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Abraham, Adam, and The Theme of Exile in Paradise Lost

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Mary Christopher Pecheux
Mary Christopher Pecheux*
Affiliation:
College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, N. Y.
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Extract

Among the Biblical types which Milton used to enrich his theme in Paradise Lost was that of Abraham, father of the faithful. James Sims has shown the parallel between the visit of the angels to Abraham at Mamre and Raphael's descent to Eden in Book v; John Parish has elaborated the resemblance between Abraham's plea for the Sodomites and Adam's dialogue with God in Book viii; and Barbara Lewalski has emphasized the spiritual vision of the man of faith in Books xi and xii: Abraham and his heirs view the promises “afar off,” just as Adam at this point sees far off the great symbolic Old Testament places. It is the purpose of this article to explore further the Abraham-Adam parallel in the last two books, showing in particular the relationship between Abraham's departure from Ur and Adam's from Paradise. From this relationship flow certain effects: the tone of the concluding episodes of Paradise Lost becomes clearer, their universal significance is emphasized, and the exile motif is harmonized with the concept of the journey of the epic hero. The virtues of Abraham are precisely those which Adam as Christian hero is called upon to practice, while both Abraham's setting forth to the land of Canaan and Adam's exile from Paradise are types of man's setting forth on his earthly pilgrimage.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 80 , Issue 4-Part1 , September 1965 , pp. 365 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1965

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References

1 James H. Sims, The Bible in Milton's Epics (Gainesville, Fla., 1962), pp. 202–204, 210–211; John E. Parish, “Milton and an Anthropomorphic God,” SP, lvi (1959), 619–625; Barbara Lewalski, “Structure and the Symbolism of Vision in Michael's Prophecy, PL xi–xii,” PQ, xlii (1963), 32.

2 John Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York, 1957); all my citations from Paradise Lost are to this edition.

3 Cited in The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. Henry J. Todd, 3d ed., iii (London, 1826), 359–360. Newton suggests as additional reasons for the repetition reverence for the words of God and Homeric precedent.

4 Eve's “lead on” in xii.614 balances Adam's “I follow thee” in the present passage, and the last four lines of the poem have several verbal echoes: the “safe Guide” here is replaced by “Providence thir guide”; the “path” becomes the “solitary way” through Eden; the rest to be won from labor the “place of rest.” As Adam turns here to face the evil, so the pair turn away from Paradise to the world at the end.

5 Biblical quotations in this article are from the King James version. Both Hughes (p. 440) and Sims (pp. 209–210) note the parallel with Cain.

6 The main verb of the second sentence, usually rendered as “sojourned,” itself emphasizes in Greek the ideas of transitoriness and non-citizenship; see the discussion of the term in a note on Clement's “Epistle to the Corinthians,” ed. James A. Kleist, in Ancient Christian Writers, i (Westminster, Md., 1949), 103–104. Clement's “Epistle” opens with a similar phrase: “The Church of God which resides as a stranger at Rome” (p. 9).

7 Ed. James A. Kleist, Ancient Christian Writers, vi (1948), 139. Cf. I Cor. vii.31, Phil. iii.20, I Pet. i.1, 17, ii.11.

8 xv.1; trans. John Healey, Temple Classics, iii.40.

9 Contra Haereses, iv.xxv.1, in Migne, Patrologia Graeca (hereafter cited as PG), vii, 1050.

10 Genesis Homiliae, xlv.1 (PG, liv, 414–415), xl.2 (PG, liii, 370–371), xxxi.3–5 (PG, lui, 286–287).

11 De Abraham, in Migne, Patrologia Latina, xiv, 441–524.

12 Commentarium in Joannem, xx.10, 13 (PG, xiv, 591, 594, 606–607).

13 In the First Defence, ch. ii, Milton speaks of “another solid authority, Josephus' contemporary Philo Judaeus, one very studious in the law of Moses, upon the whole of which he wrote an extensive commentary …” (The Works of John Milton, Columbia Edition [hereafter cited as C.E.], vii, 79). In the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, i.iii, he himself uses “an allegory something different from that in Philo Judaeus concerning Amaleck, though haply more significant …” (C.E., iii, 435). The breadth of Milton's reading obviously makes it impossible to contend that any one writer was the source of any one idea, but the presence in Paradise Lost of many of the implications contained also in Philo at least indicates the existence of a body of interpretation which fit perfectly into the framework of the epic. For a discussion of the widespread influence of Philo, see Harry F. Robins, If This Be Heresy: A Study of Milton and Origen (Urbana, Ill. 1963), pp. 17–19, 28.

14 Milton's attitude towards typology is expressed in the Christian Doctrine i.30: “No passage of Scripture is to be interpreted in more than one sense; in the Old Testament, however, this sense is sometimes a compound of the historical and typical, as in Hosea xi.1 compared with Matt, ii.15. ‘out of Egypt have I called my son,‘ which may be explained in a double sense, as referring partly to the people of Israel, and partly to Christ in his infancy” (C.E., xvi, 263). For a comparison of this passage with an almost identical one in Wolleb's Compendium see Maurice Kelley, “Milton's Debt to Wolleb,” PMLA, l (1935), 158. For a discussion of Milton's views on typology see H. R. MacCallum, “Milton and Figurative Interpretation of the Bible,” UTQ, xxxi (1962), 397–415, especially 407–409. Milton would certainly have admitted a type so well established in the New Testament as Abraham: in addition to many references in such symbolic terms as father of the faithful, St. Paul says specifically in Gal. iv.24 that the Abraham-Hagar-Ishmael story is “by way of allegory.” Milton himself uses Abraham as a figure of divine election in CD i.xvii (C.E. xv, 351), as an example of faith and patience in i.viii (C.E. xv, 87) and of obedience in ii.iii (C.E. xvii, 69). There is a difference, which Milton undoubtedly recognized, between typology and allegory, and I think he would not have attached any doctrinal importance to Philo's interpretations; but he was not above using them, as has been seen, for polemic purposes, or a fortiori for poetic reasons.

15 On Abraham, xv.68 and xi.52; pp. 39, 31. Citations from Philo are to the translations in the Loeb Classical Library: Vol. iv of Philo's works, containing On the Migration of Abraham and Who Is the Heir of Divine Things, trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker (London, 1949); Vol. vi, On Abraham, trans. F. H. Colson (London, 1950); Vol. xi, Questions and Answers on Genesis, trans. Ralph Marcus (London, 1953).

16 Migr. Abr., x.53 (Loeb, iv, 161).

17 Abr., xv.70 (Loeb, vi. 41).

18 Abr., xviii.85 (Loeb, vi, 47).

19 Who Is the Heir, lviii, 287 (Loeb, iv, 431).

20 Migr. Abr., xxiii.128 (Loeb, iv, 205).

21 Robins cites this passage as a parallel to Origen's theory of the world as a training school for virtue (If This Be Heresy, pp. 151–152).

22 Migr. Abr., xxxiv.187 (Loeb, iv, 241).

23 Ibid., xxiv.134, 138 (Loeb, iv, 209, 211).

24 The Bible in Milton's Epics, pp. 202–204.

25 For a discussion of the principle of ironic disparity see Christopher Ricks, Milton's Grand Style (Oxford, 1963), pp. 127–132.

26 Quest. Gen., iv.16, 18 (Loeb, xi, 289, 291).

27 Abr., xlii.245–246 (Loeb, vi, 121). John Chrysostom has a similar passage (PG, liii, 297, 300). It is not without significance that the author of Hebrews couples Sarah with Abraham as an example of faith: “Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed … when she was past the age, because she judged him faithful who had promised” (Heb. xi.11).

28 E. M. W. Tillyard, The Miltonic Setting (London, 1947), p. 203; Robert A. Durr, “Dramatic Pattern in ‘Paradise Lost’,” JAAC, xiii (1955), 521–522; Joseph H. Summers, The Muse's Method (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 179–181.

29 Paradise Lost as “Myth,” (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 179–181. This study is so rich in implications that it is difficult to assess an exact debt; the whole chapter on “Satan's Voyage” (pp. 179–206) has relevance.

30 Similarly, Abraham and a restored Eden are linked in Isaiah li.1–3: “Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: … Looke unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he wil comfort all her waste places, and he wil make her wildernes like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.”