Читать книгу 3 books to know The Devil - Джон Мильтон - Страница 11

OF THE ORIGINAL OF the Devil, who he is, and what he was before his expulsion out of Heaven, and in what state he was from that time to the creation of man,

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TO COME TO A REGULAR inquiry into Satan’s affairs, it is needful we should go back to his original, as far as history and the opinion of the learned world will give us leave.

It is agreed by all writers, as well sacred as profane, that this creature we now call a Devil, was originally an angel of light, a glorious seraph; perhaps the choicest of all the glorious seraphs. See how Milton describes his original glory:

“Satan, so call him now; his former name

Is heard no more in heaven: he of the first,

If not the first archangel; great in power,

In favor and preeminence.”

—— Lib. v. fol. 140.

And again the same author, and upon the same subject:

“Brighter once amidst the host

Of angels, than that star the stars among.”

—— Lib. vii. fol. 189.

The glorious figure which Satan is supposed to make among the thrones and dominions in heaven is such, as we might suppose the highest angel in that exalted train could make; and some think, as above, that he was the chief of the archangels.

Hence that notion (and not ill-founded); namely, that the first cause of his disgrace, and on which ensued his rebellion, was occasioned upon God’s proclaiming his son generalissimo, and with himself supreme ruler in heaven; giving the dominion of all his works of creation, as well already finished, as not then begun, to him; which post of honor (say they) Satan .expected to be conferred on himself, as next in honor, majesty, and power, to God the Supreme. 3

This opinion is followed by Mr. Milton too, as appears in the following lines, where he makes all the angels attending a general summons, and God the Father making the following declaration to them:

“Hear all ye angels, progeny of light,

Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers!

Hear my decree, which unrevok’d shall stand.

This day I have begot whom I declare

My only Son, and on this holy hill

Him have anointed, whom ye now behold

At my right hand; your head I him appoint:

And by myself have sworn, to him shall bow

All knees in heav’n, and shall confess him Lord;

Under his great vicegerent reign abide

United, as one individual soul,

For ever happy: him who disobeys,

Me disobeys, breaks union; and that day

Cast out from God, and blessed vision, falls

Into utter darkness, deep ingulph’d, his place

Ordain’d without redemption, without end.”

Satan, affronted at the appearance of a new essence or being in heaven, called the Son of God, for God, says Mr. Milton, (though erroneously,) declared himself at that time, saying, This day have I begotten him, and that he should be set up above all the former powers of heaven, of whom Satan (as above) was the chief, and expecting, if any higher post could be granted, it might be his due; I say, affronted at this, he resolved

“With all his legions to dislodge, and leave

Unworship’d, unobey’d, the throne supreme,

Contemptuous.”

—— Par. Lost, lib. v. fol. 140.

But Mr. Milton is grossly erroneous in ascribing those words, This day have I begotten thee, to that declaration of the Father, before Satan fell, and consequently to a time before the creation; whereas it is by interpreters agreed to be understood of the incarnation of the Son of God, or at least of the resurrection: see Pool upon Acts xiii. 33.¹

¹ Mr. Pool’s words are these: Some refer the words, this day have I begotten thee, to the incarnation of the Son of God, others to the resurrection; our translators lay the stress on the preposition of which the verb is compounded, and by adding again, (namely) raised up Jesus again, (Acts xiii. 33,) intended it to be understood of the resurrection; and there is ground for it in the context; for the resurrection of Christ is that which St. Paul had propounded in verse 30 of the same chapter, as his theme or argument to preach upon.

Not that Christ at his resurrection began to be the Son of God, but that he was manifested then to be so.

In a word, Satan withdrew with all his followers, malcontent and chagrin, resolved to disobey this new command, and not yield obedience to the Son.

Now Mr. Milton agrees in that opinion, that the number of angels which rebelled with Satan was infinite; and suggests in one place, that they were the greatest half of all the angelic body, or seraphic host.

“But Satan with his powers

An host

Innumerable as the stars of night,

Or stars of morning, dew-drops, which the sun

Impearls on ev’ry leaf, and ev’ry flower.”

—— Ib. lib. v. fol. 142.

Be their number as it is, numberless millions, and legions of millions, that is no part of my present inquiry; Satan, the leader, guide and superior, as he was author of the celestial rebellion, is still the great head and master-devil as before; under his authority they still act, not obeying, but carrying on the same insurrection against God, which they began in heaven; making war still against heaven, in the person of his image and creature, man; and though vanquished by the thunder of the Son of God, and cast down headlong from heaven, they have yet reassumed, or rather not lost, either the will or the power of doing evil.

This fall of the angels, with the war in heaven which preceded it, is finely described by Ovid, in his War of the Titans against Jupiter; casting mountain upon mountain, and hill upon hill, (Pelion upon Ossa,) in order to scale the adamantine walls, and break open the gates of heaven; till Jupiter struck them with his thunder-bolts, and overwhelmed them in the abyss. Vide Ovid Metam., new translation, lib. i. p. 19.

“Nor were the gods themselves secure on high;

For now the giants strove to storm the sky:

The lawless brood with bold attempt invade

The gods, and mountains upon mountains laid.

But now the bolt, enrag’d, the Father took:

Olympus from her deep foundations shook:

Her structure nodded at the mighty stroke,

And Ossa’s shatter’d top o’er Pelion broke:

They ‘re in their own ungodly ruins slain.”

Then again speaking of Jupiter, resolving in council to destroy mankind by the deluge, and giving the reasons of it to the heavenly host, says thus, speaking of the demigods, alluding to good men below:

“Think you that they in safety can remain,

When me myself, who o’er immortals reign,

Who send the lightning, and heaven’s empire sway,

The stern Lycaon* practis’d to betray.”

Ib. p. 10.

* Satan.

Since then so much poetic liberty is taken with the Devil, relating to his most early state, and the time before his fall, give me leave to make an excursion of the like kind, relating to his history immediately after the fall, and till the creation of man; an interval which I think much of the Devil’s story is to be seen in, andf which Mr. Milton has taken little notice of; at least it does not seem completely filled up; after which I shall return to honest prose again, and pursue the duty of an historian.

Satan, with hideous ruin thus supprest,

Expell’d the seat of blessedness and rest,

Looked back, and saw the high eternal mound,

Where all his rebel host their outlet found,

Restored impregnable: the breach made up,

And garrisons of angels ranged a-top

In front an hundred thousand thunders roll,

And lightnings temper’d to transfix a soul,

Terror of devils. Satan and his host,

Now to themselves as well as station lost,

Unable to support the hated sight,

Expand seraphic wings, and swift as light

Seek for new safety in eternal night.

In the remotest gulfs of dark they land:

Here vengeance gives them leave to make their stand:

Not that to steps and measures they pretend,

Councils and schemes their station to defend;

But broken, disconcerted, and dismayed,

By guilt and fright to guilt and fright betrayed j

Rage and confusion ev’ry spirit possessed,

And shame and horror swelled in ev’ry breast;

Transforming envy their essentials burns,

And the bright angel a frightful devil turns.

Thus hell began; the fire of conscious rage

No years can quench, no length of time assuage.

Material fire, with its intensest flame,

Compar’d with this, can scarce deserve a name;

How should it up to immaterials rise?

“When we ‘re all flame, we shall all fire despise.

This fire outrageous, and its heat intense,

Turns all the pain of loss to pain of sense,

The folding flames concave and inward roll,

Act upon spirit, and penetrate the soul:

Not force of devils can its new pow’rs repel,

Where’er it burns it finds or makes a hell:

For Satan, flaming with unquenched desire,

Forms his own hell, and kindles his own fire: Vanquished, not humbled, not in will brought low 3

But, as his pow’rs decline, his passions grow:

The malice, viper-like, takes vent within,

Gnaws its own bowels, and bursts in its own sin:

Impatient of the change, he scorns to bow:

And never impotent in power till now;

Ardent with hate, and with revenge distract,

A will to new attempts, but none to act;

Yet all seraphic, and in just degree,

Suited to spirits’ high sense of misery,

Derived from loss which nothing can repair,

And room for nothing left but mere despair.

Here’s finish’d Hell! what fiercer fire can burn?

Enough ten thousand worlds to overturn.

Hell’s but the phrensy of defeated pride,

Seraphic treason’s strong impetuous tide,

Where vile ambition disappointed first,

To its own rage, and boundless hatred, cursed j

The hate’s fann’d up to fury, that to flame;

For fire and fury are in kind the same;

These burn unquenchable in ev’ry face,

And the word ENDLESS constitutes the place.

state of being! where being’s the only grief,

And the chief torture’s to be damn’d to life!

Life! the only thing they have to hate;

The finish’d torment of a future state;

Complete in all the parts of endless misery,

And worse ten thousand times than not to BE!

Could but the damn’d th’ immortal law repeal,

And devils die, there ‘d be an end of Hell;

Could they that thing called being annihilate,

There ‘d be no sorrows in a future state;

The wretch whose crimes had shut him out on high,

Could be reveng’d on God himself, and die:

Job’s wife was in the right, and always we

Might end by death all human misery;

Might have it in our choice, to be or not to be.