Читать книгу 3 books to know The Devil - Джон Мильтон - Страница 13

OF THE STATION SATAN had in heaven before he fell; the nature and original of his crime; and some of Mr. Milton’s mistakes about it.

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THUS FAR I HAVE GONE upon general observation, in this great affair of Satan, and his empire in the world; I now come to my title, and shall enter upon the historical part, as the main work before me.

Besides what has been said poetically, relating to the fall and wandering condition of the Devil and his host, which poetical part I offer only as an excursion, and desire it should be taken so; I shall give you what I think is deduced from good originals on the part of Satan’s story, in a few words.

He was one of the created angels, formed by the same omnipotent hand, and glorious power, who created the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein: this innumerable heavenly host, as we have reason to believe, contained angels of higher and lower stations, of greater and of lesser degree, expressed in the scripture by thrones, dominions and principalities: this, I think, we have as much reason to believe, as we have, that there are stars in the firmament (or starry heavens) of greater and of lesser magnitude.

What particular station among the immortal choir of angels, this arch-seraph, this prince of devils, called Satan, was placed in before his expulsion, that, indeed, we cannot come at the knowledge of; at least, not with such an authority as may be depended upon; but as, from scripture authority, he is placed at the head of all the apostate armies, after he was fallen, we cannot think it in the least assuming to say, that he might be supposed to be one of the principal agents in the rebellion which happened in heaven; and consequently that he might be one of the highest in dignity there, before that rebellion.

The higher his station, the lower, and with the greater precipitation, was his overthrow; and therefore those words, though taken in another sense, may very well be applied to him: How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!

Having granted the dignity of his person, and the high station in which he was placed among the heavenly host, it would come then necessarily to inquire into the nature of his fall, and, above all, a little into the reason of it: certain it is, he did fall, was guilty of rebellion and disobedience, the just effect of pride; sins, which, in that holy place, might well be called wonderful.

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.

Just such another mistake, riot to call it a blunder, he makes about hell; which he not only makes local, but gives it a being before the fall of the angels; and brings it in opening its mouth to receive them. This is so contrary to the nature of the thing, and so great an absurdity, that no poetic license can account for it; for though poesy may form stories, as idea and fancy may furnish materials; yet poesy must not break in upon chronology, and make things which in time were to exist, act before they existed.

Thus a painter may make a fine piece of work, the fancy may be good, the strokes masterly, and the beauty of the workmanship inimitably curious and fine; and yet have some unpardonable improprieties, which mar the whole work. So the famous painter of Toledo painted the story of the three wise men of the east coming to worship, and bring their presents to, our Lord upon his birth at Bethlehem; where he represents them as three Arabian or Indian kings; two of them are white, and one black: but unhappily, when he drew the latter part of them kneeling, which to be sure were done after their faces; their legs being necessarily a little intermixed; he made three black feet for the negro king, and but three white feet for the two white kings; and yet never discovered the mistake till the piece was presented to the king, and hung up in the great church. As this is an unpardonable error in sculpture or limning, it must be much more so in poetry, where the images must have no improprieties, much less inconsistencies.

In a word, Mr. Milton has indeed made a fine poem; but it is the Devil of an history. I can easily allow Mr. Milton to make hills and dales, flowery meadows and plains, (and the like,) in heaven; and places of retreat and contemplation in hell; though I must add, that it can be allowed to no poet on earth but Mr.

Milton. Nay, I will allow Mr. Milton, if you please, to set the angels a dancing in heaven, (lib. v. fol. 138.) and the devils a singing in hell, (lib. i. fol. 44,) though they are, in short, especially the last, most horrid absurdities. But I cannot allow him to make their music in hell to be harmonious and charming, as he does; such images being incongruous, and, indeed, shocking to nature. Neither can I think we should allow things to be placed out of time in poetry, any more than in history; it is a confusion of images, which is agreed to be disallowed by all the critics, of what tribe or species soever, in the world; and. is indeed unpardonable. But we shall find so many more of these things in Mr. Milton, that really taking notice of them all, would carry me quite out of my Avay, I being at this time not writing the history of Mr. Milton, but of the Devil: besides, Mr. Milton is such a celebrated man, that who but he that can write the history of the Devil dare meddle with him?

But to come back to the business. As I had cautioned you against running to scripture for shelter in cases of difficulty, scripture weighing very little among the people I am directing my speech to; so indeed scripture gives but very little light into anything of the Devil’s story before his fall, and but to very little of it for some time after.

Nor has Mr. Milton said one word to solve the main difficulty; namely, How the Devil came to fall, and how sin came into heaven? How the spotless seraphic nature could receive infection? Whence the contagion proceeded? What noxious matter could emit corruption there? How and whence any vapor to poison the angelic frame could rise up, or how it increased and grew up to crime? But all this he passes over, and, hurrying up that part in two or three words, only tells us,

His pride

Had cast him out of heaven, with all his host

Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring,

He trusted to have equalled the Most High.”

Lib. i. fol. 3.

His pride! but how came Satan, while an archangel, to be proud? How did it consist, that pride and perfect holiness should meet in the same person? Here we must bid Mr. Milton good night; for, in plain terms, he is in the dark about it, and so we are all; and the most than can be said, is, that we know the fact is so, but nothing of the nature or reason of it.

But to come to the history. The angels fell, they sinned (wonderful!) in heaven, and God cast them out: what their sin was, is not explicit; but in general it is called a rebellion against God; all sin must be so.

Mr. Milton here takes upon him to give the history of it, as particularly as ‘if he had been born there, and came down hither on purpose to give us an account of it; (I hope he is better informed by this time;) but this he does in such a manner, as jostles with religion, and shocks our faith in so many points, necessary to be believed, that we must forbear to give up to Mr. Milton, or must set aside part of the sacred text, in such a manner as will assist some people to set it all aside.

I mean by this, his invented scheme of the Son’s being declared in heaven to be begotten then, and then to be declared generalissimo of all the armies of heaven; and of the Father’s summoning all the angels of the heavenly host to submit to him, and pay him homage. The words are quoted already in a former page.

I must own the invention, indeed, is very fine; the images exceeding magnificent, the thought rich and bright, and, in some respect, truly sublime: but the authorities fail most wretchedly, and the mis-timing of it is unsufferably gross, as is noted in the introduction to this work; for Christ is not declared the Son of God but on earth: it is true, it is spoken from heaven, but then it is spoken as perfected on earth; if it was at all to be assigned to heaven, it was from eternity; and there, indeed, his eternal generation is allowed; but to take upon us to say, that on a day, a certain day, for so our poet assumes, (lib. v. fol. 138.)

“When on a day,

-On such a day,

As heaven’s great year brings forth, the empyreal host

Of angels, by imperial summons called,

Forthwith from all the ends of heaven appeared.”

This is, indeed, too gross; at this meeting he makes God declare the Son to be that day begotten, as before. Had he made him not begotten that day, but declared general that day, it would be reconcilable with scripture, and with sense; for either the begetting is meant of ordaining to an office, or else the eternal generation falls to the ground; and if it was to the office, (mediator,) then Mr. Milton is out in ascribing another fixed day to the work; (see lib. x. fol. 194.) But then the declaring him that day, is wrong chronology too; for Christ is declared the Son of God with power, only by the resurrection of the dead; and this is both a declaration in heaven, and in earth, (Rom. i. 4.) And Milton can have no authority to tell us, there was any declaration of it in heaven before this, except it be that dull authority called poetic license, which will not pass in so solemn an affair as that.

But the thing was necessary to Milton, who wanted to assign some cause or original of the Devil’s rebellion; and so, as I said above, the design is well laid; it only wants two trifles, called truth and history; so I leave it to struggle for itself.

This ground-plot being laid, he has a fai’r field for the Devil to play the rebel in; for he immediately brings him in, not satisfied with the exaltation of the Son of God. The case must be thus: Satan, being an eminent archangel, and perhaps the highest of all the angelic train, hearing this sovereign declaration, that the Son of God was declared to be head or generalissimo of all the heavenly host, took it ill to see another put into the high station over his head, as the soldiers call it; he, perhaps, thinking himself the senior officer, and disdaining to submit to any but to his former immediate sovereign; in short, he threw up his commission, and, in order not to be compelled to obey, revolted, and broke out in open rebellion.

All this part is a decoration noble and great, nor is there any objection to be made against the invention, because a deduction of probable events; but the plot is wrong laid, as is observed above, because contradicted by the scripture account, according to which Christ was declared in heaven, not then, but from eternity, and not declared with power, but on earth;namely, in his victory over sin and death, by the resurrection from the dead: so that Mr. Milton is not orthodox in this part; but lays an avowed foundation for the corrupt doctrine of Arius, which says, there was a time when Christ was not the Son of God.

But to leave Mr. Milton to his flights, I agree with him in this part; namely, that the wicked or sinning angels, with the great archangel at the head of them, revolted from their obedience, even in heaven itself; that Satan began the wicked defection, and, being a chief among the heavenly host, consequently carried over a great party with him, who all together rebelled against God; that upon this rebellion they were sentenced by the righteous judgment of God, to be ex pelled the holy habitation: this, besides the authority of scripture, we have visible testimonies of, from the devils themselves; their influences and operations among us every day, of which mankind are witnesses; in all the merry things they do in his name, and under his protection, in almost every scene of life they pass through, whether we talk of things done openly, or in masquerade, things done in earnest or in jest.

But then, what comes of the long and bloody war that Mr. Milton gives such a full and particular account of, and the terrible battles in heaven between Michael with the royal army of angels on one hand, and Satan with his rebel host on the other; in which he supposes the numbers and strength to be pretty near equal? But at length brings in the Devil’s army, upon doubling their rage, arrd bringing new engines of war into the field, putting Michael and all the faithful army to the worst; and, in a word, defeats them? For though they were not put to a plain flight, in which case he must, at least, have given an account of two or three thousand millions of angels cut in pieces and wounded, yet he allows them to give over the fight, and make a kind of retreat; so making way for the complete victory of the Son of God. Now this is all invention, or, at least, a borrowed thought from the old poets, and the fight of the giants against Jupiter, so nobly designed by Ovid, almost two thousand years ago: and there it was well enough; but whether poetic fancy should be allowed to fable upon heaven, or no, and upon the King of Heaven too, that I leave to the sages.

By this expulsion of the devils, it is allowed hy most authors, they are, ipso facto, stript of the rectitude and holiness of their nature, which was their beauty and perfection; and being ingulfed in the abyss of irrecoverable ruin, it is no matter where, from that very time they lost their angelic beautiful form, commenced ugly frightful monsters and devils, and became evil doers, as well as evil spirits; filled with an horrid malignity and enmity against their Maker, and armed with an hellish resolution to show and exert it on all occasions; retaining however their exalted, spirituous nature, and having a vast extensive power of action, all which they can exert in nothing else but doing evil; for they are entirely divested of either power or will to do good; and, even in doing evil, they are under restraints and limitations of a superior power, which it is their torment, and, perhaps, a great part of their hell, that they cannot break through.