Reading Paradise Lost

(I’m not supposed to have favorite bits, according to CS Lewis, but to let the impression of the whole poem be its value. Yet I can’t help attaching to small lines that made a sharp impression on me. As a whole, it feels like reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and while I was reading the creation part, I was vividly reminded of reading the creation of Narnia in The Magicians Nephew. CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were both clearly influenced by Milton.)

In Book 2 line 1046, Milton describes Satan flying toward Earth
“At leisure to behold Far off the empyreal Heav’n extended wide
In circuit….of living sapphire…
And fast by hanging in a golden chain
This pendant world in bigness as a star…”

At first I read past this, hardly pausing, thinking that was a pretty way to describe the Earth. Then suddenly, I realized that Milton wrote this description of the earth seen from space in about 1658ish. Man didn’t see earth from space until 300 years later. How did he know that earth looks like a sapphire pendant glowing like a star in space? By the the time he wrote Paradise Lost, he was blind. But surely, living and writing in the green rolling hills of England, he would have pictured the earth as green? Maps of earth still said “here be dragons” about the edges and InSt the sea around England mostly gray and stormy? Later in the poem, he describes Earth wrapped in her “cloudy tabernacle.” again, how did he know? I still feel amazed by this every time I consider it.

In book 10, Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit, and so the Eternal Father sends His Son to “judge Man fallen”. And the Son says
“I go to judge
On Earth these Thy transgressors but Thou know’st,
Whoever judged, the worst on Me must light
When time shall be, for so I undertook
Before Thee”

This is a new side of the Atonement that I never had thought of before, that Jesus as our judge is the most fair judge because whatever punishment is fixed, He is the one who suffers most.

After judgement is passed (which basically follows Genesis) Milton shows Adam lying on the ground in despair that his posterity must suffer because of his transgression. Eve suggests that they evade this by not having children and by ending their own lives. Adam considers it, but then he remembers his seed will have power to crush the serpent’s head. Satan will evade punishment if they don’t have children. He reminds Eve how merciful their judgment was. Eve shall have pain in childbirth, but children bring joy. He will have to work to earn bread, but work is better than idleness.

“Remember with what mild
And gracious temper He both heard and judged
Without wrath or reviling…
And His hands clothed us unworthy,
Pitying while he judged…”

I love this image of the mercy of the Son

I have 2 “books” left to finish of the 12.