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The Western Canon Mailing List
Moderator: Paul John Barnette Jr.
Activation Date: March 8, 1997
Current Date:  May 25, 1997
Current Membership: 61
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Here is what Mortimer J. Adler and Seymour Cain have to say about 
Paradise Lost.

       The presence of evil in the world is a great challenge for
religious faith.  When confronted with the problem of evil, religion 
may deny reality of evil, and say that it is a mere appearance to our
undeveloped minds.  Or it may set up evil as a rival power, equal or
almost equal to divine good. Or it may ascribe evil to some weakness 
or perversion in creatures, andaffirm a divine redemption that brings 
good out of evil.

       The third response to the problem of evil is that of
Christianity. The Christian faith affirms a primal fall of man 
through an original act ofsin, and a redemption from man's fallen 
state by God's own atonement in human form, through the Passion and 
Resurrection of Christ.

       This is the theme of Milton's grand epic poem.  Like Dante, he
names use of  magnificent language and imaginative genius to enliven,
dramatize, and  embody abstract religious ideas.  Fully characterized
persons give body to bare concepts.  Colorful and exciting actions
make theological thought concrete.

        This vivideness is most evident in Milton's portrayal of the
power of evil.  On the basis of a few passages in Biblical and 
Acrophyal literature and of scattered images from popular lore and 
legend, Milton has given us an unexampled portrayal of the Devil and 
his cohorts.  Few readers are likely to forget Milton's Satan, that
magnificent epitome of pride, perversity, and defiance.  Milton does
not content himself with moralistic condemnation, but gives us a
convincing and understanding portrait of the Devil, of a villain who
is magnificent and almost heroic in his villainy.

       Here again, as with Dante, we have a writer of tremendous
learning, wide experience, and great artistic power who fuses all 
these elements into one masterwork.  Paradise Lost, like the Divine 
Comedy, has a thousand facets, but one central vision.  It is a 
unified whole containing a multitude of insights.  It gives us a 
profound and impressive view of man's nature and destiny in relation 
to the eternal order of things.

                                                      I

                        Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of
                        that Forbidde Tree, whose mortal tast Brought
                        Death into the World, and all our woe, With
                        loss of  Eden.....
                                   Bk I, lines 1-4

         Such is the theme of Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost.  The
Bible takes a single chapter (Genesis 3) of no more than twenty-four 
verses to tell the tale.  Milton takes twelve books and thousands of 
verses to do it.  Out of the terse essentials of the original story 
he has constructed a literary masterpiece, a poetic fiction, into 
which he has fused all his erudition and his creative genius.  

        Milton imagines details and scenes that were noit in Genesis. 
Like Paul, Milton presents tstory of the fall of man in the light of 
the Crucifixion, which he sees as an atonement for and redemption 
from man's original  sin.  He also introduces many pagan literary and
mythological allusions that are anachronistic with regard to the
original story. Moreover--and this is most interesting to us here--he 
introduces a Devil and demons that are not in the Biblical account.  
These devils, with definite namesa and characters, add interest and 
color to his story: Satan, Beelzebub, Moloch, Belial, Mammon, the 
pagan gods and goddeses, the whole resplendent company of the powers 
of evil, the infernal host of Pandemonium.

        Milton employs rthe ancient prerogative of poetic license to
make these abstractions come alive.  In his identification of the 
devils with the pagan gods, Milton has tradition behind him, for that 
was a prevalent belief in  the early Christian Church.  The devils, 
or demons,  remain angelic beings, even though they are fallen 
angels.

       Milton takes certain liberties in his treatment of Beelzebub
and Belial.  In the New Testament, Beelzebub is a synonym for Satan;
here,.hoever he is Satan's lieutenant and prime minister, a separate
personality.  Perhaps Milton was thinking also of the Philistine god
mentioned in the Old Testament.  (Beelzebub means "lord of flies."). 
Similarly, the name Belial, or Beliar, is a synonym for Satan in  the
New Tesatament, whereas in the Old Tstament it is a general term for
wickednesds, some5times applied as a term of opprobium to persons. 
Milton makes Belial thew vilest of the fallen angels.  Moloch is a
pagan god of Old Testament times, notorious for the horrible forms of
worship he required.  Mammon is covetousness personified in the New
Testament, and in medieval times was the devil of covetousness.  Here
again Milton has tradition has tradition, as well as  imagination,
with him. Milton dramatizes and personifies the power of evil in 
various forms. Though he uses a Biblical theme, he creates a poetic 
fiction, not a scholarly work on demonology. 

         Ken Martindale (to be continued)


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