CHAPTER VII.

The Angel of Presumption and Other Devils.

THE

HE two grandest poetic conceptions of the Spirit of Evil to be found in the whole of English literature are, without doubt, Satan, the "Angel of Presumption" of Cædmon (se engel ofermódes), and Satan, the fallen "Archangel" of Milton.

In the present chapter we propose to compare the respective characteristics of these two colossal beings or rather, these two conceptions of the same colossal being, both before and after the expulsion of the rebel hosts from the Empyrean; and, if we introduce the Serpent of the Hebrew story, or any modern personification of the Spirit of Evil, we shall do so simply to bring out, in still bolder relief, the salient points in the main study.

It is scarcely necessary to premise, that with any philosophical or theological speculations on the Origin of Evil," or the existence of a "Personal Devil," we have no concern in the present work. We shall treat of Satan, the subject of this special

study, as a character in literature, pure and simple ; the creation of poetic phantasy, whether in Cædmon's poem, in Milton's epic, or in the Hebrew story; and to be studied, irrespective of any religious or theological considerations, just as we might study the character of Hamlet or of Don Quixote.

In saying this, we do not, for one moment, mean to imply that either Cædmon, or Milton, or the historian of the Hebrew cosmogony, regarded his personification of the Spirit of Evil as a mere poetic creation. As a pupil of the Lady Hilda, it is more than presumable that Cædmon held the tradition of the Catholic Church on this question. Milton, we know from authentic sources, was as firm, although a less fantastic, believer in a real, personal Devil, as Luther was. And whoever wrote the so-called Mosaic account of the Fall, believed, (according to Rabbinical tradition), as fully in the existence of a Satan as did the writer of the prose introduction to the Book of Job.

Both Cadmon's poem, and Milton's epic, are founded on the proposition of the treason and expulsion from Heaven of a great Archangel, who determines to drag down in his Fall, a favoured race of terrestrial beings, less than angelic both in form and intellect, yet the beloved ones of the Omnipotent King, who had hurled the Arch-Traitor from

his princedom in the Empyrean, down to deepest Hell.

Both poets, moreover, adopt, as the groundwork of their narrative, the main features of the Hebrew story; incorporating, besides, certain straggling Bible hints, Rabbinical comments and fancies, and early Catholic traditions. But the brilliant phantasy of the Anglo-Saxon monk, and the still more brilliant imagination of the erudite Milton, have overlaid the original, simple, Hebrew narrative with such a wealth of invention and imagery, that it is scarcely recognisable as it appears in their writings. To such an extent has the poetic version taken possession of the non-Catholic mind of both England and America, that to-day it is the Epic of the fall, and not the Bible narrative, that is regarded as the authorised version.

But further. Both poets borrow, not only the groundwork of their narrative as a whole, but also the elements of their conception of the nameless Archangel, from the sources just above mentioned; and here again, as we shall now see, the genius of the poet has transformed a very ordinary, and not particularly prepossessing supernatural personage, into a transcendent figure of colossal proportions.

In the Hebraic or Biblical narrative of the Fall, there is no account of the previous history of the

Serpent; no description of what his celestial rank or intellectual pre-eminence may have been before the fatal crisis of the Temptation; no hint that he had ever been an Archangel; no suggestion that his high estate had ever been forfeited for lèse majesté ; no account of any wars in Heaven; no tale of expulsion; and no mention of any fiery dungeon of Hell to which he had been consigned forever. On the contrary, the first glimpse that we get of the Arch-Enemy of Man in the Hebrew story, occurs immediately after the second account of the Creation, when, as yet, there were but two human beings on the face of the newly created Earth. At this point in the narrative, the Serpent is introduced abruptly upon the scene, and with no intimation as to his true personality; as though the narrator took it for granted that his antecedents and present avocation were too well known to require any comment whatsoever.

"Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: 'Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise'? And the woman answered him, 'Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we

should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die.' And the serpent said to the woman: 'No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.' And the woman. took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and

gave to her husband who did eat."

This brief statement comprises, absolutely, all the information which the author of the Hebrew narrative vouchsafes, with reference to the "Serpent of his story; but, short as the statement is, and faint as are the outlines of the portrait, we can, nevertheless, recognise the distinguishing features which reappear in every subsequent poetic delineation of the character of the Satan-traits, which stand out in greater prominence as the Epic of the Fall develops under the fashioning hand of subsequent poets. The groundwork of the character, here, as in every version, is the innate love of doing evil for its own sake, and of tempting others to do evil to gratify a passion for relentless revenge; and the deadly weapons which the "Serpent" employs, in the accomplishment of his devilish life-aim, are the same in every version, namely, subtlety or devil-craft in the choice of a point of approach; flattery or an appeal to intellectual pride as an inducement to