marriage consists in the mutual exercise of benevolence, love, help, and solace between the espoused parties. . . the pleasures of society. . . conjugal assistance, which is afforded by love alone.49 Thus, for Milton, woman is essentially and necessarily different from man. It is only by their union in spirit, by woman's participation in man's intellectual occupations as well as in man's physical life, that both reach their perfection as human beings. But in this final harmony, woman remains under man, not as a slave under a master, but as a queen under a king. (So To SPEAK) - j Let us add one chivalrous trait to the picture. The element of chivalry is not lacking in Milton. What greater instance in the whole world than that of Adam deliberately and clear-headedly joining Eve in her trans-II WAS YURE gression, not to be parted from her in the punishment? Milton has felt that the subtle charm of woman is higher than intellect and man. The psychologist and the artist in him have seen that the most exquisite charm of life is given when intellect after all lets itself go, gives up its ceaseless watch, abdicates before living beauty. There is the ultimate triumph of woman. Women have much to forgive Milton. They even have to forgive him for being in the right about them—a difficult task, but they can do so, in consideration of this one speech of Adam's: Yet when I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems And in herself complete, so well to know 49 Prose Works, IV, 239, 252. Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows; As one intended first, not after made Build in her loveliest, and create an awe It is true that the angel answers with "contracted brow" and Adam, “half abashed," has to reply, in order to reassert his dignity, about her love and sweet compliance, which declare unfeign'd Union of mind, or in us both one soul; More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear. What inward thence I feel; not therefore foil'd, Approve the best, and follow what I approve.51 But then Adam, who is not deficient in the better kind of slyness, certainly scores off the surly angel when asking him, immediately after Love not the heav'nly spirits, and how their love Whereupon Raphael himself has to take refuge in blushes and extremely candid admissions." 52 C. Reason triumphant It was an intellectual error brought about by Satan's keen sophistry that caused the Fall. "Deceived" is the term Milton uses about our first parents, deceived by 50 P. L., VIII, 546–59. 51 Ibid., VIII, 603-11. 52 Ibid., VIII, 620 ff. See above, p. 65. the argument that passions bring forward to circumvent reason when it opposes them. Even thus, in Dante, the damned, Charmo perduto il ben dell' intelletto. Such is the state of damnation, the Fall. Reason restores man when it triumphs over both the sophistry and the charms of passion: to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles. Redemption is the return of reason. The triumph is won, not on the cross, but in the desert, where Satan tries to deceive Christ by appealing to his passions, his physical needs, his ambition, his pride. The whole of Paradise Regained is a struggle between intellect and passion, not on the plane of action, but on the purely intellectual plane of discussion. Reason triumphs, regenerated man is free, for" what obeys reason is free." 53 But in order to bring about this triumph of reason, to reëstablish man in his natural state, a new intervention of the Creator is necessary. This "second creation constitutes properly the religion peculiar to Milton. 58 P. L., IX, 351-52. CHAPTER IV RELIGION I. THE SECOND CREATION N order to reach His ends, God causes a second crea tion to concentrate in the first one: within the Son, who had created, and out of whom had been created, the World, is formed Christ, who creates and out of whom are created, the elect: He creates them out of himself; they are " members of Christ "; he is incarnated in them, as the Son had materialized into a World. And as the Son is the Created World, Christ is the Elect, the "Greater Man," the assembly of all men who alone deserve the name "man." A diagram of Being may be constructed thus: Christ, for Milton, is Intelligence coming down into man to dominate the passions, by incarnation into a group of men who are the elect. II. CHRIST: INTELLIGENCE TRIUMPHANT Milton first reminds us that regeneration comes from God, and that through it God's plans are being carried out: the Father is often called our Saviour, inasmuch as it is by his eternal counsel and grace alone that we are saved.1 God himself has taken in hand the work of salvationthe manifested God, that is the Son: ... he by whom all things were made... he who in the beginning was the Word, and God with God, and although not supreme, yet the first born of every creature, must necessarily have existed previous to his incarnation. . . .2 But Milton is careful to use the word "Christ " throughout the chapters on Regeneration: "Christ" is the Savior of Men; the Son was the creator of the World. Christ is in the Son, the two are one, only the Son is greater than Christ, who is only a part of Him. Christ is essentially Intelligence: His prophetical function consists of two parts; one external, namely, the promulgation of divine truth; the other internal, to wit, the illumination of the understanding." Regeneration is that change operated by the Word and the Spirit, whereby the old man being destroyed, the inward man is regenerated by God after his own image, in all the faculties of his mind, in so much that he becomes as it were a new creature. . . . The intent of SUPERNATURAL RENOVATION is not only to restore man more completely than before to the use of his natural faculties as regards his power to form right judgement, and to exercise free will; but to create afresh, as it were, the inward man, and infuse from above new and supernatural faculties into the minds of the 1 Treatise, in Prose Works, IV, 285. 3 Ibid., IV, 299. |