that deigned To travel with Tobias..." is a reference to the Apocryphal book of Tobit, a book that I always think more resbles a narrative from the Arabian Nights than anything Scriptural.
I also noticed confirmation that in Milton's Paradise, God doesn't walk with Adam and Eve, since in the morning hymn they say: "Unspeakable, who sittest above these heavens To us invisible or dimly seen."
Raphael's words to Adam about the possible future destiny of man also raised questions: "Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit..." Now, since orthodox belief is in a bodily resurrection, this signals more of a Gnostic view. The words Adam replies: "Well hast thou taught the way that might direct Our knowledge, and the scale of nature set From centre to circumference..." also slightly smacks of the Gnostic idea that spiritual knowledge trumps the physical world.
Since you have drawn my attention to his lack of God walking with the two in the garden, it really does seem like a glaring omission.
And that bit from Raphael almost reads like our turning into angels—which is absolutely not what is going to happen. I do think the chapter I referenced that Lewis has on the Angels is really helpful and understanding Milton‘s platonic theology, which was apparently widely embraced at the time.
I think the failure to have God walking with Adam and Eve, alongside the conversation between Raphael and Adam about how knowledge and reason can bring man closer to God shows how Milton, one of the finest scholars of his day, glorified human reason. He is a Puritan politically, but philosophically, he is a humanist. For him, sin and redemption are matters of tightly or wrongly applied knowledge and reason - this is very apparent in 'Paradise Regained', as my Fletcher edition notes. There Milton's Christ reasons from knowledge of the heavenly to resist the temptations of Satan that Adam and Eve fell into - most of the poem is a philosophical debate between Christ and Satan, which is probably why it never gained the popularity of the more dramatic and descriptive PL. I appreciate Milton's literary genius. His use of poetic metre and linguistic ability is superb, but I don't see the deepest truths, the mysterious truths, in his philosophy. Accurate observations on human nature (his Satan is more human than demonic), yes, but not transcendent truths. God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden conveys the deep truth that human reason and knowledge are not enough to see God, that God must reveal himself to us. In Genesis, God in the Garden is a foreshadowing, a promise, that God will come to humans again, which He does, in visions and dreams and brief appearances, and then finally in full physical reality in the Incarnation.
I agree on Milton being a political Puritan. (Jack is working on an essay for us on this very topic!) And I think there is such a thing as a Christian humanist, and Milton might be one.
But surely he is a poet before he is any kind of theologian.
Donne and Herbert were both poets too, and their poems convey the deep truths.
I think I am just starting to see parallels between Milton's brand of Puritanism and present day Christian conservative movement, fiercely politically involved, often quite intellectually inclined, and yet so weak theologically. I am wondering if all the Puritans were like that, strong in political opinions, weak in actual Christianity. Is that how they justified executing Charles I and showing violence to civilians during the English Civil War? Is that why they ended up committing the Salem witch trials?
Surely not, I’ve read some beautiful puritan prayers . It would be like me saying from across the Atlantic that all Christians in the United States are Trump supporters. But then I’m biased as my family were pretty keen parliamentarians
Well, I'm Canadian, of highly mixed ancestry. My father's family were originally from a Scottish border clan, made part of the 17th century Ulster settlement in Northern Ireland by the English, as part of the attempted ethnic cleansing of Catholic Irish that was begun by Cromwell [My father's ancestors didn't stay in Northern Ireland that long, leaving the next century for the New World and settling in Nova Scotia, which had just been ethnically cleansed by the English of the previous French settlers, the Acadians, a tragedy still remembered] - the family legend is that they were raiders of sheep in Scotland and Ireland, so they don't sound like the kind that would have taken up either side's cause. My mother's side of the family were mostly working class - shepherds, labourers, domestic servants - English, so no record exists of their ancestral opinion on the English Civil War.
On whether to read John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, I think that seems a logical next step. I am enjoying this slow journey through the formative classics. I have read Pilgrim's Progress more than once - it was the only imaginative book Gothard's ATI didn't make one feel guilty for reading - but it has been years since my last reading.
I am also struck with Abdiel’s fidelity. It is hard, extremely hard, to go against the flow when everyone around you is of one mind. A test of character. I love Milton’s way of hammering this home:
“So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found,
Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single.”
Secondly, yes I would love to go through Pilgrim’s Progress!
Thank you for the PP vote! Seems like it’s going to be a go.
Your comment now makes me see very clearly when I didn’t until you made it that this refusal to conform even under such great pressure is exactly what my post today is about. Shew. Milton gives so many interesting insights and nuances into human (and angel) behavior!
On the Trinity, I have read Chris Watkin’s “Biblical Critical Theory” and he places the reality of the Trinity as fundamental to our understanding of God’s relationship to contemporary culture. It is Watkin’s first chapter and he asserts that there is no understanding of God’s relationship to creation and to men without the Trinity. The Trinity means that God is personal, relational, authoritative, and the essence of love. I suspect that most of my comments will be more related to God and culture since my background is in history and the social sciences. - Jack
Yes, agreed. As Fenton Hort said in his 1871 Hulsean Lectures to Cambridge University on 'The Way, the Truth, and the Life':
'Except as denoting the crown of willing and intelligent discipleship, the words "coming to the Father" have in this connexion no meaning. They offer no promise except to those who have loved and honoured the Son. If the responsibility of sonship and the subjection to the Son are accepted grudgingly, still more if they are repudiated, 'coming to the Father' can be only an object of dread. Submission to the Son of God as the supreme Way, Truth, and Life is the test whether the sonship of men and the fatherhood of God are more than hazy metaphors to be whispered in moods of pathetic languor.'
I am realizing when Milton speaks of the God being Father, he is doing so through Plato's philosophy of the origin of all life - Milton's Son is only the foremost created being, not the Incarnate God-Man by whose blood we are adopted into the the family of God and thus cry 'Abba, Father'. Milton's Father is based on a pagan Greek philosopher's concept of life's origins, perhaps that is why the Greek pagan deity Pan is in Milton's Paradise. When Paul quoted the pagan Greek philosophers on the Areopagus, he was helping his listeners to move from the philosopher's time when God "winked at" their ignorance to the time now upon us when all humans from all cultures are called to believe come to the Father by the Son.
Karen, thank you for the recommendation of the 2024 edition of Paradise Lost by Lithos Kids with illustrations by Gustav Dore (I’ve so enjoyed the ones you have included in your posts) and an introduction by Dr. Leland Ryken. I just learned in the forward to this edition that “the Oxford English dictionary lists more than 600 words Milton was the first to use, including satanic and depravity. Fascinating!
I will make one moe comment and then shut up. These lines: “though what if Earth Be but a shadow of Heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?” suggest Plato’s idea of the pure forms that is best expressed the the Allegory of the Cave which I taught to my 11th grade history classes. It also suggests Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “earth’s crammed with heaven” (from Aurora Leigh) as she meditates on the burning bush. This, it seems to me, is the justification for poetry, especially the poetry of nature - to reveal the divine that has been woven into our natural world. We don’t merely experience God, we encounter Him as did Moses.
I thought those lines were lovely, and didn't realize the extent to which the idea originated with Plato until I saw it in the marginal notes. Need to brush up on the Greeks, I guess!
There is a passage that has always stuck with me from "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." In that work, Ramandu, a star, tells Prince Caspian that it is not for him to know the faults of Coriakin, another star. Ramandu says, "it is not for you, a son of Adam, to know what faults a star can commit." Lewis often employs the use of the celestial bodies to be stand ins for other celestial bodies. There is a concept in Christian theology called the "aseity" of God. This is a part of God which is known only to God Himself. One of the subpoints which Lewis explores in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is the notion that there is a reason why we cannot know the secret stories of others. As Lewis remarks elsewhere, "No one is ever told any story except their own."
In any case, Ramandu's statement has always stuck with me in dealing with the otherness of the angel's fall. The sins they commit are different then our own, and far stranger since they have been in God's presence. Milton employs an extrapolation to say that the angelic fall is of similar kind to ours; but what if it wasn't? Indeed, when we worry about others’ downfalls, do we inadvertently minimize our own in a similar manner to how we fixate on this person’s struggles with alcohol or relationship failures, thereby temporarily escaping the responsibility of confronting our own shortcomings? Maybe it’s a bit too much, but I wouldn’t ignore it either.
Milton spends a great deal of time on the work addressing the different things we cannot know, whether about God or the angels. He even has Raphael struggle with how to describe some of these things to Adam, as I mentioned. Milton’s influence on Lewis knows no bounds.
My post on Book 6 actually touches on your second point! Stay tuned.
I keep falling behind, but I’m still enjoying this a lot. Yes, I agree (so I can catch up) - finish PL, then a poem a week X 2-4, then a nice slow ride with Bunyan. Excellent.
Thank you for the explanation and examples of a "type." It enriches my understanding of the text so much. This is my favorite book so far - is it because it deals with so much food??? Maybe! Milton even describes the forest Raphael flies through as spicy. But I also think the beautiful language is filled with references to all the senses.
I was surprised to read Milton's reference to Galileo (2/15/1564-1/8/1642) in lines 261-263.
This question from Adam (514) seems poignant to me: "Can we want disobedience?" And I found the line (525) of warning from Raphael to Adam and Eve to be a hint about what is to come, also. "God made thee perfect, not immutable." That thought might be wise to include in counseling to engaged couples.
Yes, I would love to read through Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
P.S. Raphael has six wings because he is a seraphim as described in Isaiah 6: 1-3.
All the senses indeed! There was one line in Eve’s retelling of her dream (I think) that referred to the smell of the fruit from the tree. Such an interesting use of sense.
That question about wanting disobedience ties to the theme of rebellion that is prominent in this book and the entire work.
This book reminds us of two principle ideas that should characterize our Christian lives - hospitality and the fact that God’s economy is a gift economy. Bac in the day my family would host other families for dinner after Sunday morning church - now we all seem to want to go our separate ways. Our concept of hospitality, I fear, has shrunk. Likewise our sense of sharing seems replaced often by greed. A recent article suggested that racism is really more about greed than even a belief in the inferiority of people of color. It is easy for “I” to become “Thou.” There is a difference between being careful with our wealth so that we have more to share and being careful so we can acquire more for ourselves. - Jack
I wonder if the article you refer to is related to a new book by Malcolm Folely? I heard him give a talk based on it and I think that’s what his thesis is and it is a powerful and convicting argument.
Oh, I also meant to submit my vote for Pilgrim's Progress. I don't think I have ever read it. I don't know how I managed that.
I would love to be introduced to at least one poem from another poet in between PL and PP. Some of the others you have done echo in my head throughout the day, and it's a beautiful thing.
I was annoyed that Eve was doing all the work, too. Haha. It would have been more interesting if they all prepared the food together. I appreciated how hospitality plays into all this, then tying to "communion," as you pointed out.
Jack's comment about this being a poetic composition (agreed!) ought to remind us that Milton is not writing a theological treatise but an imaginative work intended to speak to sin and redemption, God's sovereignty and authority and his plan for the salvation of his creation after the fall. Whatever Milton's theology of the Trinity, I think it's more interesting to contrast the "begotten" nature of creation with Satan's boast in lines 853 and following:
"That we were formed then say'st thou? and the work
Of secondary hands, by task transferred
From Father to his Son? strange point and new!
Doctrine which we would know whence learnt: who saw
When this creation was? remember'st thou
Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being?
We know no time when we were not as now;
Know none before us; self-begot, self-raised
By our own quick'ning power, ...
Our puissance is our own, our own right hand
Shall teach us highest deeds...."
The ultimate folly of Satan and men is to deny that God has any authority over creation and us by claiming that all we are and possess is owed solely to our own strength and wisdom and wit. And here is Satan doing just that. He is self-begot, or in the modern vernacular, he is a self-made man.
Oh, that is an excellent comparison. Thank you, Charlie. Very helpful.
Holly, you beat me to this point! I was slightly annoyed with Milton for having Eve do all of the "kitchen work" especially since it seems that they worked together rather equally in the garden. The "second shift" indeed.
I also thought of Jesus' words to Mary when she listened to him teach instead doing the serving work like Martha.
It’s wild isn’t it? Pre-fallen state, my foot!
I have to keep reminding myself that Milton’s god is not God, but Milton’s interpretation and am interested that C.S. Lewis wrote on Paradise Lost as he also is somewhat sexist, I never agreed that Peter rather than Lucy should rule Narnia
Looks like I didn't put this comment in the right place.
It made sense anyway!
I’m always doing that ! I did it above somewhere
Any thoughts on the seraphim Abdiel's confrontation and opposition to Satan? This begins about line 803 when Satan is trying to convince angels to rebel against God. I thought that in this poem which has rebellion as an ongoing theme, it was refreshing to read about one who remained a faithful servant of God. Brought to mind the truth that God will not leave himself without a witness of some kind. (Acts 14:17)
Teri, in many ways that is probably the most important part of this book and I was hoping someone would bring it up. Every week I sit down and try to figure out what I can tackle and do justice too, and I knew it would be this or something else, but not everything. I do think this is an interesting and insightful nuance Milton offers. Another comment here made it obvious to me (when it wasn’t before) that this refusal to conform despite great pressure is exactly what my post today was about!
Yes, I saw your post, Karen, and thought of this part of the poem. In my edition of Paradise Lost, which is an Oxford's World Classics from 2004, the text reads, "Abdiel... Stood up, and in a flame of zeal severe The current of his (Satan's) fury thus opposed." (808) I pictured you as a light of truth in a dark, oppressive place as well, friend.
I will never read these lines the same way again, Teri. 🥺
I found myself enjoying the language itself more and more this week- perhaps my “comprehension muscle” is getting stronger. I found the passage in lines 528- 539 on free will particularly interesting and lovely: “Our voluntary service he requires, not our necessitated, such with him finds no acceptance . .. Freely we serve because we freely love.”
God is not pleased with mere obedience because he is not a tyrant, but he finds joy in our love for him.
Are the lines following 468 referencing the Great Chain of Being? That was my first thought in reading it through and when you mentioned it perhaps that was confirmation that my instincts were right.
Yes! Good eye. That passage is exactly centered on the Great Chain of Being.
I’m finding my “comprehension muscle”
and my “attention muscle” strengthening with these readings. Huzzah!
You asked whether we would enjoy (tolerate) another long book such as The Pilgrim’s Progress. I for one would relish such a move. I began this study of Milton more or less out of discipline and now find myself looking forward to each week’s revelation. I am also reading (have read, actually) Dr. Jeff Bargeau’s book on C.S. Lewis, “The Last Romantic.” Many of Barbeau’s concerns about art and poetry have helped me see Milton’s work as poetic composition that forms a pathway to truth. Lewis was careful about making the subjective into a “suffocating” subjectivity, but much of his writing has a very subjective quality that somehow speaks to us in objective reality. - Jack
I am so grateful for what you say here, Jack, about your own experience of the reading we are doing. It makes my heart glad.
We could all do with a little bit more poetic shaping of our days and our souls.
Two comments, Karen. First, I would love to go through Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in the same way. I've never read it, and a slow read by easy stages would be the spur I need, as it has been with Paradise Lost.
Second, though I hate to nitpick at a footnote, your note 3 this week makes an observation that is controverted in my edition. As I've mentioned before, I'm using Hackett's reprint of Milton's Complete Poems and Major Prose, edited by Merritt Y. Hughes (first published in 1957). Merritt's note on Book V, lines 603–615, cites Maurice Kelley's 1941 book This Great Argument for the claim that "the meaning of *begot*" is "figurative," meaning that Christ was not literally called into being just then, when the Father says "This day I have begot whom I declare / My only Son" etc. Instead (quoting Hughes quoting Kelley!) "it means that Christ was exalted, and it is used because God, 'in proclaiming the Son ruler over the angels, is metaphorically generating a new thing—a king.'"
Yes, this is one Milton scholar from 68 years ago citing another from 84 years ago, and I have no idea what the scholars have said about it since. But at least here we have one or two modern commentators taking issue with the view that Milton is here expressing the Arian heresy. For my part, I don't know enough to say . . .
Thank you for adding this gloss, Matt! I am checking the (lengthy) Riverside note right now and it lists numerous Bible verses Milton was likely drawing on in using the words “begot” and “decree.” I was distracted more by “today” as though Christ weren’t eternal. I honestly have never really understood what “begotten not made” means (the orthodox teaching). And I honestly don’t know enough to land definitively on one interpretation or another of what Milton says here. I just know that since I’ve been introduced to the current evangelical teaching called ESS (eternal subordination of the Son) I am very wary of Arianism and its adjacent teachings.
Thanks for your vote for Pilgrim’s Progress!
A book I found very helpful on the Trinity is Dorothy L. Sayers' 'The Mind of the Maker'. It doesn't explain the mystery of the Trinity, rather helped me think of the indescribable. In particular, her chapter 'Scalene Trinities' really helps picture why warping the Trinity in any number of ways is dangerous. But my most helpful instructor in the Trinity was an unknown pastor, who, for a decade and a half in in my adolescence and young adulthood, in the course of his exegetical preaching through entire books of the Bible, criticized ESS and other warpings of Trinitarian theology. I didn't even know ESS was a widespread problem until years later, after the pastor had retired and I started reading a lot about the wider Christian world online. There is no substitute for a good pastor.
I love The Mind of the Maker!
For what it’s worth, I thought the same thing.
I am using my father's 1941 edition, with notes by Harris Fletcher. The edition is of Milton's complete poetical works. Fletcher doesn't comment a lot on Milton's theology, but what he does say makes it clear that he is aware Milton's theology is questionable in its orthodoxy. For Book V of 'Paradise Lost', on line 469, where Raphael starts speaking to Adam - "O Adam, one almighty is, from whom All things proceed, and up to him return...", Fletcher says "One of the most important passages in the poem for its statement of Milton's theology."
There is other evidence for Milton's heterodoxy outside of his poetic work. In 1825, a prose manuscript purported to be by Milton was discovered, 'De Doctrina Christiana' (Of Christian Doctrine). Scholars have debated its authenticity, but the general consensus is that Milton wrote at least part, if not all, of it. 'De Doctrina' clearly states Arian views that the Son of God was created. This fits with the Son's portrayal in the heavenly scene of Book III of Paradise Lost, where it is quite apparent that Milton treats the Son as being created: "next they sang of all creation first, Begotten Son..." (Line 383).
This is all very interesting. My book has selections from Christian Doctrine, with the editor treating it as given that it’s Milton’s. And he cites Maurice Kelley as the authority on it! Kelley’s full title was This Great Argument: A Study of Milton’s De Doctrina Christiana as a Gloss upon Paradise Lost. It sure looks like Milton is playing with Arian fire in chapter 5 of Christian Doctrine, so I don’t know why Kelley resists that reading of PL V: 603. But now I’m starting to feel sorry for going down a rabbit trail with Karen’s footnote instead of discussing her main point!
Not a rabbit trail at all! Footnotes are where all the action is!
I noticed that it is Eve preparing and serving the food, while Raphael (once again, shouldn't it be Gabriel as messenger?) talks to Adam. I'm not reading ahead, so is this leaving Eve out of the discussion also leaving her open to temptation?
By the way, that line about Raphael "the sociable spirit, that deigned To travel with Tobias..." is a reference to the Apocryphal book of Tobit, a book that I always think more resbles a narrative from the Arabian Nights than anything Scriptural.
I also noticed confirmation that in Milton's Paradise, God doesn't walk with Adam and Eve, since in the morning hymn they say: "Unspeakable, who sittest above these heavens To us invisible or dimly seen."
Raphael's words to Adam about the possible future destiny of man also raised questions: "Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit..." Now, since orthodox belief is in a bodily resurrection, this signals more of a Gnostic view. The words Adam replies: "Well hast thou taught the way that might direct Our knowledge, and the scale of nature set From centre to circumference..." also slightly smacks of the Gnostic idea that spiritual knowledge trumps the physical world.
Since you have drawn my attention to his lack of God walking with the two in the garden, it really does seem like a glaring omission.
And that bit from Raphael almost reads like our turning into angels—which is absolutely not what is going to happen. I do think the chapter I referenced that Lewis has on the Angels is really helpful and understanding Milton‘s platonic theology, which was apparently widely embraced at the time.
I think the failure to have God walking with Adam and Eve, alongside the conversation between Raphael and Adam about how knowledge and reason can bring man closer to God shows how Milton, one of the finest scholars of his day, glorified human reason. He is a Puritan politically, but philosophically, he is a humanist. For him, sin and redemption are matters of tightly or wrongly applied knowledge and reason - this is very apparent in 'Paradise Regained', as my Fletcher edition notes. There Milton's Christ reasons from knowledge of the heavenly to resist the temptations of Satan that Adam and Eve fell into - most of the poem is a philosophical debate between Christ and Satan, which is probably why it never gained the popularity of the more dramatic and descriptive PL. I appreciate Milton's literary genius. His use of poetic metre and linguistic ability is superb, but I don't see the deepest truths, the mysterious truths, in his philosophy. Accurate observations on human nature (his Satan is more human than demonic), yes, but not transcendent truths. God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden conveys the deep truth that human reason and knowledge are not enough to see God, that God must reveal himself to us. In Genesis, God in the Garden is a foreshadowing, a promise, that God will come to humans again, which He does, in visions and dreams and brief appearances, and then finally in full physical reality in the Incarnation.
I agree on Milton being a political Puritan. (Jack is working on an essay for us on this very topic!) And I think there is such a thing as a Christian humanist, and Milton might be one.
But surely he is a poet before he is any kind of theologian.
Donne and Herbert were both poets too, and their poems convey the deep truths.
I think I am just starting to see parallels between Milton's brand of Puritanism and present day Christian conservative movement, fiercely politically involved, often quite intellectually inclined, and yet so weak theologically. I am wondering if all the Puritans were like that, strong in political opinions, weak in actual Christianity. Is that how they justified executing Charles I and showing violence to civilians during the English Civil War? Is that why they ended up committing the Salem witch trials?
I wonder if “Puritan” had as much range then (and now) as “evangelical” does these days.
I think it did.
Surely not, I’ve read some beautiful puritan prayers . It would be like me saying from across the Atlantic that all Christians in the United States are Trump supporters. But then I’m biased as my family were pretty keen parliamentarians
Well, I'm Canadian, of highly mixed ancestry. My father's family were originally from a Scottish border clan, made part of the 17th century Ulster settlement in Northern Ireland by the English, as part of the attempted ethnic cleansing of Catholic Irish that was begun by Cromwell [My father's ancestors didn't stay in Northern Ireland that long, leaving the next century for the New World and settling in Nova Scotia, which had just been ethnically cleansed by the English of the previous French settlers, the Acadians, a tragedy still remembered] - the family legend is that they were raiders of sheep in Scotland and Ireland, so they don't sound like the kind that would have taken up either side's cause. My mother's side of the family were mostly working class - shepherds, labourers, domestic servants - English, so no record exists of their ancestral opinion on the English Civil War.
On whether to read John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, I think that seems a logical next step. I am enjoying this slow journey through the formative classics. I have read Pilgrim's Progress more than once - it was the only imaginative book Gothard's ATI didn't make one feel guilty for reading - but it has been years since my last reading.
Yes!!! I would very much like to tackle John Bunyan
I am also struck with Abdiel’s fidelity. It is hard, extremely hard, to go against the flow when everyone around you is of one mind. A test of character. I love Milton’s way of hammering this home:
“So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found,
Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single.”
Secondly, yes I would love to go through Pilgrim’s Progress!
Thank you for the PP vote! Seems like it’s going to be a go.
Your comment now makes me see very clearly when I didn’t until you made it that this refusal to conform even under such great pressure is exactly what my post today is about. Shew. Milton gives so many interesting insights and nuances into human (and angel) behavior!
On the Trinity, I have read Chris Watkin’s “Biblical Critical Theory” and he places the reality of the Trinity as fundamental to our understanding of God’s relationship to contemporary culture. It is Watkin’s first chapter and he asserts that there is no understanding of God’s relationship to creation and to men without the Trinity. The Trinity means that God is personal, relational, authoritative, and the essence of love. I suspect that most of my comments will be more related to God and culture since my background is in history and the social sciences. - Jack
Yes, agreed. As Fenton Hort said in his 1871 Hulsean Lectures to Cambridge University on 'The Way, the Truth, and the Life':
'Except as denoting the crown of willing and intelligent discipleship, the words "coming to the Father" have in this connexion no meaning. They offer no promise except to those who have loved and honoured the Son. If the responsibility of sonship and the subjection to the Son are accepted grudgingly, still more if they are repudiated, 'coming to the Father' can be only an object of dread. Submission to the Son of God as the supreme Way, Truth, and Life is the test whether the sonship of men and the fatherhood of God are more than hazy metaphors to be whispered in moods of pathetic languor.'
I am realizing when Milton speaks of the God being Father, he is doing so through Plato's philosophy of the origin of all life - Milton's Son is only the foremost created being, not the Incarnate God-Man by whose blood we are adopted into the the family of God and thus cry 'Abba, Father'. Milton's Father is based on a pagan Greek philosopher's concept of life's origins, perhaps that is why the Greek pagan deity Pan is in Milton's Paradise. When Paul quoted the pagan Greek philosophers on the Areopagus, he was helping his listeners to move from the philosopher's time when God "winked at" their ignorance to the time now upon us when all humans from all cultures are called to believe come to the Father by the Son.
That is really insightful, Holly. I think you are right.
Karen, thank you for the recommendation of the 2024 edition of Paradise Lost by Lithos Kids with illustrations by Gustav Dore (I’ve so enjoyed the ones you have included in your posts) and an introduction by Dr. Leland Ryken. I just learned in the forward to this edition that “the Oxford English dictionary lists more than 600 words Milton was the first to use, including satanic and depravity. Fascinating!
Wow! Heading off to read that introduction now! I’m so glad you are benefitting from that edition and now benefitting us!
That is totally fascinating! I would love to look at that list.
This may require a whole post in itself! And a lot of research!
I will make one moe comment and then shut up. These lines: “though what if Earth Be but a shadow of Heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?” suggest Plato’s idea of the pure forms that is best expressed the the Allegory of the Cave which I taught to my 11th grade history classes. It also suggests Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “earth’s crammed with heaven” (from Aurora Leigh) as she meditates on the burning bush. This, it seems to me, is the justification for poetry, especially the poetry of nature - to reveal the divine that has been woven into our natural world. We don’t merely experience God, we encounter Him as did Moses.
I thought those lines were lovely, and didn't realize the extent to which the idea originated with Plato until I saw it in the marginal notes. Need to brush up on the Greeks, I guess!
There is a passage that has always stuck with me from "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." In that work, Ramandu, a star, tells Prince Caspian that it is not for him to know the faults of Coriakin, another star. Ramandu says, "it is not for you, a son of Adam, to know what faults a star can commit." Lewis often employs the use of the celestial bodies to be stand ins for other celestial bodies. There is a concept in Christian theology called the "aseity" of God. This is a part of God which is known only to God Himself. One of the subpoints which Lewis explores in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is the notion that there is a reason why we cannot know the secret stories of others. As Lewis remarks elsewhere, "No one is ever told any story except their own."
In any case, Ramandu's statement has always stuck with me in dealing with the otherness of the angel's fall. The sins they commit are different then our own, and far stranger since they have been in God's presence. Milton employs an extrapolation to say that the angelic fall is of similar kind to ours; but what if it wasn't? Indeed, when we worry about others’ downfalls, do we inadvertently minimize our own in a similar manner to how we fixate on this person’s struggles with alcohol or relationship failures, thereby temporarily escaping the responsibility of confronting our own shortcomings? Maybe it’s a bit too much, but I wouldn’t ignore it either.
Milton spends a great deal of time on the work addressing the different things we cannot know, whether about God or the angels. He even has Raphael struggle with how to describe some of these things to Adam, as I mentioned. Milton’s influence on Lewis knows no bounds.
My post on Book 6 actually touches on your second point! Stay tuned.
I think an argument could be made for a dual biography of Milton and Lewis.
I love this! (And no need to shut up, haha!). There is so much of Plato in Milton that these connections are particularly apt.
I keep falling behind, but I’m still enjoying this a lot. Yes, I agree (so I can catch up) - finish PL, then a poem a week X 2-4, then a nice slow ride with Bunyan. Excellent.
That sounds like a perfect plan! We may also have a little interlude soon to help folks get caught up …
Thank you for the explanation and examples of a "type." It enriches my understanding of the text so much. This is my favorite book so far - is it because it deals with so much food??? Maybe! Milton even describes the forest Raphael flies through as spicy. But I also think the beautiful language is filled with references to all the senses.
I was surprised to read Milton's reference to Galileo (2/15/1564-1/8/1642) in lines 261-263.
This question from Adam (514) seems poignant to me: "Can we want disobedience?" And I found the line (525) of warning from Raphael to Adam and Eve to be a hint about what is to come, also. "God made thee perfect, not immutable." That thought might be wise to include in counseling to engaged couples.
Yes, I would love to read through Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
P.S. Raphael has six wings because he is a seraphim as described in Isaiah 6: 1-3.
All the senses indeed! There was one line in Eve’s retelling of her dream (I think) that referred to the smell of the fruit from the tree. Such an interesting use of sense.
That question about wanting disobedience ties to the theme of rebellion that is prominent in this book and the entire work.
This book reminds us of two principle ideas that should characterize our Christian lives - hospitality and the fact that God’s economy is a gift economy. Bac in the day my family would host other families for dinner after Sunday morning church - now we all seem to want to go our separate ways. Our concept of hospitality, I fear, has shrunk. Likewise our sense of sharing seems replaced often by greed. A recent article suggested that racism is really more about greed than even a belief in the inferiority of people of color. It is easy for “I” to become “Thou.” There is a difference between being careful with our wealth so that we have more to share and being careful so we can acquire more for ourselves. - Jack
I wonder if the article you refer to is related to a new book by Malcolm Folely? I heard him give a talk based on it and I think that’s what his thesis is and it is a powerful and convicting argument.
Oh, I also meant to submit my vote for Pilgrim's Progress. I don't think I have ever read it. I don't know how I managed that.
I would love to be introduced to at least one poem from another poet in between PL and PP. Some of the others you have done echo in my head throughout the day, and it's a beautiful thing.
Oh yay! I think it’s a go! And I’ll definitely find a short poem or two to discuss in between.
I was annoyed that Eve was doing all the work, too. Haha. It would have been more interesting if they all prepared the food together. I appreciated how hospitality plays into all this, then tying to "communion," as you pointed out.
I thought lines 156-170 were really stunning:
Unspeakable, who first above these Heavens
To us invisible or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works, yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine:
Speak ye who best can tell, ye Sons of light,
Angels, for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, Day without Night,
Circle his Throne rejoicing, ye in Heav'n,
On Earth join all ye Creatures to extoll
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of Stars, last in the train of Night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crownst the smiling Morn
With thy bright Circlet, praise him in thy Sphere
While day arises, that sweet hour of Prime.
“Day without Night” is such an interesting and beautiful name for God. Fits well with this passage.