CATECHIZED by PARADISE LOST by Charles Zito a Thesis Submitted

CATECHIZED BY PARADISE LOST

Charles Zito

A Thesis Submitted to the Submitted to the Faculty of

The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts.

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, FL

December 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to my thesis advisor Dr. John Leeds for providing direction, encouragement, and scholarly insight. His guidance in outlining this thesis and his effort in identifying opportunities for expansion and increased cogency propelled me to the finish line. Furthermore, his demonstrated mastery of Paradise Lost ensured my accuracy and inspired me to aspire to be as great a student of the poem as he.

I would like to thank the other members of my committee: Dr. Michael

Harrawood and Dr. Mary Faraci. Dr. Harrawood always listened to my ideas and provided much needed prodding when I faltered. Dr. Faraci emboldened me with her enthusiastic support and reminded me not to lose sight of the poetry in the poem.

I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Eric Berlatsky, who helped me become a better writer by supplying thoughtful and detailed comments, and who influenced me to be a more effective and engaging instructor by setting an unrivaled example in the classroom.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge my good friend Rigers Gjyshi, who supported me when I most needed it.

ABSTRACT

Author: Charles Zito

Title: Catechized by Paradise Lost

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Dr. John Leeds

Degree: Master of Arts

Year: 2019

This work proposes to demonstrate how John Milton’s epic English poem

Paradise Lost, a product of the contentious religious climate leading up to and surrounding its production, operates as a Christian catechism, or manual of belief.

Spurred by the Protestant Reformation, the production of catechisms by Catholics and

Protestants burgeoned during the century leading up to the composition of Paradise Lost.

Catechisms structured as dialogues containing questions and answers were especially popular during that time, and the several dialogues that exist within Paradise Lost serve as dialogue catechisms, which closely mirror the content and language of contemporaneous Reformed catechisms. Within the poem, implied readers are represented by characters, who elicit and provide lessons for real readers of the text. In this way, Paradise Lost catechizes its audience through dramatic dialogues, which introduce popular topics of theological inquiry and present answers the poem would have the reader accept, bringing the reader to a “proper” understanding of Christian faith through active and responsive reading.

DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to my mother, who worked harder than I ever could to provide for me, and to my grandfather, who has always been the best man I know.

CATECHIZED BY PARADISE LOST

Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2. Divine Catechism: The Father and Son Converse...... 15

Chapter 3. Angelical Catechism: Raphael Informs and Admonishes Man ...... 29

Chapter 4. Diabolical Catechism: Satan Seduces Eve’s Reason ...... 50

Chapter 5. Biblical Catechism:

Michael Teaches of the World that Will Follow the Fall ...... 58

References ...... 72

vii

INTRODUCTION: RELIGIOUS TURMOIL AND REFORMED CATECHISMS

AS PREDECESSORS OF PARADISE LOST, AN EPIC CATECHISM

Ignited by the bold and controversial Ninety-five Theses composed by Martin

Luther in 1517, the Reformation swept Europe, bringing with it open disputes among theologians about the true nature of practicing the Catholic/Christian religion. Luther openly attacked what he viewed as corrupt practices and mistaken beliefs within the

Catholic Church—the selling of “indulgences,” or purchased pardons from sins; the use of “holy” artifacts and rituals in mass; belief in the intercession of saints; ordinances against marriage for members of the clergy; differences in interpretation of the Eucharist; the concept of “papal primacy”—and called for reform in the Church and its officials.

With so many conflicting beliefs being aired out in public, a general outcry rose up to know what was the right and true way to be assured of salvation and to satisfactorily fulfill one’s duty to God and the Church. And just as “so many laws argue so many sins”

(12.283) for Adam in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, so many conflicting beliefs necessitated a great number of written statements/affirmations of those beliefs to disseminate the true way to follow in Christ. This compulsion to distinguish false doctrine from true generated an outpouring of catechisms, or doctrinal manuals for the instruction of parishioners and clergy members in the tenets of the Christian faith, throughout Europe. Catechisms were produced in greater numbers during the first century of the Reformation than they have been at any other time in history.

In the early Catholic Church, instruction by catechism, or catechesis, was the oral instruction of key rudimentary elements of the faith such as the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the sacraments. From the thirteenth century, the aim of catechizing shifted from preparing converted adults for baptism to educating children who were baptized at birth and ensuring that they understood the tenets of the faith of their church in preparation for their confession and confirmation in the church (Green 14). Still, during the first half of the 17th century, one reason for the great number of various forms of catechisms produced during that time was to provide instruction for older catechumens as well as for younger (Green 73).

In the Catholic Church prior to the Reformation, Sunday Mass was carried out in a ritualistic way, with priests reading aloud catechisms and passages from the Bible in

Latin, ensuring the words were nearly unintelligible to the average person. The limited literacy of the people left much room for the Word to be manipulated and misinterpreted.

Pre-Reformation Catholic catechesis for beginners was not only delivered in Latin, making it inaccessible to the laypeople who composed the congregation, it was also stated in a declaratory manner; the Reformation brought changes to this form by insisting it be written in the vernacular and by regularly implementing an interrogatory structure.

Popular printed Catholic catechetical works that long predated the Reformation existed in forms such as St Augustine’s “Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love” and the lectures of

Cyril of Jerusalem, which were declaratory in nature and intended to inculcate readers and listeners with Christian doctrine. During the early Reformation, Martin Luther popularized catechizing via a question-and-answer format with his Small Catechism published in 1529.

The ideals of the Reformation sparked controversies, and an influx of catechisms followed in order to spread these ideas among the population of Europe. The Catholic

Church, desperate not to lose ground to the rising tide of Protestants, commissioned catechisms to be produced and disseminated to accomplish what most catechisms claimed to be their aim: advancing true religion and rooting out errors. Indeed, as the

Reformation progressed, competing catechisms between Protestants and Catholics (and later among Protestants themselves) took on an air of combat, battling what they saw as heresy and error in the beliefs and practices advanced by their opponents’ theology.

Following Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses (1517) and Small Catechism

(1529), the Church assembled for the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563 to firmly establish the tenets of the Catholic faith that should be instilled in all believers. In 1555,

Peter Canisius, along with other prominent Catholic theologians, produced a Catholic catechism that followed the then prevalent question-and answer-format, which included an appendix, added to it after the resolution of the Council, that contained material concerning things such as indulgences, pardons, and pilgrimages. Canisuis was present at the Council sessions and was heavily influenced by them in the production of this work.

The call for the Council of Trent to convene to establish an official catechism for the

Catholic Church is evidence of the growing concern within the Church about the rise of

Protestantism and the efficacy and prevalence of catechesis as employed by Protestants.

In fact, in the preface to its sanctioned catechism, the Council of Trent identifies its mission of composing a Catholic catechism to serve specifically to combat competing catechisms that the Catholic Church deemed heretical and problematic, for Catholic

religious leaders were worried about the harm to the Church they perceived occurring as a result of the growing Protestant catechetical practices1.

The best-known and most significant reformed catechisms were John Calvin’s

Geneva Catechism (1541), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the brief catechism found in the English Book of Common Prayer (1571) in conjunction with its Thirty-Nine Articles of the Faith, John Craig’s Catechism (1581), and the Westminster Larger and Shorter

Catechisms (1648). These catechisms followed the prevailing question-and-answer format, wherein an authoritative, knowledgeable figure asks a question, and the

(presumably subordinate) catechumen produces a pre-determined answer.

Calvin’s Geneva Catechism, originally published in 1537, was revised to accommodate younger audiences, and was again redone in 1560 in the form of a dialogue between minister and student. This catechism was a compact statement of belief derived from his more substantial work Institutes of the Christian Religion, which was a vast work of Christian theology intended largely for educating members of the clergy.

Regarded as one of the most influential works of Protestant theology, John Calvin’s

Institutes of the Christian Religion was originally published in Latin in 1536 and later translated into French in 1541.

The book was written as an introductory textbook on the Protestant creed for those with some previous knowledge of theology and covered a broad range of theological topics from the doctrines of church and sacraments to justification by

1 See introduction to The Catechism of the Council of Trent: “For those who intended to corrupt the minds of the faithful, knowing that they could not hold immediate personal intercourse with all, and thus pour into their ears their poisoned doctrines, adopted another plan which enabled them to disseminate error and impiety more easily and extensively. Besides those voluminous works by which they sought the subversion of the Catholic faith to guard against which (volumes) required perhaps little labour or circumspection, since their contents were clearly heretical they also composed innumerable smaller books, which, veiling their errors under the semblance of piety, deceived with incredible facility the unsuspecting minds of simple folk.”

faith alone and Christian liberty. It vigorously attacked the teachings of those Calvin considered unorthodox, particularly Roman Catholicism, to which Calvin says he had been "strongly devoted" before his conversion to Protestantism. The Institutes is a highly regarded reference for the system of doctrine adopted by the Reformed churches, usually called Calvinism. (https://howlingpixel.com/i- en/Institutes_of_the_Christian_Religion)

The Geneva Catechism condenses the doctrine expressed in the Institutes and presents it in a (comparably) brief format through questions and answers in the form of a dialogue between a minister and a student. The dialogue catechism was designed to educate younger audiences and to prepare them for baptism and receiving The Lord’s Supper.

The driving principle of this catechism is man's relation to God, and man’s heavenly destination. The text of the catechism, as presented in The School of Faith, is divided into four parts: 1. Faith, which expounds the Apostles’ Creed; 2. The Law, which expounds the Ten Commandments; 3. Prayer, which outlines the nature and purpose of prayer; 4.

The Word and Sacraments, which discusses the scriptures, and the sacraments recognized by the Reformed Church.

Indebted to Calvin’s Geneva Catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism was established by the Palatinate church in 1563. It was put together as part of a reform program led by Elector Frederick III the Pious, who hoped the catechism would provide a foundation for the conciliation and unification of contending Protestant groups

(Encyclopedia Britannica). Written in 1562 primarily by Caspar Olevianus, the superintendent of the Palatinate church, and Zacharias Ursinus, a professor of the theological faculty of the University of Heidelberg, the catechism was used by many of the reformed churches (Encyclopedia Britannica). The authors based the work on earlier catechetical works by themselves and others, and they attempted to prepare a catechism that could influence and accommodate a diverse audience, drawing on

ideology from Calvin and Peter Martyr, and bringing together both Lutheran and

Reformed teaching, successfully providing a mediating influence among Protestants

(Torrance 67). “In discussing the sacraments, they sought to bring their Reformed statements as near to the moderate Melanchthonian–Lutheran position as they could. The controversial doctrine of predestination was very mildly stated. The strength and appeal of the catechism was the fact that it was a practical and devotional work, rather than an intellectual, dogmatic, or polemical one” (Encyclopedia Britannica). Its authority was magnified following its examination and approval without alterations by the Synod of

Dort in 1618. It is split into three main sections comprising subdivisions, led by “The

Misery of Man,” immediately alerting the catechumen to his damned state, but this is soon followed by “The Redemption of Man,” so that man may realize his blessings and his debt to God. The final section is titled “Thankfulness,” wherein the commandments and the nature of prayer are expounded.

The Book of Common Prayer, originally published in 1549, was a product of the

English Reformation; it mapped out schemas for daily and Sunday worship, and contained material to serve as the basis for church services, prayers, hymnals, and daily devotional readings. Two components contained within it that were firmly pedagogical were the brief catechism intended to ensure a young parishioner was ripe for confirmation and the Thirty-Nine Articles of religion designed to definitively outline the doctrines and practices of the Church of England, especially concerning the controversies aroused by the English Reformation. The prevailing politics in England drove these articles to undergo multiple revisions as they were adapted to accommodate popular beliefs, and they underwent at least five major revisions before being finalized in 1571.

The Book of Common Prayer was abolished in 1553 when Queen Mary I restored Roman

Catholicism as the official national religion, but the book was reintroduced by Queen

Elizabeth I in 1559 (with some modifications to make it more acceptable to traditionalists). The book was again abolished during the English Civil War, finally to be revised and published in 1662 in what is now recognized as its official form. The book was widely used in churches and educational institutions, and its multiple revisions and periodic abolitions are evidence of the tumultuous religious climate of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Another well-known catechism of the Protestant faith that utilized questions and answers was the catechism of John Craig, a Dominican theologian from Scotland, who was originally educated for priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church but who altered his beliefs after reading Calvin’s Institutes. For his support of Protestantism, he was thrown in jail as part of the Inquisition imposed by the Catholic Church. Fortunately for Craig, the Inquisition was brought to an end before he was scheduled to be put to death, and with his newfound freedom, he took it upon himself to draft a catechism of brief questions and answers that would serve as a guide for younger catechumens and poorly educated adults. Craig’s Catechism, published in 1581, was not openly polemical or accompanied by scriptural proofs, as was the case for many Protestant catechisms, which sought to combat different beliefs and to assume authority by holding firmly to the principle of “sola scriptura,” a Protestant doctrine that affirms scriptures are the sole source of authority for Christian faith and practice. Craig identified his purpose to be not to instruct atheists and apostates, but to “put the brethren in memory of that doctrine which they daily hear confirmed (in our ordinary teaching) by the Scriptures and the

godly fathers” (Torrance 98). He directed any who wanted Biblical confirmation of the doctrines within his catechism to go to Calvin’s Institutes. Though Craig sought to be simple and succeeded in keeping paired questions and answers much more succinct than other large catechisms of the time, the catechism as a whole is rather long, comprising hundreds of questions, ultimately preventing it from being the sort of catechism one might memorize and recite.

Just as a war of words was playing out in the European landscape via the prolific publishing of competing catechisms, actual wars stirred up by religious hostility were also taking place. The “European Wars of Religion” that arose largely in response to the

Protestant Reformation included the German Peasants’ War (1524-1525); multiple confrontations sparked by the catholic Counter-Reformation, which succeeded the

Council of Trent and sought to combat the spread of Protestantism in Europe by reaffirming the supremacy of the Catholic Church in all matters holy; and the Thirty

Years’ War (1618-1648). These wars were brought to an end in 1648 by The Peace of

Westphalia, which recognized three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman

Empire: Calvinism, Lutheranism, and Roman Catholicism. At the same time, the First

English Civil War (1642-1646) was taking place, which was to be followed by the

Second English Civil War (1648-1649) and Third English Civil War (1649-1651). These wars also had an element of religious dissonance that amplified differences among the people. In an effort to unite the country under one religious system of belief, The

Westminster Assembly of Divines, held 1643-1653, was called by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. This assembly produced an official Reformed confession of faith, the Confession of Faith, and two catechisms, The Westminster Larger

and Shorter Catechisms. The assembly followed Calvinist doctrine in the formation of its systems of beliefs.

The Westminster Larger Catechism was designed mainly as a directory for ministers in their teaching of the reformed faith. “Right from its adoption, the Larger

Catechism assumed a place of supreme importance among the doctrinal standards of the

Church, superseding the previous catechisms in eminence, if not ousting them from the affection and use of the Church” (Torrance 184). The questions and answers of this catechism are precise and intentional, and they are clearly designed to be used as a moralistic, rationalistic, and authoritative exposition of belief and scriptural “law.” The

Westminster Shorter Catechism is “less influenced by the schematism of the Federal

Theology2 than the Larger Catechism, and is certainly less moralistic” (Torrance 262). It has very little in it about the Church, and, like the Larger Catechism, it has very little concerning the Holy Spirit. Unlike contemporaneous short catechisms, it contains an exposition of each of the Ten Commandments, and it is this catechism that was used more widely than any other in the second half of the 17th century.

In The Christian’s ABC, Ian Green investigates catechisms and catechizing in

England over the span of 1530 to 1740. Green’s research shows that the opening decade of the English Revolution (1640-49) witnessed a more voluminous publication of catechisms in English than occurred during any other decade from 1530-1740. With the onset of the 1640s, catechetical material became increasingly polemical, with authors

2 According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Federal Theology is “the theological system which rests upon the beliefs (1) that before the Fall man was under a covenant of works by which God through Adam promised man eternal blessedness if he kept his commandments and (2) that since the Fall man has been under a covenant of grace by which God by his grace promises the same blessings to all who believe in Christ.” 9

determined to set forth the “proper” understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

This debate in England was not only between Protestants and Catholics; often, it was between competing notions of Protestantism. One of the first catechisms to be published in England that offered a serious warning against the doctrines of fellow-Protestants was that of Hugh Peters in 1641, and the succeeding years saw an increase in open criticism among opposing views. Indeed, during the 1640s, the element of controversy in catechisms directed against fellow-Protestants changed from being highly unusual to fairly common.

Among these many catechisms were various forms, with one form being distinctly a part of the Reformed movement: the use of dialogue catechisms. In “The Renaissance

Dialogue,” Peter Burke outlines four types of dialogue: the catechism, the drama, the disputation, and the conversation. He explains the catechism dialogue as “a didactic text in which the 'dialogue' between student and teacher is little more than a monologue, where the student asks the questions or mutters, 'Yes, Socrates,’ from time to time while the master expounds the answers” (3). This description of a catechism, however, switches the roles seen in most of the catechisms mentioned above, which have the teacher asking the student to provide answers. The difference in these approaches would suggest on the one hand, with the teacher leading the questioning, that the student has already been taught the answers and is being tested on his knowledge; and on the other hand, with the student asking the questions, that the student is seeking knowledge—this structure seems directed more to educate than to examine. In the drama type of dialogue, “the portrayal of situation is just as important as the speeches”; in the disputation, “different points of view are expressed, but one speaker is allowed to win, more or less subtly”; in the

conversation, “the meaning develops out of the interaction between the different characters,” and the dialogue comes to an end without being loaded in any one speaker’s favor (3).

During the deluge of catechisms produced in the wake of the Protestant

Reformation, an epic poem, utilizing all four types of Renaissance dialogue as defined by

Peter Burke, was born: John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Recognized as the great English epic, Milton’s monumental work exists not only as an epic poem, but also serves as an epic catechism. And just as catechisms had previously been written in Latin and were in

Milton’s time being written in vernacular, so it is fitting that an “epic,” traditionally written in Latin, should be constructed in the English vernacular in Paradise Lost.

Paradise Lost provides for its readers the story of the Christian conception of the origin of the universe and of humankind, focusing on Creation, the nature of angels, the relationship of the Father and the Son, Satan’s expulsion from Heaven, Adam and Eve’s time in the Garden of Eden, and their eventual disobedience and subsequent dismissal from Paradise. Within this elaborate poem, the main characters take issue with and raise questions concerning God’s providence. Paradise Lost is crafted to serve the catechetical purpose of educating readers in the tenets of Christianity; of securing them in their faith by demonstrating God’s justice and blamelessness; and of establishing in them the proper understanding of God’s Will, man’s fallen state, and the paths that lead to either damnation or salvation. PL accomplishes this through various dialogues, in which characters serve as proxies for readers, eliciting and generating instruction necessary for real readers making meaning in the acts of reading and processing the text. Questions raised by the characters are questions that may naturally arise in the mind of a student of

Christianity seeking to make sense of the ways of God, and the provided answers to these questions mirror those present in Reformed catechisms and the Bible. Since the poem claims to “assert Eternal Providence,/ And justify the ways of God to men” (PL 1.25-26), every question raised within the text is answered or directly addressed, leaving little wiggle-room to subvert the text. Milton does a masterful job of addressing the myriad dilemmas one can think of in the realm of God, Creation, and the Fall; in so doing, the poem not only addresses a variety of issues, it also accommodates a range of readers.

Further support for this notion of the dogmatic underpinnings in Paradise Lost comes from another of Milton’s works, De Doctrina Christiana, or On Christian

Doctrine. The OCD closely parallels many of the views expressed in PL, and it is clear in

OCD that Milton was very concerned with the “proper” understanding of God’s will.

Moreover, he expresses the need for the educational epic in his 1644 pamphlet Of

Education:

Logic […] is to be referr’d to this due place withall her well coucht heads and Topics, untill it be time to open her contracted palm into a gracefull and ornate Rhetorick […] To which Poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less suttle and fine, but more simple, sensuous and passionate. I mean not here the prosody of verse […] but the sublime Art which […] teaches what the laws are of a true Epic Poem […] That would make them soon perceive what despicable creatures our common rimers and playwrights be, and shew them, what Religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be made of Poetry both in divine and humane things. (984)

In PL, Milton takes on the task of crafting this epic poem that will disregard the shackles of rhymed lines and demonstrate how epic poetry can be used for the divine purpose of investigating God’s nature to ultimately display the true magnificence of the Christian religion and instill its righteous lessons.

Paradise Lost can be positioned among the great, large catechisms such as

Calvin’s, Craig’s, the Heidelberg, and the Westminster. The poem carries similar content about Creation, original sin, the offices of Christ, and man’s duties to God. PL was written between 1658 and 1665; during this time, the Westminster Catechisms, which had been ratified in 1649, were repealed by Charles II in 1661. With tensions surrounding political and religious publications running high, Milton may have considered a

“fictional” poem as the best way to enter the fray of religious catechetical discourse and address doctrinal disputes over unconditional vs. conditional election, limited vs. unlimited atonement, irresistible vs. resistible grace, perseverance vs. non-perseverance of saints, creation ex nihilo vs. creation ex materia, and Trinitarianism vs. non-

Trinitarianism. In doing so, Milton positions his work in accordance with and opposition to some of the most popular religious figures of the 16th century preceding him, such as

John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Jacob Arminius.

To accomplish catechesis, Milton utilizes dialogue to educate his readers, whether it be through presenting a rational debate where one party is the clear and favored winner, through portraying a conversation between a “teacher” and a “student” who is seeking knowledge of greater things and a relationship with God, through tempting one’s reason to stray from obedience and thereby “fall,” or through detailing Biblical historical accounts. The poem necessarily does its work with words, and the sounds and arrangements of these words and the blank verse they are written in are essential to the overall message and purpose. The reader of Paradise Lost can allow the words of the poem to resound within him and come to a better understanding of his place in the world and his relationship with God, or he can “sound apart” and allow dissonance to occur,

unintentionally or willfully misinterpreting the poem, or relying too heavily on his own sense of what is reasonable and acceptable. The poem will sound into the “fit reader”3 and will have its proper effect on those who will submit to its message.

In the conversational dialogue between the Father and the Son, Satan’s twisted self-catechizing monologue, the catechetical dialogue between Adam and Raphael, the disputatious dialogue between Abdiel and Satan, the guided trial-by-conversation dialogue between Adam and God, the seemingly rational dialogue between the serpent and Eve, and a return to the catechetical dialogue between Michael and Adam, which are all parts of the overarching drama of the poem communicated by an authoritative narrator, Paradise Lost accomplishes the mission of inculcating readers with the foundations and tenets of Christianity. These various modes of catechizing take into account different readers and reader responses, and the lessons elicited by significant characters serve to catechize implied readers whose responses correspond with the attitudes, ideas, and modes of understanding exhibited by certain characters.

3 See PL 7.31 14

DIVINE CATECHISM: THE FATHER AND SON CONVERSE

The first clear example in Paradise Lost of a dialogue catechism that follows the typical Reformed question-and-answer format can be found in Book 3 in the dialogue between the Father and the Son, which carries in it many of the ideas essential to any

Protestant catechism, especially the Son voluntarily offering himself to take on human flesh and be sacrificed for the redemption of men’s souls. Prefaced by the description of

God’s “prospect high,/ Wherein past, present, future he beholds” (3.76-77), the poem directly addresses the notion of God’s sense of foreknowledge, establishing it as something not to be placed on a linear timeline and telling the reader that God sees all happenings simultaneously. Because of this, man’s fall is something that is concurrent with all else in the eyes of God, and not something he “knew ahead of time,” for he knows all and experiences all time at once. In prefacing this dialogue by informing the reader that God sees all things past, present, and future simultaneously, the poem clears

God of culpability in man’s fall, though He knew “ahead of time” that man would be swayed by Satan and disobey.

The dialogue between the Father and Son opens with the Father asking, “Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage/ Transports our adversary” (3.79-80). Here, the Father watches Satan winging his way toward Earth with the intention of perverting and corrupting Adam and Eve. Satan is described as “ready now/ To stoop with wearied wings and willing feet” (3.72-74). Already, we see that Satan acts according to his own

will, though permitted by God. His purpose is to see if “he can destroy or, worse,/ By some false guile pervert” man (3.91-92). The Father tells the Son that Satan will succeed in his effort to turn man from his rightful direction, and man will succumb to Satan’s lies and “easily transgress the sole command,/ Sole pledge of his obedience; so will fall,/ He and his faithless progeny” (3.94-96). This idea of Adam’s original sin being passed on to all of his descendants occurs in some form in most catechisms of the time, which usually contained notions stating that all mankind was corrupted and given to sin in the actions of

Adam and Eve, who ate of the fruit and broke God’s commandment4. The Heidelberg

Catechisms says, “Q.7. Then where does this corrupt human nature come from? A. The fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are all born and conceived in a sinful nature” (Torrance 70).

This lesson is given here in PL along with the repetition of the word “sole” to emphasize how Adam and Eve were given only one command; still, they could not abide it.

Stressing the solitary nature of this commandment works further to demonstrate that man has no one to blame but himself for his fallen state. The Father openly declares this as he continues, “Whose fault?/ Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me/ All he could have; I made him just and right,/ Sufficient to have stood though free to fall” (3.96-99). God is just, so he cannot be the cause of man’s fall. It must be clearly established that man is responsible for his own fall and is therefore deserving of damnation. As Calvin states in the Institutes, “Adam, therefore, might have stood if he chose, since it was only by his own will that he fell” (I.xv.8). Demonstrating man’s ability to abide and his choice to

4 Westminster Larger Catechism questions 20-26; Westminster Shorter Catechism questions 12-18; Craig’s catechism: “Q. On whom does He show justice,” or punishment for sin? “A. On all the rest of Adam’s posterity” (Torrance 165). 16

disobey works to magnify more emphatically God’s grace in man’s salvation. Here, there can be no ambiguity in the epic’s educational offering and insistence that men are free to act and thereby to secure for themselves salvation or damnation. Similar language about how little was asked of man and about his punishment being the just reward of his ingratitude can be found in Craig’s Catechism:

Q. When does God willingly permit men to be led into temptation? A. When he delivers them to Satan, and their own lusts Q. What moves God to do this to men? A. His justice provoked though their ingratitude. (Torrance 143)

Q. What liberty had they to obey His will? A. They had free will to obey and disobey. Q. On what condition [were they and their posterity blessed with happy body and soul]? A. On condition of their obedience to God. Q. Why was so small a commandment given? A. To show God’s gentleness, and to try man’s obedience. Q. What advantage is there in knowing of his lost felicity? A. Hereby we know God’s goodness, and our ingratitude. (Torrance 100)

John Calvin held that only God’s election for salvation generated man’s will to do good or to do evil. But the views expressed in PL are more closely in agreement with the

Arminian beliefs that God provided to every person the grace sufficient to find salvation, and that salvation is only secured at the end of one’s life if one, through his own free will, chooses to obey God and maintain his faith in God’s righteousness. This point, as applied also to the angels, is expounded by the Father in his succeeding words in the poem when he affirms, “Such I created all the ethereal powers/ And spirits, both them who stood and them who failed;/ Freely they stood who stood and fell who fell” (3.100-102). These same beliefs5 are expressed in the Westminster Larger Catechism, which says, “God

5 “Evil Angels are such not by creation, but by their own voluntary defection” (Wolleb 64). 17

created all the angels spirits, immortal, holy, excelling in knowledge, mighty in power, to execute His commandments, and to praise His name, yet subject to change,” and “God by

His providence permitted some of the angels, wilfully and irrevocably, to fall into sin and damnation, limiting and ordering that, and all their sins to His own glory; and establishing the rest in holiness and happiness; employing them all, at His pleasure, in the administrations of His power, mercy, and justice” (Westminster Larger Catechism Qs.

16&19, Torrance 187-188). The epic is sure to state clearly that God’s grace and the opportunity for salvation is offered to all, not necessarily a set number of elect. This contrasts with Calvin’s notion that only the elect are saved, and that the will is an afterthought and not an attendant on this grace. Milton sees the will as a necessary part of man’s final salvation. For, “Not free, what proof could they have given sincere/ Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love,/ Where only what they needs must do appeared,/ Not what they would?” (3.103-106). But Calvin claims,

Being perfectly aware that God foresaw no good in man, save that which he had already previously determined to bestow by means of his election, he does not employ a preposterous arrangement which would make good works antecedent to their cause […] the salvation of believers is founded entirely on the decree of divine election, that the privilege is procured not by works but free calling. (Institutes III, xxii.5) It is vain for any one to seek the origin of his condition in himself. […]The question considered is the origin and cause of election. The advocates of foreknowledge insist that it is to be found in the virtues and vices of men. […] The only thing to be considered is what pleased God, not what men furnished of themselves. (Institutes III, xxii.4)

Calvin argues that men obey and follow in the faith by necessity dependent on their election by God, but PL makes the argument that obedience by necessity takes away man’s free will and thereby God’s victory. The Father expresses that obedience and faith that are brought about by necessity rather than chosen by free will would not be

deserving of any praise, and that He would find no pleasure in obedience that is necessitated and not freely given, “When will and reason (reason also is choice)/ Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,/ Made passive both, had served necessity,/ Not me?” (3.108-111). The Father makes it clear that a person is saved by actively and intentionally choosing God, not merely by God frivolously choosing the person. This challenges Calvin’s assertion that God chose those whom it pleased him to elect for salvation and that man has no part in his own ultimate salvation. Because human beings are free to choose, they cannot “justly accuse/ Their maker, or their making, or their fate,/

As if predestination overruled/ Their will […] they themselves decreed/ Their own revolt, not I” (3.112-117). The Father dismisses any argument that would place him as the determining factor in man’s fall, and asserts, “If I foreknew,/ Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault” (3.117-118). In his subsequent statements to the Son, the Father repeatedly proclaims that He left angels and men free to choose, “authors to themselves in all” (3.122), and they remain free to bring upon themselves final salvation or damnation. In this dialogue, the poem insists that God offers grace and the chance at salvation to all people, and it is their conscious choices in life, whether they will have faith in God and obey his commandments, that ultimately decide people’s fates. God, who sees past, present, and future simultaneously, cannot be said to have elected some men for salvation and left others to damnation; rather, God’s election is consistent with his foreknowledge of those who persist in the faith and choose Him.

To see things as Calvin does is to view time in a linear fashion: God chooses those whom it pleases him to elect, and as a result of that election men have the will to do good. But God sees past, present, future all at once. Man’s actions do not issue forth from

an election by God in some past time. Calvin reveals his understandably limited human understanding as seeing one thing following consequentially upon another, temporally.

However, accepting that God sees all things and temporal actions at once, it is mistaken to suggest that his election led to men’s choices instead of seeing election as concurrent with the free will choices of human beings. Election cannot be said to lead to man’s will because, for God, man’s will and actions, his election and salvation (or damnation) are simultaneous. Indeed, even the concept of “foreknowledge” is a condescension for men to grasp the idea of what is for God only knowledge, as he sees all time at once. Things do not happen as a result of God’s election; rather, God knows all that happens, has happened, and will happen at once, and his knowledge of things does not necessitate their being. Instead, the reality of choices and actions is what places them in God’s knowledge.

Otherwise, He must change “[human] nature and revoke the high decree/ Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained/ Their freedom; they themselves ordained their fall” (PL 3.126-

128). In PL, God’s Word states that man is author to his own actions and therefore is responsible for his choices that may lead him to accept the salvation offered to him by grace through Christ, or to turn away from God and earn eternal damnation.

In his response to the Father, the Son demonstrates what should be men’s own thoughts: God is gracious in his mercy toward human beings. The Son declares how the

Father is worthy of praise for His grace and mercy, following this assertion with the rhetorical question, “should man finally be lost, should man,/ Thy creature late so loved, thy youngest son,/ Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though joined/ With his own folly?”

(3.150-153). The Son answers his own question by stating that such a thing would be

“from thee far,” echoing, “That far be from thee, Father,” and he goes on to state that the

Father who judges all things “judgest only right” (3.153-155). This can be seen as a comment on the idea that God elects men for salvation and damnation, alluding to the objection that, as Arminius says of strict Calvinism, this makes God the author of sin.

God, however, can be said to do only right and not to be held accountable for the wayward acts of humans (and angels). The Son continues to wonder aloud,

Or shall the adversary thus obtain His end and frustrate thine? Shall he fulfill His malice and thy goodness bring to naught, Or proud return, though to his heavier doom Yet with revenge accomplished, and to hell Draw after him the whole race of mankind By him corrupted? Or wilt thou thyself Abolish thy creation and unmake, For him, what for thy glory thou hast made? (3.156-164)

The Son here begs to know if man is doomed. This provides an opportunity for the reader to learn of God’s grace. This question6 is put in the mouth of the catechumen in the

Westminster Larger Catechism:

Q.30 Does God leave all men to perish in the state of sin and misery? A. God does not leave all men to perish in the state of sin and misery, into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant […] but of His mere love and mercy delivers His elect out of it, and brings them into a state of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the covenant of grace. (Torrance 190)

The covenant of grace is the free offering of Christ as a mediator who can redeem men of their sins and offer them salvation. But these questions by the Son are manifestly

6 Westminster Shorter Catechism: “Q.20. Did God leave all mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery? A. God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the state of sin and misery and to bring them into a state of salvation by a Redeemer. Q.21. Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect? A. The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, became Man, and so was, and continues to be, God and Man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever” (Torrance 265).

rhetorical questions with an implicit negative answer, and the Son closes this line of questioning by stating, “So should thy goodness both/ Be questioned and blasphemed without defense” (3.165-166). The Son says that this would be to make God unjust, but surely he knows, and the reader is meant to know, that God is just, so man cannot be irredeemably damned.

The Father then replies to the Son,

All thou hast spoken as my thoughts are, all As my eternal purpose hath decreed. Man shall not quite be lost, but saved who will, Yet not of will in him but grace in me Freely vouchsafed; […] Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand On even ground against his mortal foe, By me upheld that he may know how frail His fallen condition is and to me owe All his deliverance, and to none but me. (3.172-175; 178-182)

These words from the father seem to align closely with Calvinist doctrine that insisted man could do nothing of himself to earn God’s grace; instead, it is something given gratuitously to those elected by God. This idea challenged the doctrine of good works present in Catholicism. In the Catholic catechism A Sum of Christian Doctrine by Peter

Canisius, it is written, “with those works, which are done in God, they may be deemed

[…] fully to have satisfied the law of God and to have truly deserved life everlasting”; this catechism also speaks of “meritorious” works of men (378-379). Calvin claims that there is nothing man can do to deserve salvation. He outlines this belief clearly in the

Institutes: “our salvation is gratuitous because the beginning of goodness is from the second creation which is obtained in Christ. If any, even the minutest, ability were in ourselves, there would also be some merit” (II.iii.6). This Calvinist belief is also

espoused in Article Ten of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the faith from the Book of

Common Prayer:

Of Free Will. THE condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will. (302)

The distinction between God’s grace and man’s will demonstrates the two parts of the cause of salvation: human will as the part wherein human agency contributes, and God’s grace as the efficient cause. The Father propounds that humans are only able to stand because of the grace He offers to them, repeating this idea that man is upheld only by

God7. Soon, the Father acknowledges that He has chosen some “of peculiar grace/ Elect above the rest” (3.183-184), and this seems to correspond with the Calvinist conception of election and predestination, but it is quickly qualified in the subsequent lines when the

Father declares,

The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warned Their sinful state, and to appease betimes The incensèd deity while offered grace Invites […]

7 “My good Child, know this, that thou art not able to do these things of thyself, nor to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve him, without his special grace” (Prayer Book Catechism). *Calvin’s Catechism Q. 303 says none of it is in our power (Torrance 53). *Heidelberg Catechism: “Q.12. Since, then, by the righteous judgment of God we have deserved temporal and eternal punishment, how may we face this punishment, and be restored to grace? A. God wills that his righteousness be satisfied; therefore we must make full payment to His righteousness, either by ourselves or by another. Q.13. But can we make this satisfaction by ourselves? A. Not at all. Rather we increase our guilt daily” (Torrance 71). *Craig’s Catechism: “Q. May we understand and receive this promise by ourselves? A. No more than a blind and dead man can see and walk” (Torrance 103). See also Westminster Larger Catechism Qs. 70&71. *Calvin’s Institutes: “The only hope which believers have of the heavenly inheritance is, that being in grafted into the body of Christ, they are justified freely. For, in regard to justification, faith is merely passive bringing nothing of our own to procure the favor of God, but receiving from Christ every thing that we want” (III.xiii.5). *Article XI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the faith: “Of the Justification of Man. WE are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings.”

And I will place within them as a guide My umpire conscience, whom if they will hear Light after light well used they shall attain And, to the end persisting, safe arrive. This my long sufferance and my day of grace They who neglect and scorn shall never taste, But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more,8 That they may stumble on and deeper fall; And none but such from mercy I exclude. (3.185-188, 194-202)

These words by the Father clarify that sufficient grace is offered to all and, in that, the chance at salvation. He provides his grace to men and gives them the ability to reason9 between right and wrong and to choose what they will. Those who use their reason well and stay in the light “persisting to the end” will find salvation; thus, salvation is not guaranteed until the end of one’s life. It is those who neglect the grace freely offered to all who will fall and be excluded from God’s mercy and a place in Heaven: “man disobeying,/ Disloyal breaks his fealty[…]/ and so, losing all” (3.204-206).

By disobeying God and turning away from Him, man incurs His wrath and brings upon himself the consequent punishment. The Father proclaims, “He with his whole posterity must die;/ Die he or justice must, unless for him/ Some other, able and as willing, pay/ The rigid satisfaction, death for death” (3.209-212). Man’s death and damnation is justice for breaking his covenant with God. Since this is justice, it is only

God’s grace and mercy that can provide men the chance of salvation. The Father with His foreknowledge knows that the Son will offer himself, yet even here He allows it to be the free will act of the Son, so that the Son may be more deserving of the praise due to him

8 “For I will clear their senses dark,/ What may suffice, and soften stony hearts” (PL 3.188-189) corresponds with Craig’s Catechism: “Q. What more is required for our conversion to God? A. He must enlighten our minds, and mollify our hearts” (Torrance 103).

9 “Conscience” is equated with reason and individual judgment in OCD: “The rule of judgement will be the conscience of each individual, according to the measure of light which he has enjoyed” (I, xxxiii p.514). 24

for his sacrifice. Indeed, the Son even says that he will “Freely put off” his place in

Heaven at the right hand of the Father and die for man “Well pleased” (3.240-241).

The Father asks who, if any, “will be mortal to redeem/ Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save?” (3.214-216). This question from the Father explains that some immortal being must become mortal and take on human flesh. Reformed catechisms are clear to explain that Christ must become incarnate to properly pay for man’s sins10.

Calvin’s Geneva Catechism says,

51. M. Was it then required that He should put on our very flesh? C. Yes, because it was necessary that the disobedience committed by man against God should be redressed in human nature. And moreover He could not otherwise be our Mediator to reconcile us to God His Father. 52. M. You say that Christ had to become man, to fulfil the office of Saviour, as in our very person? C. Yes, indeed. For we must recover in Him all that we lack in ourselves, and this cannot be done in any other way. (Torrance 13)

Following the Father’s question, all the angelic host of Heaven stands mute, but the Son unflinchingly replies, “man shall find grace” (3.227). Christ’s “sacrifice” for the satisfaction of men’s sins is mentioned throughout Reformed catechisms as the way in which he fulfills his office of priesthood11. The Westminster Shorter Catechism holds,

“Q.25. How does Christ execute the office of a Priest? A. Christ executes the office of a

Priest, in His once offering up of Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us” (Torrance 266). By portraying this self-sacrifice of the Son in a heroic drama, PL removes the sacrifice from

10 Westminster Larger Catechism Qs. 36-38 11 Calvin’s Catechism: “38. M. What of the priesthood? C. It is the office and prerogative of presenting Himself before God to obtain grace and favour, and appease His wrath in offering a sacrifice which is acceptable to Him” (Torrance 11). *Westminster Larger Catechism: “Q.44. How does Christ execute the office of a Priest? A. Christ executes the office of a Priest, in the offering of Himself once as a sacrifice without spot to God, to be a reconciliation for the sins of His people; and in making continual intercession for them” (Torrance 192). 25

its prosaic, formulaic depiction in standard catechisms, and transports it into a world where Christ is a sympathetic character for the reader. This has the effect of enthralling the reader in a story about the heroic deeds of Christ, and serves to engrain more deeply the feeling of reverential love and debt toward Christ in the reader, a burgeoning catechumen implied by the poem.

Providing a contrast to the selfless love of Christ given freely to man, Book 4 holds a twisted sort of catechism in the form of a soliloquy by Satan, wherein he knows the “right” answers to questions he poses to himself, but he still chooses himself and his wants and feelings over all else. Satan willfully chooses to turn away from God, and, in this, he demonstrates what many catechisms identified as the true nature of evil: a turning away from God and a rejection of his freely offered love. There was serious debate about whether God could be said to be the author of sin since He was said to be the creator of everything, but many Protestants circumvented this charge by arguing that God is not the author of sin because sin is a corruption of nature and a turning away from God.

Furthermore, those who are not “elect” are those who turn away from God’s calling, persisting in their damned state. Satan acknowledges that “pride and worse ambition threw me down/ Warring in Heaven against heaven’s matchless king” (4.40-41), then asks himself, “Ah wherefore?” and quickly provides the answer: “He deserved no such return/ From me, whom he created what I was12/ In that bright eminence, and with his good/ Upbraided none; nor was his service hard” (4.42-45). Even Satan cannot help but clear God of blame for his fall. He goes on to challenge himself (and the reader), “What

12 Satan later challenges this notion of being created by God in 5.860, as he seeks to lift himself up and justify his unrighteousness. 26

could be less than to afford him praise,/ The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks,/

How due?” Here, the rhetorical question “How due?” works to emphasize how much, in fact, praise was due to God for his benevolence and greatness. Exhortations to give God his due praise can be seen in Craig’s Catechism, which has a section subdivision titled

“The Fourth Part of God’s Honour: Thanksgiving”; its first question-and-answer says,

“Q. What is thanksgiving or praising of God? A. It is to acknowledge Him as the Author and Fountain of all good things” (Torrance 144). In the Heidelberg Catechism, the third section is titled “Thanksgiving,” and catechumens are told at the end of the Lord’s

Prayer: “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” (Book of

Common Prayer 55), reminding believers that all glory and praise are to be given to God for his benevolence and greatness.

Yet, Satan says, “lifted up so high/ I’sdained subjection and thought one step higher/ Would set me highest,” thereby freeing himself of “The debt immense of endless gratitude,/ So burdensome, still paying, still to owe,/ Forgetful what from him I still received/ And understood not that a grateful mind/ By owing owes not but still pays, at once/ Indebted and discharged” (4.50-57). Though Satan will reject the ideas he himself is providing here, the fit reader will glean the appropriate message that God is deserving of praise, and that giving God his due should be considered an easy and just task in return for all of the blessings God has bestowed. Challenging those who may see it as an imposition to be expected to spend their time in church, prayer, or worship, the poem, through the mouth of God’s greatest opponent, emphasizes how easy and minute a recompense it truly is for all that God has worked in the world. So, Satan asks, “what burden then?” (4.57) to emphasize that this should not have been seen as a burden. He

then considers that he might not have rebelled if he had been created an “inferior angel” and would have stood happy in his low place, not driven by ambition, but defeats this thought with the question “Yet why not?” (4.61). He determines that he may still have chosen to be with the fallen party even if he had not been the one leading the way. This may smack of predestination, but Satan clearly addresses this notion when he asks himself, “Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?” and he must promptly admit to himself, “Thou hadst.” The poem will not allow characters or readers to make excuses for their sins or to put the blame on God for their fallen state.

Satan continues to hold counsel with himself: “Whom hast thou then or what to accuse,/ But heaven’s free love, dealt equally to all?” (4.67-68). This rhetorical question is leading in nature, similar to many dialogue catechisms, which tend to guide the catechumen to the answer by way of leading questions that seem already to pose their intended answers in the phrasing of the questions. Satan then curses God’s love, but turns back on himself, saying, “Nay, cursed be thou, since against his thy will/ Chose freely what it now so justly rues” (4.71-72), and it is as though the poem will not allow Satan, or the reader, to curse God, but forces him to acknowledge that hell or heaven lies within the choices he freely makes to accept God’s grace and persist in obedient faith or to turn away from God and choose selfish desires and rebellion. Satan cannot help but acknowledge that his state of misery is his just reward for his rebellion and turning away from God, and his example serves as a lesson to the reader that this willful turning away from God and rejection of the grace He offers is the “evil” that ultimately leads men to hell.

ANGELICAL CATECHISM: RAPHAEL INFORMS AND ADMONISHES MAN

For man to willfully turn away from God, he must first be given an informed opportunity to obey and accept God’s grace. Adam is catechized by Raphael so that he is given a choice to obey, and when he ultimately does not, God’s judgment will be due and just. In the Argument of Book 5, it says, “God to render man inexcusable sends Raphael to admonish him of his obedience, of his free estate, of his enemy near at hand—who he is, and why his enemy—and whatever else may avail Adam to know.” The word

“admonish” means literally “bring to mind,” and here Raphael clearly brings God’s commandment into the ears of Adam and eyes of the reader. God bids Raphael to have a discourse with Adam in which he reminds Adam of his free condition and warns him that

Satan will seek to pervert him from his happy state, “Lest willfully transgressing he pretend/ Surprisal, unadmonished, unforewarned” (5:244-245). The Father does this to fulfill justice. When Raphael arrives, Adam goes to him “with submiss approach and reverence meek/ As to a superior nature” (5.359-360); thus, the relationship of a student and his master is established. Adam approaches Raphael with a submissive nature, recognizing him as a superior, whose instructions should be followed. Adam later addresses Raphael as “Divine instructor” (5.546) and “empyreal minister” (5.460), solidifying the relationship of teacher and student, minister and catechumen, in this exchange.

From the beginning, Raphael imparts knowledge to Adam and Eve regarding beliefs that were oft disputed among religious sects during the Reformation. He relates the nature of angels when he accepts food from Adam and Eve, telling them that even angels require nourishment to sustain themselves, rejecting the notion that angels are immaterial and asserting that “whatever was created needs/ To be sustained and fed”

(5.414-415). That this was a matter of religious dispute can be seen when the narrator tells the reader that Adam, Eve, and Raphael sat down to eat “nor seemingly/ The angel, nor in mist, the common gloss/ Of theologians, but with keen dispatch/ Of real hunger and concoctive heat/ To transubstantiate” (5.434-438). The narrator is sure to specify that it is in error that theologians commonly explain away angels’ need for sustenance because of their assumed incorporeal forms. And, in a footnote, Kastan states that using the term “transubstantiate” here is a “characteristic anti-Catholic hit, pointing to the true transubstantiation in Eden” (160). Catholicism argued for the Eucharist as a true transubstantiation, wherein the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of

Christ; Martin Luther argued for “consubstantiation,” a belief that the substance of the bread and wine coexists with the body and blood of Christ; Calvin argued that Christ’s spiritual presence infused the ritual, giving it significance; Huldrych Zwingli argued that the Eucharist was simply an act that served as a memorial of the Lord’s Supper.

The Catholic belief in a literal transubstantiation can be seen in the words of

Canisius’ catechism:

What is to be believed concerning the Eucharist? […] under the forms of bread and wine, the very true flesh of Jesus Christ, and his true blood, is given to us in the Eucharist […] Therefore, we do have and receive in the Churches the very same flesh of Christ […] notwithstanding this, there be yet certain sacramentaries

[…] dare even to deny the same, marvelously depraving the words of the Gospel. (143-144)

Canisius asserts that the Eucharist represents the “true” blood of Christ, and his words reveal the compulsion to defend that belief against opposing theology as he mentions those who would dare to deny the truth of this belief. In his Geneva Catechism, Calvin offers, “355. M. Do you think, then, either that the body is enclosed in the bread, or the blood in the chalice? C. No […] in order to have the reality of the Sacraments, we must lift up our hearts on high to heaven, where Jesus Christ is […] and do not seek Him in these corruptible elements” (Torrance 62). Also the Heidelberg holds, “Q.78. Do, then, the bread and wine become the very body and blood of Christ? A. No. […] in the Lord’s

Supper the sacred bread does not become the body of Christ itself, although in accordance with the nature and usage of sacraments it is called the body of Christ”

(Torrance 84). These two catechisms13 are careful to outline that the Eucharist, or Lord’s

Supper, was not to be understood as being a true transubstantiation. Reformed catechisms held that there were only two true sacraments—The Lord’s Supper and Baptism—but even in these, their beliefs about how the sacraments were to be instituted and what their significance was differed from the beliefs upheld by the Catholic Church.

Adam questions Raphael (5.461-465), asking how the food and drink he has given him on Earth compares to what Raphael has encountered in heaven. Raphael responds that things nearer to God are more pure, yet Adam should not fret or wonder because he may one day become as the angels are: “Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit […] or may at choice/ Here or in heavenly paradises dwell,/ If ye be found obedient and retain/

13 See also Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 170, Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 96, and Craig’s Catechism on page 196 in The School of Faith. 31

Unalterably firm his love entire” (5.497, 499-502). The first part of Raphael’s response sounds reminiscent of part of the Apostles’ Creed—something expounded in most

Reformed catechisms such as Calvin’s Catechism14 and the catechism in the Book of

Common Prayer—that says, “I believe in the resurrection of the body,” which is explained in the Heidelberg Catechism to mean, “That not only shall my soul, after this life, be immediately taken up to Christ its Head, but also that this flesh of mine, raised by the power of Christ, shall again be united with my soul.” The second part of Raphael’s response provides his first warning/encouragement for Adam and Eve to remain steadfast in their faith and obedience.

Another point of religious contention is touched on by Raphael when he tells

Adam that God “created all/ Such to perfection, one first matter all,/ Endued with various forms, various degrees/ Of substance” (5.471-474). Again, Raphael’s message brings to mind the Apostles’ Creed, which opens by saying, “I believe in God the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth” (This is how it appears in Calvin’s Catechism and the Book of Common Prayer). But Paradise Lost also addresses the theological debate over how and from what God created all things15. In PL, the universe is not spontaneously created from nothing (ex nihilo) as suggested by St. Augustine and supported by Calvin in his commentary on the book of Genesis, when he asserts that Moses teaches “that the world was made out of nothing” (I.1). In Craig’s Catechism, we have, “Q. Of what did God make [heaven and earth]? A. He made them all out of nothing by His Word,” and the

Westminster Larger Catechism says God did “make of nothing the world.” Milton openly

14 “106. M. What follows? C. I believe in the ‘resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.’” 15Heidelberg: “Q.26. What do you believe when you say: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth? A. That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who created out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them.” 32

debates this interpretation in OCD: “With regard to the original matter of the universe, however, there has been much difference of opinion. Most of the moderns contend that it was formed from nothing, a basis as unsubstantial as that of their own theory” (I, vii p.178). While Milton still sees all things as having their beginning in God, he maintains the belief that formless matter existed prior to creation, “that God did not produce everything out of nothing, but of himself” (OCD 183). PL speaks of “The rising world of waters dark and deep,/ won from the void and formless infinite” (3.11-12), clearly suggesting that something without form existed “when yet this world was not, and Chaos wild/ Reigned” (PL 5.577-578), prior to the act of Creation in “the vast immeasurable abyss” (7.211), and was formed into the physical universe by God.

Following these words to Adam is a series of questions by Adam and answers by

Raphael reminiscent of the typical catechetical question-and-answer format wherein a student, or catechumen, asks questions that effectually serve as prompts for a teacher to expound religious lessons. Indeed, Adam receives this first answer from Raphael by saying, “Well hast thou taught the way that might direct/ Our knowledge” (5.508-509).

From the outset, this interaction is established as an act of instruction. In contemplating what Raphael said, Adam grabs hold of the warning issued to him and inquires, “What meant that caution joined, ‘if ye be found/ Obedient?’ Can we want obedience then/ To him, or possibly his love desert” (5.513-515). Raphael’s response leaves no doubt about the message of Paradise Lost: The free choice to obey and believe is the only thing that guarantees one’s ultimate election for salvation. Raphael answers, “that thou art happy, owe to God;/ That thou continu’st such, owe to thyself,/ That is, to thy obedience; therein stand” (5.520-522). As is declared several times in the text, people’s choices to obey are

what will ultimately assure their election for salvation. Whereas Calvin and others would argue that election for salvation happens on God’s whim and thereby produces the will to do good in those who are elected, Paradise Lost professes that the free choice to abide and to persevere in the faith is the only surety of election. Raphael affirms:

And good he made thee; but to persevere He left in thy power, ordained thy will By nature free, not overruled by fate Inextricable or strict necessity; Our voluntary service he requires, Not our necessitated: such with him Finds no acceptance, nor can find, for how Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve Willing or no, who will but what they must By destiny and can no other choose? Myself and all the angelic host that stand In sight of God enthroned, our happy state Hold, as you yours, while our obedience holds, On other surety none. Freely we serve Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall. (5.525-540)

Raphael is sure to include the angelic host, who began their existence in Heaven, in the selection of those who may stand or fall. So it is, none may be sure of eternal paradise without freely choosing to abide God’s commandments. Satan’s fall serves as evidence of this, and it speaks to the resistibility of grace and the mutability of saints. In Calvinism, the doctrine of “irresistible grace” holds that God’s saving grace is effectually applied to those people He has determined to save (the elect), and the call to obey and follow in

Christ, gaining salvation, cannot be resisted by those chosen. The belief in the

“perseverance of the saints” claims that once a person is saved, he or she can never lose his or her salvation because he or she is eternally bound to Christ. In his time, Milton was criticized for leaning more toward the Arminian belief in the resistibility of grace, which suggests people can deny God’s grace and lose their chance at salvation (restoring man’s 34

free will), and the mutability of saints, which contends that believers are able to resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace.

Adam innocently declares, “Nor knew I not/ To be both will and deed created free;/ Yet that we shall never forget to love/ Our maker and obey him whose command/

Single is yet so just” (5.548-552). This belief that God is just and should be obeyed is the intended mindset for all true believers, yet, as Adam will, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, leaving themselves in need of mercy to be saved. Adam requests

Raphael to explain disobedience and what happened in Heaven with Satan. Raphael assents and answers. The rest of Book 5 and all of Books 6 and 7 are also Raphael catechizing Adam, imparting knowledge to him in response to Adam’s requests to know more.

Within this conversation between Raphael and Adam occur dialogues between other characters, and an example of the disputatious dialogue as catechism can be seen in the exchange between Satan and Abdiel in Book 5. Satan calls those angels of whom he is chief to assemble in the north to “prepare/ Fit entertainment to receive [the Son]/ The great Messiah, and his new commands” (PL 5.689-691). Satan invokes the name of the

Messiah to call the angels to congregate and hear him speak in what will be an effort on his part to aggrandize himself. This is taking the Lord’s name in vain, a violation of the third commandment. Calvin declares, “Without truth he could not be God. But assuredly he is robbed of his truth, when he is made the approver and attester of what is false”

(Institutes II.viii.24), and the Westminster Larger Catechism, in its exposition of the third commandment, says the sins forbidden in the third commandment are misusing God’s name in perjury, and also “murmuring, complaining, and wilful disrespect with regard to

God’s decrees and providences; misinterpreting” His Word (Q. 113, Torrance 211). By calling the angels to assembly in Christ’s name, Satan is taking the Lord’s name in vain by employing it in a lie. And when he later complains about God’s decree that the Son will be the head of all the angels and the angels will bow to him and confess him Lord, he is further taking God’s name in vain. Satan willfully misinterprets God’s decree in order to sow discord and disrespect for Christ, and all of this fits under the commandment not to take the Lord’s name in vain. This usurpation of the name of God to gain credence and power is an act also committed by false clergy members who sought their own advancement, using the name of God and the Church to justify their ways. In this way,

Satan serves as a representative of a self-serving reader who interprets God’s Word to advance his own ends, and one who breaks God’s commandments. Milton notes that some theologians defended personal views through misinterpretations of Scripture in his treatise On Christian Doctrine: “What was most perniciously espoused as the true doctrine, seemed often defended, with more vehemence than strength of argument, by misconstructions of Scripture, or by the hasty deductions of erroneous inferences” (OCD

3). Satan can be seen to be guilty of this when he willfully misinterprets the decree of the

Father that appoints the Son to be the head of all the angels. The Father proclaims, “to him shall bow/All knees in Heaven and shall confess him Lord./ […]/ United as one individual soul/ Forever happy” (PL 5.607-608, 610-611), but Satan can only see himself diminished and later refers to this “Knee-tribute yet unpaid” as “prostration vile” (5.782).

Rather than accept the Father’s stated intention of unifying the angelic host, Satan twists this edict into an act of disgrace and humiliation by the Father. In so doing, Satan seeks to convert other angels to believe in his interpretation and to lift himself up. Here, Satan can

be seen as a false minister seeking to convert people to an incorrect understanding of

God’s word in a way that will directly contribute to the corrupt official’s advancement.

Satan is explicitly identified as the “false archangel,” who infuses “bad influence into the unwary breast/ Of his associate” (5.694-696), so the reader knows well not to trust his twisted reasoning. Satan is not to be admired or trusted, since he is described as speaking falsehoods and being a bad influence on his subordinate, who innocently accepts what Satan says. This subordinate goes on to tell others “as he was taught,” thus spreading the lie given to him. Many heeded the call of Satan (Lucifer at the time) “for great indeed/ His name and high was his degree in Heaven” (5.706-707). Just as many laypeople would be loath to question the Pope or other high church officials because of their perceived godly authority, so the angelic host is drawn by the words of him whom they view as being close to God and bearing authority in Heaven. It is said that he led the angels “as the morning star that guides/ The starry flock, allured them and with lies/

Drew after him the third part of Heaven’s host” (5.708-710). While the morning star here is apparently referring to an actual star in the sky serving as a point of navigation, there is no denying its immediate association with the name “Lucifer.” And the starry flock here may be seen as the host of angels who are led astray; similarly, a corrupt clergy member may misguide his “flock,” a word commonly used to refer to the members of a particular church’s congregation.

Wherever a flock of sheep is being led astray, there may be wolves to worry about, and the metaphor of preying wolves works to further connect Satan to corrupt clergy members looking to take advantage of their flock. In Book 12, PL warns, “Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,/ Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven/ To

their own vile advantages shall turn/ Of lucre and ambition, and the truth/ With superstitions and traditions taint” (PL 12.508-512). These “wolves”16 refer to unprincipled church officials who distorted and purposefully misinterpreted God’s Word in order to gain power and money for themselves. Satan himself is described as a wolf when he enters Eden by leaping over the wall that surrounds it like “a prowling wolf” that

“Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold […] So clomb this first grand thief into

God’s fold;/ So since into his Church lewd hirelings climb” (PL 4.183, 187, 192-193).

This is how Milton viewed many members of the clergy17, especially Catholic ministers who abused the religious practice of granting indulgences. Initially a reward for displaying piety and doing good deeds, indulgences were purposely taken advantage of by corrupt church representatives. Many Catholic Church officials tried to extort the maximum amount of money for every indulgence they sold, and professional "pardoners” sent to collect alms for specific purposes often engaged in unregulated sales of indulgences. Many of these hirelings went well beyond official Church doctrine, and promised that payment for indulgences could lead to salvation from eternal damnation.

The sale of these indulgences was one of the main complaints against the Catholic

Church listed in Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, and a change to this practice was a primary focus of the Reformation.

16 From Lycidas: “The grim Woolf with privy paw/ Daily devours apace” (Flannagan 128-129). The Jesuits, who were agents of the Catholic Church, had a coat of arms that included two wolves; Jesuits were especially liable to be accused of trying to convert people to Catholicism. *From Sonnet XVI: “New foes arise/ Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains:/ Help us to save free Conscience from the paw/ Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw.” 17 From Considerations Touching the Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings Out of the Church: “As the apostle foretold, hirelings like wolves came in by herds: Acts xx. 29, ‘For, I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.’ Tit. i. 11, ‘Teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.’ 2 Pet.ii. 3, ‘And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you’” (5). 38

God views Satan’s plans to thwart God’s Will with apparent amusement, like a parent viewing a child trying to access a cupboard that is locked and cannot be opened.

The Father is said to see all this and to speak to the Son with a smile about how they must prepare for Satan’s evil scheming to overthrow Heaven, saying, “Let us advise, and to this hazard draw/ With speed what force is left, and all employ/ In our defense, lest unawares we lose/ This our high place” (5.729-732). Since God is omniscient, He cannot be caught unawares, and since He is omnipotent, He cannot be defeated by any act of might. In this light, the Father’s comments can be seen as irony that He Himself recognizes, and His comments seem almost patronizing toward Satan’s ultimately ineffectual schemes. This is further demonstrated when the Son responds to Him saying,

“thou thy foes/ Justly hast in derision and secure/ Laugh’st at their vain designs and tumults” (5.735-737). The Father’s amusement with Satan’s vain plans works further to diminish Satan’s rhetorical force in the poem and his upcoming debate with Abdiel.

Satan is said to be “Affecting all equality with God” (5.763). He is pretending to be equal with God, but the reader is meant to realize that he is not equal. Members of the

Catholic Church who would seek to offer people forgiveness for their sins in the form of indulgences may be seen as affecting deity when it is only God who can give forgiveness for sins. Satan is further described as “pretending” and using “calumnious art/ Of counterfeited truth thus held their ears” (5.768, 770-771) as he addresses the angels who have gathered to hear him. Throughout this description of Satan’s words, the reader is told that Satan is a liar who misrepresents himself and God in an effort to win over the host of angels through intentional deceit.

It is in this light that the reading audience (and listening audience of Adam) must receive what Satan says. When he says that the Son has “to himself engrossed/ All power and us eclipsed under the name/ Of King anointed” (5.775-777), his argument must lack compelling force for the reader, who has been told that Satan is lying and misrepresenting the intentions of the Father and the Son. Subsequently, Satan seeks to portray the establishment of the Son as the right hand of the Father as an affront to the angels and an unfair subordination of them “to one and to his image now proclaimed” (5.784). He goes on to suggest that “better counsels might erect/ Our minds and teach us to cast off this yoke” (5.785-786), implying that the angels through their own reason might see a better way to act than the way dictated to them by the Father. It is this trap of relying on one’s own reason that Satan will later use to persuade Eve to fall. Using “bold discourse without control” (5.803), he argues that the angels are free to act as they deem fit. From among the host of angels, one stands up to challenge Satan’s proclamations: “Abdiel, than whom none with more zeal adored/ The deity and divine commands obeyed” (5.805-

806). The name Abdiel means “servant of God,” and he will be depicted in such a way that should make him the clear “winner” of this disputatious dialogue as catechism.

Abdiel speaks out with great zeal, immediately identifying Satan’s argument as

“blasphemous, false and proud!/ Words which no ear ever to hear in Heaven/ Expected”

(5.809-811), least of all from Satan who was beloved and honored by God. Abdiel calls

Satan an “ingrate,” echoing the Father’s sentiments expressed about man (3.97), who chooses to go against God’s edict and to fall from grace, though he had from God all he could. Abdiel rails against Satan for his “impious obloquy” against what should be seen as the “just decree of God” (5.813-814). After paraphrasing Satan’s argument about

servitude and freedom, he challenges Satan (and the reader) with a powerful rhetorical question: “Shalt thou give law to God?” (5.822). The proud audacity of one who would do this is evoked in the zealous challenge made by Abdiel. Abdiel continues to chastise

Satan for daring to dispute with God what the points of liberty are and what his position in God’s plan is. Abdiel seeks to rectify the twisted interpretation of Satan by declaring,

“How provident [God] is, how far from thought/ To make us less, bent rather to exalt/

Our happy state under one head more near/ United” (5.828-830). Satan’s rhetoric may have been compelling for some when he reasons that it is unfair to place a new figure above the angels, who thought themselves second only to the Father, or that the angels were made less by being subordinated to another. But Abdiel corrects this misconception and offers a more proper understanding of God’s will. Abdiel even allows Satan his argument that it is unjust for an “equal over equals” to reign as a monarch, but follows this concession by emphasizing to Satan that any concept he has of equality can only be dictated by God who created him. For the Father to say that the Son is the head of all the angels is for Him only to decide, and since the Son is begotten of the Father, Abdiel wonders on what basis Satan can declare himself the Son’s equal. Abdiel then asserts that the angels are not “by his reign obscured/ But more illustrious made [… and] all honor to him done/ Returns our own” (5.841-842, 844-845). Abdiel speaks with pious zeal and should be seen as more convincing to the reader than is the apostate angel who is driven by pride and is speaking deception to manipulate others.

Adam continues to question Raphael, and at the end of Book 6, Raphael says to

Adam, and Milton to the reader:

Thus, measuring things in Heaven by things on earth At thy request and that thou mayst beware 41

By what is past, to thee I have revealed What might have else to human race been hid: The discord which befell, and war in Heaven […] let it profit thee to have heard By terrible example the reward Of disobedience; firm they might have stood, Yet fell; remember, and fear to transgress. (6.893-897, 909-912)

Raphael explains how he had to condescend to Adam (just as the poem accommodates for the reader). We are reminded that Raphael is teaching Adam when he says that his words are meant to profit Adam, and the lesson, as always, is to be obedient and steadfast in the faith. Adam thanks Raphael because he has “Gently for our instruction” condescended/accommodated to increase understanding, just as Calvin compacted his ideas from the Institutes into the Geneva Catechism, or as the Westminster Larger

Catechism was abridged into the Shorter, to make the lessons more digestible/manageable for younger and less literate audiences. It was common for composers of catechisms to advise catechumens that God’s ways were beyond their comprehension, so they must be accommodated for in worldly terms to be able to more closely comprehend the true nature of God and Heaven. Calvin explains in his Geneva

Catechism, “It is needful for us that God should make use of figures to represent to us spiritual and heavenly things, for otherwise we could not comprehend them” (Torrance

55).

In Book 7, Adam inquires about Earth “with desire to know/ What nearer might concern him” (7.61-62). He addresses Raphael as “Divine interpreter” (7.72); this can be read as not only an interpreter who is divine but also an interpreter of the divine (a good minister). And a good minister who catechizes appropriately would help man know his place in God’s plan. Enjambment emphasizes the desire to know and later how much we

owe. Adam thanks Raphael for informing him about things “which human knowledge could not reach,/ For which to the infinitely good we owe/ Immortal thanks and his admonishment/ Receive with solemn purpose to observe/ Immutably his sovereign will, the end/ Of what we are” (7.75-80). Here, “purpose” and “end” suggest the same thing:

“telos” as used by Greek philosophers. Adam is not talking about the end of his life or the end of man’s existence, he is speaking of their great end, or purpose, which is to obey

God’s will and live in His love. The opening question of the Westminster Shorter

Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” and answers, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever” (Torrance 263). Also, Calvin’s Catechism says,

“255. M. What instructions has He given? C. He has given us ample instructions through

Scripture; but that we may address ourselves the better to a definite end” (Torrance 44).

Adam starts to question “How first began this heaven” (7.87) and “What cause/

Moved the creator in his holy rest/ Through all eternity so late to build/ In chaos and, the work begun, how soon/ Absolved” (7.90-94). Calvin says in the Institutes, “why God delayed so long [to create the universe] it is neither fit nor lawful to inquire” (I.xiv.1).

Raphael answers that whatever “best may serve/ To glorify the maker and infer/ Thee also happier shall not be withheld/ Thy hearing” (7.115-118), assuring Adam that he will tell him all that serves to glorify God and enhance man’s appreciation. But Raphael also cautions Adam, “beyond [that knowledge] abstain/ To ask nor let thine own inventions hope/ Things not revealed […] knowledge is as food and needs no less/ Her temperance over appetite to know/ In measure what the mind may well contain” (7.120-122; 126-

128). Raphael’s advisement here is in line with what Calvin espouses in the Institutes:

In obscure matters not to speak or think, or even long to know, more than the Word of God has delivered. A second rule is, that in reading the Scriptures we 43

should constantly direct our inquiries and meditations to those things which tend to edification, not indulge in curiosity, or in studying things of no use. (I.xiv.4)

Calvin’s words correspond with Raphael telling Adam not to seek answers that would not benefit him. Following this exchange, Raphael relates the story of Creation, which ends with him relating how the “Author and end of all things, and, from work/ Now resting, blessed and hallowed the seventh day,/ As resting on that day from all his work” (7.591-

593). The Sabbath is mentioned throughout Reformed catechisms as part of their exposition of the fourth commandment.

Having been absent on an errand for God at the time, Raphael asks Adam what he remembers of his own creation. This shows curiosity in both angel and man, suggesting that curiosity and seeking answers is natural and good. Adam then relates his first memories and his interaction with God, in which God tests Adam,18 much like a minister would test a catechumen to see what he knows. Adam, endowed with understanding/reason, questions God just as God questions Adam. God is pleased with

Adam’s curious nature and ability to reason. Indeed, God says to Adam that his questions are intended to test him, and later admits that his questioning is meant only to determine whether Adam could judge rightly of “fit and meet” for himself. This was the general purpose of catechizing (especially youths) in the church: to determine whether they were knowledgeable in the faith and prepared to be confirmed/baptized. Reciting the answers to a catechism or demonstrating a certain level of knowledge and understanding was seen as a requisite for being confirmed/baptized in the church and being recognized as one of the adult faithful. So it is here. Adam’s questioning of God is not impertinent; rather, it

18 From Craig’s Catechism: “Q: Do all kinds of temptation proceed from Satan? A. No, for God often tempts men as well when he offers occasions to discover their hearts.” God “tries” Adam to test him. 44

demonstrates his ability to reason, and God tells Adam that he is pleased to find Adam

“knowing not of beasts alone,/ […] but of thyself,/ Expressing well the spirit within thee free” (8.438-440). Thus, by mutual question and answer (catechesis) God tests Adam and leads him to understanding. God instructs the first man by questioning him on his understanding of his reality and his relationship with the world, animals, himself, and

God. In this way, this interaction between God and Adam promotes the act of catechesis.

God establishes Himself as Adam’s guide, declaring, “I come thy guide” (8.298), and

Adam repeats this idea of being led by God, of whom he says “by the hand he took me”

(8.300), and calls Him, “my guide” (8.312). This sounds like Calvin’s Catechism: “254.

M. What is to be done, then? C. That God himself should instruct us, according to what he knows to be expedient; that we do nothing but follow Him, as if He were leading us by the hand.”

Adam relates that one of his earliest memories is being instructed by God to eat the fruit he saw loading the trees in paradise, but he is explicitly forbidden by God to eat

“of the tree whose operation brings/ Knowledge of good and ill, which I have set/ The pledge of thy obedience and thy faith” (8.323-325). God says, “I warn thee […] my sole command.” From the beginning, Adam, and therefore man, is fairly and clearly warned.

The word “catechism” means literally something that resounds or echoes, and Adam remembers that “Sternly he pronounced/ The rigid interdiction, which resounds/ Yet dreadful in mine ear, though in my choice/ Not to incur” (8.334-336); in this, the reader is again reminded that Adam has a choice to obey. It will be his free choice not to obey that brings about the fall, his damnation, and the inheritance of sin for all his progeny. It will be man’s free choice to disobey God that makes God’s grace and mercy necessary for his

salvation. This argument answers those who would question why, if God knew man would fall, He would allow it, or why He would put the tree there in the first place, but

God is cleared from blame. The purpose of the tree’s existence is to grant man a choice, a free will. If man could not choose to disobey, then he could not choose to obey. Thus,

God would have created mindless servants instead of free, intelligent creatures who choose Him above all else. Even knowing that man will fall, God must provide the choice, so that man may ultimately choose Him. And it is the purpose of the poem (and of catechisms) to get people to see that they are indebted to God for all that they have and for His merciful grace in forgiving man of his sin, and offering man a place in heaven. It is an objective of catechisms and of the poem to get man to see that it is his turning away from God that warrants his punishment, and that it is Christ’s sacrifice and God’s freely given grace that redeem man and provide him an opportunity to be reunited with God in

Heaven. This whole first scene between God and Adam is reminiscent of what is said about God’s providence toward man in the Westminster Larger Catechism:

The providence of God toward man in the state in which he was created, was the placing of him in paradise, appointing him to dress it, giving him liberty to eat of the fruit of the earth; putting the creatures under his dominion, and ordaining marriage for his help; affording him communion with Himself; entering into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience, of which the tree of life was a pledge; and forbidding to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death. (Torrance188)

After God has the animals attend Adam in order that he may give them names

(Adam is “endued” with knowledge by God to achieve this purpose), Adam resumes questioning God, asking God by what name He should be addressed, all the while highlighting how God has given Adam everything and so is worthy of praise. But, seeing among the animals no equal partner, Adam turns to God and asks, “In solitude/ What

happiness? Who can enjoy alone/ Or, all enjoying, what contentment find?” (8.364-366).

God, as a parent listening to a child saying something truly introspective, “with a smile more brightened,” replies to Adam, “What call’st thou solitude?” (8.368-369), continuing to probe Adam’s mind and spur him toward self-realizations. Adam acknowledges God's point that he is surrounded by other creatures, but he identifies the animals as being placed inferior to him and persists in wondering about something, or someone, that seems more like him: “Among unequals what society/ Can sort, what harmony or true delight,/

Which must be mutual, in proportion due/ Given and received?” (8.383-386). Adam looks around to see that each animal has a partner of its own kind and “converses” only with its own kind, and observing this persists in his question to God about an equal worthy of intimate association. In this, Adam expresses self-awareness and mathematical reasoning. His demonstrated ability to calculate and deduce pleases God, who is testing

Adam’s mental powers, and God responds, “A nice and subtle happiness I see/ Thou to thyself proposest in the choice/ Of thy associates” (8.399-401). Here, “nice” means

“discriminating, exacting,” and “subtle” means “having or marked by keen insight,” so

God is praising Adam’s display of mental acuity. God seeks to further exercise Adam’s reason, and asks Adam, if he sees no pleasure in being solitary,

What think’st thou, then, of me and this my state? Seem I to thee sufficiently possessed Of happiness, or not, who am alone From all eternity, for none I know Second to me or like, equal much less? How have I, then, with whom to hold converse Save with the creatures which I made, and those To me inferior, infinite descents Beneath what other creatures are to thee? (8.403-411)

There is an underlying mathematical language in their dialogue that begins when Adam speaks of “proportion due” in describing a fitting companion, and it is continued by God who speaks of Himself being “sufficiently possessed,” using “none,” “second,” “equal,”

“less,” and “infinite.” In kind, Adam’s response further employs mathematical language:

To attain The height and depth of thy eternal ways All human thoughts come short, supreme of things; Thou in thyself art perfect, and in thee Is no deficience found; not so is man, But in degree, the cause of his desire By conversation with his like to help Or solace his defects. No need that thou Shouldst propagate, already infinite, And through all numbers absolute, though one; But man by number is to manifest His single imperfection and beget Like of his like, his image multiplied, In unity defective, which requires Collateral love and dearest amity. (8.413-426, emphasis mine)

Adam’s reasoned response integrates mathematical dimensions (i.e., height, depth) and terms (i.e., deficience, infinite), revealing his logic-based thought process. Adam’s

“schooling” takes place through this question-and-answer dialogue that elevates Adam to greater self-realization and ability to reason. Indeed, God confesses to Adam that his questions are intended “Thus far to try thee” (8.437), and later confirms that his questioning is “for trial only brought/ To see how thou could’st judge of fit and meet”

(8.447-448). Here, “fit and meet” can mean suitable or appropriate19, while also conveying the mathematical concepts of proper amounts, proportions, and equality.

19 By calling Eve “fit and meet” for Adam, his “fit help” and “other self,” this may also offer support for marriage being fit and meet for all men. Marriage among priests was an act forbidden in the pre- Reformation Catholic Church, and one of the issues the Protestants of the Reformation sought to reform/change within the church. 48

Throughout, this interaction is a lesson of logical reasoning and deduction, as well as a way to highlight God’s greatness in his creation and grace in his benevolence toward

Adam/man, to whom He makes all the world subject and to whom He will bring “Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,/ Thy wish exactly to thy heart’s desire” (8.450-451).

God makes sure that Adam is knowing of his state and his debt to God, then gives to

Adam in equal proportion to what Adam desires.

DIABOLICAL CATECHISM: SATAN SEDUCES EVE’S REASON

Moving into Book 9, the narrator describes a shift in the tone and content of the poem as a change in music, conflating the visual and the auditory, acknowledging that his words sound into the reader: “I now must change/ Those notes to tragic: foul distrust and breach/ Disloyal on the part of man, revolt/ And disobedience; on the part of Heaven,/

Now alienated, distance and distaste” (9.5-9, emphasis mine). Book 9 opens on a note of dissonance: literally, the sound of “dis” that hisses through the lines, and figuratively as

Eve will allow herself to “sound apart” from God and fall from grace.

Having occupied the serpent, Satan begins his seduction of Eve’s reason with flattery, and the perverted catechesis between them begins with him asking, “Who sees thee (and what is one?), who shouldst be seen/ A goddess among gods, adored and served/ By angels numberless, thy daily train?” (9.546-548). Satan suggests Eve should be a goddess who is worshipped, not one expected to worship a God. Eve returns a question: “How cam’st thou speakable of mute, and how/ To me so friendly grown”

(9.563-564). This introduction by questioning launches the question-and-answer dialogue, the negative catechism that will occur in Book 9, as Satan guides Eve away from God. The serpent tells Eve he will lead her to the tree that has elevated his speech and mind: “If thou accept/ My conduct” (9.629-630). In book 8, God provides himself as

Adam’s “guide”; here, Satan asks Eve to accept him as her guide. It will be her agreeing to Satan’s conduct/guidance that leads to her downfall. Eve accepts his offer to lead

her—“Lead then” (9.631)—and she will thereby be led astray by “her guide” (9.646).

The serpent, “leading swiftly, rolled/ In tangles and made intricate seem straight” (9.631-

632); similarly, corrupt and misguided clergy misinterpreted the Bible and professed their own misguided beliefs, leading parishioners away from the true Word and Will of God.

Even as Eve is first assayed by the serpent, she recalls God’s commandment not to eat of the tree; He “left that command/ Sole daughter of his voice” (9.652-653). The

“sole” here echoes Adam’s recognition of God’s “sole command” in Book 8. Satan tries to invalidate God’s commandment by suggesting it seems unreasonable for Adam and

Eve to be able to eat of all the trees except one. This also works to question why God would choose such a test or even put the tree there. “Indeed? Hath God then said that of the fruit/ Of all these garden trees ye shall not eat,/ Yet lords declared of all in earth or air?” (9.656-658). Satan seeks to seduce to Eve to disobey through an appeal to reason, inviting Eve to make her own inferences instead of simply obeying God’s commandment.

Eve reiterates (for her listening and reading audiences) God’s clear instruction: “Ye shall not eat/ Thereof nor shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (9.663-664). Most of the Reformed catechisms mentioned above speak directly about the tree and man’s fall into sin by breaking that commandment. For example, the Westminster Larger Catechism says, “Our first parents being left to the freedom of their own will, through the temptation of Satan, transgressed the commandment of God in eating of the forbidden fruit: and thereby fell from the state of innocency in which they were created” (Torrance 188). By repeating the commandment here, Milton forces the reading audience to see how just God truly is in punishing Adam and Eve, who were well aware of what was expected of them. And any

reader who is tempted to side with Satan’s reasoning or to pity Eve is admonished by this explicit statement of God’s instructions.

Satan then launches into a persuasive appeal using rhetorical questions and seeming reason to create dissonance in Eve and compel her to hear his ideas and her thoughts above God’s word. Satan poses questions to Eve challenging her belief. He tells her she will not die: “How should ye? By the fruit? It gives you life/ To knowledge. By the threatener? Look on me,/ Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live/ And life more perfect have attained than fate/ Meant me by venturing higher than my lot./ Shall that be shut to man which to the beast/ Is open?” (9.686-692). Here, Satan asks questions and immediately provides the answers he wants Eve to accept. He does not allow her time to rely on her reason, but instills in her his reasoning, drawing her further away from her initial God-given understanding. He bargains logically with her that if he has already eaten and survived, indeed has improved his lot in life, how much more should she surely be enhanced. He exhorts and challenges Eve to be “Deterred not from achieving what might lead/ To happier life: knowledge of good and evil?/ Of good, how just? Of evil, if what is evil/ Be real, why not known, since easier shunned?” (9.696-699). Thus, with words clothed in reason’s garb, Satan continues to “gloze” God’s Word, using his barbed tongue to pervert Eve with his twisted reasoning and creating his desired understanding by providing his own answers (often in the form of questions) to the questions he poses.

Satan follows these rhetorical questions, suggesting Eve is better off avoiding evil if she knows what it is, by stating God “cannot hurt ye and be just;/ Not just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed” (9.700-701). Throughout theological statements of belief, there are defenses of God as being only capable of justice; injustice cannot be attributed to

God. As Calvin says in the Institutes: “If it properly belongs to the nature of God to do judgment, he must naturally love justice and abhor injustice” (III, xxiii.4). Satan is right about the nature of God and justice, but he uses this idea to further his twisted reasoning.

Ultimately, it is true that God is by necessity just (theologically speaking), and that is why PL is sure to demonstrate that God is just, that he warned/admonished man, that he made him upright and sufficient to stand, and that man freely chose to sin by disobeying

God’s sole command. Hence, God’s punishment is justice because he told man that he would repay his disobedience. This is also why many catechisms open with reference to

Adam and Eve’s fall: to emphasize the justness of God in punishing man, further highlighting God’s grace and mercy in offering salvation to man. We read of God’s just dealings with man and man’s decision to disobey in the Heidelberg Catechism: “Q.9.

Does not God, then, deal unjustly with man by requiring of him in His law what he cannot perform? A. No; for God so created man that he could perform it. But man, through the instigation of the devil, by wilful disobedience deprived himself and all his posterity of these gifts” (Torrance 70).

Satan questions, “Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe,/ Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,/ His worshippers” (9.703-705). Surely, many have questioned why

God would even put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden if he knew man would eat thereof and fall. Some demand to know why such a tree would exist at all, without which man could presumably continue blissfully in Paradise forever. Yet, the presence of the tree serves a purpose, and it goes directly against Satan’s deduction that

God forbids eating of the tree to keep humans lowly, ignorant, mindless worshippers.

Indeed, the existence of the tree and the commandment not to eat of it establish man’s

freedom: without an act forbidden, man would have no choice to obey or disobey. Man would have no knowledge of anything beyond his state, necessitated to worship God in the ignorance of any other possible reality. And the forbidding of this act must seem arbitrary, the act itself something that would not be a natural and reasonable thing to refrain from, for if it were reasonable or in line with natural impulses to avoid the act, then there would be no true test of obedience. The tree must be pointed out; the fruit must look and smell sweet to eat; the interdiction must seem unreasonable. Man must make a conscious choice to act against his own reasoning and refrain from eating the tree’s fruit to demonstrate his individual will power, his own right to choose, and his firm obedience to God. Man can only avoid punishment by choosing to remain in Paradise, and he deserves to be removed from Paradise when he chooses to go against his Maker, who explicitly stated to man upon his creation that he would be severely punished if he were ever to choose disobedience. Thus, God is just because God provides an opportunity to choose obedience or disobedience and further because he issues punishment, which is the due recompense He promised for disobedience.

The serpent continues his appeal to reason by suggesting that a direct proportion must exist in the positive growth of creatures’ capacities upon consuming fruit from the

Tree of Knowledge: “That ye should be as gods since I as man,/ Internal man, is but proportion meet:/ I of brute, human; ye of human, gods” (9.710-712). We are witnesses to man’s rational, mathematical mind in the conversation between God and Adam in Book

8, and Satan here seeks to use that logic against Eve. Satan designs to make it a matter of mathematical certainty that once Eve has eaten the fruit she will be elevated to godlike status, given that she advances in proportion to how he has apparently advanced from

beastlike to humanlike. This logos20 sounds reasonable and tempts Eve and readers to accord with its rationale. By this point in the poem, Eve and Milton’s readers have been explicitly told more than once and on great authority to never eat from the Tree of

Knowledge. Yet, Eve (along with the resisting/self-reliant readers whom she represents at this point in the passage) finds herself relying too heavily on her own reasoning, which is being implanted and contorted by Satan’s seductive suggestions. The twisting words of the serpent, like his “mazy folds,” invite the listener to err in a labyrinth of logos. He twists God’s words and purposely misinterprets them for Eve: “So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off/ Human, to put on gods: death to be wished” (9.713-714). Satan takes the clear statement by God that eating of the tree will result in death, and puts his own slant on what death is to make the idea more appetizing to Eve.

The serpent follows this argument with a series of rhetorical questions that ask who put the tree filled with knowledge of good and evil there, why it would be an offense by man to seek knowledge, and how attaining knowledge by eating from the tree could go against God’s will since all that happens is God’s will. These questions are designed to make Eve question her own reason and the law given to her. The serpent ends this line of questioning with an exhortation for Eve to embrace a godlike nature by reaching up to take the fruit and “freely taste” it (9.732). Even in this moment, as the reader is about to witness the fall, there is a reminder that it is arrived at willingly, “freely.” Sadly, “his words replete with guile/ Into her heart too easy entrance won./ […] and in her ears the sound/ Yet rung of his persuasive words impregned/ With reason, to her seeming, and

20 From Considerations Touching the Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings Out of the Church: “To say truth, logic also may much better be wanting in disputes of divinity” (32). 55

with truth” (9.733-734; 736-738). These lines echo the opening lines of Book 8, which say, “The Angel ended and in Adam’s ear/ So charming left his voice that he awhile/

Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear” (8.1-3). The connection here to catechisms is that they were often delivered through oral instruction in the church. But while Adam has been made wiser, better educated in the faith, and, presumably, better equipped to continue in his state by the lessons spoken to him, Eve has been led astray by a false minister, whose erroneous teaching will lead her away from God toward damnation. Eve even takes time to consider her choice: “Pausing awhile, thus to herself she mused” (9.744). Eve’s decision to eat of the fruit will ultimately be the result of her own deliberation and not one of coercion or spontaneity, leaving her no room to fault

God for her fall.

Now, catechumen that she is, Eve starts to repeat the ideas sounded into her by the serpent, echoing his idea that the tree is forbidden to man because it will elevate him; she muses, “his forbidding/ Commends thee more while it infers the good/ By thee communicated and our want:/ For good unknown sure is not had, or had/ And yet unknown is as not had at all./ In plain, then, what forbids he but to know,/ Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise?” (9.753-759). Eve is now revolving in her mind the ideas put there by the serpent, that God is seeking to keep humans ignorant for His own advantage, reasoning with herself that she will be better able to do good if she knows what it is. She has lost sight of the fact that to obey was itself to know good, and straying from it will instill the knowledge of evil. What should be plain is that eating the fruit has been forbidden, underscored by Eve’s own repetition of the word “forbids” even as she is convincing herself that she better knows what is just and reasonable. Eve will soon

demonstrate the truth held in Calvin’s Geneva Catechism, when it says, “129. C. [...] we said that the true and legitimate service of God is to obey His will. 130. M. Why? C.

Because he will not be served according to our own imagination, but in the way that pleases Him” (Torrance 25).

The reader is invited to sin (as suggested by Stanley Fish) by acknowledging the reasonable rhetoric of both Eve and Satan, but this temptation to think is only a trial of obedience. Just as God tells Adam that he questioned him only to “try him,” this dialogue between Eve and the serpent sounds reasonable so that the catechumen, a reader of the poem, may demonstrate his willful obedience rather than his self-reliant deductions. Eve gets caught revolving rhetorical questions that she answers for herself just as the serpent was doing moments before; thus, she gets caught in the tortuous train of his labyrinthine thoughts, and errs. Again echoing what she has heard from Satan—“Shall that be shut to man which to the beast/ Is open?” (9.691-692)—Eve thinks to herself, “For us alone/ Was death invented? Or to us denied/ This intellectual food for beasts reserved?” (9.766-768).

Misguided by Satan, she chooses to eat of the fruit, choosing disobedience and death21.

21 Westminster Shorter Catechism: “Q.15. What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the state in which they were created? A. The sin whereby our first parents fell from the state in which they were created, was their eating of the forbidden fruit.” 57

BIBLICAL CATECHISM: MICHAEL TEACHES OF THE WORLD

THAT WILL FOLLOW THE FALL

Finally, for the fallen, which is inevitably all readers of catechisms and Paradise

Lost, there is offered the catechism of biblical history. Michael is sent to Adam and Eve to catechize them in the future of the world they will inhabit outside of Eden. Michael addresses Adam directly, while Eve is not given “a seat at the table.” Adam tells her that he will meet the angel, and she should retire and stay close by somewhere else. Adam meets the news of his and Eve’s expulsion from Eden with lamentations, and he confesses that what “most afflicts” him is the fact that he will be distanced from God:

“from his face I shall be hid, deprived/ His blessèd countenance” (PL 11.314-315). It is being apart from God that is most distressing. Adam fears he will lose all communication with God, but Michael assures him, “Adam, thou know’st Heaven his and all the earth,/

Not this rock only; his omnipresence fills/ Land, sea, and air, and every kind that lives”

(11.335-337). In saying this, Michael assures Adam that God will still surround him, and comments on the role of the Church. According to Kastan, “rock specifically suggests the

Catholic Church” (359), referencing Matthew 16:18, when Jesus says of Peter, “upon this rock I will build my church.” The message here, then, is that people do not have access to

God only through the mediation of the Church; rather, as the Protestants believed, the true church of God lies in the individual’s conscience22.

Michael prepares Adam (and the reader) for the lessons that will follow, clearly indicating that his purpose is to inform:

I am sent To show thee what shall come in future days To thee and thy offspring. Good with bad Expect to hear, supernal grace contending With sinfulness of men, thereby to learn True patience and to temper joy with fear And pious sorrow equally inured By moderation either state to bear, Prosperous or adverse. So shalt thou lead Safest thy life and best prepared endure Thy mortal passage (11.356-366)

Michael states that his purpose is to show things to Adam so that Adam may learn and be best prepared for his life outside of Eden. In response to this, Adam assumes his role as the assenting reader (dutiful/diligent catechumen), declaring, “I follow thee, safe guide, the path/ Thou lead’st me, and to the hand of Heaven submit” (11.371-372). The word

“guide” is again given to a character who will fulfill the role of minister or teacher, here

Michael, as it was used for God when he was teaching Adam in Book 8 and for the serpent who leads Eve astray in Book 9.

Michael is said to remove literally the film from Adam’s eyes as he sets out to enlighten Adam and instill in him a proper understanding: “But to nobler sights/ Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed,/ Which that false fruit that promised clearer sight/

Had bred […]/ for he had much to see” (11.411-415). Though “false fruit” here refers to

22 The Westminster Larger Catechism speaks of the “invisible Church,” of which all members of the elect are participants. 59

the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, it can be interpreted to suggest the lessons produced by false prophets who claim to know God’s will or who misinterpret the Bible for their followers. Michael is here to set the record straight. Michael seeks to healingly penetrate

“to the inmost seat of mental sight” (11.418), and his purpose will be to ensure that Adam

(and the reader) see clearly what God wants man to know. Michael instructs Adam to open his eyes and see the effects of his “original crime”: people who “spring from thee, who never touched/ The excepted tree, nor with the snake conspired/ Nor sinned thy sin, yet from that sin derive/ Corruption” (11.424-428). Here, Adam is introduced to the idea of “original sin” and how it corrupts all mankind that will issue from him. The

Westminster Shorter Catechism has this to say about original sin: “Q.16. Did all mankind fall in Adam’s first transgression? A. Since the covenant was made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression” (Torrance 264).

Two questions later, it says, “The sinfulness of that state into which men fell, consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin […], which is commonly called original sin” (265).

They ascend to the highest hill of Paradise for a catechism to take place. The catechism begins with Adam addressing Michael as “teacher” and asking a question about a scene revealed to him by Michael, thus sparking a series of questions and answers in the typical catechetical format of a student asking questions as prompters and a knowledgeable instructor providing the answers the student should commit to memory.

Michael first shows Adam the scene of Cain killing his brother Abel, and Adam knows immediately that this yet unknown act of killing is wrong. This, along with Michael saying that these deeds are violent and the result of corruption wherein “the just the

unjust hath slain” (11.455), acknowledge the doctrine of the sixth commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” Witnessing the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, Adam pleads, “Is piety thus and pure devotion paid?” (11.452). On behalf of readers who have a hard time understanding why God would seemingly punish people who have been devout and obedient to God’s Word, Adam makes this plea. And Michael offers solace to him (and them): “the bloody fact/ Will be avenged, and the other’s faith, approved,/ Lose no reward” (11.457-459). This lesson serves to assure readers that if they remain steadfast in their beliefs and their pious actions, they will be rewarded in Heaven. Abel can be sure of his place in heaven because he was faithful, obedient, and just in his actions.

Adam’s next question is about the nature of death, and Michael responds by showing him various painful and unsightly ways of dying, bringing Adam to tears. These sights compel Adam to question, “Why is life given/ To be thus wrested from us?/ […]

Can thus/ The image of God in man, created once/ So goodly and erect, though faulty since,/ To such unsightly sufferings be debased/ Under inhuman pains?” (11.503-504;

507-511). He questions why men, being created in the image of God, are not “exempt” from terrible diseases and painful sorrow. On behalf of mankind, Adam appeals to

Michael to know why God allows his beloved creation to suffer so mightily. Michael meets Adam with this response: Men forsook “their maker’s image” “when themselves they vilified/ To serve ungoverned appetite” “Therefore so abject is their punishment,/

Disfiguring not God’s likeness but their own,/ Or, if his likeness, by themselves defaced,/

While they pervert pure nature’s healthful rules/ To loathsome sickness, worthily”

(11.515-517; 520-524). Michael addresses Adam’s concern by clarifying that man has brought disease and suffering upon himself by willfully disobeying God’s

commandment. The Reformed catechisms are careful to address these same questions23 and provide answers similar to Michael’s response to Adam. The Heidelberg Catechism has this to say:

Q.10. Will God allow such disobedience and defection to go unpunished? A. Not at all, but He is fearfully angry both with our innate and our actual sins, and will punish them in righteous judgement in time and in eternity Q.11. Is, then, God not also merciful? A. God is indeed merciful, but He is also just. Therefore his righteousness requires that sin, which is committed against the sovereign majesty of God, also be punished with […] everlasting punishment of body and soul.

The Westminster Larger Catechism says, The fall brought upon mankind the loss of communion with God, His displeasure, and curse; so that we are […] justly liable to all punishments in this world The punishments of sin in this world are either inward like blindness of mind […] or outward like the curse of God upon the creatures for our sakes, and all other evils that befall us in our bodies […] together with death itself. (Torrance 189)

Michael’s answer (and those in the catechisms) serves also to satisfy readers who may feel themselves undeservedly cursed by an uncompassionate God by articulating that “all have sinned” and are therefore punished “worthily” for their transgressions. Adam, as the catechumen, assents: “‘I yield it just […] and submit’” (11.526). Adam’s attitude of submission here is meant to be adopted by the fit reader who would glean from PL the appropriate lessons and become the fit vessel for Christ and Christianity.

Adam again seeks instruction, asking Michael, “is there yet no other way besides/

These painful passages how we may come/ To death” (11.527-529). Adam wants to

23 From the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “Q.19. What is the misery of that state into which man fell? A. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.”

know if there is any way to meet death other than by “these painful passages,” referring to disease and violence; these lines also involve the implied reader, for whom these written passages must be painful, since he must accept his own sin and degradation and consequent punishment. This interrogative plea elicits yet more lessons for Adam and the reader. Michael counsels Adam to practice “The rule of not too much […]/ In what thou eat’st and drink’st […]/ not gluttonous delight” (11.531-533), saying that this may lead to a long life. Here, Michael warns against one of the capital sins24, gluttony, though he tempers this encouragement by telling Adam what “melancholy damp” will reign in his blood as he progresses into old age. Adam declares that he will seek the “fairest and easiest” way of being free from his “cumbrous charge,” or his living body (11.549), and

Michael instructs him not to love life or hate it but to best live the life that is given to him and leave it to Heaven how long or short that time may be. This lesson serves to teach the reader neither to hasten to an end of life, which would be to forsake the gift that God has given him or her, nor to be anxious about its ending, which is to doubt God’s perfect plan for his or her existence25.

Michael shows Adam groups of men and women who are seemingly happy, singing, dancing, and engaging in amorous love, but the fit reader will note in the narrator’s diction that another of the capital sins, lust, is being depicted: “The men, though grave, eyed them and let their eyes/ Rove without rein till, in the amorous net/

Fast caught” (11.585-587). The men’s eyes are said to wander without discipline or guidance, resulting in their being captured in a net. This description of lust shows how

24 So called by Aquinas in Question 84 in the “First Part of the Second Part” of his The Summa Theologica. 25 NIV Bible, Matt 6:27: “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” 63

men may be ensnared by allowing their lustful eyes and urges to go unchecked, and it serves as an admonishment. Seeing this apparent enjoyment, Adam naively believes,

“Much better seems this vision, and more hope” (11.599), but Michael promptly advises him, “Judge not what is best/ By pleasure, though to nature seeming meet” (603-604), cautioning Adam not to mistake pleasure and his natural urges with what is truly good.

He tells Adam, “Those tents thou saw’st so pleasant were the tents/ Of wickedness”

(11.607-608), offering a rebuff to Adam. Michael tells Adam that he is created “to nobler end/ Holy and pure, conformity divine” (11.605-606). This statement is intended as a guide to what action all men should choose: to pursue holiness and God’s will above physical impulses and sexual urges. The phrase “conformity divine” cannot be ignored.

This is what has been asked of Adam and will be asked of humanity: to conform to divine instruction and obey the word of God.

Michael warns that letting lust lead the way will lead to woe: “for which/ The world erelong a world of tears must weep” (11.626-627). The alliteration of wo/we works here to emphasize woe/weeping (waaa), and this woe comes as consequence of the sons of Cain who “yield up all their virtue” to “these fair atheists.” Adam quickly pounces on this and seeks to lay the greater portion of guilty responsibility onto women for being the source of man’s downfall (11.632-633), but Michael admonishes this misogynist view by stating, “From man’s effeminate slackness it begins” (11.634), clarifying that it is man’s immoderate love/lust for women that brings about his downfall. Michael does not allow

Adam or the reader to place the blame on women for man’s faltering.

Michael proceeds to show Adam various scenes, such as Enoch being saved and transported to heaven “for daring single to be just” (703), like Abdiel. This is shown to

Adam (and the reader) to “show thee what reward/ Awaits the good, the rest what punishment” (11.709-710). Adam is then shown the account of Noah and the flood: “So all shall turn degenerate, all depraved,/ Justice and temperance, truth and faith forgot,/

One man except […]/ fearless of reproach and scorn/ Or violence. He of their wicked ways/ Shall them admonish and before them set/ The paths of righteousness” (11.806-

808, 811-814). These stories of Cain and Abel, Enoch, and Noah (accounts from Genesis) serve as lessons for the reader. They provide information from the biblical, historical accounts. As Adam is seeing the future, the reader is learning of the past.

Upon seeing the account of Noah and the Flood, Adam bemoans, “now I see/

Peace to corrupt no less than war to waste” (11.783-784). Adam laments that even in times of peace, men are not safe. He had hoped that the violent fighting he witnessed in the story of Enoch would be man’s greatest struggle, but sees in the story of Noah that in times of peace men grow too proud and distant from God, leading to their own downfall and the need for punishment. Adam turns to Michael and asks, “How comes it thus?

Unfold, celestial guide,/ And whether here the race of man will end?” (11.785-786). After seeing the great Flood, Adam inquires whether he has witnessed the end of mankind, and asks what a rainbow is, addressing Michael as “heavenly instructor” (11.871). Michael explains that it is a sign of the covenant God has made with mankind not to “blot out mankind” (11.891).

Book 12 opens with Michael acknowledging that seeing visions has over-taxed

Adam’s powers, and he expresses the need to switch to words to inform Adam’s understanding: “I perceive/ Thy mortal sight to fail: objects divine/ Must needs impair and weary human sense./ Henceforth what is to come I will relate;/ Thou, therefore, give

due audience and attend” (12.8-12). Thus, Adam’s catechesis will now take place as it did traditionally in the Church, through spoken and written instruction. The reading audience, after all, does not get to “see” what Adam has seen and needs to have things

“related” (told) to them. Michael recognizes Adam’s limitations in understanding what he has seen, and Milton recognizes that his readers are limited by the words they can read/hear. In this final book of the poem, visions are narrated not shown: words, not images, are ultimately the path toward greater understanding for Adam and the reader.

Michael continues his biblical history lessons, telling of Nimrod, Abraham,

Moses, the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, the twelve tribes of Israel, the Ark of the

Covenant, and more. Adam calls Michael “Enlightener of my darkness” (12.271), as he politely interrupts Michael’s lessons to say that he has gained greater understanding yet is left with new questions. He asks, with reference to the Law given at Mt. Sinai, “why to those/ Among whom God will deign to dwell on earth/ So many and so various laws are given? So many laws argue so many sins/ Among them. How can God with such reside?”

(12.280-284). Michael answers, “Doubt not but that sin/ Will reign among them, as of thee begot” (12.285-286). Calvin’s Catechism poses a question similar to Adam’s, which says, “231. M. What is the purpose then of all the admonitions, reproofs, commandments, and exhortations made both by Prophets and Apostles? C. They are nothing else than declarations of the Law, leading us into obedience to it rather than turning us away from it.”

Still, man is not hopelessly lost to sin, and Michael’s lesson will end with a message of hope. He tells Adam, “to God is no access/ Without mediator” (12.239-240).

This mediator will be Christ. The Heidelberg Catechism explains, “Q.18. But who is that

Mediator, who is at the same time true God and a true, righteous Man? A. Our Lord Jesus

Christ, who is given unto us for complete redemption and righteousness.” Christ is also labeled our “Mediator” in Craig’s Catechism and the Westminster Larger and Shorter

Catechisms. Michael then explains the concept of redemption by justification: “Some blood more precious must be paid for man,/ Just for unjust, that in such righteousness,/

To them by faith imputed, they may find/ Justification toward God and peace/ Of conscience, which the law by ceremonies/ Cannot appease, nor man the mortal part/

Perform” (12.293-299). This doctrine of justification is expounded with very similar language in the Westminster Larger Catechism:

Q.70. Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which He pardons all their sins […] not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone. Q.71. His own only Son, imputing His righteousness to them, and requiring nothing of them for their justification but faith, which also is His gift, their justification is for them an act of free grace. Q.72 Justifying faith is a saving grace Q.73 Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God. (Torrance 198-199)

Just as Michael says, “To them by faith imputed, they may find/ Justification toward

God,” the catechism says, “Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God,” and just as

Michael says that nothing man can perform can appease God, the catechism states, “He pardons all their sins […] not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them.” The terms justification and imputed, as well as the concept that there is nothing man can do by himself to achieve salvation, can be found in all of the other Reformed catechisms that have been previously mentioned26 and this diction and concept are seen again later in the

26 From the Heidelberg Catechism: “Through true faith in Jesus Christ […] although my conscience already accuses me that I have grievously sinned […] yet God, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ” (Torrance 79). 67

poem when Christ’s “obedience/ Imputed becomes theirs by faith, his merits/ To save them, not their own […] works” (12.408-410).

After telling Adam about how Christ will serve as man’s mediator with God,

Michael pauses, and Adam happily declares, “Now clear I understand” (12.376). We are reminded that Adam is learning from his instructor. Michael pauses to allow Adam to react and to check for comprehension. After Michael relates the circumstances around the birth of Christ and what Christ will ultimately accomplish—dealing the “serpent” a

“capital bruise” that leads to “mortal pain” (12.383-384)—Adam begs to know more:

“Say where and when/ Their fight, what stroke shall bruise the victor’s heel” (12.384-

385). In Michael’s response, Adam, and readers, are given the reason for Christ’s coming: “thy Savior, shall recure,/ Not by destroying Satan but his works,/ In thee and in thy seed. Nor can this be/ But by fulfilling that which thou didst want:/ Obedience to the law of God” (12.393-397). Christ becomes man in order that “The law of God exact he shall fulfill” and “thy punishment/ He shall endure by coming in the flesh/ To a reproachful life and cursed death” (12.402, 404-406). Calvin’s Catechism explains, “60.

M. Is there any greater importance in His having been crucified than if He had been put to death in any other way? C. Yes, as Paul also shows us when he says that He was hanged on a tree to take our curse upon Himself and acquit us of it. For that kind of death was accursed of God” (Torrance 14). This same language is employed by Michael when

*From Craig’s Catechism: “Q. In what does our justification consist? A. In remission of sins and imputation of justice. Q. How can God’s justice forgive sin without satisfaction? A. Christ satisfied abundantly the justice of God for us. Q. Whose justice is imputed to us? A. The perfect obedience and justice of Christ.” *From the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 33: “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, in which he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, for the sake of the righteousness of Christ alone, which is imputed to us, and received by faith alone” (Torrance 267).

he speaks of Christ’s judgment, humiliation,27 and death: “He shall live hated, be blasphemed,/ Seized on by force, judged, and to death condemned,/ A shameful and accursed” (12.411-413). Christ’s being judged and put to death connects to another part of the Apostles’ Creed that says He “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried” (Torrance 7). Calvin’s Catechism expounds this part of the Creed, saying,

“56. Why is it not said simply and in a word that He died while Pontius Pilate is spoken of, under whom He suffered? C. That is not only to make us certain of the history, but is also meant to signify that His death involved condemnation” (Torrance 13).

More elements of the Creed—“The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead” (Torrance 7)—are seen in subsequent comments by Michael who says, “death over him no power/ Shall long usurp; ere the third dawning light/ Return, the stars of morn shall see him rise/ out of his grave”

(12.420-423). Moreover, Christ will “Then enter into glory and resume/ His seat at God’s right hand, exalted high/ Above all names in Heaven; and thence shall come,/ […] With glory and power to judge both quick and dead” (12.456-458, 460). Calvin’s Catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the catechism in the Book of Common Prayer all have the catechumen recite the Apostles’ Creed in full, and Calvin’s and the Heidelberg expound each element of the Creed.

Adam then questions what will happen to believers when Christ reascends to

Heaven, worried that they will fare terribly, given the way Christ himself was treated. He

27 Heidelberg Catechism questions 37- 39. Westminster Larger Catechism questions 46-50. Westminster Shorter Catechism question 27. 69

asks, “Who then shall guide/ His people, who defend? Will they not deal/ Worse with his followers than with him they dealt?” (12.482-484). Michael answers that the faithful will indeed face hardships, but assures Adam that God will send to the faithful “a comforter

[…] who shall dwell/ His spirit within them […] To guide them in all truth, and also arm/

With spiritual armor” (12.486-491). This may be understood as the Holy Spirit. The

Heidelberg Catechism echoes the notion of the Holy Spirit as a comforter who dwells within man: “Q.53 What do you believe concerning the Holy Ghost? A. […] that He is also given to me, makes me by a true faith partaker in Christ and all His benefits, comforts me, and shall abide with me forever,” and the Apostles’ Creed affirms, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit is said to be “poured” on all who are baptized (12.498-500).

Baptism is the second and only sacrament other than the Lord’s Supper that is recognized by Reformed catechisms. Michael tells Adam, “them who shall believe/ Baptizing in the profluent stream, the sign/ Of washing them from guilt of sin to life/ Pure” (12.441-444).

Calvin’s Catechism says of baptism that it represents the forgiveness of our sins and “The forgiveness of sins is a kind of washing, by which our souls are cleansed from their defilements” (Torrance 57). The Heidelberg says that baptism shows the promise that “I am washed with His blood and Spirit from the uncleanness of my soul, that is, from all my sins” (Torrance 81). Baptism is addressed in every one of the Reformed catechisms mentioned.

After relating all of this, Michael again pauses to check for comprehension and to allow Adam to respond (12.466). Highlighting the catechesis that has taken place throughout this dialogue, Adam says, “Greatly instructed I shall hence depart./ Greatly in

peace of thought, and have my fill/ Of knowledge, what this vessel can contain,/ Beyond which was my folly to aspire./ Henceforth I learn that to obey is best” (12.557-560). The lesson that Adam has acknowledged and accepted is the ultimate lesson intended to resonate in the reader through a reading of Paradise Lost, and he further asserts the need to have faith in the only God “and on him sole depend” (564). Michael confirms, “This having learned, thou hast attained the sum/ Of wisdom” (575-576). They then descend from “the top of speculation” (12.589), literally coming down from the hill in Paradise that they ascended to see the visions of God, but also figuratively coming down from the height of theological inquiry. And now, for Adam and Eve, “The world was all before them, where to choose/ Their place of rest, and providence their guide” (12.646-647).

The poem closes with Adam and Eve, fully informed and still free to choose, entering the world outside of Paradise. Also, the reader, now informed by the poem, is left to choose his or her belief and course of action, having been guided in the way of righteousness by the poem’s catechizing.

If the reader is properly catechized and chooses to follow the path of righteousness and persist in the faith, then he shall find grace:

Q.30. Does God leave all mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery? A. God doth not leave all men to perish in the state of sin and misery, into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called the covenant of works; but of his mere love and mercy delivers His elect out of it, and brings them into a state of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the covenant of grace. (Torrance 190)

REFERENCES Aquinas, St. Thomas. The Summa Theologica, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Benziger Bros. edition, 1947, https://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/FS.html.

Borromoeo, Charles. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, 1566, www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/catechism/Preface.shtml

Burke, Peter. “Renaissance Dialogue.” Renaissance Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 1989, pp. 1-12.

Calvin, John. The Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by Henry Beveridge, 1845, www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes/.

---. Commentary on Genesis. Translated by Rev. John King, 1847, www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom01.html.

Canisius, Peter. A Sum of Christian Doctrine, 1622, archive.org/details/ASumOfChristianDoctrine_830/page/n1.

Cranmer, Thomas. The Book of Common Prayer, 1662,www.ccepiscopal.org/handouts/bcp-1662.pdf.

Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Heidelberg-Catechism.

Flannagan, Roy, editor. The Riverside Milton. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

Green, Ian. The Christian’s ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in England c.1530-1740. Oxford University Press, 1996.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost, edited, with introduction, by David Scott Kastan, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2005.

---. Considerations Touching the Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings Out of the Church. Aberdeen, A. Murdoch, 1839.

---. De Doctrina Christiana. Translated by Charles R. Sumner, Cambridge University Press, 1825.

Torrance, Thomas F. The School of Faith: The Catechisms of the Reformed Church. Edited and Translated by Thomas F. Torrance. London: The Camelot Press; New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959. Wolleb, Johannes. The Abridgement of Christian Divinitie, translated by Alexander Ross, 1660, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A66823.0001.001/1:10.7?rgn=div2;view=fullte xt.