In Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus's sixth-century biblical poem De spiritalis historiae gestis, Satan boasts that after tempting Eve to eat the forbidden fruit he enjoys a better claim over the first couple than God himself:

This passage lacks a direct analogue in Paradise Lost, but its conception of the devil as a teacher resonates powerfully within Milton's epic, because education ranks among his most central and sustained interests: as Margaret Olofson Thickstun remarks, Paradise Lost is “a poem about the education of its main characters and at the same time dedicated to the education of its readers.” Having served as a schoolmaster himself during the 1640s, Milton knew firsthand the pleasure and perils of teaching, a vocation that he seems to have considered “parallel, if not quite equal, to preaching and poesy.” Over the past fifty years, many scholars have contributed to a deepening understanding of Miltonic learning, often employing his tractate Of Education (1644) as a framework for assessing the methods and success of Raphael, Michael, and the Father in guiding Adam and Eve's progress towards true knowledge in Paradise Lost.