plished; [it] will not pass away as insufficient for its purpose; it will not be destroyed, nor will its period be a period of dissolution, but rather of perfection and consummation, like the end of the law. . . 75 There were, therefore, plans to be fulfilled, plans that were shaped before the Creation, by Eternal Wisdom playing before the Supreme. Milton devotes sublime passages to the state of the Deity before Creation: God himself conceals us not his own recreations before the world was built: "I was," saith the Eternal Wisdom, "daily his delight, playing always before him." And to him, indeed, wisdom is as a high tower of pleasure, but to us a steep hill, and we toiling ever about the bottom. He executes with ease the exploits of his omnipotence. . . .76 Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flowed, Thou [Urania] with eternal Wisdom didst converse, In presence of th' Almighty Father, pleased ́It was during this divine play that the plans of the world were made. We shall see later the connotations of the two passages, and what direction of Milton's thought towards the more abstruse secrets of occultism they reveal.78 More precise ideas can be obtained if we consider the results of creation: the perfect and harmonious life of the Communion of the Saints in God." God has drawn from himself a perfectly organized society of free spirits, an expression of and a witness to his glory ("To God more glory," says Adam). Evil, Sin, Suffering, end in this. 75 Treatise, IV, 488. 76 Tetrachordon, in Prose Works, III, 331. 78 See below, pp. 291-92. 79 See below, Part II, Ch. IV. There existed in the Infinite a sort of latent life which God has liberated, given over to its own forces, and which developed and expressed itself, in the good towards joy eternal, in the evil towards pain eternal. God has intensified his own existence, raising to glory the good parts of himself, casting outside of himself the evil parts of himself too, because Evil into the mind of God or man May come and go. ..80 Terrible words, applied to God; and Satan confirms them with his "The Son of God I also am." 81 For God is the One Being, and all is in him. This is as near as we can get to Milton's idea of God's aims: to drive away the evil latent in the Infinite, to exalt the good latent also. Nor was Milton alone in such thoughts. The Kabbalists give dark hints of an evil side to their unfathomable God, and we shall see that Milton had drunk, and possibly drunk deeply, of the Kabbalah. G CHAPTER II COSMOLOGY I. THE SON OD being the Unmanifest Absolute, the Son is the Real, the Relative, the First Creature, the Creator of the World. It will be evident from Milton's conception of matter that this First Creature comprehends all others. The Son is the Spirit of God manifested in the Cosmos. He has created all things, but by drawing them from himself; matter is "of him." So he is not only the Creator but also the Creation: all that is, is a part of Him, vivified by his divine force, a free fragment of the Total Being, remaining Him by its quality and its destiny. Such is the essential idea of Milton's cosmology. II. THE HOLY SPIRIT The Holy Spirit is somewhat of a supernumerary in Milton's system. Milton dare not deny his existence, but he has no precise place to give him; so he more or less tolerates him, although he has no great belief in him. He seems in a hesitating mood as he begins his Chapter VI of the De doctrina and sees the unavoidable question looming up: Having concluded what relates to the Father and the Son, the next subject to be discussed is that of the Holy Spirit . . . With regard to the nature of the Spirit, in what manner it exists, or whence it arose, Scripture is silent; which is a caution to us not to be too hasty in our conclusions on the subject.1 1 Prose Works, IV, 150-51. He might (and we might) as well leave it at that. Yet he goes on, in some perplexity: The name of Spirit is also frequently applied to God and angels, and to the human mind. When the phrase, the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit, occurs in the Old Testament, it is to be variously interpreted; sometimes it signifies God the Father himself . . . ; sometimes the power and virtue of the Father, and particularly that divine breath or influence by which every thing is created and nourished "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Here however, it appears to be used with reference to the Son. . . . Sometimes it means an angel. . . . Sometimes it means Christ. . . . Sometimes it means that impulse or voice of God by which the prophets were inspired . . . the spiritual gifts conferred by God on individuals. . . .3 2 3 And Milton concludes, somewhat dispiritedly: Lest, however, we should be altogether ignorant who or what the Holy Spirit is, . . . it may be collected from the passages quoted above, that the Holy Spirit . . . was created or produced of the substance of God . . . probably before the foundations of the world were laid, but later than the Son, and far inferior to him." God is first described as creating the heaven and the earth; the Spirit is only represented as moving upon the face of the waters already created. On the whole then, the Holy Spirit may, or may not, have been a being created and used by God (i.e. the Son, the Creator) to shape the Earth, this world. Milton shows little interest in this hypothetical being. In his thought, the Son is essentially the Spirit of Creation; and the first aspect of creation is matter. 2 This sufficiently accounts for P. L., VII, 235: "The Spirit of God." 3 Treatise, IV, 151–53. • Milton is not sure, because the "Holy Spirit" might be Christ. Cf. also Treatise, IV, 175. 5 Ibid., IV, 169. 6 Ibid., IV, 175. III. MATTER God has created all beings, not out of nothing, but out of himself. Since God is entirely non-manifested, this applies to the Son. The Son is thus both Creator and Creation - the spirit or essence that resides in things and is their being, and not a Creator that shapes from outside an independent matter. All things or beings are thus parts of God. Matter is part of the substance of God, and from this matter, divine in its essence, all things have come. Milton develops these ideas at full length, and draws from them their boldest consequences: ... In the first place . . . neither the Hebrew verb nor the Greek Kritev, nor the Latin creare, can signify to create out of nothing. . . . On the contrary, these words uniformly signify to create out of matter. It is clear then that the world was framed out of matter of some kind or other. For, since action and passion are relative terms, and since, consequently, no agent can act externally unless there be some patient, such as matter, it appears impossible that God should have created this world out of nothing; not from any defect of power on his part, but because it was necessary that something should have previously existed capable of receiving passively the exertion of the divine efficacy . . . it necessarily follows, that matter must either have always existed independently of God, or have originated from God at some particular point of time. That matter should have been always independent of God, (seeing that it is only a passive principle, dependent on the Deity, and subservient to him; and seeing, moreover, that, as in number, considered abstractedly, so also in time or eternity there is no inherent force or efficacy), that matter, I say, should have existed of itself from all eternity, is inconceivable. If on the contrary it did not exist from all eternity, it is difficult to understand from whence it derives its origin. There remains, therefore, but one solution of the difficulty, for which moreover we have the authority of Scripture, namely, that all things are of God. . . . In the first place, there are, as is well known to all, four kinds |