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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2011
Among the significant questions perennially raised by Miltonic criticism, the two most important are the two most variously answered: What is Paradise Lost, and why did Milton write it? If the evidence which follows may be regarded as sufficiently exhaustive, I suggest that Paradise Lost was designed as a non-sectarian epic and more or less deliberately modelled as well as based upon conservative religious literature. The second conclusion is that Milton wrote his greatest poem to justify the ways of the Christian God, and to give artistic-prophetic expression to beliefs which were both vital and sacred to him.
1 I wish to make the point that the present essay is not concerned with the problem of the ultimate or immediate sources of Paradise Lost. The question of Milton's use of a number of the writers discussed will be considered in another place.
2 In keeping with all students of Milton, I am indebted to more works than it is possible to name. I may mention however Todd, Henry J., Poetical Works of Milton, London, 1809;Google ScholarBailey, Margaret L., Milton and Jakob Boehme, New York, 1914;Google ScholarWoodhull, Marianna, The Epic of Paradise Lost, New York, 1907,Google Scholar especially the digests of Grotius, Adamus Exsul, and Vondel, Adam in Ballingschap; Taylor, George Coffin, Milton's Use of Du Bartas, Cambridge, 1934;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHanford, James Holly, A Milton Handbook, New York, 1938;Google ScholarWilliams, Arnold, ‘Commentaries on Genesis as a Basis for Hexaemeral Literature,’ SP, XXXIV (1937), 191–208;Google Scholar various studies by Nicolson, Marjorie H., particularly those cited below and ‘Milton and Hobbes,’ SP, XXIII (1926), 405–433; and toGoogle ScholarDustoor, P. E., ‘Legends of Lucifer in Early English and in Milton,’ Anglia LIV (1930), 213–268,Google Scholar the last of which Professor Douglas Bush was so courteous as to call to my attention. I also am indebted to the Library of Congress, Catholic University, Chicago, Cornell, Harvard, Michigan, Yale, and Union Theological Seminary for the loan of rare books.
3 Robbins, Frank E., The Hexaemeral Literature, Chicago, 1912;Google ScholarMaisières, Thjbaut de, Les Poèmes inspirés du Début de la Genèse à l'Époque de la Renaissance, Louvain, 1931Google Scholar.
4 Cf. Taylor, H. O., The Mediaeval Mind, bk. VII, 135.Google Scholar
5 This expansion and diversification led to works which, without excluding the remaining themes, emphasized chiefly, (1) the battle of the angels, (2) the creation of the world, or, (3) the creation and fall of man. Among books not cited or mentioned briefly which illustrate the three types, or a combination of two, are the following:
(1) Amico Aguifilio, Il Caso di Lucifero, Crescimbeni; Alfano, Antonio, La Battaglia Celeste, Palermo, 1568;Google ScholarVerallo, Giacinto, La Guerra degli Angeli, 1623Google Scholar; Lucifer, Trébuchement de, in Mistère du Viel Testament, ed. Picot, Rothschild et, Paris, 1878–1891.Google Scholar
(2) Acevedo, Alonzo, Creacion del Mundo, Rome, 1615;Google ScholarAvitus, Alcimus, De Initio Mundi, Paris, 1545;Google ScholarCornazono, Antonio, Creazione del Mondo, 1472;Google ScholarMurtola, Gasparo, Delia Creazione del Mondo, Venice, 1608Google Scholar (Battle in Heaven, Canto I); Passero, Felice, L'Essamerone, Venice, 1609.Google Scholar
(3) Création d'Adam et d'Eve, ed. Rothschild et Picot, op. cit.; Lancetta, Troilio, La Scena Tragica d'Adamo, Venice, 1644;Google Scholar Lope de Vega, Creacion del Mundo y Primera Culpa del Hombre (poem); Luis de Camoens, Creação…do Homem, Lisbon, 1615;Google ScholarPona, François, L'Adamo,? 1664;Google ScholarSoranzo, Giovanni, Dell' Adamo, Genova, 1604;Google ScholarSalandra, Serafino della, Adamo Caduto, Cozenzo, 1647Google Scholar.
6 Op. cit., pp. 1 ff.
7 Cf. Caedmon and Valmarana, as cited below.
8 It is not my thought to minimize Milton's extended indebtedness to the Classics. The exigencies of space require however that I refer the reader to the editions of Newton and Todd, and particularly to Osgood, Charles Grosvenor, The Classical Mythology of Milton's English Poems, New York, 1900;Google ScholarMurray, Gilbert, The Classical Tradition in Poetry, Cambridge, 1927, Ch. I (pp. 7–22); andGoogle ScholarBush, Douglas, Mythology and the Renaissance Tradition in English Poetry, 1932, Ch. XIV.Google Scholar Comprehensive studies of the relation of Milton's ideas to those of rabbinical writers will be found in Fletcher, Harris F., Milton's Rabbinical Readings, Urbana, 1930,Google Scholar and the essays cited p. 317.
9 In view of Professor Taylor's study of the commonplaces in Paradise Lost, op. cit., Ch. II, I not infrequently have either omitted or have mentioned in passing only those which he discussed. His list includes (1) various attributes and functions of God, (2) of Angels, (3) Time, (4) Chaos, (5) Platonism, (6) the Six Days, (7) Matter, (8) Evil, (9) Adam and Man, (10) Effects of the Fall, (11) the Soul, (12) Scheme of Salvation of Man, (13) Theory of Knowledge.
10 To the end that documentary footnotes may be held within a reasonable space, the following works will be cited only by author, or where clarity demands, by author and title. The same method will be followed after the first citation of works not included in this list. The works of the Fathers cited in subsequent sections but not given here are from Migne's edition: Henry Ainsworth, Annotations upon the Five Bookes of Moses, London, 1639; Saint Augustine, City of God, tr. Rev. Dods, Marcus, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, New York, 1907;Google ScholarBabington, Gervase, Workes, London, 1615;Google ScholarBasil, Saint, Opera Omnia, Paris, 1839;Google ScholarBeaumont, Joseph, Psyche, London, 1648;Google ScholarBonaventure, Saint, Opera Omnia, Paris, 1864;?Google ScholarParaphrase, Caedmon Metrical, tr. Benjamin Thorpe, London, 1832;Google ScholarCalvin, John, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses, tr. John King, Edinburgh, 1847;Google ScholarCedrenus, Georgius, Compendium Historiarum, ed. Niebuhr, B. G., Bonnae, 1838Google Scholar (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae); Cowley, Abraham, Poems, ed. Waller, A. R., Cambridge, 1905;Google ScholarCrashaw, Richard, Sospetto d' Herode, tr. of Marini's Strage degli Innocenti (cited as Crashaw-Marini), Poems of Richard Crashaw, ed. Martin, L. C., Oxford, 1927;Google ScholarDamascene, John, Opera Omnia, Paris, 1712;Google ScholarDiodati, Giovanni, Pious Annotations Upon the Holy Bible, London, 1643;Google ScholarBartas, Du, Divine Weekes and Workes, tr. Josuah Sylvester (cited as Du Bartas), London, 1621Google Scholar ; , Edward, Earl of Clarendon, A Brief View and Survey of the…Leviathan (cited as Clarendon), Oxford, 1676;Google ScholarEnoch, Book of, tr. Charles, R. H., Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, II, Oxford, 1912;Google ScholarFletcher, Joseph, The Historie of the Perfect Cursed-Blessed Man, London, 1629;Google ScholarGoodman, Godfrey, The Fall of Man, London, 1616Google Scholar (Film copy, by courtesy of the University of Cincinnati); Heywood, Thomas, The Hierarchie of the blessed Angells.…The Fall of Lucifer, London, 1635;Google ScholarHeylyn, Peter, Cosmography, London, 1674;Google Scholar Book of Jubilees, ed. Charles, op. cit; Junius, Franciscus, Testamenti Veteris…brevibusque scholiis illustrati ab Immanuele Tremellio et Francisco Junio, Geneva, 1590;Google ScholarMasenius, Jacob, Sarcotis, ed. Dinouart, J., Coloniae Agrippinae, 1757;Google ScholarMercer, John, Commentarius in Genesin, 1598;Google ScholarMersenne, Marin, Quaestiones Celeberrimae in Genesim, Paris, 1623;Google Scholaribid., Observationes et Emmendationes, Paris, 1623; More, Henry, Complete Poems, ed. Grosart, Alexander, Chertsey Worthies' Library, 1878;Google ScholarOld English Hexameron, tr. S. J. Crawford, Hamburg, 1921;Google Scholar, Origen, The Writings of Origen, tr. Frederick Crombie, Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Edinburgh, 1869;Google ScholarPererius, Benedict (Pereira), Commentariorum…in Genesim, Moguntiae, 1612;Google ScholarLombard, Peter, Libri IV Sententiarum, studio et cura PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 2nd ed., 1916;Google ScholarPeyton, Thomas, The Glasse of Time, London, 1620,Google Scholar as reprinted by John B. Alden, New York, 1886; , Philo, On the Account of the World's Creation Given by Moses, tr. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker (Loeb Library), New York, 1929;Google ScholarPurchas, Samuel, Purchas His Pilgrimage, London, 1626;Google ScholarQuarles, Francis, Poetical Works, ed. Gilfillan, George, Edinburgh, 1857;Google ScholarSir Ralegh, Walter, Historie of the World, London, 1634;Google ScholarSandys, George, A Relation of a Journey…, London, 1621;Google ScholarSelden, John, De Dis Syris, London, 1617;Google ScholarStafford, Anthony, Niobe, or His Age of Teares, London, 1611;Google ScholarSwan, John, Speculum Mundi, 2nd ed. enlarged, Cambridge, 1643;Google ScholarSyncellus, Georgius, Chronographia, ed. Dindorf, W., Bonnae, 1829Google Scholar (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae); Tasso, Torquato, Del Mondo Creato (Le Sette Giomate del Mondo Creato), ed. Solerti, Angelo, Bologna, 1891;Google Scholaribid., Delivered, Jerusalem, tr. Edward Fairfax, London, 1687;Google ScholarTaubman, Friderich, Bellum Angelicum, in Melodaesia, Lipsiae, 1655;Google ScholarAquinas, Saint Thomas, Summa Theologica, tr. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, London, 1922;Google ScholarTostatus, Alonso (Tostado), Commentaria in Genesim, Venice, 1728;Google ScholarTurberville, George, Eglogs, London, 1567Google Scholar (photostatic copy); Valmarana, Odorico, Daemonomachiae, sive de Bello Intelligentiarum Libri XV, Bononiae, 1623Google Scholar (This edition apparently was unknown to Lauder and Newton, who cite the revised and enlarged edition, in twenty-five books, published in Vienna, 1627, under the title, Demonomachiae, sive de Bello Intelligentiarum super Divini Verbi Incarnatione. Lauder reprinted the first book of this edition, London, 1753.); di Valvasone, Erasmo, L'Angeleida, with preface by Q. Viviani, Undine, 1825;Google Scholarvan den Vondel, Justus, Lucifer, tr. Leonard Charles van Noppen, New York, 1898;Google ScholarWillet, Andrew, Hexapla in Genesin, London, 1608;Google ScholarWolleb, Johan, Abridgment of Christian Divinitie, tr…and in some obscure places cleared and enlarged by Alexander Ross (cited as Wolleb-Ross), 3rd ed., London, 1660Google Scholar.
11 I refer to the chronological beginning of Paradise Lost, V, 577 ff. All quotations other than those from contemporary works are more or less modernized in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and method of indicating quotations within the text.
12 Paradise Lost, I, Argument. Milton may have included Ambrose, De Incarnat. Dom. Sacr. 16; , Basil, In Hexaemeron Homilia I, 5;Google ScholarNazianzen, Gregory, Oratio XXXVIII, 9;Google Scholar, Isidorus, Sent., I, x, 4; andGoogle Scholar Jerome, Epist. ad Tit., I2 (PL VII, 594).
13 Summa Theologica, I, 61, 3.
14 Ibid.
15 Op. cit., p. 17. See also , Augustine, City of God, XI, 32;Google Scholar Pererius, I, 2 (sec. 194).
16 Op. cit., I (First Day), 589 ff.
17 Caedmon, pp. 1 ff.; , Spenser, An Hymne of Heavenly Love, sts. 4 ff.;Google Scholar Valmarana, pp. 1 ff.; , Vondel, , Lucifer, Acts II, IV (pp. 32 ff., 387). Cf.Google Scholar Develis Perlament, 11. 329 ff.
18 Cf. Job 1. 6 and , Rupertus, De Victoria Verbi Dei, I, 26Google Scholar.
19 P. L., V, 569 ff. The interpretation that Satan rebelled because of the Incarnation apparently was less widely accepted than the belief, based on the current gloss of Isaiah 14. 12–16 (and on Ezekiel 28. 2 ff.), that ‘Lucifer’ revolted because he desired to be ‘like the Most High.’ Milton utilized this interpretation at the opening of Paradise Lost, I, 38 ff.
[Satan] Aspiring to set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High…and…
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud.
Among other writers who presented this conception are Acevedo, Creacion, I, 67 ff.; , Augustine, op. cit., XI, 15; Caedmon, p. 17; Damascene, De Fide Orth., II, 4; Old English Hexameron, 11. 300 ff.; Calvin, p. 146; J. Fletcher, p. 65; Peter Lombard, II, d. II, 6; Peyton, I, 67;Google Scholar, Rupertus, op. cit., I, 10;Google Scholar Stafford, p. 16; Taubman, pp. 78–79; Thomas Aquinas, I, 63, 3; Valvasone, I, 3 ff.
A third conception, normally the least important, but made by Vondel the principal theme of his Lucifer (cf. Argument and ff., passim), was that Satan rebelled because the Incarnation had made man higher than the angels. Milton apparently alludes to this conception in IX, 152 ff., and II, 347 ff. In addition to Vondel's Lucifer, where it is used in connection with the normally more important conceptions, the belief will be found in Heywood, pp. 339–40. Damascene declared, De Imaginibus, Orat. III, 26, that man was made higher than the angels by the Incarnation of Christ (the Word), but said nothing of Satan.
As the popular Wolleb-Ross compendium suggests, p. 64, there were those who believed that Scripture ‘does not specify’ what was the first sin of the Devil and his angels. These writers concluded ‘We may more safely with the Apostle, Jude 6, call it a defection from their first original, and a desertion of their proper habitation.’
20 Saint Thomas stated, I, 57, 5, that ‘the mysteries of grace,’ of which ‘the mystery of the Incarnation is the most excellent,’ was ‘revealed…to the angels.’ See also Heywood, p. 342; , Vondel, , Lucifer, Argument, and Act I (p. 284)Google Scholar.
21 Op. cit., p. 342. See also Beaumont, I, 18, 24; , Boehme, Three Principles of the Divine Essence (1619), IV, 65 ff.;Google Scholar Valmarana, pp. 14 ff. Vondel, I (pp. 285 ff.), and Taubman, p. 79, alluded to the idea. Calvin found the belief that Satan revolted because of the Incarnation both illogical and objectionable, and declared, p. 146: ‘Curious sophists have feigned that he burned with envy, when he foresaw the Son of God was to be clothed in human flesh; but the speculation is frivolous. For since the Son of God was made man in order to restore us, who were already lost, from our miserable overthrow, how could that be foreseen which would never have happened unless man had sinned?’
22 Milton of course followed the more common tradition to the extent, VI, 44 ff., of making Michael the leader of the angelic host which for two days waged inconclusive war with Satan's legions. Rupertus, I, 18 ff., also named Michael as the leader of the loyal angels.
23 P. L., V, 661 ff. The unnamed and smooth-tongued associate of Satan whom Milton described V, 702 ff., as casting ‘ambiguous words and jealousies’ while persuading the angels to leave for the quarters of his chief, is basically similar to the unnamed subordinate of the Lucifer of Taubman. Immediately after he had resolved to rebel, , Taubman's Lucifer, p. 78:Google Scholar
…Legatis de pluribus eligit unum,
Ardua qui poterat liquidoque fluentia cursu
Verba, vel abstruso vel aperto pingere flore;
Ac dare subtili vivacia dicta catenae,
Adstrictos quoties in nodum cogere sensus
Vellet, ut adfectus possessaque corda deorum
Irent sponte sua verbis quocunque vocasset.
Acevedo, I, 70 ff., provides Satan with quite a different subordinate who, under the name of Discord, incited revolt by violent and open expression of hatred to God.
24 Op. cit., I, 8.
25 P. L., V, 760 ff. Lucifer is addressing the third of the angels which he had led to the North. The basis of the two beliefs which Milton combined here, that Satan's domain lay in the North, and that the angels he seduced numbered one-third of Heaven's host, was the contemporary interpretation of Isaiah 14. 13, and Revelation 12. 4. These beliefs previously had been combined and used as Milton combined and used them by Valmarana, p. 17. The conception of Milton, V, 683 ff., that prior to his fall Satan ruled over a third of the angels of Heaven will be found in the anonymous Discourse of Devils and Spirits, V, 34. This treatise was printed as an appendix to the London, 1665, edition of Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft. It is not to be confused with Scot's Discourse of Divels and Spirits, which is a part of the Discovery.
The interpretation of Milton and Rupertus that Satan persuaded and did not command his associates to rebel against God harmonizes with that of St. Thomas, I, 63, 8: ‘The sin of the highest angel was the cause of the others sinning; not as compelling them, but as inducing them by a kind of exhortation.’ See also Caedmon, pp. 18–19.
26 Ibid., I, 11.
27 P. L., V, 833 ff. The faithful Abdiel of Milton, who rebuked Satan and attempted by argument to dissuade him and the angels from rebellion, has partial counterparts in the Fama of Valvasone, I, 18 ff., and the Gabriel and Raphael of Vondel, II (pp. 307 ff.), IV (pp. 386 ff.). Both Abdiel, V, 864 ff., and Raphael, IV (p. 387), are ordered by Satan to bear to God the threat of war. Heywood's Michael, p. 340, charged Lucifer with attempting to introduce ‘innovations’ into Heaven, a complaint made in Paradise Lost, V, 679, by Satan.
28 Op. cit., I, 13.
29 P. L., V, 853 ff. Among many others, the co-eternality of the angels with God is discussed and rejected by Augustine, City of God, XII, 15; and Thomas Aquinas, I, 61, 2.
30 Ibid., I, 12.
31 P. L., VI, 834 ff. Milton's belief that Christ was the conqueror of Satan in the battle in Heaven is also set forth in The Christian Doctrine, I, 9, where he interpreted Rev. 12. 7–8 as describing Michael and Satan as ‘separating after a doubtful conflict,’ and concluded that ‘Christ vanquished the Devil, and trampled him under foot singly.’ A similar conclusion appears in Beaumont, I, 18 and V, 36.
As the pertinent works cited above in notes 5 and 10 have indicated, there were few themes more interesting to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries than the battle in Heaven. In general, following Rev. 12. 7 ff., this battle was built around Michael and Satan. This tradition Milton followed in the conflict of the first day. He included the conventional verbal warfare and personal combat between these two leaders, and the common epic mixture of mass fighting and separate struggles between lesser figures. To the relatively conventional subordinates of Michael — Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel (cf. Vondel, Lucifer, passim, and Valmarana, pp. 26–27) — he added with Valmarana and others names either coined or selected. The second day of the battle is a mixture of the old and the new — the employment of artillery newly invented by Satan, and the hurling of great mountains. As various critics have noted, Valvasone, II, 20–21, ascribed to Satan the invention of artillery for use against God's angels, and Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, IX, 28, Drayton, Polyolbion, Song 18, and Spenser, Faerie Queene, I, vii, 13, attributed to Satan or Hell the creation of firearms. Whether Milton's alteration of the rocks flung in Hesiod, Theogony, 11. 674 ff., 713 ff., to mountains was regarded by him as supported by Du Bartas, Decay, 11. 976 ff., probably must remain an open question.
32 Ibid., I, 15.
33 P. L., VI, 838 ff. To use the phrase of Sir Herbert Grierson, Milton here describes Christ as coming forth ‘in all the panoply of Ezekiel's vision.’ Such a description would have appeared altogether fitting to Rupertus, who, as I point out in ‘Milton's Battle in Heaven and Rupert of Saint Heribert,’ forthcoming in Speculum, regarded Ezekiel as portraying Christ in this particular vision.
34 Ibid., I, 16, 17, 23.
35 P. L., VI, 853 ff. Langland, Piers Plowman, I, 119, and Turberville, fol. 15r, previously had described Satan as falling nine days, and Valmarana, p. 32, as abandoning Heaven, and falling into Chaos and profound night:
Lucifer in Caelum frendens, ceditque siletque,
Et Chaos horrendum penetrat, noctisque profunde…
36 Ibid., I, 17, 22, 26.
37 P. L., VI, 878 ff. The first line occurs in the text after those quoted below it.
38 Ibid., I, 20, 22, 30; II, 1. Book II, 1, follows immediately I, 30. See also I, 19: ‘Itaque projecto illo, laudaverunt et jubilaverunt angeli sancti.’… The basis of this and similar passages is Job 38. 7: ‘And all the sons of God shouted for joy.’
39 P. L., I, 723 ff.; II, 1 ff.
40 Beaumont, I, 8 ff.; , Fletcher, Apollyonists, I, 18 ff., IV, 5 ff.;Google Scholar, Tasso, Gier. Lib., IV, 6 ff., Valmarana, pp. 36 ff.; Valvasone, III, 28Google Scholar.
41 Beaumont, ibid.; Cowley, p. 245; Crashaw-Marini, sts. 5 ff.; Fletcher, ibid.; Tasso, ibid.; , Vondel, Lucifer, V (pp. 424–425)Google Scholar.
43 Beaumont, I, 18; Caedmon, p. 23; Fletcher, II, 15 ff.; Tasso, ibid., Vondel, Adam, I, 1. Cf. P. L., II, 11 ff. passim.
44 Beaumont, 16 ff.; Caedmon, pp. 23 ff.; Fletcher, ibid., II, 15 ff.; Masenius, pp. 8 ff., 84 ff.; Valmarana, ibid. Cf. P. L., I, 106 ff., and passim. Fletcher's Apollyon declared he had a ‘heart unbroke, which neither Hell can daunt, nor Heaven appease,’ and the Satan of Beaumont vowed he would never surrender to God:
I yield not yet; Defiance, Heaven, said he,
And though I cannot reach tbee with my fire,
Or scepter, yet my brain shall able be
To grapple with thee, nor canst thou be higher
Than my brave spite: Know, though below I dwell,
Heaven has no stouter hearts than live in Hell.
The theme of defiance of God is implicit in the Lucifer of Vondel, V (p. 425), where this character called upon his associates ‘With hate irreconcilable and furious craft, the Heavens to persecute and circumvent.’
45 Andreini, I, ii; Beaumont, I, 33 ff.; Caedmon, pp. 25 ff.; Valmarana, pp. 49 ff.; Vondel, Adam, I, 1 ff. Cf. P. L., I, 656 ff., II, 344 ff.
46 Andreini, I, iv; Caedmon, pp. 27 ff.; Masenius, ibid.; Valmarana, ibid.; Valvasone, III, 18 ff.; , Vondel, Lucifer, V (pp. 425 ff.).Google Scholar The Lucifer of Valvasone here asserted his intention ‘Esser primo Signor d'un altro mondo,’ and declared ‘Ma vinca il Ciel, tanto sei qui piu degno, / Quanto Re in Cielo avesti, in terra hai regno.’ Cf. P. L., ibid., and I, 263: ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.’
47 P. L., III, 621 ff.; More, Psychozoia, III, 1, note.
48 Bonaventure, Centiloquium, III, 18; Discourse, V, 34. See also Fletcher, Harris F., op. cit., pp. 234 ffGoogle Scholar.
49 P. L., III, 708 ff. I Enoch, xx, 2; xxxiii, 2 ff., lxxii, 1 ff.; Syncellus, I, 60; Cedrenus, pp. 17, 21. For a detailed discussion of the similarities between the Uriel of I Enoch and Milton, see ‘The Book of Enoch and Paradise Lost,’ Harvard Theological Review, XXXI (1938), 24 ffGoogle Scholar.
50 P. L., III, 636 ff. Du Bartas, Imposture, 11. 251 ff. (allusion); Beaumont, XVIII, 23 ff.; Peyton, I, 68. The Satan of Beaumont was so bold as to enter Heaven itself. He could not withstand however the ‘lightning… of Jesu's eyes,’ and at the last ‘his polished looks, his curled grove of hair…and all the stolen things’ of his disguise dropped away.
51 P. L., III, 681 ff. Thomas Aquinas, I, 57, 4.
52 P. L., III, 733 ff. Beaumont, XVIII, 36 ff.
53 P. L., IV, 32 ff.
54 Ibid., 25.
55 The description in P. L., V, 429 ff., of the ‘mellifluous dews’ and the ‘pearly grain’ enjoyed by the angels in Heaven has the support of the King James Version, literally interpreted, cf. Psalms 78. 24–25: [God] ‘had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven. 25 Man did eat of angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full.’ In the Lucifer of Vondel, I (p. 269), Beelzebub spoke of ‘our …food celestial.’ The angels of Paradise Lost, V, 633 ff., who ‘quaff immortality’ by drinking ‘rubied nectar’ perhaps may be compared with those of Du Bartas, described in the Vocation, 11. 1125 ff., as ‘carousing nectar of eternity.’ Milton also stated in effect, V, 570 ff., that he spoke figuratively.
56 P. L., I, 423 ff. See also I, 789–790; IV, 985 ff.; VIII, 624 ff. Cf. Ainsworth, p. 3; Caedmon, p. 31; Du Bartas, I, 600 ff., Vocation, 11. 1079 ff.; Heywood, pp. 193, 210 ff.; More, Psychathanasia, III, iii, 27 ff; Peter Lombard, I, d. VIII, 4; Thomas Aquinas, I, q. 50 ff.; Wolleb-Ross, pp. 51, 64; and the anonymous Discourse of Devils and Spirits, I, 4.
57 P. L., VI, 344 ff. Milton's description, II, 546 ff., of th e fallen angels discussing theology, indulging in music and investigating physical phenomena, harmonized with the conception cited by Heywood, p. 441: ‘Some theologists affirm them pregnant in theology. In music they are skilled, expert in physics…’ etc., and by Wolleb-Ross, p. 64: ‘There remained in them… their natural knowledge… experimental knowledge… etc.’
58 Further discussion of Milton's characterization of particular angels and conceptions of angels in general will be found in the introduction to Section III.
59 P. L., VI, 44 ff., 250 ff., 354 ff. Taubman, pp. 96 ff.; Valmarana, pp. 26–27; Vondel, Lucifer, Dramatis Personae, and passim, especially Act IV. Taubman and Vahnarana supplement Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel with angels whose names apparently had been corned in the fashion of Milton's Abdiel, as Hierameel, Jahiel, and Jediel.
60 Centiloquium, III, 18. Bonaventure described these four angels in some detail, interpreting their names and setting forth their functions. He said in part of Uriel, that ‘per ejus ministerium, illustramur in veritate.’ Uriel has of course an important place in 2 Esdras (4. 1 ff.), which with 1 Esdras was included in the Apocrypha of the King James Version. First and Second Esdras of this version are the Third and Fourth Esdras of Roman Catholic Apocrypha.
61 Syncellus, pp. 20 ff., 42 ff.; , Scaliger, Thesaurus Temporum… Notae, Leyden, 1606, pp. 244 ff.;Google Scholar Purchas, p. 31. In addition to Purchas, John Selden, Syntagma I, i (p. 6), made use of Scaliger's transcription of the Syncellus fragment.
62 P. L., II, 650 ff. See also Beaumont, XX, 104, a passage I shall discuss in another place.
63 , Fletcher, Purple Island, XII, 27–28.Google Scholar
64 , Spenser, Faerie Queene, I, i, 14–15.Google Scholar
65 Purchas, p. 21; P. L., II, 666 ff.; , Fletcher, Apollyonists, I, 10,Google Scholar Purple Island, XII, 32 ff. So far as I am aware, Fletcher's character Despair has not heretofore been connected with Milton's Death. In P. L., X, 590 ff., Death takes on a different character, one not dissimilar to the Dearth of Du Bartas. Cf. ‘Milton's Technique of Source Adaptation,’ SP, XXXV (1938), 87.Google Scholar As Dustoor has noted, loc. cit., p. 242, Lydgate previously had described Satan as having committed incest with his daughter Pride.
66 P. L., VI, 357 ff. (Moloch, Adramelech, Asmadai, Ariel, Arioch, Ramiel), 447 (Nisroch), 620 (Belial). Cf. Cowley, pp. 296, 317 ff.; I Enoch fragment, Syneellus, ibid.; Heywood, pp. 40, 436; , Nashe, Pierce Penilesse, ed. , Collier, p. 78Google Scholar (Arioch); Scot, Discovery, ch. 19; Selden, pp. 80 ff., 238.
67 Op. cit., pp. 256 ff. A brief discussion of the tradition which Milton apparently followed in describing Ariel as a follower of Satan will be found in the present writer's ‘Milton's Ariel,’ Notes and Queries, CLXXVII (July 15, 1939), 45Google Scholar.
68 , Augustine, City of God, VII, 5 ff.;Google Scholar Cedrenus, pp. 28 ff.; Cowley, pp. 296 ff., 313 ff.; Heywood, p. 436; Selden, ibid., and passim; Ross, Alexander, Pansebeia: or, A View of all Religions in the World, 3rd ed., London, 1658, pp. 58 ff.Google Scholar and passim. See also the catalogue of the I Enoch fragment, as cited; and that of Scot, Discovery, XV; Discourse, ch. 19. Cowley provided some precedent for describing the heathen deities as an army of warriors:
Far through an inward scene an army lay,
Which with full banners a fair fish display,
Moloch, their bloody God, thrusts out his head…
The double Dagon neither nature saves.…
69 P. L., Beelzebub, II, 299 ff.; Belial, II, 108 ff.; Mammon, I, 679 ff., II, 228 ff. For Beelzebub and Belial see especially Vondel, Lucifer, I (p. 268), and II (p. 319), where the first is described as the chief associate and ‘privy councillor’ of Satan, and it is said of the second: ‘His countenance, smooth-varnished with dissimulation's hue, no master in such deep concealment owns.’ See also , Scot, Discovery, XV, 2Google Scholar (Belial); , Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, Scene VI, 90 ff.Google Scholar (Beelzebub). Beelzebub appeared in Andreini, I, iii and passim as a major devil. For Mammon, the lover of gold and riches, the basis is probably Matthew 6. 24 and Luke 16. 13. Among others he is described or alluded to by Peter Lombard, II, d. VI, 4 and St. Bonaventure, II, d. VI; by Peyton, II, 160, and by Spenser, Faerie Queene, II, vii, 35–36. Valvasone, III, 19, devoted several lines to a fallen angel, then in Hell, who loved riches and gems. Peter Lombard, II, d. VI, 4, and Bonaventure, II, VI, Art. 3, also set forth the generally received opinion that the fallen angels were divided into hierarchies somewhat similar to those of Heaven.
70 P. L., II, 43 ff.
71 Apollyonists, I, 31–32.
72 P. L., V, 659–661, 706–707. The two principal Scriptural passages which supported the conception of Lucifer as the greatest of the angels appear to have been Ezekiel 28. 14 ff., and Isaiah 14. 12 ff.
73 P. L., I, 85–87. A second and distinctly minor conception of Satan, apparently alluded to in VI, 262 ff., and perhaps the basis for X, 441 ff., was that he had belonged to a lower order of angels. This conception, advanced among others by Damascene, De Fide Orth. II, 4, was rejected by Thomas Aquinas, I, 63, 7; and discussed by Scot, Discourse, ch. 9.
74 P. L., IV, 49–51. See also I, 128 ff.; IV, 43 ff.; V, 810 ff.; VII, 131 ff.
75 , Vondel, Lucifer, Argument (p. 263);Google Scholar Taubman, p. 78.
76 Summa Theologica, I, 63, 7.
77 Op. cit., p. 336. See also p. 331.
78 Crashaw-Marini, st. 30. Cf. Acevedo, I, 67; Abelard, Sic et Non, 47; Boehme, Regen., II, 46; Bonaventure, II, d. VI, 1, 1; Caedmon, pp. 16, 22; Gregory I, Hom. 34 in Evang., Moral. XXXII, xxiii, 47; Hugo, Sum. Sent., II, 4; Old English Hexameron, 11. 305 ff.; Rupertus, De Viet. Verbi Dei, I, 8; Spenser, An Hymne of Heav. Love, sts. 12, 14; Taubman, p. 78; Valmarana, pp. 10 ff.; Valvasone, I, 3 ff.
79 P. L., VI, 109 ff. In addition to the works cited in note 5, above, see Taubman, pp. 85 ff.; Valmarana, pp. 26 ff.; Valvasone, II, 19 ff.; , Vondel, Lucifer, V (p. 414)Google Scholar.
80 P. L., II, 1 ff.
81 P. L., II, 347 ff.
82 Lucifer, V (pp. 424–425). See also Andreini, Adam, I, ii and iii; Beaumont, I, 16 ff.; Caedmon, pp. 22 ff.; Fletcher, Apollyonists, I, 18 ff.; Grotius, Adam, I, i; Lancetta, II, iii; Valmarana, pp. 47 ff.; Valvasone, III, 17 ff.; Vondel, Adam, I, i.
83 I, 64, 2. Peter Lombard, II, d. VII, 1; Bonaventure, II, d. VII. See also Henricus, Quolib. VIII, 11; Isidore, De Sum. Bono, I, 13; and II, d. VII (with variations as to question and article) of the Sentences of Durandus, Gregorius Ariminus, Ægidius Romanus, John of Bassol, Scotus, and Stephen Brulefer.
84 Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, II, 22. See also Dialogus de Casu Diaboli, c. xvii.
85 Summa Theologica, I, 64, 1 and 3. See also th e anonymous Discourse of Devils, I, 5–6, 15.
86 Op. cit., sts. 12 ff.
87 P. L., I, 105 ff.
88 P. L., I, 591 ff. Cf. St. Thomas, I, 112, 3, quoting Gregory I, that although Satan had ‘lost beatitude, still he has retained a nature like to the angels.’
89 Cf. Matthew 22. 30; Luke 20. 36. Anselm (Abp. of Canterbury). Cur Deus Homo, I, 16 ff.; Augustine, City of God, XXII, 1; Enchiridion, XXIX; Beaumont, I, 24; Bonaventure, II, d. IX, 1, 7; II, d. XXI; Caedmon, pp. 6, 25; Catharinus, in Gen. 1. 28; Cornish Creation, ed. , Gilbert, London, 1827, p. 21;Google ScholarVictor, Hugo of Saint, Summa Sententiarum, III, 4;Google Scholar Old English Hexameron, 11. 324 ff.; Origen, Peri Archon, II, 3; Pererius, IV, 18; Peter Lombard, II, d. I, 5, II, d. XXI, 1 and 7; , Rupertus, De Glorificatione Trinitatis, III, 17, 21;Google Scholar, Spenser, An Hymne of Heavenly Love, st. 15Google Scholar; , Tasso, Gier. Lib., IV, 10;Google Scholar Tostatus, II, 7, and XIII, 420 ff.
90 Ibid. St. Thomas, I, 65, 2, is among those who cited and rejected Origen's belief.
91 Of the writers cited in n. 89, see especially Anselm, ibid.; Augustine, ibid.; Caedmon, ibid.; Catharinus, ibid.; Cornish Creation, ibid.; Lombard II, d. I, 5 and II, d. XXI, 7; Spenser, ibid.; Tasso, ibid. Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. XXXVIII, 10 ff., implied that man and the world were created because of the fall of the angels. St. Bonaventure, II, d. IX, 1, 7, rejected the belief that ‘solae virgines ad ordines angelorum debent assumi, et ex eis solum ruina angelica restaurari.’ Having discussed the question at length, ibid., III, 16–20, Rupertus concluded, III, 21, ‘Probabilius dici posse, quod non tam homo propter supplementum angelorum numerum, quam et angeli et hominis propter hominem Jesum Christum facti sunt.’
92 Hugo, ibid.; Peter Lombard, II, d. XXI, 1; Bonaventure, II, d. XXI, 1.
93 Tostatus, XIII, 421. See also II, 7.
94 P. L., VII, 186 ff. See also II, 830 ff.
95 P. L., IX, 143 ff.
96 P. L., VII, 150 ff. See also V, 498 ff.
97 IV, 207 ff., IX, 152 ff.
98 P. L., III, 98–99. Cf. Ecdes. 7. 29; Augustine, Enchiridion. CVII; Bonaventure, II, d. XXIX, ii, 3; Damascene, II, 12; Hugo, Sum. Sent., III, 5 ff.; Peter Lombard, II, XXIV, 1.
99 P. L., III, 112 ff.; cf. IX, 350 ff. Augustine, City of God, V, 9–10, XIV, 11; De Correptione et Gratia, XI, n. 32; Bonaventure, ibid.; Calvin, p. 144; Cedrenus, p. 13; Damascene, II, 30, De Duabus Voluntatibus, XXVIII; Contra Manicheos, XXXVII; Du Bartas, Imposture, 11. 473 ff.; J. Fletcher, pp. 39 ff.; Goodman, p. 38; Hugo, ibid.; Peter Lombard, II, d. XXIV, iii; Purchas, p. 22; Ralegh, p. 27.
100 P. L., V, 242–243. Bonaventure, II, d. XXI; Hugo, De Sacramentis, I, vii, 2; Peter Lombard, II, d. XXI, ii; Purchas, p. 21; Tostatus, XIII, 421. St. Bonaventure and Tostatus use the statement which Peter Lombard quoted from Hugo, ‘Sed quia illi per violentiam nocere non poterat, ad fraudem se convertit.…’
101 P. L., V, 238 ff., VI, 900 ff.; IX, 350 ff. Cf. Genesis, 3. 3; Calvin, pp. 64, 163; Du Bartas, Imposture, 11. 501 ff.; Grotius, Adam, II, i; Vondel, Adam, II (closing lines). In Paradise Lost, IV, 549 ff., Adam and Eve are (unsuccessfully) protected by Gabriel (the strength of God). Gregory I, Hom. XXXIV in Evang., and St. Bonaventure, Centiloquium, III, 18, described Gabriel as the might of God, who strengthens man. Henry More, Psychozoia, III, 44, referred to the angel as the ‘strong youthful Gabriel.’ In the epic, the guards of whom he is chief are the ‘youth of Heaven.’ The Cornish Creation, ed. cit., p. 25, described him as the leading angelic warrior, and Vondel, ibid., made Gabriel commander of the angels who attend and guard the wedding feast of Adam and Eve. Milton's idea that Adam had angelic guardianship in Paradise may be compared to that of St. Thomas, I, 113, 4; and to Peyton, who wrote, I, 65, that God charged the angels to be Adam's ‘fence and guard.’
102 P. L., V, 501 ff.; VIII, 640 ff. Ainsworth, p. 10; , Augustine, City of God, XIV, 13;Google Scholar Diodati, p. 1; Vondel, ibid.; Willet, p. 58. Cf. More, Hymn upon the Creation of the World.
103 P. L., IV, 421, 432–433. Beaumont, VI, 162; Du Bartas, Eden, 11. 481 ff.; Grotius, ibid.; Willet, pp. 33–34.
104 P. L., III, 94–95. Bonaventure, II, d. XVII, dub. 5; Calvin, p. 126; Du Bartas, ibid., 11. 447 ff.; Gregory I, Moral. XXXV, 29; Mercer, p. 80; Willet, p. 33. I include here the conception that man's sin was not so much the act of eating the apple, as his disobedience in so doing.
105 P. L., III, 96 ff. Augustine, City of God, XIV, 13; De Gen. ad Lit., XI, v, 7 and xxx, 39; Bonaventure, II, d. XXII, 1, 3, and 2, 3; Fletcher, P., Purple Island, VII, 11;Google Scholar Peter Lombard, II, d. XXII, 1; Willet, p. 49.
106 The somewhat traditional conception, P. L., III, 129 ff., that since Satan fell self-tempted and self-depraved, and Adam because deceived by Satan, man will find grace, but Satan none, will be found among others in St. Bonaventure, II, d. XXI, and Peter Lombard, II, d. XXI, 7: ‘Quare peccatum hominis, et non angeli, remediabile sit.’ Quoting Gregory I, Moral., IV, iii, 8, the latter said in part: ‘Qui ergo incitatorem habuit ad malum, non injuste reparatorem habuit ad bonum. Diabolus vero, quia sine alicuius tentatione peccavit, per alium, ut surgeret, juvari non debuit nec per se potuit; et ideo irremediabile peccatum eius exstitit. Peccatum vero hominis, sicut per alium habuit initium, ita per alium non incongrue habuit remedium.’
107 P. L., III, 183 ff., XII, 111 ff., 214, 447 ff. Faithful and Elect seemingly were synonymous terms with Milton. The general doctrine of election is of course amply supported by such Scriptural passages as Romans 8. 28–30 and 2 Peter 1. 10, and prior to and during Milton's age seems to have been embraced by all principal Christian sects. To the believer in Original Sin, it was an optimistic and not a pessimistic doctrine. As Augustine, City of God, XII, 22; Calvin, p. 255; Mersenne, col. 321, and many others stated or unmistakably implied, the doctrine exemplified the goodness and grace of God.
108 J. Fletcher, pp. 78 ff., and Peyton, I, 130 ff., describe debates between personifications of God's Justice and Mercy which with Fletcher are concluded by Pity's speaking in behalf of man, and with Peyton, by Christ's offering Himself. Milton employs a somewhat similar situation, III, 203 ff., in the scene where Christ acts as a mediator. See also III, 132 and X, 78, for Milton's emphasis upon the Justice and Mercy of God.
109 So far as I am aware, the commonplaceness of the conception of the Happy Fall was first pointed out by Professor , Taylor, op. cit., p. 22,Google Scholar where he included it among the ‘Commonplaces in Paradise Lost,’ and cited it (as again on pp. 45 and 71) as found also in Du Bartas. In a later and independent study, ‘Milton and the Paradox of the Fortunate Fall,’ ELH, IV (1937), 161–179,Google Scholar Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy demonstrated that the conception was a popular commonplace in Christian literature ‘from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Centuries.’ To the writers listed by Professor Lovejoy may be added, among others, Mercer, p. 72; Mersenne, col. 321; and Willet, p. 34.
110 P. L., XII, 458 ff.
111 An additional related and supporting theme, drawn from John 8. 44, was that Satan was a murderer from the beginning. Cf. Bonaventure, II, d. III, and Mercer, p. 92.
112 Cf. Andreini, I, ii and iii; Boehme, Regeneration, II, 46; Bonaventure, II, d. V, 1, 1; Caedmon, pp. 25 ff.; Calvin, p. 146; Du Bartas, Imposture, 11. 45 ff.; Grotius, Adam, I, i ff.; Lancetta, II, iii; Pererius, VIII, 28; Peyton, I, 123; Purchas, pp. 21 ff.; Rupertus, De Victoria Verbi Dei, II, 7; Vondel, Adam, I, and Lucifer V (pp. 424 ff.).
113 Cf. Augustine, City of God, XIV, 11; Boehme, ibid.; Bonaventure, II, d. XXI; Caedmon, p. 23; Old English Hexameron, 11. 449 ff.; Fletcher, P., Purple Island, VII, 11;Google Scholar Heywood, p. 464; Hugo, Sum. Sent., III, 4; Masenius, Sarcotis, pp. 8, 84 ff.; Mersenne, Emendationes, prob. 52; Peter Lombard, II, d. XXI, 1; Peyton, I, 67; Purchas, p. 21; Swan, p. 496. General references to Satan's envy, malice and pride will be found, among others, in Clarendon, p. 18; Damascene, II, 30; and Rupertus, De Omnipotentia Dei, V.
114 P. L., I, 106 ff., 661 ff.; IV, 9 ff. Cf. I, 600 ff.; II, 345 ff.
115 P. L., II, 832 ff.; IV, 105 ff., 502 ff.; IX, 174 ff. Cf. IX, 143 ff.
116 Sum. Theol., I, 64, 4. An extended list of Roman Catholic writers who held this or similar beliefs may be found in Migne, PL., Index XXXV, De Daemonibus, section 4, De poenis daemonibus illatis (CCXIX, 47–48). Section 2, De daemonum proerogativis lapsu amissis (ibid., 45–46), provides an equally extended list of those who, among other related ideas, set forth the conception that the apostate angels ‘in malitia obstinatos esse.’
117 Sent., II, d. VI, 2, 2. See also the Sentences of Richardus, II, d. VI, 2, 1; of Stephen Brulefer, II, d. VI, 4; Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Everyman ed., pp. 57–58; Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, III, 80, V, 115 ff.; and the anonymous Discourse of Devils, I, 5 ff. Cf. Bancroft, Thomas, Epigrams, London, 1639, II, 15Google Scholar.
118 In addition to the writers cited in note 83, above, see , Boehme, Three Prin., V, 30, andGoogle Scholar, Hugo, Sum. Sentent., II, 4Google Scholar.
119 Ibid. See also Purchas, p. 21: ‘Satan [did] see, disdain and envy them.’
120 Ibid.
121 Imposture, 11. 35 ff.
122 IV, 15 ff., 86 ff., 105 ff., 285 ff., 358 ff.
123 Hugo, Sum. Sent., III, 4, described it as ‘locus eminentissimus’; Vondel, I (p. 270) as a ‘lofty mount.’
124 We have, I believe, ignored the fact that Milton employed two mountains for the locus of Paradise. He may in addition have thought of a third. Cf. V, 260, ‘the Garden of God, with cedars crowned above all hills.’
125 IV, 134 ff. See also the ‘shaggy hill ’ of IV, 224. It was to this mountain top that God led Adam in VIII, 302 ff.
126 ‘Milton's Technique of Source Adaptation,’ SP, XXXV (1938), 69 ff.Google Scholar
127 I shall discuss in a work in preparation the light which use of two distinct mountains may throw upon the growth of Paradise Lost.
128 IV, 543 ff. See also XI, 118 ff., 376 ff.; XII, 639 ff.
129 Cf. Tasso, Del Mondo Creato, VII, 759; Peyton, I, 91.
130 IV, 280 ff. During Milton's era Amara was described in glowing terms by a variety of writers, including Heylyn, IV, 53; Peyton, I, 91 ff.; and Purchas, pp. 743 ff.
131 P. L., IV, 142 ff., 690 ff. See also V, 1 ff.; IX, 426 ff. Cf. Ambrose, De Paradiso, I ff.; Avitus, De Initio Mundi, II, 6 ff.; Basil, De Paradiso, 2, 4 ff.; Beaumont, VI, 143 ff.; Calvin, pp. 115 ff.; Damascene, II, 11; Du Bartas, Eden, esp. 11, 337 ff.; Grotius, Adam, I, 1; Masenius, pp. 9, 84 ff.; Mercer, pp. 47 ff.; Pererius, III, 20 ff.; Peyton, I, 107 ff.; Philo, On the… Creation, LIV; Purchas, pp. 14 ff., 21; Ralegh, pp. 32 ff., 49 ff.; , Tasso, Del Mondo Creato, VII, 665 ff.Google Scholar; Tostatus, II, 8 ff.; Vondel, Adam, II, and Lucifer, I; Willet, pp. 29 ff., 44. As Milton did later, IV, 268 and IX, 439 ff.; Beaumont, VI, 148, and Peyton I, 110, compared the Garden of Eden with other paradises. Milton, IV, 159 ff., also joined Beaumont in comparing the perfumes of Paradise to the odors of Arabia.
132 P. L., IV, 288 ff. See also VII, 506 ff., VIII, 57 ff. Cf. Ainsworth, p. 13; Basil ibid., 3; Calvin, p. 137; Cedrenus, p. 11; Du Bartas, VI, 445 ff.; Gregory Nazianzen Orat. XXXVIII, 11 ff.; Mercer, p. 71; Peyton, I, 65 ff.; Philo, ibid., XXI ff.; Purchas p. 21; Swan, p. 496; Vondel, Lucifer, I; Willet, pp. 31, 39.
133 P. L., IV, 312–318. See also IX, 1114–1115. Cf. Ainsworth, ibid.; Calvin, ibid.; , Damascene, De Fide Orth., II, 11;Google Scholar Diodati, p. 5; Mercer, p. 71; , Philo, Allegor. Inter. of Gen., I, 15 ff.;Google Scholar Willet, p. 39.
134 P. L., IV, 492 ff. See also V, 379 ff.; VIII, 470 ff.; IX, 386 ff., 424 ff., 457 ff. Cf. Beaumont, VI, 193 ff., 213 ff. (200 plus lines); Caedmon, pp. 35, 39, 43–44, 51; Du Bartas, VI, 1030 ff.; Peyton, I, 61 ff.; Vondel, ibid., Milton'sepisode, IX, 457 ff.,Google Scholar wherein Satan was temporarily overcome by the beauty of Eve, and at the close pronounced her ‘fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods,’ had a partial precedent in the myth that ‘angels had loved and coupled with women.’ This myth, especially as set forth in I Enoch vi, 4 ff., was widely known during the Seventeenth Century, and among other places was available to , Milton in Scaliger's Thesaurus Temporum, pp. 244 ff.,Google Scholar in Purchas, p. 31, and Syncellus, pp. 20, 42 ff. A further apparent allusion to the myth occurs in V, 446, where, after reference to Eve ministering to Adam and Raphael naked, Milton wrote ‘If ever, then, / Then had the Sons of God excuse to have been / Enamoured at that sight.’ He may also have had in mind such a union of the myth with I Cor. 11. 10 as was attacked by Willet, p. 74: ‘These sons of God were not the Angels, which some have supposed to have fallen for their intemperance with women…as Josephus, Philo, Justin, Clemens Alexandrine, Tertullian, conjectured; who so expounded that place of S. Paul, that women should be covered because of the angels, least they should be tempted with their beauty.'
135 The belief expressed by Milton, IV, 618 ff., that man should labor in Paradise, is set forth by Calvin, p. 125; Du Bartas, Eden, 11. 299 ff.; Mercer, p. 55; and Willet, p. 25. The last voiced a conception implicit in IV, 721 ff., when he stated, p. 33, that in part Adam was assigned to keep the garden ‘that being thus occupied in continual beholding of the goodly plants in Paradise, he might thereby be stirred up to acknowledge the goodness and bounty of the Creator.’ Adam's discourse to Eve, IV, 660 ff., on the stars and the angels suggests the learned or contemplative Adam described by Calvin, p. 58; Campanella, p. 18; Mercer, p. 55; Pererius, V, 44; Tostatus, II, 23.
136 Op. cit., p. 21.
137 Milton appears on occasion to have made some use of the conflicting interpretations of commentators, particularly in his employment of two temptations of Eve, and in having Eve twice warned against Satan and the tree, directly by Adam, and indirectly by Raphael.
The initial and unsuccessful temptation of Eve apparently occurred on the first day of the creation of Eve and Adam (cf. II, 347 ff.; IV, 287 ff., 420 ff., 623 ff., and especially 776 ff.). This was the day which a majority of writers regarded the most probable, as, for example, Calvin, p. 156, Swan, p. 496; Tostatus, III, 14 (but see XIII, 610–611), , Vondel, Adam, IV;Google Scholar Willet, pp. 51, 55. The second temptation occurred precisely a week later, on what appears to have been the eighth day (IX, 63–64). The eighth day was the time approved by Pererius, VI, 184, 189, and, according to Willet, p. 55, by other writers whom he failed to identify. During the first and unsuccessful temptation, IV, 800 ff., Satan took to the observer the form of a toad. Eve dreamed however, V, 55 ff., that ‘one shaped and winged like one of those from Heaven by us oft seen,’ tempted her with an apple which he had plucked from the tree. This use of an angelic form for the temptation seemingly was not usual, but Milton had some precedent in Caedmon. According to Willet, p. 47, who rejected the idea, it was the opinion of St. Bonaventure that Eve believed a ‘good spirit’ spoke to her on this occasion. The Eve of Caedmon, whose tempter also held before her an apple which he had plucked from the tree, said concerning him to Adam, p. 41, ‘I by his habit see that he is one of the envoys of the Lord.’ The Eve of Andreini, Adam, III, i, declared to her husband that she ate the apple in order to carry him to the sky. The Eve of Milton, V, 86 ff., dreamed that she flew ‘up to the clouds’ with her tempter.
It was the more common opinion among theologians, and doubtless among the laity, that God gave the precept against eating of the fruit to Adam, and that Adam as master of the household, then gave the precept to Eve. This belief, which was sponsored by such men as St. , Augustine, De Gen. ad Lit., VIII, 17;Google Scholar, Lancetta, Adam and Eve, I, iii,Google Scholar and II, ii; Mercer, p. 74, citing St. Ambrose; Pererius, IV, 142, citing Rupertus, and by Peter Lombard, II, d. XXI, 8, was utilized by Milton in IV, 420 ff. There were however other writers, as Willet, p. 33, who held ‘it more probable, that God gave the charge to them both.’ Still others, as Bishop Tostatus, XIII, 294, did not decide with finality whether God gave the precept to Adam and Eve together or singly, or to Adam and through him to Eve. In Lost, Paradise, Eve informed Adam when he warned her of danger that she had heard the warning given him by Raphael, so that, as she said to him, LX, 275–276,Google Scholar ‘by thee informed I learn, / And from the parting Angel overheard.’
138 P. L., IX, 75 ff.; Calvin, p. 140; Du Bartas, Imposture, 11. 106 ff.; , Vondel, Adam, IIIGoogle Scholar.
139 P. L., IX, 498 ff.; Beaumont, VI, 233; Grotius, Adam, IV. The latter wrote in part (Todd, IV, 51): ‘oculi ardent duo: / Adrecta cervix surgit, et maculis nitet / Pectus superbis; caerulis picti notis / Sinuantur orbes: tortiles spirae micant / Auri colore.’ Cf. , Murtola, Creazione del Mondo, XII, 11;Google Scholar, Tasso, Gier. Lib., XV, 48Google Scholar.
140 P. L., IX, 496 ff.; Origen, In , Ezech. Hom. I (PG III, 446);Google Scholar, Basil, De Paradiso, 7.Google Scholar Among others, the belief of Origen was quoted by Bonaventure, II, d. III, and Thomas Aquinas, I, 63, 6. Tostatus, III, 1, quoted the interpretation of Peter Lombard that ‘accepit diabolus quoddam genus serpentis, quod erecte incedit, quod Pharias vocant.’ Du Bartas, ibid., described the serpent when used by Satan as ‘not groveling on the clay.’ Willet, p. 47, rejected the belief with the statement, ‘neither is it to be supposed with Didymus, Jerome's master, that the serpent, during only this time of tentation, was caused by the spirit to stand upright.’
141 P. L., IX, 422 ff.; Peter Lombard, II, d. XXI, 1, quoting , Hugo, De Sacramentis, I, 7, 3.Google Scholar See also Ainsworth, p. 14; Bonaventure, II, d. XXI; Calvin, p. 145; , Grotius, Adam, IV;Google Scholar Heywood, p. 464; Mercer, p. 74; Pererius, VI, 87; Purchas, p. 21; Willet, p. 47.
142 P. L., 527 ff.; Peyton, I, 73; Willet, p. 37. Willet stressed the point by stating Eve was ‘altogether without suspicion.’
143 P. L., IX, 495 ff.; Beaumont, VI, 237 ff.; Calvin, pp. 149 ff. Milton's ‘Oft he [the serpent] bowed his…neck, fawning,’ is supported by Beaumont's ‘Thrice did he bow his flattering neck.’
144 P. L., IX, 503 ff.; Pererius, VI, 15.
145 P. L., IX, 529–792. Babington, p. 17; Cedrenus, p. 12. See also Beaumont, VI, 237 ff.; Calvin, pp. 147 ff.; Du Bartas, Imposture, 11. 273 ff.; Grotius, Adam, IV; Willet, pp. 47 ff.
146 On the…Creation, LIX.
148 P. L., IX, 553 ff.; Du Bartas, ibid.; Willet, p. 47.
151 P. L., IX, 591 ff.; Beaumont, VI, 247.
153 P. L., IX, 791. Caedmon, p. 57, described God as saying to Eve, ‘thou in that apple erst thyself didst gorge.’ See also Hugo, Sum. Sent., III, 5. Milton's device of emphasizing the seriousness of Eve's transgression by describing nature as reacting to it, employed in IX, 782 ff. (repeated when Adam fell), had previously been used by Beaumont, VI, 254. Grotius, Adam, V, ii, utilized it to intensify Adam's error in proposing to disobey God a second time by offering to die with Eve. Professor Taylor, p. 105, finds a suggestion of the device in Du Bartas' lines, ‘For the earth feeling (even in her) the effect / Of the doom thundered ‘gainst thy foul defect.’ See also , Boehme, Three Prin., XV, 26Google Scholar.
154 I have as yet not found what may be called a traditional pattern for the thoughts and behaviour of Eve immediately following her fall. The exhilarating effect of the fruit, described by Milton, IX, 792 ff., had however been mentioned by Valmarana, p. 73, and Peyton, I, 79, discussed the rabbinical legend that it was an intoxicating wine. The conception, IX, 823 ff., that eating the apple would make Eve equal or superior to Adam is implicitly in Caedmon, p. 36, and perhaps in Tostatus, XIII, 756. Both Mercer, p. 79, and Willet, p. 50, spoke of the rabbinical legend, included by Milton, IX, 828 ff., that Eve tempted Adam lest she die and Adam marry another woman. Beaumont, VI, 259, wrote that Eve ‘played… the Serpent,’ because she desired Adam to share her misery; Willet, p. 50, to share her happiness; and Tostatus concluded, III, 10, that she principally was motivated by ‘inordinate love’ for her husband— all of which themes are used, and the last stressed by Milton, IX, 830 ff. Having reached her decision, the poet's Eve then brought to Adam, IX, 851, ‘a bough of fairest fruit,’ a charming expansion of Scripture both comparable and superior to the plurality of ‘beauteous apples’ of Beaumont's temptress, VI, 259, and the ‘some’ which Caedmon's Eve, p. 40, carried ‘in her hands’ and ‘in her bosom.’ In Rubens' painting, ‘Eve Offering Adam the Forbidden Fruit,’ Eve is shown receiving from the serpent a branch of apples. We also may compare IX, 892 ff. with Peyton, I, 72. As I shall attempt to suggest in ‘Milton and Moses Bar-Cepha,’ an extended number of analogues for the temptation scene and other sections of Paradise Lost occur in the work of the Syrian Bishop. Moses Bar-Cepha said in part that Eve ate the forbidden fruit before calling Adam, to the end that she might excel and rule him. When both had partaken of the fruit, they ‘turned toward lechery…were made intoxicated…[and] were followers of wanton lust.’
155 P. L., IX, 863 ff.
156 P. L., IX, 926 ff.
157 P. L., IX, 960 ff. The traditional interpretation, summed up by Milton, IX, 998–999, that Adam was ‘not deceived, but fondly overcome by female charm,’ apparently was dictated by the necessity of providing an explanation of Adam's fall in harmony with 1 Tim. 2. 14: ‘Adam was not beguiled, but the woman.’
158 Willet, p. 48.
159 Op. cit., p. 152. Beaumont, VI, 260; Grotius, Adam, IV; Mercer, p. 80; Pererius, VI, 89, 93 ff.; Tostatus, III, 10; Willet, pp. 48 ff. DuBartas, Imposture, 11. 351 ff., and Peyton, I, 114–115, stressed the point that Adam was enticed by Eve. The tempter in Caedmon, p. 36, urged Eve to repeat his arguments to Adam.
160 Op. cit., p. 85.
161 P. L., IX, 1013 ff.
162 Cf. Augustine, City of God, XIII, 3; Bonaventure, II, d. XX; Fletcher, P., Purple Island, VII, 11;Google Scholar Old English Hexameron, 11. 465 ff.; Peter Lombard, II, d. XX, 1; Purchas, p. 22; Tostatus, XIII, 770 ff.; Willet, pp. 58 ff.
163 On the…Creation, LIX; P. L., IX, 1127 ff.; Calvin, p. 127; Purchas, and Willet, ibid.
164 P. L., IX, 1090 ff., X, 720 ff.; Caedmon, pp. 47 ff.; , Vondel, Lucifer, V.Google Scholar The idea of Adam and Eve praying, P. L., X, 1098 ff., occurs in Caedmon, p. 48. Milton's hyperbole, ibid., of their tears ‘watering the ground,’ is supported by Du Bartas' figure, Imposture, 11. 632–633, of the ‘rivers gushing down the eyes of our first parents.’
165 P. L., X, 852 ff., 1000 ff.; Andreini, IV, v; Grotius, Adam, V, ii; , Vondel, Adam, V.Google Scholar, Milton and , Vondel joined Caedmon, pp. 51 ff.,Google Scholar in describing Eve as at last comforting Adam, and the two becoming reconciled.
166 P. L., IX, 1122 ff. The condemnation of Adam because he permitted Eve to rule him, addressed by Milton's Adam to himself, IX, 1182 ff., is in , Vondel, Adam, V,Google Scholar uttered by Eve to him.
167 Caedmon, pp. 49 ff.; , Vondel, Adam, V, i, iiGoogle Scholar.
168 II, d. XXII, 1, 3. See also Babington, pp. 17 ff.; Brulefer, II, d. XXII, 3; Calvin, pp. 152 ff.; Hugo, Sum. Sent., III, 6, and De Sacram. I, vii, 10; Pererius, VI, 87 ff.; Peter Lombard, II, d. XXII, 4; Richardus, II, d. XXII, 3; Ægidius Romanus (Egidio Colonna), II, d. XXII, 1, 3; Thomas Aquinas, II–II, 163, 4, and Sent. II, d. XXII, 1, 3; Tostatus, III, 5 ff.; Willet, p. 49; Wolleb-Ross, pp. 74–75.
169 Ibid.
170 P. L., X, 930–931.
171 P. L., X, 810 ff. In addition to the writers cited in note 168, Du Bartas, Imposture, 11. 549 ff., stressed this point. See also Bonaventure, II, d. XX, 3, 3.
172 Cf. P. L., IX, 404, ‘O much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve.’ In addition to the writers cited note 168, see Caedmon, pp. 41 ff., who believed with Babington that in giving the apple to Adam, ‘Eve meant him no harm.’
173 P. L., X, 618 ff., esp. 628; Furies, 11. 237 ff. Milton's ‘wasteful furies’ built a bridge from Hell to the world; those of Du Bartas advanced over one. Milton's conceptions, X, 650 ff., XI, 466 ff., that the Fall brought into the world inclement weather, hunger and thirst, bloodshed for man and beast, and death in its ‘thousand forms’ represent a development of Genesis 3. 17 ff., and related Scriptural passages. From one to all of these themes will be found however among many other writers, including Caedmon, p. 50; Damascene, III, 1; Du Bartas, ibid, (who is especially close to Milton); Nazianzen, Gregory, Orat. XXXVIII, 13;Google Scholar Mercer, pp. 96 ff.; Old English Hexameron, 11. 460 ff.; Peyton, I, 73, 77; Purchas, p. 22; Willet, pp. 18, 35 ff.
174 P. L., X, 441 ff. Cf. Valmarana, p. 79; , Vondel, Adam, V, iGoogle Scholar.
175 P. L., X, 507 ff. Cf. Beaumont, XIV, 40; Cowley, p. 247; Fletcher, P., Christ's Triumph Over Death, 22;Google Scholar Heywood, p. 347; Crashaw-Marini, 38; , Tasso, Gier. Lib., IV, 4 ff.Google Scholar, Fletcher, Purple Island, VII, 11,Google Scholar wrote that Adam and Eve listened to a snake, and turned into snakes. That Milton should have introduced here a catalogue of serpents may now appear questionable, but his earlier contemporary, Joseph Beaumont, XV, 271, had employed this device to ornament his description of Hell.
176 P. L., X, 483 ff.
177 Demonomachiae, p. 79.
178 I omit discussion of the physical characteristics of Milton's Hell, described by him I, 210 ff., as the burning lake of fire and sulphur of Rev. 20. 10, and ornamented with details from Classical, Patristic, and contemporary sources. Cf. , Ariosto, Orl. Fur., XXXIV, 5Google Scholar; Caedmon, pp. 3 ff., passim; Cowley, p. 246; I Enoch, xviii, 5 ff., xxi, 1 ff.; J. Fletcher, p. 65; Heywood, p. 346, pp. 386 ff., p. 397; , Hugo, De Sacramentis, II, xvi, 4 ff.;Google Scholar, Tasso, Gier. Lib., IV, 9, IX, 64;Google Scholar Valmarana, pp. 25, 41; Valvasone, III, 1 ff. See also Nicolson, Marjorie H., ‘Milton’s Hell and the Phlegraean Fields,’ University of Toronto Quarterly, VII (1938), 500–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The celebrated figure of darkness visible (I, 62–63: ‘yet from those flames no light; bu t rather darkness visible’), expresses the conception of the fire of Hell set forth by St. , Basil, In Psal. 33,Google Scholar as a dark fire that has lost brightness, by Gregory I, Moral. IX, 46, as a fire which burns but gives no light, and by Heywood, p. 397, as one which gives ‘no lustre at all.’ In addition, ‘the fire of Hell…doth always burn, but neither wasteth itself, nor that which burneth.’
179 ‘The general supporting tradition was of course based on such Scriptural passages as Ps. 91 [90], 11,‘For he will give his angels charge over thee, / To keep thee in all thy ways,’ and Hebrews 1. 14; 2 [4] Esdras, 4. 1 ff.; Tobit, chs. 3 ff.; Daniel 10. 5ff.
180 Op. cit., pp. 194, 220. See also Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, De Coelesti (Angelica) Hierarchia, and Gregory I, Hom. 34 in Evang., especially 9 ff.; St. Thomas, I, qq. 111 ff.
181 Act II.
182 Op. cit., p. 17; see also p. 21. Cf. Syncellus, pp. 18, 60; I Enoch, xxxiii, 2 ff.; lxxii, 1 ff. In I Enoch, xxxii, 5 ff., the angel Raphael showed Enoch the tree of knowledge, and informed him of the sin of his parents in eating its fruit. Gabriel, xx, 7, had charge of Paradise, and Michael, lxxi, 2 ff., disclosed to Enoch ‘all the secrets of the ends of Heaven.’
183 Op. cit., Books IV ff.
184 L'Adamo, V, ix.
185 Willet, p. 37; Pererius, V, 35.
186 Defense of , Galileo, tr. Grant McColley, Smith College Studies in History, XXII, p. 18.Google Scholar See also Calvin, pp. 58, 162; Diodati, p. 1; Pererius, ibid. and ff., passim; Tostatus, II, 23.
187 The attitude of Milton's Raphael and Michael toward Adam is in harmony with the orthodox interpretation, based upon Rev. 19. 10; 22. 8–9, and voiced by Willet, p. 194, that ‘Angels will not suffer men to worship them.’
188 V, 311 ff. For a comparison of the views expressed here by Milton and those of Henry More, see Nicolson, Marjorie H., ‘The Spirit World of Milton and More,’ SP, XXII (1925), 440 ffGoogle Scholar.
189 Cf. Genesis, 18. 2 ff. See also the feast in Vondel, Adam, Act II.
190 Calvin, p. 471; Willet, p. 206; Mercer, pp. 333–334. See also Du Bartas, Vocation, 11. 1117 ff. Further similarities between Genesis 18 and Milton's account are the failure of Sarah and Eve to eat with the guests, and their overhearing the messages delivered by the angels, Sarah in her tent, and Eve, VIII, 41, ‘where she sat retired in sight.’
191 Calvin, p. 472; Tostatus, XVIII; Willet, p. 199. See also Du Bartas, ibid., 1106 ff.; Mercer, p. 331; Peter Lombard, II, d. VIII, 1; Rupertus, De Glorif. Trin., III, 21; and , Augustine, City of God, XV, 23,Google Scholar where the Bishop of Hippo stated: ‘Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men as could not only be seen, but also touched.’
192 P. L., V, 491 ff.
193 , Augustine, De Gen. ad Lit., III, xxi, 33, as paraphrased by Peter, II, d. XIX, 6.Google Scholar
194 Peter Lombard, II, d. XIX, 6. See also cap. 1, where he used the expression ‘de transitu ad superiorem.’
195 The most recent expression of this interpretation is that of Tillyard, E. M. W., The Miltonic Setting, London, 1938, p. 73Google Scholar.
196 Origen, De Principiis (Peri Archon), II, i, 4; ii, 2.
197 , ?Augustine, De Mirab. S. Script., I, 1.Google Scholar This work will be found in the Benedictine edition of the Opera, III, appendix, and in the reprint by Migne, ibid. (PL 35, 2151).
198 Bonaventure, II, d. III, part i, art. 1, q. 2.
199 Ibid.
200 As cited above, notes 2 and 3.
201 , Milton, Man and Thinker, New York, 1925, p. 288.Google Scholar
202 P. L., VII, 163 ff. We may compare Milton's statement that what God wills is fate, with St. Thomas, I, 116, 2: ‘The Divine power or will can be called fate, as being the cause of fate.’
203 A brief discussion of the poet's idea of God (or Christ) as the Architect who marked out the universe will be found in ‘Milton's Golden Compasses,’ Notes and Queries, Feb. 11, 1939. Similar and representative contemporary conceptions occur in Du Bartas, I, 226; Goodman, p. 16; More, Psychathanasia, I, i, 24; Swan, p. 39; and Tasso, Del Mondo Creato, I, 276 ff. Tasso describes God, the divine Architect, as bounding the infinite abyss. Job's conception that God separated light and darkness apparently contributed to Milton's description II, 1038 ff., of Chaos beginning ‘to retire’ as Satan approached the outside shell of the mundane universe and empyreal heaven.
204 , Augustine, City of God, XI, 5;Google Scholar Damascene, I, 8, 13; Du Bartas, I, 363 ff.; Heywood, pp. 29, 211; , More, Democritus Platonissans, sts. 34 ff., 45 ff.;Google Scholar, Newton, Principia, III,Google Scholar General Scholium; Ralegh, p. 4; , Tostatus, Exodus, VII, 14;Google Scholar Wolleb Ross, pp. 17–18.
206 Babington, p. 4; Damascene, II, 29; Mersenne, col. 319; Syncellus, p. 1; Wolleb-Ross, p. 20. As Professor Taylor has noted, p. 16, n. 2, F. E. Robbins, pp. 4, 5, 30, 38, 53, 73–74, ‘cites sixteen writers, beginning with Philo Judaeus, ca. A.D. 40, and ending with St. Augustine,’ who described God's goodness as the cause of the creation.
207 Cf. Heywood, p. 119; Swan, p. 32; Syncellus, p. 1.
208 Cf. Augustine, City of God, XI, 6; Calvin, p. 61; Du Bartas, I, 43 ff.; Mersenne, col. 280; Ralegh, p. 19; Willet, p. 22. See also Robbins, pp. 53, 66.
209 P. L., VII, 90 ff.; IV, 268; V, 394–395.
210 P. L., I, 19 ff.; VII, 235 ff. Basil, Hom. II in Hexaem.; Diodati, p. 3; Du Bartas, I, 323 ff.; Mercer, p. 11; Swan, p. 43. See also Robbins, p. 39, for use of the figure by Abelard, Ambrose, Augustine, and others.
211 As in Augustine, City of God, XII, 15.
212 Ed. cit., p. 50. See also Willet, p. 11, who cites and follows Junius and Mercer.
213 P. L., VIII, 66 ff.; IX, 104 ff. See also IV, 667 ff.
214 Ambrose, Hexaem., I, 1 (3); Augustine, City of God, XI, 5; XII, 11; Calvin, pp. 61–62; Heywood, pp. 141, 147; Valmarana, pp. 242, 346.
215 Goodman, p. 30; Pererius, I, i, 1 (54); Tostatus, I, 4.
216 , Mersenne, coll. 280, 895 ff., 1082 ff.; Purchas, pp. 7, 10, 12; Swan, pp. 114, 204 ff.Google Scholar
217 Op. cit., I, 335 ff.; IV, 144 ff., 171 ff. Du Bartas attacks the Democritian doctrine of a plurality of worlds; Milton, phases of the general doctrine which became especially prominent following the celestial telescope.
218 P. L., VIII, 16 ff. The astronomical background of the Raphael-Adam dialogue on ‘celestial motions,’ the scientific-religious controversy which it epitomized, and the immediate sources employed by Milton in its composition, are discussed in detail in ‘The Astronomy of Paradise Lost,’ Studies in Philology, XXXIV (1937), 209–247;Google Scholar‘The Ross-Wilkins Controversy,’ Annals of Science, III (1938), 153–189; andGoogle Scholar‘Milton's Dialogue on Astronomy: The Principal Immediate Sources,’ PMLA, LII (1937), 728–762.Google Scholar See also Nicolson, Marjorie H., ‘Milton and the Telescope,’ English Literary History, II (1935), 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
219 P. L., VIII, 72 ff. In his assertion that God concealed or withheld from angels knowledge of natural phenomena, Milton ran counter to the conventional interpretation. Cf. Heywood, p. 441, and Thomas Aquinas, I, 57, 1 ff.
220 Cf. Bonaventure, IV, dd. XXVI ff.; Calvin, p. 134; Goodman, p. 255; Mercer, p. 67; Swan, p. 495.
221 Calvin, p. 134; Willet, p. 21.
222 Cf. Calvin, ibid.; Catharinus, I, 18; Pererius, V, 35.
223 Cf. Bonaventure, ibid.; Damascene, IV, 24; Mercer, p. 60; Willet, pp. 21, 35 ff. The basis of the last end was of course 1 Cor. 7. 2 ff.
224 Op. cit., VI, 1050 ff.
225 P. L., IV, 741 ff. It was generally believed that if Adam and Eve had cohabited in Paradise, copulation would have been without lust. Cf. , Augustine, De Gen. ad Lit., IX, iv, 8;Google Scholar Bonaventure, II, d. XX; Pererius, V, 105; Tostatus, XIII, 770. Under the heading, ‘On Copulation in the state of innocence, and at present,’ Tostatus said in part that in Paradise concupiscence did not rebel against reason; no venial appetite existed; reason ruled and guided copulation, and cohabitation was only for procreation and never because of concupiscence.' Augustine, City of God, XIV, 23, held that ‘marriage, worthy of the happiness of Paradise, should have had desirable fruit without the shame of lust, had there been no sin.’
226 Calvin, pp. 95, 128 ff.
227 Willet, p. 39.
228 Mercer, p. 70; Bonaventure, IV, d. XXVI; Goodman, pp. 255 ff.; P. L., IV, 727 ff. See also Calvin, p. 129; Diodati, p. 5.
229 Gregory I, In Evang. Hom. XXXIV, 9; Bonaventure, Centiloquium, III, 18.
230 VIII, 568 ff. Willet, p. 37, and Du Bartas, VI, 1091 ff., followed their discussions of human cohabitation with references to ‘unnatural conjunctions.’
231 VIII, 596 ff. To this passage is appended the often criticized inquiry concerning the love of angels. Among others, this question is discussed by St. Bonaventure, II, d. III, p. ii, art. 3; St. Thomas, I, 60; and by Beaumont, VI, 219. Beaumont's description follows immediately that of the love of Adam and Eve.
232 P. L., V, 101–102, 486–487; VII, 507–508; IX, 351–352, 654. Cf. Ainsworth, p. 7; , Basil, De Hominis Structura, I, 4 ff.;Google Scholar, Damascene, De Duabus Voluntatibus, sec. 28;Google Scholar Du Bartas, VI, 517 ff., Furies, 11. 333 ff., Imposture, 1. 501; , More, Antimonopsychia, st. 2;Google Scholar Peter Lombard, II, d. XVI, 3; Philo, On the…World's Creation, XXI, XXV, XLVIII ff.; Ralegh, p. 19; Swan, p. 493; Wolleb-Ross, pp. 36 ff., 50. Philo wrote in part (XXV), that God ‘made man partaker of kinship with Himself in mind and reason, best of all gifts.’ We also may compare Philo's conception, ibid., XLIII: ‘Conscience, established in the soul like a judge…administering reproofs,’ with Milton's idea, III, 194 ff., that within man God ‘will place…as a guide, my umpire Conscience.’ For the views of other Fathers, including Origen and Augustine, see Robbins, pp. 32 ff.
233 P. L., IV, 297 ff., 637 ff.; IX, 1183 ff.; X, 151 ff. Cf. Diodati, p. 5; Goodman, p. 256; Grotius, Adam, V; Quarles, Esther, Med. 3; Ralegh, p. 60; Swan, p. 493; Willet, pp. 35 ff.
234 P. L., IV, 298 ff., 308 ff., 498 ff.; IX, 318 ff., and passim. Cf. Babington, p. 14; Calvin, pp. 128 ff.; Mercer, pp. 61, 66 ff.; Swan, ibid.; Tostatus, XIII, 372 ff., especially 377; Willet, pp. 21, 36.
235 Since the time of Bentley (Paradise Lost, XI, 387 ff.; new ed., London, 1732, pp. 360–361), various editors and critics have found particularly offensive the catalogue cities and empires of XI, 384 ff. In the vision inspired by Michael, Adam passed in turn from Asia to Africa, to Europe, and at the last to America:
From the destined walls / Of Cambalu…
The empire of the Negus to his utmost port…
On Europe thence, and where Rome was to sway
The world: in spirit perhaps he also saw Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume.…
We may recall however that in his Psyche, XVI, 100–104, Joseph Beaumont devoted five stanzas to a not dissimilar catalogue:
(Caption: A Brief History of Events.)
Heroic were these spectacles…
The first, subdued Asia did display…
The second, generous Europe did present…
Hot sandy Africk boiled in the third,
The fourth, was but prophetic yet, in which
Deciphered was a strange, untutored world,
In golden mines, and veins of silver rich.…
236 Augustine, City of God, XV–XXII; Caedmon, pp. 59 ff.; Du Bartas, Second Week; Peyton, II, 1 ff. (through the Flood); Valmarana, Bks. IV ff.; Ralegh, pp. 61 ff.; Cowley, Bks. I–IV, passim; Heylyn, pp. 1 ff. As Milton did later, Vahnarana described Michael as sent to Paradise to eject Adam and Eve, and as instructing Adam concerning future events of Biblical history. I shall discuss in another place the many similarities between the Demonomachiae and Paradise Lost.
237 Cf. Ashton, H., Du Bartas en Angleterre, Paris, 1908, p. 61Google Scholar and appendix; Thibaut, p. 57.
238 Cf. the Catalogue of the British Museum; Pollard and Redgrave, Short Title Catalogue; and Arnold Williams, loc. cit., pp. 191 ff.
239 P. L., XI, 445 ff. Cf. Cedrenus, p. 16; Cowley, p. 247; Du Bartas, Handicrafts, 11. 321 ff.; Syncellus, p. 19; Willet, pp. 61 ff. Mercer stated, p. 112, that some writers hold that Cain killed Abel with a stone; others, with other weapons, and concluded that there are a thousand ways of inflicting death. Milton followed his description of the slaying of Abel by depicting what he called ‘the many shapes of death.’ Du Bartas, Furies, 11. 235 ff., described in detail what he termed ‘a thousand deaths.’
241 P. L., XI, 556 ff. Cf. Ainsworth, p. 24; Caedmon, p. 66; Calvin, pp. 205 ff.; Du Bartas, ibid., 11. 525 ff.; Mercer, p. 122; Mersenne, col. 1514; Valmarana, pp. 219, 356.
242 (1) Enoch: P. L., XI, 664 ff. Cf. Ainsworth, p. 27; Caedmon, pp. 72–73; Du Bartas, ibid., 11. 697 ff.; Valmarana, pp. 326, 353; Willet, p. 74. (2) Nimrod and Babel: P. L., XII, 24 ff. Cf. Ainsworth, p. 44; Du Bartas, Babylon, 11. 39 ff.; Mercer, p. 214; Pererius, XV, 54 ff.; Rupertus, De Trinitate, IV, 43; Syncellus, pp. 67, 77; Tostatus, X, 6, and XI, 4; Willet, pp. 116 ff.
244 P. L., XII, 115 ff. Cf. Ainsworth, p. 2; Du Bartas, Vocation, 11. 79 ff.; Willet, pp. 134 ff. Other writers, such as Syncellus, p. 184, and Pererius XVI, 255, maintained that Abraham did not worship the idols of Terah his father.
245 P. L., XII, 120 ff. The place where God called Abraham was a matter of much controversy. The Calling in Chaldea, adopted by Milton, was supported by Du Bartas, ibid.; Mercer, p. 241; Pererius, XV ff. (ed. cit., pp. 480 ff.); Ralegh, p. 41; Syncellus, p. 175; Willet, p. 139. A number of writers compromised as to the place, and described Abraham as called neither at Ur of Chaldea nor at Haran, as Augustine, City of God, XVI, 15, or as called at both, as Ainsworth, p. 49, and Tostatus, XII. Augustine's conclusion is based upon his interpretation of the account of Stephen, Acts 7. 2–3, according to which Abraham was called in Mesopotamia before he reached the city of Haran.
246 I shall discuss in a volume in preparation the light which Milton's use of commonplace patterns and sequences throws upon his methods of composition and creative processes.
247 Among the more obvious lacunae is a discussion of the relative conventionality of Milton's attitude toward predestination. The reason for this omission is that I have been unable to reach a conclusion as to what, in Paradise Lost, is the poet's precise belief. In his most extended discussion of the doctrine, III, 173 ff., Milton divided mankind into three classes, the first of which God arbitrarily predestined to salvation. This conception, based upon such passages as Romans 8. 29–30; 9. 22–23; 11. 29; 2 Timothy 2. 20; and Titus 3. 5, appears to have been an orthodox commonplace of both Protestant and Roman Catholic thought. The second class of men, which was called and induced by God to repent, seemingly represents such an addition to the elect as was suggested by one translation of Deuteronomy 1. 11: ‘The Lord God adds to this number many thousands.’ (Cf. Thomas, St., Sum. Theol. I, 23, 7.)Google Scholar The third group, called by God, but not induced by Him to repent, is the reprobate. Their calling without the enlightenment and the softening of heart accorded the second group was supported by Matthew 22. 14: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen’. The portions of Milton's discussion at times regarded as peculiarly Arminian may not unprofitably be compared with Ambrose, gloss on Romans 9. 15: ‘I will give mercy to him who, I foresee, will turn to me with his whole heart’; with , Damascene, De Fide Orthod., II, 30;Google Scholar and with Thomas Aquinas, I, 23, 8 (glossing 2 Peter 1. 10): ‘The predestined must strive after good works and prayer: because through these means predestination is most certainly fulfilled.’ Thomas concluded his discussion of predestination with the statement that ‘predestination can be furthered by the creatures, but it cannot be impeded by them.’
248 In selecting writers from a group too large for citation, I have attempted to choose those who would represent different centuries, different nationalities, and different creeds.
249 Tillyard, E. M. W., Milton, London, 1930, pp. 245, 253.Google Scholar
250 Sir Grierson, Herbert J. C., Milton and Wordsworth, Cambridge, 1937, p. 116.Google Scholar
251 Op. cit., pp. 284–285.
252 Ibid., p. 291. Professor , Grierson, op. cit., p. 114,Google Scholar agrees with Professor Tillyard that the first books are the stronger, but holds that this resulted from Milton's having worked here untrammelled by Biblical or ecclesiastical tradition. It appears however that Milton was as faithful to religious tradition in the books which open the epic as he was in those which close it.
253 See especially the excellent studies of Professors Williamson, George, ‘Mutability, Decay, and Seventeenth-Century Melancholy,’ ELH, II (1935), 121–150; andCrossRefGoogle ScholarAllen, Don Cameron, ‘The Degeneration of Man and Renaissance Pessimism,’ SP, XXXV (1938), 202–227Google Scholar.
254 If it has not been said, as much perhaps could be said of the next great era of English poetry, that which extended from Burns through Tennyson.
255 Op. cit., p. 96. See also p. 94, and passim.
