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Structural Unity and Temporal Concordance: The War in Heaven in Paradise Lost
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2020
Abstract
Overt references to the climax of the Exodus appear in the first and last books of Paradise Lost. The war in heaven, appearing in the exact center of the poem and overlaid with elements of the Exodus account, radiates meaning to the beginning and end. When Milton uses the Exodus story to heighten our apprehension of his poem as a wholly unified structure, he is accommodating to the esthetic demands of his poem a tradition deriving from the Old Testament which found temporal concordance in the event. The Prophets bind together the primordial battle with the Dragon, the Exodus, and the Messianic Age, thus providing an eschatological interpretation of the overwhelming of Pharaoh's forces and the redemption of the Children of Israel. The New Testament—believing that the New Exodus is already at hand—enjoins the Christian reader to see Israel's escape through the waters of the Red Sea as a foreshadowing of baptism in Christ's saving blood. Throughout his life, Milton maintains an essentially Old Testament conception of the Exodus. Indeed, the appearance in Book vi of details from Exodus as well as from Rashi's Commentary suggests that even when Milton invokes the typological dimension, he takes pains to preserve the literal meaning of the Old Testament episode.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1972
References
1 John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York: Odyssey, 1957), p. 342. Parenthetic references to Milton's poetry are to this edition.
2 See, e.g., the Biblical sources cited in The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. Rev. Henry J. Todd (London: J. Johnson, 1809), iii, 326–39; Grant McColley, Paradise Lost (Chicago: Packard, 1940), pp. 21–42; James H. Sims, The Bible in Milton's Epics (Gainesville : Univ. of Florida Press, 1962), pp. 265–66.
3 Rajan, Paradise Lost and the Seventeenth-Century Reader (London: Chatto & Windus, 1947), p. 107; McColley, p. 36.
4 Adamson, “The War in Heaven : Milton's Version of the Merkabah,” JEGP, 57 (1958), 690–703. Madsen's full acceptance of Adamson's theory is evident in his important book, From Shadowy Types to Truth: Studies in Milton's Symbolism (New Haven, Conn. : Yale Univ. Press, 1968), p. 111, and in his edition of Paradise Lost (New York: Modern Library-Random House, 1969), p. 175.
5 Adamson, pp. 690 ff.
6 Adamson, p. 696.
7 Adamson, p. 696.
8 More declined to assist in the actual translation of the Zohar by saying: “I freely professe my Ignorance, I mean in the oriental Tongues and Rabbinicall Learning,” in Conway Letters: The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and their Friends, 1642–1684, ed. Marjorie H. Nicolson (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1930), p. 355.
9 More, “Conjectura Cabbalistica,” in A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings (London, 1662), pp. 181–84.
10 J. Abelson, Jewish Mysticism (London: Bell, 1913), pp. 96–97.
11 Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941; rpt. New York: Schocken, 1961), p. 46.
12 Madsen, p. 111.
13 Jean Daniélou, Sacramentum Futuri: Etudes sur les origines de la typologie biblique (Paris: Beauchesne, 1950), p. x.
14 See esp. From Shadowy Types to Truth, pp. 99–100; C. A. Patrides, The Phoenix and the Ladder: The Rise and Decline of the Christian View of History (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1964), pp. 9–10.
15 “Milton on the Exaltation of the Son: The War in Heaven in Paradise Lost,” ELH, 36 (1969), 226 n.
16 Hunter, p. 223.
17 A case similar to Hunter's is made about the storm-tower sequence in Paradise Regained (iv.397–561) by Barbara K. Lewalski in Milton's Brief Epic (Providence, R.I.: Brown Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 303–21. Mrs. Lewalski finds in the imagery used to describe the storm and in Christ's need to abide the dark night a foreshadowing of, among other events, the crucifixion. The glorious dawn that follows the storm represents Christ's exaltation at the time of the resurrection. But one assents to Lewalski's argument both because she has accumulated a wealth of evidence to suggest Christ's kenosis, and because there is after all a storm, and Satan does seize Christ and bring him to the tower. Nothing even remotely like this appears in the exaltations of Books v and vi of Paradise Lost. In fact, as Arnold Williams has demonstrated, Milton intentionally rejects a seventeenth-century literary tradition to which, among others, Andreini, Beaumont, Heywood, and Vondel subscribe—a tradition which saw Satan's rebellion motivated by God's announcement of the incarnation, and thus connected the incarnation with the war in heaven. Calvin calls the notion (which was advanced before the seventeenth century) “a frivuolous speculation.” See Williams' “The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in Paradise Lost,” SP, 42 (1945), 253–68.
18 Hexapla in Exodum: That is, a Sixfold Commentary Upon the Second booke of Moses called Exodus (London, 1608), p. 211. Philo also cites the song of Moses as evidence that the Hebrews anticipated the Greeks in the use of classical meter. See De Vita Contemplativa, trans. F. H. Colson, in the ninth volume of Philo (London: W. Heinemann, 1929–62), pp. 163–67.
19 Willet, pp. 210–11.
20 The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament and the New: Newly translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former translations diligently compared and revised by his Maiesties speciall Commandement, London, 1611. This Authorized Version is the source of references to the English Bible.
21 Hughes, p. 219 n. See also Samuel Mather, The Figures or Types of the Old Testament (Dublin, 1683), p. 72.
22 See, e.g., Exodus vii.3, 13–14, 22; viii.32; ix.7, 12, 34–35; x.l, 20, 27; xi.9–10; xiv.4, 17.
23 Exodus iv.23; vii.16; viii.l, 20; ix.l, 13; x.3.
24 It is not, I think, unreasonable to suggest that Abdiel's name as well as his words derive from Moses' speech at the time of Korah's rebellion (esp. Numbers xvi.26–29). Hughes notes the resemblance between Abdiel's earlier speech to Satan (v.890–93) and Moses' exhortation to the Jews (Numbers xvi.26). At the time of this incident, Moses de-firs himself as God's servant: “Hereby ye shall know that the Eternal hath sent me to doe all these workes : for I have not done them of mine owne mind” cxvi.28).
25 Gillies, in Todd's Poetical Works of John Milton, iii, 272.
26 Hall, Contemplations Upon the Principall Passages of the Holy Storie, Works, ii (London, 1625), 874. Compare this with Paradise Lost xii. 173–75.
27 For evidence of the influence of Rashi's Commentary on the subsequent Biblical literalism of the Reformation, see Beryl Smalley's The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1941), and Herman Hailperin's Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1963). For a discussion of the Commentary's influence on Paradise Lost, see my unpublished diss. “A Revaluation of Milton's Indebtedness to Hebraica in Paradise Lost.” Brown 1969. Rashi's special relevance for Milton lies in his concern for literal exposition, a concern which separates him not only from Zoharic mysticism and Midrashic homiletics, but also from the other rabbis in the Biblia Rabbinica.
28 See the brief but excellent discussion of Rashi's methodology in Jeffrey Roth's “An Analytic Approach to Rashi's Commentary,” The Commentator, Yeshiva College Jewish Studies Supplement, 66 (1967), 2–3.
29 Der Kommentar des Salomo B. Isak über den Pentateuch, von Prof. A. Berliner (Frankfurt: Kaufmann, 1905), p. 132. Subsequent references to Rashi are to this edition.
30 Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary, trans. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silberman (London: Shapiro, Vallentine, 1946). This edition is used for subsequent translations of the Commentary, though occasionally I supply a slightly more literal rendition.
31 Henry Ainsworth, Annotations Upon the Five Books of Moses, the Book of the Psalmes, and the Song of Songs, Canticles (London, 1627), ii, 52; see also John Diodati, Pious and Learned Annotations Upon the Holy Bible (London, 1648), p. 47; note in The Holy Bible (Genevan Ed.), (London, 1578), Exodus xiv.24.
32 Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary, p. 72.
33 See, e.g., the renditions of the term in the following editions: The Holie Bible (Bishop's version), (London, 1572): “And Israel sa we that myghtye power”; Biblia Sacra Vulgatae Editionis, ed. P. Michael Hetzenauer (Ratisbonae et Romae, 1922): “manum magnum”; Biblia sacra, sive Testamentum vetus, ab. Im. Tremellio et Fr. Iunio ex Hebraeo Latine redditum (London, 1680): “Quum autem vidissent Jisraelitae opus illud maximum”; The Holy Bible (Geneva version): “And Israel saw the mighty power.” The A.V. and the Geneva Bible do offer “hand” as an alternate reading, and the Coverdale Bible (London, 1535) translates the phrase literally as “the great hande.”
34 The Christian Doctrine, The Works of John Milton, gen. ed. Frank Allen Patterson, xiv (New York : Columbia Univ. Press, 1933), 193.
35 Milton, p. 337.
36 The Christian Doctrine, Works, xv, 297.
37 Fish, Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost (London: Macmillan, 1967), p. 35.
38 Fish, p. 79.
39 See, e.g., Hosea ii.14–16; Jeremiah xxiii.7; Isaiah xliii.16–20; Ezekiel xx.33–38.
40 Daniélou, p. 152.
41 Lewalski, Milton's Brief Epic, p. 196.
42 Willet, Hexapla in Exodum, p. 206. See also Samuel Mather's interpretation—uncommon only in the clarity and intensity of its delineation—in The Figures or Types of the Old Testament, p. 199; Ainsworth, Annotations Upon the Five Books of Moses, p. 54; Patrick Forbes, An Exquisite Commentarie Upon the Revelation of Saint John (London, 1613), p. 149; Henry Burton, The Seven Vials, or a Briefe and Plaine Exposition Upon the 15: and 16: Chapters of the Revelation (London, 1628), p. 5. Burton finds additional relevance in the Exodus: “Nor have we lesse cause to expresse all thankfulnesse to God for our deliverance from Babylons captivity, then Moses and Israel had for theirs from Egypt: ours being no lesse miraculous…. For what was one poore Luther, and those few that seconded him . . . to the whole world of Pontificians.” If Milton felt the same way, then one can find still another dimension in the Exodus theme.
43 Milton, “Animadversions,” Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Don M. Wolfe, i (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1953), 706.
44 Milton and the Christian Tradition (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1966), p. 229.
45 Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, trans. G. A. Williamson (Baltimore, Md.: Penguin, 1965), pp. 369–70.