10 Years After

Jesus Just Left Chicago

This morning was my Literary Criticism test. I laid out of work yesterday to get with some fellow students in the library to study the definitions. Our instructor gave us 40 terms to study. He said that there would be 25 on the test and that we would only have to define 20 of those. Four of us spent between 4 and just after 8pm working on defining the terms. At the last moment another student from our class ran into us and conned one of the other guys into letting him copy our notes.

The test this morning was a bear. It took all of the class period and the last couple of definitions were rather light. I skipped around a little, trying to combine similar terms into groups. I think I'll receive a B on the test. I knew the general gist of most of the items, but had a hard time remembering the names of a lot of the essays associated with the terms.

Also, I've been thinking more and more about the relationship between Jesus and Satan in Paradise Lost. My previous journal entry was on the similarities between Satan and Loki and their offspring. The discussion of book II in class dealt a lot with how Milton uses Satan, Sin and Death to darkly mirror the Holy Trinity. This seems a weak mirroring, though I do think that Satan mirrors God and Christ. My chief problem with the dark trinity-holy trinity comparison is that Satan on seems to occupy the mirror opposite of both God (the father) and Christ. Sin and death only seem to be opposites of Christ and the Holy Ghost in abstract senses.

That said, I do think that there is god ground for a comparison between Christ and Jesus. Not only within the text of Paradise Lost, but also outside of the text. My outside arguments would include the Grand Inquisitor chapter from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. In this chapter the Inquisitor accuses Jesus of being evil. An argument which, presumably, Dostoevsky attempts to refute. I say presumably because he fails to satisfactorily argue against the evidence of the grand inquisitor. The second bit of evidence outside for the text of Paradise Lost comes from an understanding of the word Lucifer. Milton follows the Christian tradition¹ of stating that Lucifer was Satan's name in Heaven. However, a reading of the Catholic Encyclopedia examines the word origins and how it is used in the Bible. Applying the name Lucifer to Satan seems, at best, to be treating a title as a proper name. At worst, it is using bad interpretation of the Bible to give undue characteristics to someone possibly undeserving.

It seems that the application of Lucifer, which means Venus, known to the ancients as the Morning Star, comes from Isaiah were, by a metaphor, was applied to a king of Babylon. The passage itself reads "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations !" ( --Is. xiv. 12.) While reading only this passage might lead one to instantly connect Lucifer with Satan, further reading shows that the application makes no sense. The title is also given to Simon, the high priest and son of Onias, in Ecclesiasticus (50:6) as well as "to Jesus Christ himself (II Petr. 1:19; Apocalypse 22:16 [...]) the true light of our spiritual life" according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Within the text the comparisons are more direct. Satan deceives his followers into allowing him to take the mission to subvert God's works. Christ, on the other hand, is earnest in offering himself as payment for the wages of man's sin. This is a complex contrast because not only does one need to take into account the method that they employ their actions, but also the intended result. Satan intends to pervert God's will while Christ intends to fulfill God's Will. Christ self-sacrifice is in contrast to Satan's selfishness in not repenting for his sins.

All this said, I am not convinced with Milton's argument about Adam and Eve being made sufficient to withstand temptation and that it is rather their exercise of Free Will that causes them to submit to temptation for wrong doing. If the Angels are a model, then some angels were able to resist sin and others were not able. Is this a matter of free will or a matter of God's creation being created with imperfections that cause them to choose sin. Maybe this view of mine is caused by my readings into determinism. It seems that some angels were created inferior to other angels and that, by their nature and not choice, some were able to resist temptation.

If it were a matter of choice then it seems that the angels should have been depicted as being rational creatures. The fallen angels in particular are obviously not endowed with rationality. They are instead all controlled by vices of emotions such as being egotistical or selfishness. None of them speak of a rational reason why they acted as they did.

One thing that seems surprising to me, but which we left unaddressed in my Milton Class, is that Satan breaks free not only of the chains which initially bind him in Hell, but from Hell itself. Book III then starts with a synopsis that states that God observes Satan's actions and knows (and knew ahead of time) what his actions would be. My question is, why did he allow Satan to break the bindings if they were meant to hold him prisoner in Hell and then, also, to escape from Hell itself? If his intention was to confine Satan, and God is all powerful, then how does he fail to do so?

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¹. Christian Tradition also identifies the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Truth and knowledge as an apple without any scriptural evidence.

some etymology - Lucifer: [L., bringing light, n., the morning star, fr. lux, lucis, light + ferre to bring.]