The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in "Paradise Lost"

Author(s): Arnold Williams

Source: Studies in Philology, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 253-268
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
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 THE MOTIVATION OF SATAN'S REBELLION IN
PARADISE LOST
By ARNOLDWILLIAMS
Though, until very recently, critics have paid scant attention to
the motivation of Satan's rebellion, it must be clear that this
motivation is of cardinal importance to Paradise Lost. Without
Satan's rebellion, man would possibly not have been created and
would certainly not have fallen, and no justification of the ways of
God to man would have been necessary or possible.1 A proper
understanding of the rebellion of Satan is likewise essential to the
whole philosophic meaning of the epic. When Satan summons his
followers to council in the North, evil enters the cosmos. Satan's
action initiates the whole sequence of the expulsion of the rebel
angels, the creation of man to take their place, the temptation
and fall of man, and finally his regeneration by grace. So much
hinges on the motivation of Satan's rebellion that an organized
inquiry should be conducted into the methods by which Milton
motivates Satan's rebellion, the exact meaning of Satan's actions,
the sources on which Milton drew, and the dramatic validity of the
account in Paradise Lost of the fall of the angels. This study
attempts to sketch such an inquiry.2
When Milton approached the problem of how to motivate Satan's
rebellion, he had, as for almost every other incident in Paradise
Lost, a tradition behind him. Unfortunately, the tradition was
more meager and confused on this one point than on nearly any
other. Apparently Satan made his entry into the story of the Fall
much later than the other characters: Adam, Eve, the Serpent
(unidentified with Satan), and even Lilith, Adam's putative first
wife, of whom Milton makes no use. So it happened that Milton
could get from the Fathers, from rabbinical literature, and above
"It is Satan's belief that he had "dispeopl'd Heav'n" (VII, 150-01)
that God offers as reason for the creation of another world and another
race to take the place of the fallen angels.
S Throughout this article I am under exceeding obligation to Grant
McColley, Paradise Lo8t (Chicago: Packard, 1941), to Maurice Kelley,
This Great Argument (Princeton, 1941), and to Allan H. Gilbert, "The
Theological Basis of Satan's Rebellion and the Function of Abdiel in
Paradise Lost," MP, XL (1942), 19-42.
253

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254 The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in " Paradise Lost"

all from the commentaries on Genesis rather consistent and de-

tailed accounts of a great many matters of small import to his epic,
but precious little usable material explaining why and how Satan
rebelled against God in the first place.
In fact, in the whole traditional story of the creation and fall of
man, the original motivation of Satan is the weakest link. Satan
seems an imperfectly digested addition to the story, apparently the
result partially of Persian influence and partially of a desire to
cover up the crude animism of the original myth.3 It was not,
indeed, until relatively late that the serpent was understood as
merely an agent or a disguise for Satan. The Book of Enoch, a
pseudepigraph written by several hands between 170 and 64 B. C.,
is probably the first documentary evidence of a belief that the
temptation of man was the work of a fallen angel. In Enoch we
find the notion that Gadreel, one of the " satans," was the one who
"led astray Eve."
Even later in development is any satisfactory explanation of
how the angels fell, how Satan became the adversary. There are
three such explanations, all dating from the period of the two or
three centuries immediately before and after the beginning of the
Christian Era. Enoch supplies the first of these, actually an
exegesis of Genesis 6: 1-5, which tells how the " sons of God " took
wives of the "daughters of men. According to Enoch, certain
angels sent to guard mankind were lured by women and sinned
3Rabbi Jung, who has gone into the accounts of the fall of the angels
probably more deeply than anyone else, finds in authentic Hebrew tradi-
tion no trace of the concept of Satan as an originally good angel, now
fallen and become the unalterable enemy of God: Fallen Angels in Jewish,
Christian and Mohammedan Literatuvre (Philadelphia: Dropsie College,
1926). It should be noted, however, that Rabbi Jung's definition of
" authentic Hebrew traditions " is rather narrow. He includes only what
may be called official Judaism, the Mishna in particular. The unofficial and
heterodox tendencies preserved in the pseudepigrapha he does not consider
as authentic. It is precisely in the pseudepigrapha that one finds the
nearest approach to the New Testament character of Satan.
4 R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), II, 163.
5 Enoch 69: 6. I use " Enoch " to mean The Book of Enoch. The Book
of the Secrets of Enoch I shall call " Secrets." Scholars often use " I
Enoch" and "II Enoch" to denote these books, a practice which may
cause the unfamiliar to think of the two books as composing a unity like
I and II Kings. They do not.

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 Arnold Williams 255

carnally with them.6 Since this explanation places the fall of the
angels long after the temptation and fall of man, it is quite incon-
sistent with the notion that one of the fallen angels tempted Eve.
Nevertheless, it was widely accepted and is echoed by ma-nyof the
early Christian Fathers. It is one of the motivations that Milton
might have used for his Satan. He alludes to it, but it obviously
could not serve his purpose.7
Another possible motivation for Satan is found in the Adam and
Eve books, which in various versions were popular over Europe in
the Middle Ages. According to one of these, the Latin Vita Adae
et Evae, when man was created God commanded the angels to
worship him. The account is that of Satan, who after the Fall,
tells Adam:
When God blew into thee the breath of life and thy face and likeness was
made in the image of God, and Michael also brought thee and made (us)
worship thee in the sight of God....

Michael worshipped first, but when Satan's time came he refused:

? will not worship an inferior and younger being (than I). I am his
senior in the Creation, before he was made was I already made.8

This motivation of Satan's fall without doubt contributed a great

deal to later Christian explanations of Satan's rebellion. The wor-
ship of man was more spiritually construed as the worship of God
as man, that is, of Christ. Hence Satan's sin was the refusal to
accept the incarnation of God as man, an act by which man out-
ranked the angels in the order of beings. Such a motivation would,
if Milton knew it, be suited to the purpose of Paradise Lost.

6Enoch 6: 1-8.
'Denis Saurat, Milton Man and Thinker (New York: Dial, 1925), pp.
257-58.
" Vita Adae et Evae, xii-xvii; ed. L. S. A. Wells in Charles, op. cit.
According to Wells, there are numerous manuscripts of the Vita dating
from the Middle Ages (op. cit., pp. 124-24). Two Middle English versions
are given by Carl Horstmann, Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden (Heil-
bronn, 1878). Ancient versions of the Vita are found in Armenian, Syriac,
Syriac and Arabic, and Ethiopic. All these go back, thinks Wells, probably
to a Hellenistic Jew who wrote between A. D. 60 and 300. The legends
are even more ancient and are represented elsewhere in Jewish literature:
Ginzburg, Legends of the Jews; tr. Henrietta Szold (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1913), I, 62-64. Jung, op. cit., pp. 56-56, in keeping
with his theory, does not take these legends as authentic Jewish tradition.

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256 The Motivationof Satan'sRebellionin " ParadiseLost"
For some reason hard to ascertain, however, this explanation
failed to become the commonest one. It even enjoys scriptural
authority of a sort. Hebrews 1: 6, " And again when he bringeth
in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels
of God worship him," seems to suggest the notion of commanded
worship. Nevertheless, it is overshadowed in both theology and
literature by the well-known account of the rebellion of Lucifer
based on Isaiah 14: 12-15. Isaiah is clearly addressing himself to
some prince of Babylon when he writes, "How art thou fallen, 0
Lucifer." However, generations of exegetes, from before the time
of Augustine, understood the passage as either a figurative or a
literal account of the rebellion and fall of Satan and the lost
angels. The common explanation of Satan's fall is, then, that
puffed up with pride and ambition, he sought to equal or surpass
the Almighty, and for this offense was cast out of heaven into hell.
Like the other two explanations, this one also took form in the
pseudepigrapha. The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, written be-
tween 30 B. C. and 70 A. D., has the following account:
And one from out the order of angels, having turned away with the order
that was under him, conceived an impossible thought, to place his throne
higher than the clouds above the earth, that he might becomeequal in rank
to my [God's] power.
And I threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying
in the air continuously above the bottomless."

This angel is later identified with Satanail, and Secrets gives the
further information that it was he who seduced Eve.10
This is substantially the account generally found in both the-
ology and literature. The authority of Augustine, who strenuously
opposed the motivation of Satan's fall from carnality"1 and re-
garded the prince of Babylon whose doom is told in Isaiah as a
* Secrets, 25: 4-5. This took place between the second and third days
of creation.
'OIbid., 31: 4-5.
11De Civitate Dei; ed. J. E. C. Weldon (London: Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, 1924), book xv, chapter 23 (II, 172-77). This does
not mean that the Enoch tradition disappeared or the motivation from
lust. The writings of the early Fathers kept both alive, as did also the
very condemnation of Augustine. Many of the sixteenth and seventeenth
century commentaries repeat the story, e. g., Pareus, In aenesin in Opera
Theologica (Venice: 1628), p. 161. Pareus gives a late medieval, source,
Lyra's Postilliae.

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 Arnold Williams 257

type of Satan, sufficed to ensure the dominance in theology of the

motivation from pride. On the basis of John 8: 44, which says
that Satan " was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in
the truth," Augustine writes that Satan's sin was refusal to subject
himself piously to the Almighty. He proudly refused from the
very first moment of his existence to render obedience.12
The motivation from envy survived in the Middle Ages in the
Vita and accounts based on it, but except for these, the account of
Satan's fall derived from Isaiah and sanctioned by Augustine re-
mained standard for more than a thousand years. One finds it in
scholastic theology.13 It is common in the accounts of poets and
dramatists. The Old English Genesis B, sometimes offered as a
source for Paradise Lost, presents Satan, next in power to God, as
thinking how he can set himself up a throne stronger than God's.
"Why am I to toil?" he asks himself. Relying on his strong
comrades, he resolves to be God and works northwards and west-
wards to set up his throne. For this presumption he is cast out of
heaven.""
The Cursor Mundi and the craft plays continue the same tradi-
tion. In the former Lucifer decides to set his seat against that of
God:
.mi sete i sal
Gain him pat heist es of all;
In }>e north side it sal be sette
0 me seruis sal he non gette
Qui suld I him seruis yeild?
Al sal be at myn auen weild.15

The craft plays use the same motivation, adding a bit to the ex-
ternal action. In the four great cycles the account is that God
left his throne vacant for a while to go to look over creation.
Satan became ambitious, sat in the empty throne, proceeded to
exact homage as God, was discovered by God when He returned,

2Op. cit., Xi, 13 (I, 481).

1S For instance, Lombard, Sententiarum; ed. Migne, lib. II, dist. vi, q. 2
(col. 154).
14 The Junius Manuscript; ed. Krapp (New York: Columbia, 1931),
"Genesis," 11. 247-90.
1
Cursor Mun4i; ed. Richard Morris; EETS OS 57, "Cotton Version,"
11. 457-62.

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258 The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in "Paradise Lost"

and was cast into Hell together with those angels who had done
him reverence.16
In the Renaissance, too, pride and ambition are frequently given
as the reasons for Satan's rebellion. Hugo Grotius makes pride
the main motivation of Satan: he
refused to call his God
More than his equal.""

Quantities of allusions to Satan's ambition or pride could be

gathered, of which one from Shakespeare and one from Bacon
suffice. In Henry VIII Wolsey urges Cromwell to
fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels.18

Bacon writes that " the desire of power in excess caused the angels
to fall." 19
This survey of the traditional treatments of Satan's rebellion
indicates the problem Milton faced in making Satan a principal
character in Paradise Lost. On the figure of Satan the whole
epic hinges. He must be of heroic proportions, for a weak or trivial
Satan, like Marlowe's Mephistophilis, would have failed to provide
the antagonism necessary in a poem of epic proportions. Cardinal
to the delineation of a Satan of heroic proportions is the problem of
motivating his rebellion. A weak motivation or none at all would
have impaired the probability and wrecked the dramatic conflict
of the epic.
Yet Milton has little to work with if he takes the standard
motivation from pride. He has only the abstract vices of pride
and lust for power. Like an Adam without free will, a Satan
motivated only by pride in the abstract is a mere Satan " of the
motions." Milton could not, like the authors of the craft plays,
have Satan suddenly announce that he had decided to set his throne
I' Che8ter Plays; ed. Hermann Diemling, EETS ES 62, 11. 89-208; Ludus
Coventriae; ed. K. S. Black, EETS ES 120, " Creation of Heaven and the
Angels "; l?ownley Plays; ed. George England, EETS ES 71, "The Crea-
tion," 11. 61-131; York Plays; ed. Lucy T. Smith, I sc. i and ii, 11. 32-120.
17 The Adamus Exul of Grotius; tr. Francis Barham (London, 1839),
p. 15.
181III ii, 440-41.
19" and Goodness of Nature," Works; ed. Spedding, Ellis,
Of Goodness
and Heath (Boston, n. d.), II, 118.

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 Arnold Williams 259

higher than God's. Nor could he accept Augustine's dictum that

Satan was evil from the beginning of his existence. The trouble
with the motivation from pride is that it answers one question by
asking another. As the medieval theologian, Rupertus Tuitensis,
writes, "Quae causae fuerint superbiendi?" It starts with the
premise that Satan is evil, that he needs no motivation and hardly
any occasion. But even an Iago needs an opportunity to translate
his innate moral perversion into overt act. And what was Satan's
opportunity?
Milton must have wrestled with this problem. The third draft
of the planned drama on the subject of the fall, preserved in the
Cambridge Manuscript, shows that already Milton had assigned the
narrative of Satan's rebellion and fall an important place in the
play. Here the chorus has the part of telling " Lucifers rebellion
and fall " in act three. The fourth act includes a narrative by the
chorus of "the battle and victory in Heaven against him and his
accomplices." Already in the late thirties or early forties Milton
realized how important was the motivation of Satan. Sometime in
the succeeding years, when the drama gave way to the epic, he
perceived his advantages.
One of these comes from the substitution of the epic for the
dramatic form. Writing an epic, he can begin in medias res with a
little more grace than if he were writing a play. The epic method
of development thus gave him time to build up the character of
Satan into an artistically convincing portrait of pride, ambition,
and envy before he had to supply the motivation for Satan's rebel-
lion. The characterization of Satan is chiefly contained in Books I
and II and flows over into Book IV, all of which deal with events
after his rebellion, which is told in Book V. The reader then comes
to the account of the rebellion with a characterization of the fallen
Satan in his mind and is inclined to read into the unfallen Satan
the vices of the fallen Satan.
Moreover, the motivation from pride receives full expression in
the first two books. Satan is the tempter " Stird up with Envy
and Revenge." His " Pride / Had cast him out of Heav'n." He
" trusted to have equal'd the Most High." He calls himself " The
proud possessor " of hell and boasts that God shall never extort
obedience or servitude from him. What Augustine and the later
Fathers had established as the standard motivation of Satan, what
the writers of the craft plays had clumsily tried to externalize in

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260 The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in " Paradise Lost "

the business of the throne, here attains such artistic perfection that
Milton's Satan has become the concrete artistic expression of pride.
Had Milton stopped here, perhaps his motivation of Satan would
have been convincing to any but the most critical readers, for most
of us would doubtless not have noticed that the motivation was
thoroughly ex post facto. Yet this could have been but a brilliant
tour de force; it would have failed to trace the steps by which
" one of the first, if not the first " of the sons of light became the
proud adversary, external champion of evil.
That Milton realized the weakness of the motivation from pride,
even while he was using it, appears from various little hints found
here and there in the first four books. For instance Satan is
"Stird up with Envy," not pride or ambition. And there is
another interesting hint in Book II which we shall notice presently.
At any rate, when the time comes to supply the full narrative of
Satan's rebellion, Milton makes only supplementary use of the
motivation from pride. Instead, he places main emphasis on the
motivation from envy.
The account of Satan's rebellion, which is chronologically the
beginning of Paradise Lost, begins towards the middle of Book V.
On a day in Heaven's Great Year, Raphael tells Adam, the Father
made an announcement to the assembled host of heaven:
This day I have begot whom I declare
My onely Son, and on this holy Hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand; your Head I him appoint;
And by my self have sworn to him shall bow
All knees in Heav'n, and shall confess him Lord:
Under his great Vice-gerent Reign abide
United as one individual Soule
For ever happie: him who disobeyes
Mee disobeyes, breaks union, and that day
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Into utter darkness, deep ingulft, his place
Ordaind without redemption, without end.30

Few passages in Paradise Lost have aroused more controversy,

and we must, before analyzing the motivation of Satan, be sure
what these lines actually mean. Some, of whom Raleigh and
Saurat are the chief, have taken "begot" literally and have held
IoV, 603-15.

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 Arnold Williams 261
that Milton was making God say that He had actually generated
the Son at a specific point of time after the angels had already
been created.21 More numerous are those that take "begot" in
other than a literal sense. Masson, Fletcher, Grierson, and, more
recently, Kelley and Gilbert offer various explanations, the common
element of which is that "begot" is to be taken figuratively to
mean something like "exalted." 22
Gilbert, the most recent scholar to consider the problem, has
gone far to clear up the theological meaning of the passage and to
refute those who take " begot " in a literal sense. The key scrip-
tural text for the understanding of the passage, as Gilbert shows
and as Newton long ago hinted,23 is the second psalm, particularly
verses 6 and 7:
Yet have I set my kin upon the holy hill of Zion. I will declare the

21 Raleigh, Milton (London: Edwin Arnold, 1909), p. 86. Raleigh

writes
that Milton " flies in the face of the Anasthasian Creed by representing the
generation of the Son as an event occurring in time." Saurat in a review
of Grierson's Milton and Wordsworth, RES, XIV (1938), 225-28, writes
that Milton " means the reader to take this quite literally, since otherwise
there can be no drama." To those who point out the inconsistency be-
tween this understanding of " begot" and the numerous passages in both
Paradise Lost and De Doctrina which speak of the Son as generated from
the beginning, Saurat replies that Milton is writing poetry, not theology.
This seems to me a false opposition of the two forms Milton was seeking
to combine: he was writing theology in poetic form.
22 Masson, Poetical Works of John Milton (London, 1890), III, 473;
Fletcher, Milton's Rabbinical Readings (Urbana: University of Illinois,
1930), pp. 150-56; Grierson, Milton and Wordsworth (New York: Mac-
millan, 1937), p). 98-99. Masson distinguishes between the Son existing
eternally as the divine Logos and the Son begotten as the Son in point of
time. Fletcher thiiiks the passage reflects the rabbinical notion that all
things were created at one time but revealed only at their appointed times.
Grierson quotes a passage from De Doctrina, (I, 5) which distinguishes
between two senses of " begot," the one literal and the other metaphorical,
referring to the exaltation of the Son. Grierson takes the " begot" of V,
603 as the metaphorical begetting. Kelley, op. cit., pp. 94-101 attempts to
harmonize Grierson and Saurat by taking " begot" as metaphorical but at
the same time conceding that, since Paradise Lost is poetry, not theology,
it contains inventions that go beyond the doctrinal statement of De Doc-
trina. Below I shall show that Milton's motivation of Satan contains rela-
tively little invention and does not go far beyond other seventeenth century
treatments of the same theme.
2 Poetical Works of Milton; ed. Todd, comment on
Paradise Lost, V, 603.

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262 The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in "Paradise Lost"

decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I
begotten thee.

This action is precisely what Milton is describing in the passage

under consideration. The parallelism is complete. Moreover, Gil-
bert further shows, Milton in referring the psalm to the exaltation
of the Son and his victory over the enemies of God is in thorough
accord with the commentators of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, both Protestant and Catholic, as represented by Ames,
Calvin, and Bellarmine.
In understanding the enemies of the Father and the Son as
Satan and his followers Milton has " done something not con-
templated by any of the expositors of the second psalm I have
encountered, though naturally enough developed from their expla-
nations." 24 Just how much development Milton must be credited
with is hard to determine, but it is certainly not great.
There is, then, little doubt that what the Father announced was
not the g-eneration,but the exaltation of the Son. This announce-
ment sets off Satan's rebellion. Immediately Satan construes the
new honor conferred on the Son as derogatory to his own glory.
He begins plotting a sort of counter-revolution.25 As the angelic
host sleeps that night, Satan arouses his legions and calls them to
council in the "quarters of the North." There, under guise of
rendering allegiance to the Son, they plot rebellion. Milton care-
fully underlines Satan's motivation:
. . . yet fraught
With envie against the Son of God, that day
Hounourd by his great Father, and proclaimd
messiah King anointed, could not beare
Through pride that sight.... 11

The complete motivation of Satan, as Milton here explains it, is

compounded of several elements. We recognize the tradition stem-
ming from Isaiah in the pride and haughtiness of Satan (" could
not beare / Through pride ") as well as in the fact that Satan calls
his council in the " quarters of the North." But besides the gen-
24 Op. cit., p. 26.
2That is, Satan represents the elevation of the Son as a revolution in
the government of heaven (V, 772-802). His revolt then is a sort of
counter-revolution.
26 V, 661-65.

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 Arnold Williams 263

eral conception of Satan as proud and haughty there is the specific

incident of the announcement. Here the dominant motif is envy
(" yet fraught / With envie "). This motivation clearly stems from
the second of the motivations of Satan, presented above, the one
contained in the Vita. In both the Vita and Paradise Lost God
makes an announcement and commands an act of obedience by the
angels. In both documents Satan refuses to perform the act of
obedience.
That some account stemming from the Vita was in Milton's
mind is shown by a passage in Book II of Paradise Lost. Here
Beelzebub clearly states that God announced to the angels before
Satan's rebellion an intention to create man:
Thereis a place
(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heav'n
Err not) another World, the happy seat
Of som new Race call'd Man, about this time
To be created like to us, though less
In power and excellence, but favour'd more
Of him who rules above; so was his will
Pronounc'd among the Gods, and by an Oath
That shook Heav'ns whol circumference, confirm'd.27

This sounds very much like the announcement of the creation of

man which figures so prominently in the Vita and accounts derived
from it.
But what God actually does announce in Book V is not the crea-
tion of man but the exaltation of the Son. And what the angels
are commanded to do is not, as in the Vita, to worship man, but
to render obedience to the Son as vice-gerent. What then appears
to have happened is that at some stage of Paradise Lost Milton
planned to use the Vita motivation or something pretty close to it,
possibly the Christianized version. For reasons which we shal,l see
he gave this up. Whether he had already written Beelzebub's
speech or whether this speech is an unconscious throwback to an
earlier stage in the evolution of the epic we cannot know.
To understand exactly what Milton has done we must look at
some contemporary accounts of the rebellion of Satan. Specula-
tion about whether the incarnation of the Son was revealed to the
angels is found in many medieval theologians.28 In the Renais-
27
II 34553I
ia
2B For instance, St. Thomas Aqui'nas, SuinmmaTh-eologica, I, 57, 5.

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264 The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in " Paradise Lost "

sance at least one theologian and several dramatists and poets used
an account of the rebellion of Satan which assumed that the incar-
nation was revealed to the angels and that Satan rebelled because
he would not accept the incarnation. By choosing man as the form
which the Son was to take, God degraded the angels below the
dignity of man.
Zanchius, a Protestant theologian of the late sixteenth century,
has a complete account of the rebellion of Satan using precisely
this motivation. Though the mystery of Christ, he writes, was not
revealed as a whole until long afterwards, God decreed it from the
very beginning. John 8: 44 says that Satan "abode' not in the
truth." What was this truth? It was the truth that God would
assume, not the form of the angels, but that of the seed of Abraham.
He would be made man; he would become the head of the angels.
Thus, human nature would be exalted over angelic, for no one,
angel or man, would be saved except through the grace of Christ.
This summary of the incarnation, though not the whole of the
mystery, Zanchius continues, God revealed or proposed for belief
to the angels from the beginning. This is proved by the fact that
the one truth which has been rejected by all the foes of Christ, and
particularly by Satan, is the incarnation. Satan has always sought
to persuade mankind that Christ is either not God or not man.
Hence, even from the beginning of the world Satan and his fol-
lowers have hated this truth. In the beginning, though God pro-
posed it to them as necessary for salvation, they would not accept
it. The first and principal sin of the angels, then, was that, puffed
up with the excellence of their own nature, they rejected the
mystery of the incarnation when it was proposed to them. They
would not believe that human nature was to be exalted above
angelic.29
Several of the seventeenth century epic and dramatic treatments
of the fall of the angels use or suggest this motivation of Satan's
rebellion.30 Bishop Newton long ago noted that one Odoricus
29 De Operibus Dei in Operum Theologicorum (Geneva, 1613), tom. III,
cols. 170-72. Concerning Milton's knowledge of Zanchius, see my "Milton
and the Renaissance Commentaries on Genesis," MP, XXVII (1940), 270-
71.
30 I have added nothing to the list of literary treatments cited by
McColley in " Paradise Lost," Harva'rd Theological Review, XXXIII
(1939), 185-86, and repeated in his book Paradiee Lo&t, pp. 32-34. I have

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 Arnold Williams 265

Valmorana had written a long epic titled Demonomachiae, sive De

Bello Intellegentiarum super Divini Verbi Incarnatione (1623).
The subtitle "war of the intelligences over the incarnation of
the divine word" sufficiently indicates the motivation of Satan.
Newton found the poem "very like Paradise Lost. It opens with
the exaltation of the Son of God; and thereupon Lucifer revolts
and draws a third part of the Angels after him into the quarters of
the North."31
Andreini's L'Adamo (1613) also alludes to the announcement of
the incarnation as a motivation of Satan's rebellion. One of the
lesser devils, named Lucifer, says that the chief source of grief of
the fallen angels is the knowledge that man is to take their place
in heaven. To this, Satan replies that even worse is the knowledge
that by the incarnation a man shall be exalted. And Lucifer then
asks if angels must bend their knees to man:
DovrA l'Angelo adunque inchinar l'Uomo? 32

Joseph Beaumont's Psyche (1648) has almost precisely the same

account as the Vita. Satan demands whether it was not enough
that against the law of promogeniture angels should be subordi-
nated to men without adding the crowning insult of their taking
the place of the fallen angels in heaven? Thomas ileywood's The
Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels (1635) contains a clear statement
that the revelation of the incarnation was the immediate cause of
Satan's rebellion:
To them [the angels] iust in the end of the Creation
He did reueale his blest Sonnes Incarnation:
But with strict commandment, that they
Should (with all Creatures) God and man obey.
Hence grew the great dissention that befell
'Twixt Lucifer and Prince Michael."4

Perhaps the best literary work before Paradise Lost to use the
checked all his citations except that to Valmorana, which I have been
unable to procure.
31 Works; ed. Todd, comment on Paradise Lo8t, V, 689.
32 L'Adamo; ed. Ettore Allodoli (Lanciano: R. Carraba, 1913), act I,
scene i, 11. 436-53.
3 Canto i, stanza 31; in Chertsey Worthies' Library; ed. Grosart
(London, 1880), Vol. I.
34 " The Powers," Book VI (p. 342).

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266 The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in " Paradise Lost "

motivation from envy is the Lucifer of the Dutch poet and drama-
tist, Joost van Vondel. As Lucifer opens, Appolyon is returning
to report to Lucifer the creation of the world. Gabriel then
announces the divine decree conferring supremacy on the human
race. On this decree the whole action of the play turns. Part of
the angelic host resent the position of inferiority assigned to them."
Especially notable in Gabriel's speech is the prophecy, which also
serves as the reason for the exaltation of men over angels, that the
"Eternal Word, clothed in bone and flesh" shall be "anointed
King and Lord and Judge." In the second act we see the effect of
this announcement on Lucifer and his followers. Beelzebub com-
plains that "an earthworm, made out of a clump of clay " has the
door of heaven open to him and asks why God should exalt a
" younger son of Adam's loins " over Lucifer.8"
From these passages it is clear that the motivation from envy
enjoyed some popularity among literary men of the seventeenth
century. It must certainly have been known to Milton, and it
came to him well-recommended. The account of Satan's rebellion
which makes its cause an announcement of the incarnation supplies
a dramatic enough motivation for Milton's epic. Nevertheless, it is
apparent that Milton's motivation differs somewhat from those we
have seen and from that given by Zanchius. Though an announce-
ment plays an important part in Milton's account, what God

35 Cf. George Edmondson, Milton and Vondel (London: Tubner, 1885),

p. 49. Since Edmondson's use of Vondel has sometimnes been quiestioned I
append Vondel's lines:
Ae schijnt het Geestendom alle andere t'overtreffen.
God sloot van eeuiwigheid het menschdom te verheffen,
Ook boven't Engeledom, en op voeren tot
Een klaarheid en een licht, dat niet verschilt van God
Gij zult het eeuiwig Woord, be kleed met been en aren
Gezalft tot Heer en Hooft en Rechter, al de schaven
Der Geesten, Engln en menschen te gelijk,
Zien rechten, uit zijn troon en interschaduwd Rijk.
Lucifer, act I, 11. 217-24.
36 De poort des Hemels staet voor Adams afkomst open
Een aerdtworm, uit een' klomp van aerde en klay gekropen
Braveert uw morgentheit.
Zou God een jonger zoon, geteeld uit Adams lenden,
Verheffen boven hem?
Act II, 11. 418-22.

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 Arnold Williams 267

announces is not the incarnation but merely the begetting of the

Son. Why this change?
One reason is that Milton's chronology of the creation differs
from that of Zanchius and the rest. They all accept the conven-
tional theory that the creation of the angels took place within the
six days. Hence, since the creation of the angels preceded that of
man by but a few days, there is no inconsistency in having the
announcement of the creation of man plus the revelation of the
incarnation, the rebellion of the angels, and the temptation of man
take place in a very short period of time-even in one day, if the
dramatist is intent on preserving the Aristotelean unity of time.
But Milton has the creation of the angels precede the creation of
the world. In fact, he strongly suggests that the fall of the angels
is, if not the cause, at least the incident that precipitates the crea-
tion of the world and man. Hence, had he used without change
the motivation found in Zanchius and the rest, he would have
involved himself in dramatic difficulties, to say the least.
There i's another reason that must have deterred Milton from
accepting the common motivation from envy. It is theologically
inconsistent also. The announcement of the incarnation preceded
the necessity of the incarnation. The Son took human form to
save fallen man. But man had not fallen when the incarnation
was announced to the angels. In fact, the announcement of the
incarnation provided the occasion for man's fall, since it caused
Satan's defection and thus provided the tempter. Certain theo-
logians, Calvin most notably, were not loath to point out the curi-
ous position into which such an announcement of the incarnation
put God and the logical entanglements it involved. Calvin calls
the notion " a frivuolous speculation." 87 This must have been an
important deterrent for Milton, who could not be satisfied with
poetic plausibility and dramatic truth alone. His " fit audience "
would demand theological correctness, and, anyway, Milton was not
a man who could put poetry ahead of truth.
So Milton's task is to salvage from the undoubtedly dramatic
account of Satan's rebellion what is most useful for his purpose,
while freeing it from logical and theological contradiction and
inconsistency. This is the development of the motivation from

37 A C0Jynmentarieof John Calusine vpon ...G.i.e; n tr. Thomas Tymme

(London, 1587), p. 87.

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268 The Motivation of Satan's Rebellion in " Paradise Lost "

envy with which Milton can be credited. And it is entirely nega-

tive. Milton preserves the announcement, but subtracts the fea-
tures which Calvin and others had objected to. What God an-
nounces in Paradise Lost is that He has begotten the Son. Beyond
the undoubted fact that some species of exaltation is meant, it is
difficult to say specifically what this begetting really is. Milton has
left the exact nature of the exaltation purposefully vague. At the
same time, he retains the motivation from envy.
Thus, Paradise Lost exhibits in the handling of Satan's rebel-
lion a perfect sample of creative fusion aindharmony. In a psycho-
logical sense, Satan's sin is pride. All sin is, in essence, the separa-
tion of the creature from God, and this separation occurs when
the creature, through pride and ambition, sets himself and his
desires above the will of the Creator. Hence the motivation from
pride is basic, as Milton recognizes in repeated characterizations of
Satan. But the manifestation of this pride takes the specific form
of envy of the Son. Ambition to be first also enters into the com-
plex of evil. So perfectly fused are these elements that few readers
of Milton unaware of the theological background I have sketched
are conscious that there are various motivations for Satan's rebel-
lion or that Milton blended them.38
The result is a real triumph of artistic handling, though it can
hardly be called invention, unless subtraction rather than addition
is the main quality of invention. At any rate, all the dramatic
intensity which results from the envy of Satan is present in Para-
dise Lost. The language is largely scriptural, and so it can offend
no one, whether orthodox or heterodox. Nor has Milton denied
himself any advantage that might come from the alternate motiva-
tion from pride. Both are represented in Paradise Lost. Without
sacrificing the characterization of Satan as a proud rebel, without
having to invent where invention is hazardous, Milton still avoids
all contradictions and inconsistencies, both of narrative and re-
ligious beliefs, and achieves a solid and convincing motivation of
the great antagonist.
Michigan State College.

38I am indebted to Professor Louis I. Bredvold for the main ideas

expressed in this paragraph.

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