 Hello fellow followers of Christ and welcome to the show that introduces you to the men and women behind history's greatest works of literature. Come along every week as we explore these renowned authors, the times and genre in which they wrote, why scholars praise their writing and how we as Catholics should read and understand their works. I'm Joseph Pierce and this is The Authority. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Authority and this time we're going to perhaps remind ourselves of Monty Python and say and now for something completely different because we've looked at Catholic writers such as the convert Richard Cresshaw recently and William Shakespeare before that and even Catholic sace because we had some more but subtle but now we enter a new era and we're looking this week at John Milton who was certainly not a Catholic and indeed was very anti-Catholic throughout his life. He was very much in support of the Puritans during the English Civil War and following the victory of the Puritans advocated and defended publicly through his the power of his pen the Regicide, the crime of Regicide, the killing of the King, the execution of King Charles II in 1848. He was beheaded that Milton publicly defended that action against the horror that it caused throughout the world. He remained a staunch supporter of the Puritan cause even after the vast majority people had become completely disillusioned with it. As with most should we say ideologically driven revolutions the the Puritan revolution that was victorious in English Civil War soon dissolved into tyranny and terror and totalitarianism and became increasingly unpopular. So following the the death of Oliver Cromwell who basically set himself up as the as the tyrannical dictator of England, Lord Protector to give him the name he gave himself. When he died things very quickly dissolved into a state of anarchy and so when in 1660 there was the restoration of the monarchy with Charles II coming to the throne most people in England even those who initially supported the the parliamentarians in the war and the Commonwealth as it was called were rejoiced. The restoration was almost universally popular but not with militant ideologues such as John Milton who was very depressed by the restoration of the monarchy and it's it's perhaps significant that he writes his greatest work and the work for which he's part of this series of which is part of the Western canon and rightly lorded as one of the greatest writers in the English language ever. His epic Paradise Lost was written around the time of the restoration of the monarchy. So it's when Milton is very much in low spirits and that perhaps is something we should take into account. But the anti-Catholicism is certainly present in Paradise Lost but it's of course not primarily about that. It's using the form of the epic so following the example of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid to retell the story of the fall of Adam and Eve and Lucifer's role in that and the role of obviously of divine providence of God the Father, God the Son, all characters in this epic narrative. So it could be called the Christian epic perhaps the Christian epic par excellence if we don't want to give the divine comedy the title of epic. It's perhaps the pinnacle of Christian epic. However it's not without being controversial because there are some who claim that it's not really in the truest orthodox sense of the word a Christian poem at all. There was a document that most people accept was written by Milton in which he basically confesses himself to be an Arian. Arianism was a major heresy of the early church which basically denied the divinity of Christ. So Milton in this document was discovered after his death basically calls Christ a creature. He's not co-equal with the Father and therefore he's not a Trinitarian, doesn't believe in the Trinity. He's doesn't believe in the Incarnation because if God the Son is not God, if the Son is not God then God is not incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ but merely a creature. So this is Arianism. It's a heresy. Of course heresy has been condemned by the church. Is Milton an Arian? Well most people including his greatest defenders such as C.S. Lewis and we'll talk about that a bit more deeply in a moment seem to accept that it's a genuine document by Milton. So it seems inescapable that Milton was to use a blunt word but an accurate one if he's indeed an Arian. Milton was a heretic. He's not a Protestant. He's not a Christian. In C.S. Lewis' understanding of mere Christianity the highest common factors of what makes someone a Christian is certainly surely a belief in the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost as being ultimately one in three persons or and the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. If you don't believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation surely you're not a Christian. So anyway this is very controversial because those who defend Milton and defend Paradise Lost as the perfect or the ultimate great Christian epic are obviously not happy to call Milton anything other than the Christian. So Paradise Lost if you like is put on trial on the basis of whether or not in the poem there's evidence of this Arianism and certainly I for one believe that there is. It seems to me that the Son in the poem comes after the Father. He's a creature. It's even possible that he comes after Lucifer in terms of creation. That's absolutely arguable but certainly Lucifer's envy seems to be based upon the fact that this new fangled thing called the Son is an upstart, a usurper, that somehow the Father has a new favourite. So that's the aspect of the role of the Son in Paradise Lost which I take as being very problematic. However people who are greater minds than I have defended the poem and not least of whom is C.S. Lewis who in many ways serves as Milton's most powerful defense attorney and in his preface to Paradise Lost he does his best to claim that although he accepts that Milton probably was an Arian in his private beliefs he states that basically because Milton could not have espoused Arianism in his own time he was conforming in the poem to Christian orthodoxy. Lewis gives reasons for that and for those who are interested obviously you can read Preface to Paradise Lost but I added a magazine called Listen Austin Review and a new issue of it is on the theme of the mere genius of C.S. Lewis and there's an article in there by Nathan Longacre in which he gives Lewis's defense of Milton's Paradise Lost at great length so if you want to go deeper and pick up Lewis's book Preface to Paradise Lost and pick up the Listen Austin Review and Nathan Longacre's article on Lewis's defense of Paradise Lost that's the case for the defense. I'm not going to spend too much time on the case for the prosecution in terms of whether or not the Son in the poem is God or not whether he's divine or not. What I am more concerned with is the way that Milton depicts Satan and I'm going to talk about that because that for me is the dark the dark heart of the poem because it is really the dark core Paradise Lost the looming and alluring presence of Milton Satan whose power if he portrayed characterization as this is this sympathy from many readers of the poem from Percy Shelly's eulogizing of him in the early 19th century to modern manifestations of sympathy for him in our own time so Shelly basically states that I think in his defense of poetry that Milton's Satan is so obviously morally superior to his God. Now no doubt at all Milton would be horrified that anybody could could read the poem that way but the fact that a poet such as Percy Shelly can do so certainly suggests that there's an element of of believability in it. With respect to more modern manifestations of sympathy for Milton's Satan Milton's Lucifer there was an article in The Atlantic in March 2017 which discussed the fascination Americans feel for the character in Lucifer in Milton's epic and how it manifests itself in the characterization of thoroughly modern anti-heroes on contemporary television especially in The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, all of which are seen to reflect in some manner the dark side of the American Dream. This morbid fascination with Milton's archetypal anti-hero prompts Simon the author of that article to ask a provocative question what's so American about John Milton's Lucifer? That's a provocative question indeed. There is however another provocative question that most must be asked if we are to avoid misunderstanding and misconstruing Milton's Satan regardless of how American he is we need to ask how Christian he is so again you know we talked about metaphysical poetry and Milton is a metaphysical poet even though he's using the the epic form here he writes other lyrical poet poems which are certainly in the absolutely metaphysical mode of the conceit the apparent contradiction the apparent conflict that's resolved in deeper meaning in a deeper truth so can how can we talk about Satan being Christian? The heart of such a question is a paradox from an orthodox Christian perspective the real Satan is at one and the same time a Christian and an anti-Christian he is a Christian in the sense that he knows that Christ is the incarnate Son of God he's an anti-Christian because he hates the Son as he hates the Father he knows the Trinitarian God and he hates him he is not an unbeliever he is a rebel who is at war with the reality in which he has no choice but to believe we think perhaps of of Dracula in the movies so the demons in the gospel do not deny the authority of Christ they defy him as far as they are able and despise him but they do not and cannot deny him we see the same paradox in the man in which Dracula in the old movies recoils in horror from the sight of a crucifix he hates the symbol of the power of Christ but he cannot help but retreat from it because the power he despises is real the problem with Milton's Lucifer is that he is not synonymous with the Lucifer of the Bible or the Lucifer of Christian tradition he is a figment of Milton's heterodox imagination Milton's God is not the Trinitarian God of the Christians but a Unitarian God whose Son is a mere creature albeit the greatest of all creatures considering Milton's theological break with orthodoxy is denied of the Trinity and in consequence is denied of the Incarnation also it is a grievously erroneous to see paradise lost as a Christian work except for its biblical trappings it is no more Christian in an orthodox sense than the earlier epics of Homer and Virgil and arguably less so it might be argued for instance as we have done earlier in this series that Homer and Virgil were groping in the right direction towards the light of the gospel whereas Milton rejecting the church and the traditions of Christendom was groping in the wrong direction away from the light of the gospel Homer and Virgil might be seen as virgins awaiting the coming of the bridegroom whereas Milton is the disgruntled divorcee who turns his back on the marriage regardless of whether William Blake was right when he said of Milton that he was quote of the devil's party without knowing it Milton was indubitably doing the real diabolus a service in inventing a mythical devil who has proved so attractive Milton's Lucifer has what he perceives to be a just grievance and rebels against the perceived injustice with great courage by way of contrast it is hard to feel much sympathy with Milton's god who is not loved because he is not lovable he is an omnipotent puritan prig who is right because of his might a Pharisee himself he might well have been the sort of god whom the Pharisees worshiped but he has little in common with the god of the Christians meanwhile Milton's son is not worshiped because he is not god in marked contrast to the biblical jesus he is depicted by Milton as a warrior who boasts of his martial prowess it's a little wonder that an atheist such as Bercy Bichelli could claim that Milton was satan's morally superior to his god perhaps nobody in history has done more to evoke sympathy for the devil than John Milton even though we may presume that he would have been appalled at this dark side of his legacy here you see i'm obviously being robust in my role as as the prosecution attorney and of course i'm aware that i have no lesser person than CS Lewis to argue against me and i've given you where you can read that so i'm not i'm trying to just give one side of the story here in answer to the original provocative question Milton's lucifer is not christian he is no more christian than a poet who gave him life in consequence those who feel that they have sympathy for the Miltonian devil are not sympathizing with the real satan any more than they are rebelling against the real christ they're merely pursuing the shadows and Milton's dark and unenlightened theology so a little bit of controversy and there's nothing wrong with a little bit of controversy um i want to however um do justice to Milton in one sense that he in certain aspects of that of a palace lost it's a beautiful poem beautiful english he's a great writer his evocation of marital love particularly you know prior to the fall between adam and lee eave is beautiful it is really you know and i'm even willing to accept the plausibility that the god that's depicted in paradise lost is trinitarian and that christ is not a creature i there's certainly ambivalence and ambiguity and it's arguable um and uh lewis certainly is very ingenious in the arguments that he offers to to to vindicate that position but there still is the problem of Milton satan compare Milton satan with for instance um uh dantes and dante of course is a tomastin theology a catholic uh in faith uh for Milton for dante uh satan is trapped in a sea of ice in the bottom bottom most pit of hell furthest away from heaven insatiably hungry and devouring the traitors uh forever um uh and then excreting them and devouring them again um this this person who now uh his is his pride has made him insatiably hungry to feed upon the evil uh of which he is himself a slave uh a static figure unable to move beyond the point in hell to which god has assigned him compare that with Milton satan Milton's lucifer who is a courageous leader who who goes on a solo mission when all the rest of the demonic fallen angels cow cow in in in fear of the power of god he goes on a one-man mission against all the odds uh to carry out a mission to uh um to to uh make of man allies against god the the very martial war imagery uh the boastfulness of cry of sorry of the son on occasions of his power is is not the meekness the self-giving sacrificial love of of of jesus um there are problems and uh and i think that we need to um acknowledge those problems and we need to at least uh listen to the witnesses for the prosecution um such as william blake who says that the Milton's of the devil's party without knowing it or Percy Shelley who's the atheist uh who finds more sympathy for for Milton satan who he sees as being morally superior to to uh Milton's god Mary Shelley in frankenstein basically has uh as this as as the inspiration for for the poem uh the monster um has the same antagonism towards his creature towards his creation as as Milton's adam and more to the point Milton's satan do towards their creator that he blames uh um his creator for the suffering that he is uh undergoing so the and then again as as the article in the atlantic said this this whole cult of the anti hero um the dark rebellious um figure who who um is somehow gained some nobility in his war on authority um this is all part of a miltonian shadow that has fallen in the wake of Milton's poem and i personally see it as a consequence of Milton's own uh dark theology um irrespective of his arianism which is dark enough in itself his puritanism uh his hatred of catholicism uh which does manifest itself in certain aspects of of paradise lost um in his willingness to advocate the execution of the king um his his um obstinate refusal to see the evils of uh of Oliver Cromwell's puritanical puritanical regime so uh looking at the authority of John Milton we see that it's a darkened authority that questions authentic authority and perhaps the work itself is a consequence of that dark questioning of authentic authority um by Milton himself i would like to finish however on a light to note because Milton did write some wonderful poetry and uh in uh now we're featuring in the authority appropriate enough when we're looking at the poems the book that i have edited and compiled for tan books poems every catholic should know and there is a short selection of poetry by Milton here um uh three poems one at a solemn music another on the religious memory of mrs kathryn thompson my christian friend deceased december 16th 1646 but i'm going to read by way of concluding this episode with the authority Milton's poem on time and you will see it it's very much a metaphysical poet with uh with a lot of uh the use of metaphysical conceits within it on time by john milton fly envious time till they run out thy race call on the lazy leaden stepping hours whose speed is but the heavy plum its pace and glut thyself with what thy womb devours which is no more than what is false and vain and merely mortal dross so little is our loss so little is thy gain for when as each thing bad thou has entombed and last of all thy greedy self consumed then long eternity shall greet our bliss with an individual kiss and joy shall overtake us as a flood when everything that is sincerely good and perfectly divine with truth and peace and love shall ever shine about the supreme throne of him to whose happy making sight alone when once our heavenly guided soul shall climb then all this earthly grossness quit a tired with stars we shall forever sit triumphing over death and chance and thee old time thank you so much it's been a joy and a pleasure to spend this time with you in this episode of the authority please do join me next time uh until then goodbye and god bless this has been an episode of the authority with joseph pierce brought to you by tan for updates on new episodes and to support the authority and other great free content visit the authority podcast dot com to subscribe and use coupon code authority 25 to get 25 percent off your next order including books audio books and video courses by joseph pierce on literary giants such as tulking chesterton lewis shakespeare and bellock as well as tans extensive catalog of content from the saints and great spiritual masters to strengthen your faith and interior life to follow Joseph and support his work check out his blog and sign up for email updates and exclusive content at jpearse.co and thanks for listening