// Lucifer and Paradise Lost //

Milton’s Paradise Lost

To begin with, Paradise Lost, one of Milton’s greatest and most famous works, is deemed as such, not solely on the merits of its literary, aesthetic and religious value, but on its cultural and political significance, and the way in which it reflects early republican ideas, widely elaborated by the poet himself in his earlier theoretical works. The poem, through its allegorical nature, implicitly attempts to discuss issues of sovereignty and reintroduce Milton’s own, radical for his era, agenda. It addresses the issue of tyranny both through examining the rule of Satan, as much as that of God, and points out to Milton’s conceptualization of Christian liberty as inextricably related to republicanism.

It seems that Paradise Lost, ultimately puts forth a political argument similar to that which is employed in Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, which demands that the sovereign ought to use his power and authority over people merely to their own benefit, and be held accountable to his subjects, which lend him their power to make good use of. Milton further proposes that freeborn men, created equal by God himself, retain the right to conform to a king’s rule or reject it if it does not, in their judgement, conform to the above prerequisite Similarly, Milton’s Satan uses this “Protestant rhetoric of legitimate rebellion” to support the uprising that he and other fallen angels, princes and inferior magistrates of hell, have initiated against their former king, that is God (Bryson 1); he presents himself as a prince whose duty lies in stopping an “unjust monarch who is grasping for absolute power” and does not allow the lower magistrates their fair portion of it (Bryson 2). This is evident from Satan’s characterization of God as the “grand foe / Who now triumphs, and in excess joy / Sole reigning holds the tyranny of heaven” (I. 122-124), and in this light, one could argue, God is almost presented as another king Charles who refused to take into account the existence of the parliament prior to making decisions, which at the same time likens Satan to Cromwell.

Contrary however, to the traditional Protestant views which claim that God himself endows princes, earthly and heavenly, with power, Satan implies that their power is “self-begot [and] self-raised” (V. 860), illustrating how Milton himself came “dangerously close to making the same claim for the people”, and supporting that they should not rely on representatives such as earthly princes and magistrates to subvert the authority of a tyrannical king to whom they have once entrusted their power (Bryson 1).

Moreover, Satan, with his mainstream Protestant views, questions the origin of God himself, which he claims “is not clearly established…[as] his fame may result from custom or tradition”, or even violence, rather than consent; his arguments, albeit compelling, are solely validated when considered in terms of earthly kingship and are indicative of his deceptive nature; Milton portrays a tyranny merely to illustrate how it can be avoided in real-life politics, and not to suggest that the rule of God is such (Himy 120). Obedience to God is ultimately viewed as redemption and not as subjugation (Himy 121), given that God is portrayed as the embodiment of Milton’s ideal sovereign, and is a merciful and loving ruler whose ulterior motives lie in the best interests of its creations and subjects. In this sense, one who does not obey and worship God cannot be saved by him, he “cannot be free, and consequently cannot command”; thereby “the main foundation of power resides in the virtue of the subjects” which decide on whether to obey God and be redeemed or not (Himy 121).

Ultimately, “at the heart of Milton's conception of liberty…[lies] the abolition of outward restraints only so that an inward control may take their place” (Himy 126), and a “structure of government…inspired by the directly ordained divine code God gave to Moses” (Himy 128), rather than the will of an individual monarch. He is an advocate of a commonwealth that is founded on the basis of equality and freedom, under the guidance of a few true believers that act contrary to the vulgar sort of man which “permits / Within himself unworthy powers to reign / Over free reason” (XII. 90-92).

Once again, Milton makes a statement against idolatry, both civil and religious. In a lengthy description of fallen angels, and the properties they assumed in human societies, as found in Book 1, we are introduced to the aspect of idolatry in human history, associated as it is to earthly monarchy which is proven the most fruitful of grounds for false idols to emerge (Lewalski 223). In Paradise Lost, we learn of “Moloch, horrid king besmeared with blood” (I. 392), who “the wisest heart / Of Solomon he led by fraud to build / His temple right against the temple of God” (I. 400-402), and of “Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns” (I. 439) and “Her temple on the offensive mountain, built / by that uxorious king, whose heart though large / Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell / To idols foul” (I. 433-436). It is evident that Milton seeks to emphasize the correlation between the two types of idolatry, and to establish that even the best of monarchs can fall prey to idols and the “debased vices idolatry produces in those who worship anything other than the transcendent God” (Lewalski 223), such as “homicide” (I. 417) and “lustful orgies” (I. 415).

Simultaneously embodying an idol and a tyrant, driven by sheer ambition and vanity to catastrophe, Satan states that “To reign is worth ambition though in hell / [and] Better to reign in hell, than to serve in heaven” (I. 262-263). Like many earthly monarchs, out of pride he prefers his own destruction and that of his subjects, and by extend mankind, rather than obeying the rule of a benevolent God who had created all to be equal and free. He strives to corrupt all that is good, out of his need to possess it - out of the insatiable greed for power that motivates him. His state of mind serves as to illuminate that of earthly tyrants, such as Charles, who put their own desires over the wellbeing of their subjects, and eventually lead themselves to ruin because of it; of tyrants who “shall rise / Of proud ambitious heart, who not content / With fair equality, fraternal state/ Will arrogate dominion undeserved / Over his brethren” (XII. 24-28).

At the same time, Satan represents the kind of looming threat Cromwell posed for the people, that is, that of a man in the position of a seemingly benevolent ruler, who at any instant could potentially degenerate into a tyrant, just as Satan degenerated from an angel to a serpent. Satan falls from grace, and undergoes a constant degradation, and even lures multitudes of others alongside him with lies, to dwell in hell for eternity. He prefers to be a sovereign in a horrid place rather than abandon his quest to defeat God and his moral law, and practically constructs his own hell and eternal punishment, eventually falling for his own lies. The “high permission of all-ruling heaven / Left him at large to his own dark designs / That with reiterated crimes he might / Heap on himself damnation, while he sought / Evil to others” (I. 212-216). The very structure of the Pandemonium, constructed by the chief architect of high heavens himself, in its striking resemblance to heaven suggests a competing structure rather than a challenging one and ultimately illustrates how Satan is merely competing for power, rather than fighting for freedom. Through his figure, Milton very likely attempts to illustrate the constant danger earthly authorities represent, even those that come to power through benevolent or Protestant pretenses. Milton essentially recognizes the authority of God as the only valid one, in its very capacity to hold all men as equals, and rejects any other alternative as idolatrous and potentially deceptive.

Works Cited:

Bryson, Michael. The Tyranny of Heaven: Milton's Rejection of God as King. Newark: U of Delaware, 2004. Milton, Magistrates, and the Rhetoric of Satan's Protestantism in Paradise Lost
Himy, Armand. "Paradise Lost as a Republican ‘tractatus Theologico-politicus’."Milton and Republicanism: 118-34. Print.
Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. "Milton and Idolatry." SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 43.1 (2003): 213-32. Web.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Print.