Assignment #6

Maybe it’s my fault. My adrenal glands are bigger than my frontal lobes. I don’t know. All I do know is that my original hope of categorically defining the Devil was too ambitious. His manifestations are too varied, and often have so little in common that superimposition is impossible:



So I have decided on another route. I am not abandoning the Dark Prince, but think it wiser to deal with one of his aspects in one of his manifestations; this has produced a new question: What caused Satan to rebel?

I just finished an article that purports to deal with this question: The Motivation of Satan’s Rebellion in “Paradise Lost” by Arnold Williams. Professor Williams argues that it was not pride that motivated Milton’s Satan’s rebellion, but envy:

Milton could not "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 [my emphasis]. 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?[my emphasis]. (258)

I was excited to see Professor Williams take the position that answering one question with another is unsatisfactory, but disappointed that he seems to abandon this position by the end of the article:

Without sacrificing the characterization of Satan as a proud rebel, without having to invent where invention is hazardous, Milton [in positing envy as motivation] still avoids all contradictions and inconsistencies, both of narrative and religious beliefs, and achieves a solid and convincing motivation [my emphasis] of the great antagonist. (268)

Milton achieves “a solid and convincing motivation”?! How can the illogicity of answering a question with another be considered “trouble” on one page (258) yet “solid” on another (268)?…Williams is right to assume that “Milton must have wrestled with this problem” (259), but is mistaken in asserting that he overcame the “contradictions and inconsistencies, both of narrative and religious beliefs” by trading one hall of mirrors for another. Envy confronts us with just as many questions and is just as inexplicable, for neither answers the great question:

        What caused Satan to rebel?

 No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus by Susan R. Garrett also considers the question:

In the remainder of this section I will address only one question, why did Satan rebel? [my emphasis] Ancient Jews and early Christians told different stories to answer this question, but a common thread runs through them: God favored humanity (or Israel or Adam or Christ) over the angels. Satan rebelled at this inversion of the normal order of things…Most of the angels accepted God’s preference for the ones created in God’s image. But not Satan…According to the ancient document the Life of Adam and Eve, when Michael instructed the angels to worship the newly created Adam, Satan replied, “I do not worship Adam.” And when Michael pressured him, Satan continued, “Why do you compel me? I will not worship one inferior and subsequent to me…He out to worship me.”

This does not answer the question of what motivated Satan’s rebellion in the least because it does not address that which is responsible for his insubordination, only that he became insubordinate: “when Michael instructed the angels to worship the newly created Adam, Satan replied, “I do not worship Adam.” This does address the state of his mind preceding this reaction: “I do not worship Adam.” —Yes, but why? This is what matters.

Mephistopheles: the Devil in the Modern World by Jeffrey Burton Russell considers the question through Vondel’s Lucifer:

Gabriel informs [the angels] that God had decided to become incarnate in humanity thus granting to humans an honor denied the angels. Lucifer envies both this honor and the innocent sexual love between Adam and Eve. [my emphasis] (94)

Russell asserts that “Vondel’s scenario raises logical problems,” but goes no further. Another disappointment.

יה & His Two Sons Satan & Adam by Morton D. Paley posits sibling rivalry as cause:    

“…for one who, like Blake, reads Paradise Lost day and night, Satan and Adam really are Jehovah's two sons. Both were created by God directly, without the mediation of woman, and Satan's sibling rivalry is a prime motive for his decision to destroy Adam: '. . . him who next Provokes my envy, this new favourite Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite, Whom us, the more to spite, his Maker raised From dust: spite then with spite is best repaid.' (9: 174-79). (221)

But, again, this does not address the conditions that allowed jealousy or envy to fester and thus does not answer the question as to what causes Satan to rebel in the very first place. The other angels did not suffer the same envy—and if they did, they did not act on it. Are we to conclude that Satan was weaker than his brethren? If this is the case, then where is the argument?

Satan: The Dramatic role of Evil by Arnold Stein inquires into the subject, but concludes that this cannot lead anywhere:  “apply[ing] strict logic to Satan, as though he were a philosophical position instead of a dramatic character [reduces him to an] absurdity [,a] logical consistency.” (221)

 As you can see, the scholarship in my field does not supply a COMPLETE explanation of Satan’s rebellion. Envy, pride and sibling rivalry are all EFFECTS. I am not concerned with the effects, but the causes: What caused Satan to rebel?

The current state of scholarship seems silent.  Perhaps I can be of service.

Garrett, Susan R. No Ordinary Angel Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus.  

          New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. Print.

 

Paley, Morton D. "ה & His Two Sons Satan & Adam." Studies in Romanticism (2002): n. pag. Print.

 

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Mephistopheles: the Devil in the Modern World. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986. 

            Print.

Stein, Arnold. "Satan: The Dramatic Role of Evil." PMLA (1950): n. pag. Print.

 

Williams, Arnold. "The Motivation of Satan’s Rebellion in “Paradise Lost”." Studies in Philology 

            (1945): n. pag. Print.