John Milton - 3 books to know The Devil

But what to me is more wonderful, and which, I think, will be very ill-accounted for, is, how carne seeds of crime to rise in the angelic nature, created in a state of perfect, unspotted holiness? How was it first found in a place where no unclean thing can enter? How came ambition, pride, or envy, to generate there? Could there be offence where there was no crime? Could untainted purity breed corruption? Could that nature contaminate and infect, which was always drinking in principles of perfection?

Happy it is to me, that writing the history, not solving the difficulties, of Satan’s affairs, is my province in this work; that I am to relate the fact, not give reasons for it, or assign causes; if it was otherwise, I should break off at this difficulty, for I acknowledge I do not see through it: neither do I think that the great Milton, after all his fine images, and lofty excursions, upon the subject, has left it one jot clearer than he found it. Some are of opinion, and among them the great Dr. B——s, that crime broke in upon them at some interval, when they omitted but one moment fixing their eyes and thoughts on the glories of the divine face, to admire and adore which is the full employment of angels: but even this, though it goes as high as imagination can carry us, does not reach it, nor, to me, make it one jot more comprehensible than it was before. All I can say to it here, is, that so it was; the fact was upon record; and the rejected troop are in being, whose circumstances confess the guilt, and still groan under the punishment.

If you will bear with a poetic excursion upon the subject, not to solve, but to illustrate, the difficulty; taKe it in a few lines, thus:

Thou sin of witchcraft! first-born child of crime!

Produced before the bloom of time;

Ambition’s maiden sin, in heaven conceived!

And who could have believed

Defilement could in purity begin,

And bright eternal day be soiled with sin?

Tell us, sly penetrating crime,

How cam’st thou here, thou fault sublime?

How didst thou pass the adamantine gate;

And into spirit thyself insinuate?

From what dark state? from what deep place?

From what strange, uncreated race?

Where was thy ancient habitation found,

Before void chaos heard the forming sound?

Wast thou a substance, or an airy ghost,

A vapor flying in the fluid waste

Of unconcocted air?

And how at first didst thou come there?

Sure there was once a time when thou wert not:

By whom wast thou created? and for what?

Art thou a steam from some contagious damp exhaled?

How should contagion be entailed

On bright seraphic spirits, and in a place,

Where all’s supreme, and glory fills the space?

No noxious vapor there could rise;

For there no noxious matter lies:

Nothing that’s evil could appear;

Sin never could seraphic glory bear;

The brightness of the eternal face,

Which fills as well as constitutes the place,

Would be a fire too hot for crime to bear,

‘T would calcine sin, or melt it into air.

How then did first defilement enter in?

Ambition, thou first vital seed of sin!

Thou life of death, how cam’st thou there?

In what bright form didst thou appear?

In what seraphic orb didst thou arise?

Surely that place admits of no disguise:

Eternal sight must know thee there,

And, being known, thou soon must disappear.

But since the fatal truth we know,

Without the matter whence, or manner how:

Thou highest superlative of sin,

Tell us thy nature, where thou didst begin?

The first degree of thy increase

Debauched the regions of eternal peace

And filled the breasts of loyal angels there

With the first treason, and infernal war.

Thou art the high extreme of pride,

And dost o’er lesser crimes preside;

Not for the mean attempt of vice designed,

But to embroil the world, and damn mankind.

Transforming mischief! how hast thou procured,

That loss that’s ne’er to be restored,

And made the bright seraphic morning star

In horrid monstrous shapes appear?

Satan, that, while he dwelt in glorious light,

Was always then as pure as he was bright,

That in effulgent rays of glory shone,

Excelled by eternal Light, by him alone,

Distorted now, and stript of innocence,

And banished with thee from the high preeminence.

How has the splendid seraph changed his face,

Transformed by thee, and like thy monstrous race!

Ugly as is the crime for which he fell;

Fitted by thee to make a local hell;

For such must be the place where either of you dwell.

Thus, as I told yon, I only moralize upon the subject; but, as to the difficulty. I must leave it as I find it, unless, as I hinted at first, I could prevail with Satan to set peri to paper, and write this part of his own history: no question, but he could let us into the secret; but, to be plain, I doubt I shall tell so many plain truths of the Devil in this history, and discover so many of his secrets, which it is not for his interest to have discovered, that before I have done, the Devil and I may not be so good friends as you may suppose we are; at least, not friends enough to obtain such a favor of him, though it be for public good; so we must be content till we come on the other side of the blueblanket, and then we shall know the whole story.

But now, though, as I said, I will not attempt to solve the difficulty, I may, I hope, venture to tell you, that there is not so much difficulty in it, as at first sight appears; and especially not so much as some people would make us believe: let us see how others are mistaken in it; perhaps that may help us a little in the inquiry; for to know what it is not. is one help towards knowing what it is.

Mr. Milton has indeed told us a great many merry things of the Devil, in a most formal, solemn manner; till, in short, he has made a good play of heaven and hell; and, no doubt, if he had lived in our times, he might have had it acted with our Pluto and Proserpine. He has made fine speeches both for God and the Devil; and a little addition might have turned it, d la moderne, into an Harlequin Dieu et Diable.

I confess I do not well know how far the dominion of poetry extends itself; it seems the buts and bounds of Parnassus are not yet ascertained; so that, for aught I know, by virtue of their ancient privilege, called licentia poetarum, there can be no blasphemy in verse; as some of our divines say, there can be no treason in the pulpit. But they that will venture to write that way, ought to be better satisfied about that point than I am.

Upon this foot, Mr. Milton, to grace his poem, and give room for his towering fancy, has gone a length beyond all that ever went before him, since Ovid in his Metamorphosis. He has indeed complimented God Almighty with a flux of lofty words, and great sounds; and has made a very fine story of the Devil; but he has made a mere je ne scai quoi of Jesus Christ. In one line he has him riding on a cherub, and in another sitting on a throne, both in the very same moment of action. In another place, he has brought him in making a speech to his saints, when it is evident he had none there; for we all know man was not created till a long while after; and nobody can be so dull as to say the angels may be called saints, without the greatest absurdity in nature. Besides, he makes Christ himself distinguish them, as in two several bands, and of differing persons and species, as to be sure they are.

“Stand still in bright array, ye saints,

Here stand.

Ye angels.”

Par. Lost. lib. vi. fol. 174.

So that Christ here is brought in drawing up his army before the last battle, and making a speech to them, to tell them they shall only stand by in warlike order; but that they shall have no occasion to fight, for he alone will engage the rebels. Then, in embattling his legions, he places the saints here, and the angels there; as if one were the main battle of infantry, and the other the wings of cavalry. But who are those saints? They are indeed all of Milton’s own making; it is certain there were no saints at all in heaven or earth at that time; God and his angels filled up the place; and till some of the angels fell, and men were created, had lived, and were dead, therg could have been no saints there. Saint Abel was certainly the proto-saint of all that ever were seen in heaven, as well as the proto-martyr of all that have been upon earth.