CHAPTER IV RELIGION I. THE SECOND CREATION N order to reach His ends, God causes a second crea tion to concentrate in the first one: within the Son, who had created, and out of whom had been created, the World, is formed Christ, who creates and out of whom are created, the elect: He creates them out of himself; they are" members of Christ "; he is incarnated in them, as the Son had materialized into a World. And as the Son is the Created World, Christ is the Elect, the "Greater Man," the assembly of all men who alone deserve the name "man." A diagram of Being may be constructed thus: Christ, for Milton, is Intelligence coming down into man to dominate the passions, by incarnation into a group of men who are the elect. II. CHRIST: INTELLIGENCE TRIUMPHANT Milton first reminds us that regeneration comes from God, and that through it God's plans are being carried out: the Father is often called our Saviour, inasmuch as it is by his eternal counsel and grace alone that we are saved.1 God himself has taken in hand the work of salvationthe manifested God, that is the Son: he by whom all things were made. . . he who in the beginning was the Word, and God with God, and although not supreme, yet the first born of every creature, must necessarily have existed previous to his incarnation. 2 But Milton is careful to use the word "Christ" throughout the chapters on Regeneration: "Christ " is the Savior of Men; the Son was the creator of the World. Christ is in the Son, the two are one, only the Son is greater than Christ, who is only a part of Him. Christ is essentially Intelligence: His prophetical function consists of two parts; one external, namely, the promulgation of divine truth; the other internal, to wit, the illumination of the understanding.3 Regeneration is that change operated by the Word and the Spirit, whereby the old man being destroyed, the inward man is regenerated by God after his own image, in all the faculties of his mind, in so much that he becomes as it were a new creature. . . .1 The intent of SUPERNATURAL RENOVATION is not only to restore man more completely than before to the use of his natural faculties as regards his power to form right judgement, and to exercise free will; but to create afresh, as it were, the inward man, and infuse from above new and supernatural faculties into the minds of the 3 Ibid., IV, 299. 4 Ibid., IV, 328. 1 Treatise, in Prose Works, IV, 285. renovated. This is called REGENERATION, and the regenerate are said to be PLANTED IN CHRIST." The new creation, in other words, takes place through Christ's descent into the elect. III. CHRIST, THE GREATER MAN Christ incarnates into a number of men, who become his mystical body; he is in each, he is in all, they are one in him. He restores reason to its throne in them. Even as "all of us are of God," so "all the elect are of Christ." Believers are said TO BE INGRAFTED IN CHRIST, when they are planted in Christ by God the Father, that is, are made partakers of Christ, and meet for becoming one with him.R from this union and fellowship of the regenerate with the Father and Christ, and of the members of Christ's body among themselves [The Communion of Saints], results the mystical body called THE INVISIBLE CHURCH, whereof Christ is the head. . . Seeing then that the body of Christ is mystically one, it follows that the fellowship of his members must also be mystical, and not confined to place and time, inasmuch as it is composed of individuals of widely separated countries, and of all ages from the foundation of the world." in In order to understand fully this conception, we must remember that Milton does not believe in the soul, the spirit. Christ is therefore in us materially; probably, in Milton's mind, as a sort of very subtle material substance, as effectually as Adam is in us by the continuity of physical generation. Christ is in the elect, or, rather, as he is greater, they are in him transplanted," engrafted." He is the whole, they are parts. It is therefore the expression "second creation" that Ibid., IV, 327-28. 6 Ibid., IV, 342. 7 Ibid., IV, 363. best renders Milton's thought. Christ drew the elect from his substance, as the Son drew the Creation from his. This is closely connected with Milton's materialism. We are, physically, parts of Adam. In the material substance he has transmitted to us lies concupiscences, his "innate propensity to sin." Therefore, it can only be through the pouring into us of a new, and better substance that we are regenerated; and in that substance, which is Christ, we are members of Christ. He is the Greater Man" of Paradise Lost: Till one Greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat." Not only morally Greater, but really, as a being of whom the elect are parts. For Christ has not really reconquered the old Paradise in Eden, he has established A Paradise within thee, happier far.10 Even like Paradise, Hell is in us, and Satan declares The archangel tells Adam how to imagine the struggle between Satan and Christ: ... Dream not of their fight As of a duel, or the local wounds Of head or heel. . . ... Not by destroying Satan, but his works In thee and in thy seed,12 will Christ triumph. Christ is thus materially the creator of the new human race, and this explains an expression strange in Milton, who calls Mary 8 Ibid., IV, 259. 9 P. L., I, 4-5. 13 blest Mary, second Eve.13 10 Ibid., XII, 587. 12 Ibid., XII, 386–95. 13 Ibid., V, 387. The poet's violent hatred of Catholicism tallies little with the glorification of Mary. But Milton expresses a physical fact. Mary is the mother of the new mankind that comes out of Christ, just as materially as Eve is the mother of the whole of mankind. Hence Milton's insistence in Paradise Regained on the idea of Christ being a man. And Milton is in no way a Socinian. Christ is the Son of God, because regenerated Man is the Son of God, created of Him. But Christ is the creator of Regenerated Man, is Regenerated Man: that part of God incarnated in the Elect. God speaks of Christ: He now shall know I can produce a Man Of female seed, far abler to resist All his vast force, and drive him back to hell, "By merit called my Son"- because all beings are Sons of God, as Satan boldly tells Christ: By voice from heav'n Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved. 14 P. R., I, 150-67. |