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Friday, November 9, 2012

Milton's Paradise Lost and St. Augustine's City of God

Now this is non to register that Augustine adopted the idea of predestination as an article of faith. quite a the contrary; Augustine insists on the doctrine of put out will, i.e., human debt instrument for human fate, although he also must insist on divinity's foreknowledge of human action (V 9) since he insists that paragon is almighty. What Augustine specifically argues against is the idea of "fate" that is written in the stars of astrology. Augustine does say that the specialism of human will is subject to God's will and foreknowledge, entirely he does not see this as the same thing as predestination because, as Potter explains (65), God "exists in an never-failing present," seeing and knowing all human behavior but not causing it. According to Potter, Milton adopts Augustine's distinction, but the evidence of heaven Lost as an artifact is that Milton fills in Augustine's general bid ab forbidden the fall of the angels with the extended and detailed narrative of Creation, heller, and the Garden.

two Milton and Augustine used the Genesis narrative as a scriptural source for their writings. The book of Genesis states that two conditions are prerequisite for the occurrence of transgression (i.e., the Fall): a command by God, whose pronouncement is supreme; and an intentional and conscious infringement of that command. Augustine quotes Genesis: "thus, when God spoke about the forbidden food to t


Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies

he man whom he had placed in the garden, he said 'On whatever twenty-four hour period you eat of it you will surely die'--[spiritual death]." He explains that, in the " noncompliance to God's instructions, the first human beings were deprived of God's Favor" (Augustine XIII 15). Augustine spells out these contingencies by saying "they [Adam and Eve] had violated God's command by an palpable transgression" (Augustine XIV 18). Milton, too, clearly uses these two conditions in his epic. " hark back what I warn thee, shun to taste, / And shun the bitter answer" (Milton VII.326-327) knowing this "forth reaching to the Fruit, she [Eve] pluck'd, she eat" (Milton IX.781-782). Both St.
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Augustine and Milton partition in on these two key conditions surrounding and jumper lead to the fall as means of supporting their explications.

Pride is not confined to the human free will but to the free will of the spirits that God created as well--spirits that have a less perfect spiritual substance than the substance of God their creator. The first to commit this sin is Satan, the "arrogant angel . . . wishful because of that congratulate of his" (Augustine XIV 11). Satan refused to be subject to his creator, or possibly to the awesome goodness of the creation, and thus "with the proud patronage of a tyrant he chose to rejoice over his subjects rather than to be a subject himself" (Augustine XI 11-13). Milton's Satan corresponds only to Augustine's portrayal. Satan revolts "with envy . . . could not bear / Through pride that sight [of God], and thought himself impair'd" (Milton V 662-65). He attempts to maintain that he exists "on his own," having not been created by God: "self-begot, self rais'd / by our [Satan's] quick'ning power" (VI 859-861). Milton sarcastically continues to call Satan a " bang-up Sultan waving to direct / thir course" (I 348-49) and a " unmatchable chief" (II 486). The resemblance can also be seen when Satan proclaims his power "while I abroad / Through
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