	 GENERAL SOURCE	SURVEY FOR THE DEMONOLOGY OF



			PARADISE LOST





	    (C)	Copyright 1987 by Mike Blakemore



Abstract. While	it is generally	assumed	that Milton's sources

for the	demonology of PL are biblical, a cursory examination

of the evidence	shows this is not the case. Although the

Bible was important in the work's composition, Milton also

drew upon sources apocryphal and pseudepigraphal, as well as

upon the large body of Hebrew legend concerning	demons,	much

of which pre-dates Judaistic thought. In the final analysis,

Milton opts for	poetic sensibility over	orthodox Scriptural

authority, using his varied materials as the dramatic needs

of his work dictated.









     In	Paradise Lost it is the	fallen angels, rather than

the faithful, who attract our interest.	 Before	the fall, God

makes it clear they had	all better go along with His program

if they	know what's good for them. As He introduces His son,

whom He	orders them to worship,	he says:





		    ...him who disobeyes

     Mee disobeyes, breaks union, and that day

     Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls

     Into utter	darkness, deep ingulfts, his place

     Ordained without redemption, without end.

						  (V, 611)





     Robert West notes that in Milton's day, the vast

majority of angelologists in England held that angels were

"secured by grace from the danger of lapse or by a compulsive

love of	God."



     But this would make for a garden-variety angel who	is

merely doing something about what he has little	choice.

Also, an angelic elect would run counter to Milton's life-

long devotion to that intellectual freedom in which sapient

beings are ultimately responsible for their own	behavior.

That same idea of an angelic elect would also remove most of

the dynamism of	PL's plot.



     Lucifer is	like the classical tragic heroes in that his
pride (hubris) demands expression (as did Eve's.) Satan has a

certain	appeal,	at least in the	beginning, where he is cast

as an anti-hero, a cad whom we admire for his direct attempts

to get what he wants. He has very human	virtues	and failings;

courage, persistence and ingenuity. But	his tragic flaws are

unsavory.  He has a huge ego and a petty streak. If God	won't

let him	share the dais,	he will	at least damage	God's newest

creation -- man.



     C.S. Lewis	states it is easier to draw a villain than a

hero. "To make a character worse than oneself it is only

necessary to release imaginatively from	control	some of	the

bad passions which, in real life, are always straining at the

leash,"	he writes. "To draw a `good' one, it is necessary to

rise above oneself; hence the scarcity of well drawn 'good'

characters."



     In	his Satan, Milton creates a character of truly

Olympian proportions. For a worthy foe of God, nothing less

will suffice. But the questions prompted by this creation

make it	patently absurd	to look	at PL in either	strictly

allegorical or literal senses. Angelology and demonology are,

at best, imperfect branches of theology, itself	built on a

revealed doctrine which	defies empirical examination, 

and in which legend and	bias inevitably	infect any reasonable

metaphysical speculation. Milton dealt with this problem in

the manner of a	thinking and literary man, counterweighting

his logic with what often seems	a tenuous belief in God. He

was, as	was said of Browning, a	man who	would call himself

Christian no matter what he believed in, diverging from

mainstream Puritan thought as his conscience dictated.



     Scholars have made	much of	the fact that in the entirety

of PL, Satan gets the best lines, and use this to argue	a

certain	Miltonic sympathy for him. But while Satan may be

more eloquent than the others, it is only early	in the story

that His Infernal Eminence has heroic virtues. Before the end

of book	two, his grandeur is visibly crumbling.



     At	the gates of Hell as he	begins his first foray into

the world, the reader sees his first post-fall interaction

with anyone outside of his "horrid crew." He is	a wanton, as

witnessed by the conversation with his daughter	Sin and	his

son-grandson Death, and	by revelation of his grotesque

relationship with them.



     He	continues his degeneration, becoming a common sneak

in his use of trickery to obtain directions to Eden from a

charmingly gullible Uriel. Thus, his demeanor moves even

farther	from his previous persona of the magnificently active
and vibrant Lucifer, the bearer	of light, confirming himself

by his own free	will as	the truly evil Satan, who needs

darkness to do his work.



     In	the Old	Testament, Satan was not such a	bad fellow.

His name literally means adversary, or accuser.	He was the

prosecuting attorney in	God's court. Although sometimes given

unpleasant tasks, his actions were always undertaken with

God's sanction, one example being the harassment of Job. In

the New	Testament, he is the tempter of	Jesus. Citing

extensive Talmudic commentary, Leo Jung	lists, among Satan's

virtues; "Kindness, consideration, [and] delicacy of

feeling." He also mentions Satan's sense of humor.



     In	the Hebrew pantheon was	a class	of demons known	as

the sedim, suggesting a	linguistic connection. The concept of

these beings may have come from	Babylonia, where they were

sometimes represented by winged	bulls -- a common fertility

symbol,	according to Frazer.



     By	contrast, the Islamic Shatan (or the Zoroastrian

Satan,)	is a truly evil	and dynamic devil, who refused to

worship	God's new creation, man (consistent with the Jewish

tradition), and	was, hence, turned into	a demon, swearing an

oath of	revenge	against	God. John B. Noss suggests a

Zoroastrian influence on Islam here. In	Jewish and Islamic

thought, Satan operated	only with the permission of an

omnipotent God,	although in Zoroaster's thinking, the forces

o evi	wer powerfu an pose  ver rea threa t Ahur 

Mazda, literally, "Wise Lord."



     Bu i i i th Ne Testamen tha Sata evolve a	

 trul	evi character Althoug hi connectio	wit th 

serpen i onl touche upo i Genesis Revelatio (12 7-10)

i explicit.





	  Then war broke out in	heaven.	Michael	and his

      angels waged war upon the	dragon.	The dragon and

      his angels fought, but they had not the strength

      to win, and no foothold was left them in heaven.

      So the great dragon was thrown down, that	serpent

      of old that led the whole	world astray, whose name

      is Satan,	or the devil --	thrown down to the earth

      and his angels with him.





     John again	identifies the dragon as Satan in the opening

of Rev.	20.


     That Lucifer has taken a full third of the	angelic

complement with	him prompts Sir	Herbert	Grierson to wryly

note that "if the third	part of	a school or college or nation

broke into rebellion we	should be driven, or strongly

disposed, to suspect some mismanagement	by the supreme

powers."



     Unlike the	Jewish Satan, Milton's Christianized Satan

was the	very personification of	evil, although just how	the

name Lucifer creeps in as the unfallen angel is	unclear. Jung

comments this may be due to a misinterpretation	of Isaiah 14,

12-13.





     How you have fallen from heaven, bright morning star,

     felled to the earth, sprawling helpless across nations!

     You thought in your own mind, I will scale	the heavens;

     I will set	my throne high above the stars of God,

     I will sit	on the mountain	where the gods meet

     In	the far	recesses of the	north.





     Robert H. West states that	this is	more likely the

railings of the	prophet	against	Nebuchadnezzar,	who, like

most kings, probably enjoyed court flattery which compared

him to either the Morning Star (Lucifer), the Sun or to	God

himself. Along these lines, Luke quotes	Christ as saying, "I

watched	how Satan fell,	like lightning,	out of the sky."

(10:18), a citation upon which the the early Church Fathers

speculated for several centuries.



     It	should also be noted that descending stars were	often

considered fallen angels in a number of	Middle Eastern

folk cultures. Considering that	the Zoroastrians were no mean

astrologers, it	would do well to remember that it was a	group

of Zoroastrian Magi (from whence comes the word	"magic") who

were the first to adore	the infant Jesus. This Christian

concept	of Satan may well have connections with	the

Islamic/Zoroastrian idea.  The Persian	Zoroastrians spoke a

branch of Indo-Aryan, a	sub-school of Indo-European, the same

language grouping of most modern European language. Their

malevolent daevas were the precursors of our modern devils.



     Zoroastrian influence on western religious	thought	must

not be underestimated. It has in common	with all the

Mediterranean religions	the concept of a tripartite universe,

including a heaven, earth and underworld. (Hindu cosmology is

a much more unified operation, without such clear divisions.)

Zoroastrianism has also	provided a comprehensive dualistic

theology appearing later in the	Manicheanism, still very much
alive in some Middle Eastern Christian sects. It has always

been easier to see things in black and white rather than in

shades of gray,	and metaphysical arguments concerning evil as

an aspect of good have gone on for thousands of	years and

into the present. Another tenet	of Zoroastrianism held in

common with Christianity is the	general	resurrection to	come

at the end of the present world	order, the condemned spending

eternity in an unpleasant place	called "The House of the

Lie."



     In	both Hebrew and	Islamic	traditions, Shatan (or Satan)

was a prominent	angel who became a devil through

disobedience, and who took his revenge upon God	by seducing

man. The Muslims and early Jews, however, reject the idea

that Satan can actually	rebel. The idea	was more fully

developed later, in a Hellenized Judaism where lesser beings

rebel against God, an idea central to Greek mythology.



     In	the popular theology of	his day, Milton	was safe in

casting	Satan as ruler of Hell and chief demon.	The rest of

his infernal hierarchy,	however, has a certain arbitrary

quality	to it that can only be justified as poetic license.

Milton draws upon the large and	often-contradictory body of

Semitic	legend for his precedents, and taps into a

tradition of reducing gods overshadowed	by Yahweh to the

ranks of demons, as will be more fully explained below.



     First after Satan is Beelzebub, henchman and chief

lieutenant. After the initial onslaught, it is to Beelzebub

that Satan first speaks, referring to him as "Fall'n Cherub."

In both	Jewish and Christian traditions	a cherub is a high

order of angel.	In ancient Babylonia, a	 kerub was a griffin,

half-mammal, half-bird,	similar	to the Hebrew sedim. These

were the same cherubim of Moses	and Solomon, says Emily	Hahn,

"carved	and gilded supports of God's throne, each with one

great golden wing curving up and around	the throne and above

it to meet the other in	a sort of arch that shaded the divine

Occupant." They also appeared on the Ark of the Covenant.



     It	was Beelzebub whom the Pharisees called	the prince of

demons and who is one of the few three-dimensional characters

in Milton's hell, outside of Satan. The biblical references

to Beelzebub are well-known. It	was by Beelzebub, said the

Pharisees, that	Jesus cast out devils, prompting Jesus to

make the famous	comparison about a house being divided

against	itself.	Putnam's suggests that the name of Beelzebub

comes from the Hebrew word Baal-zevuv, "Lord of	Flies,"	or,

less kindly,  "Lord of Dung". Putnam's further suggests this

is a mocking corruption	of the Canaanite Baal-zebul, or

"Prince	Baal," Baal being a powerful fertility god, lord and
master of natural regenerative forces and identified with

lightning and rain. He was frequently represented as a winged

bull (sedim, kerub?), and in his mythology, was	slain and

resurrected. In	this he	is analogous to	other dying and

resurrected fertility gods such as Osiris, Zagreus,

Dionysius and Tammuz. Another name belonging on	this list is,

significantly, the Greek Adonis, the word Adonai replacing

the Yahweh in later Judaism. In	both Greek and Hebrew the

word means "my lord" or	"my master."



     Moloch was	another	fertility god sometimes	associated

with Baal, a nasty chap	who liked having small children

sacrificed to him by fire.  The	first commandment, "Thou

shalt not have strange Gods before thee" indicates God was

very much aware	of the Hebrew inclination to flirt with	other

deities. Moses had been	gone up	the mountain only a few	days

when the Hebrews asked for another god and were	given a

golden calf (Prince Baal?). Moloch was another one to whose

charms the Israelites often fell prey. Even the	wise Solomon

built shrines to him (1	Kings 11.7), although it must be

noted in all fairness that he had a weakness for women and

built these shrines to placate his not-so-Jewish wives and

concubines, and	not anywhere near the temple. Moloch enjoyed

such popularity, in fact, that in Leviticus (18.21; 20.2),

God was	specific about not sacrificing one's children to what

Milton calls a





	       horrid King besmear'd with blood

     Of	human sacrifice, and parents' tears,

     Though for	the noise of Drums and Timbrels	loud

     Thir children's cries unheard, that pass'd	through	fire

     To	his grim idol.

						  (I, 392)





	  At the council in Pandaemonium, Moloch is the	first

to answer Satan's request for ideas. He was





		      the fiercest spirit

      That fought in Heav'n; now fiercer by despair:

      His trust	was with th' Eternal to be deem'd

      Equal in strength, and rather than be less

      Car'd not to be at all; with that care lost

      Went all his fear:

						  (II, 44)





     In	noting his desire for violence without regard to the
consequence, Irene Samuel writes that





     he	cares little whether that violence turns on God,

     Heaven, Hell, or himself. The only	desirable

     alternative he sees to effecting his combative will

     is	annihilation. Thus Milton links	the impulses of

     murder and	self-destruction and sees the roots of

     both in the aggressive need of brute force	to

     dominate its world	in order to feel adequate.





     After Moloch's speech comes Belial's.





     But all was false and hollow; though his Tongue

     Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear

     The better	reason,	to perplex and dash

     Maturest Counsels; for his thoughts were low;

     To	vice industrious, but to Nobler	deeds

     Timorous and slothful: yet	he pleased the ear."

						  (II, 112)





     Milton's association of Belial with lust indicates he

may have been familiar with the	story of the 200 Watchers,

which appears in slightly different forms in the

pseudepigraphal	books of Enoch and Jubilees. In	the story,

200 angels become infatuated with human	women and make their

way to earth, a	journey	that takes nine	days. That number

reappears in PL.





     Nines times the space that	measures Day and Night

     To	mortal men, hee	with his horrid	crew

     Lay vanquisht, rolling in the fiery gulf...

						  (I, 50)





     Upon their	arrival	on earth, the Watchers take wives and

begin copulating to beat the band, their children growing up

to be giants and causing a number of problems.	God chastises

both the Watchers and their beloved children with various

punishments. He	first sends Uriel to warn Noah,	then Raphael

to tie up Azazel, the Watcher's chief. Significantly, the Old

Testament Azazel was a wild desert demon associated with the

scape-goat.



     At	God's direction, Gabriel then forces the giants to

kill each other. Michael makes the Watchers observe, then
deposits them in the underworld	to stay	until the last

judgement, after which they will go into the eternal flames.



     Belial reappears in Paradise Regained, urging Satan to

tempt Christ with women. Satan scoffs, pointing	out that

Belial is inclined to attribute	his own	personal weakness to

everyone else. Satan says;





     Before the	flood, thou with thy lusty crew

     False titled sons of God, roaming the earth

     Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,

     and coupled with them, and	begot a	race.

						  (PR II, 178)





     For a few members of his demonic host, Milton again

turns to folklore. By the Middle Ages, Europeans had started

classifying various demons as to their powers to entice	men

to indulge in the more base instincts. In his continuing

demonology, Milton draws on the	morality playwright's

practice of personifying sins as devils. As we have already

established, Lucifer's sin was pride. After his fall, it

becomes	anger, an understandable response to thwarted

ambition.



     There is little scriptural	authority for Mammon outside

of a few New Testament mentions	as to the danger of wealth

(Mat. 6.24; Luke 16.9,11,13.), Milton does, however, mention

Spenser's "Cave of Mammon" (Faerie Queen) in Areopagitica.



     In	the speeches at	Pandaemonium, Mammon appears in	what

is probably Milton's declining order of the importance of

various	sins.





     Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell

     From Heav'n, for ev'n in Heav'n his looks and thoughts

     Were always downward bent,	admiring more

     The riches	of Heav'n's pavement, trodd'n Gold

     Than aught	divine or holy else enjoy'd

     In	vision beatific...

						  (I, 679)





      He is Hell's architect, building a house of splendor

true to	his love of riches and luxury. After all, he points

out, "This Desert soil/Wants not her hidden lustre, Gems and

Gold."


     The sheer volume of Milton's demonic catalogue makes its

complete discussion impractical. One personage who merits

being singled out, however, is Astoreth	"whom the Phoenicians

called/Astarte,	Queen of Heav'n..." One can only speculate

whether	Milton might have developed her	more fully, had	he

the time or the	the inclination. She was a fertility goddess

with a large following,	similar	to the Greek Aphrodite,	the

Roman Diana and	the Egyptian Isis. Written mention of her was

found in the 1931 West Syrian excavation of Ugarit, and	has

been dated about 1,400 B.C. Like most female fertility

goddesses, she was associated with the moon. Although the

patristic Hebrews and Jesu-centric Christians worked hard in

trying to stamp	out her	worship, the lingering human desire

for a female fertility goddess has crept back into

circulation through Mary, the mother of	Jesus and Queen	of

Heaven.	In the Roman Catholic calendar,	the spring month of

May is reserved	for her	veneration.



     Hahn states that when one ancient tribe (or for that

matter,	modern tribe) conquered	another, the victor's deity

was imposed upon the loser, and	that no	sensible victor	tried

to destroy the loser's gods. This would undermine the whole

business. Instead, the loser's gods were reduced in stature.

Both the Mosaic	distaste for visual depictions of God and

this practice of transforming the old rivals of	Yahweh into

demons reappears in Christianity. The early Christians were,

like most people in those days,	an ignorant and	superstitious

lot. Particularly in Greece and	Rome, they believed that

devils resided in the pagan idols. Interestingly, Faunus,

(the Greek Pan), with his cloven hooves, stubby	horns and

tail, could stand as a prototype for medieval depictions of

the devil.



     It	was upon these wide-ranging concepts that Milton

drew, many of which appear to have been	introduced into

Western	Christianity by	Pope Gregory I (c.540-604), an ex-

monk who wrote extensively on the Eastern Mediterranean	ideas

of the early Church Fathers. Oriental sympathies did not

color all his thinking,	however. In one	of Christendom's more

embarrassing power struggles, he refused to recognize the

Patriarch of Constantinople and	set off	500 years of dispute

ending in a complete break in 1054, and	which today remains

unhealed.



     Milton was	no stranger to literary	license, inventing

and borrowing as his plot dictated. Such free selection	of

material was needed to hybrid an arch-fiend of towering

stature	for a true enemy of God	and Christ. The	lesser

persons	in his supporting cast were similarly constructed

from the best sources available	to shape them into consummate
figures	of wickedness.



     Oddly, Milton's epic never made it onto the Index of the

arch-conservative Roman	Catholic Church. Although he

constructed a fanciful cosmology at odds with orthodox

views, he slid around the hair-splitting theological

arguments, using a poetic sensibility to make sense of

Scriptural spirit. He showed little or no interest in the

scientific accuracy of Scripture, but approached it with an

awareness of its background and	development.









			BIBLIOGRAPHY



     Adler, Mortimer J.	 The Angels and	Us.  New York:

MacMillan, 1982.

     Bleeker, Claas Jouco, and Widengren, Geo. Historia

Religionum. Leiden: Brill, 1971.

     Curry, Walter Clyde. Milton's Ontology, Cosmogony and

Physics. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky, 1957.

     Field, M.J.  Angels and Ministers of Grace.  New York:

Hill and Wang,	1971.

     Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough. New York:

MacMillan. 1958.

     Grierson, Sir Herbert. Milton and Wordsworth. London:

Chatto and Windus, 1937

     Hahn, Emily, and Benes, Barton Lidice.  Breath of God.

New York:  Doubleday,  1971.

     Hieatt, A.	Kent. Chaucer, Spenser,	Milton.	Montreal:

McGill-Queen's, 1975.

     Jung, Leo.	Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian and

Mohammedan Literature. New York: KTAV, 1974.

     Kaster, Joseph. Putnam's Mythological Dictionary. New

York:  Capricorn, 1964.

     Langton, Edward. Essentials of Demonology.	London:

Epworth, 1949.

     Lewis, C.S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. London: Oxford, 1942.

     Martz, Louis L. (Ed.) Milton, A Collection	of Critical

Essays.	Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966.

     Noss, John	B. Man's Religions. New York: Macmillan, 1967.

     Russell, Jeffrey B. Lucifer. Ithaca: Cornell, 1984.

     Samuel, Irene. Dante and Milton. Ithaca: Cornell, 1966.

     Ward, Theodora.  Men and Angels.  New York:  Viking, 1969.

     West, Robert H.  Milton and the Angels.  Athens,  Univ.

of Georgia Press,  1955.



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