Paradise Regained

"I, when no other durst, sole undertook / The dismal expedition to find out / And ruin Adam, and the exploit performed / Successfully: a calmer voyage now / Will waft me; and the way found prosperous once / Induces best to hope of like success”

Satan’s words here indicate much about his character, from his pride in his destructive acts to confidence that he will emerge victorious once more. However, Satan’s certitude is founded on a mistaken premise: Jesus seems similar to Adam, but is in fact superior.

 "This Man, born and now upgrown, / To shew him worthy of his birth divine / And high prediction, henceforth I expose / To Satan; let him tempt, and now assay / His utmost subtlety, because he boasts / And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng / Of his Apostasy. He might have learnt / Less overweening, since he failed in Job"

God here acknowledges—and even seems to sanction—Satan’s attempts to lead Jesus astray. Yet the stakes may not be especially high where Jesus is concerned, since God, the supreme authority, is confident that Jesus will choose well even when faced with Satan’s temptations.

 "Therefore, above my years, / The Law of God I read, and found it sweet; / Made it my whole delight, and in it grew / To such perfection that, ere yet my age / Had measured twice six years, at our great Feast / I went into the Temple, there to hear / The teachers of our Law, and to propose / What might improve my knowledge or their own, / And was admired by all"

A prodigy in the study of scripture and theology, Jesus garnered respect within his 1st century Jewish community even before the events of Milton’s poem. Indeed, Jesus’s long acquaintance with the ways of God and the teachings of morality will serve him well as he faces Satan’s transgressive values.

 "But, as I rose out of the laving stream, / Heaven opened her eternal doors, from whence / The Spirit descended on me like a Dove; / And last, the sum of all, my Father's voice, / Audibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his, / Me his beloved Son, in whom alone / He was well pleased"

Here, Jesus remembers the events of his baptism. By this point in the narrative, he has left society behind to embark upon his 40-day fast and reflection period. The memory of his exaltation, perhaps, is a source of confidence and sustenance as he labors to fulfill the purpose that God has ordained for him.

"Who brought me hither / Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek"

Even in the solitude of the desert, Jesus professes his faith in the direction God has laid out for him. This line of thought will continue as the dialogue with Satan progresses, with Jesus refuting one after another of Satan’s invocations of earthly power by indicating an abiding trust in God above all.

 "What wonder, then, if I delight to hear / Her dictates from thy mouth? Most men admire / Virtue who follow not her lore"

Satan’s praise of Jesus in this quotation can be read in a few different manners. Such words may be a disingenuous attempt to win Jesus’s favor, but may also be an honest response to powers of thought and argumentation that Satan (as a debater himself) admires in his skilled opponent.

"Alas, from what high hope to what relapse / Unlooked for are we fallen! Our eyes beheld / Messiah certainly now come, so long / Expected of our fathers"

Soon after Jesus’s baptism and subsequent departure for the wasteland, those who had hoped to follow him to deliverance are left without their promised savior. Jesus’s status as the “Messiah” is indisputable in this narrative, but his disciples feel despair and confusion despite such certainty.

"Set women in his eye and in his walk, / Among daughters of men the fairest found. / Many are in each region passing fair / As the noon sky, more like to goddesses"

The advice that Belial here provides, in advising how to tempt Jesus and to possibly lead the Son of God into Sin, is quickly rejected by Satan. The weaknesses in Belial’s counsel are evident: Jesus is, after all, immune to fleshly temptations and to the religions of gods and goddesses that Jesus has been sent to earth to rebuke.

"Where will this end? Four times ten days I have passed / Wandering this woody maze, and human food / Nor tasted, nor had appetite. That fast / To virtue I impute not, or count part / Of what I suffer here"

In the course of his fast, Jesus has endured the seemingly superhuman deprivation of going forty days without either human contact or basic sustenance. Such conditions could leave him weakened—or could indicate strengths of character that will serve him well against Satan.

"What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat? / These are not fruits forbidden; no interdict / Defends the touching of these viands pure; / Their taste no knowledge works, at least of evil, / But life preserves, destroys life's enemy, / Hunger, with sweet restorative delight"

Satan appears to be offering Jesus relief from hardship and hunger, but is more likely offering a form of deception and fallen grace under the guise of hospitality. Even if the food that Jesus sees is not illusory, it is tainted by its association with Satan’s evil.

"Great acts require great means of enterprise; / Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth, / A carpenter thy father known, thyself / Bred up in poverty and straits at home, / Lost in a desert here and hunger-bit"

While Satan elsewhere praises Jesus’s powers of discernment and eloquence, here he finds fault with Jesus’s low birth and willingness to accept hardship rather than “enterprise.” Such a shift to a critical tone indicates that Satan’s positive comments elsewhere cannot be taken as wholly reliable.

"Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules / Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king— / Which every wise and virtuous man attains; / And who attains not, ill aspires to rule / Cities of men, or headstrong multitudes, / Subject himself to anarchy within"

Here, Jesus explains that effective dominion over men requires wisdom and self-control—it requires dominion over oneself. In light of these remarks, the forty days of self-discipline that Jesus spends in the desert can be read as part of the process of preparing Jesus not simply for his role as a Messiah, but for his role as a secular and ideological leader.

"These godlike virtues wherefore dost thou hide? / Affecting private life, or more obscure / In savage wilderness, wherefore deprive / All Earth her wonder at thy acts, thyself / The fame and glory"

With these words, Satan criticizes Jesus’s self-effacing lifestyle as a disservice to all those who might benefit from God’s “glory.” Yet, Jesus is not afraid of challenges or fame: he is simply convinced that has time to go out into the world and perform feats of greatness has not yet come.

"Who names not now with honour patient Job? / Poor Socrates, (who next more memorable?) / By what he taught and suffered for so doing, / For truth's sake suffering death unjust, lives now / Equal in fame to proudest conquerors"

Although Jesus’s teachings are intended as a corrective to the pagan beliefs that Satan seems to value, Jesus himself is capable of locating positive models of conduct among the pagans. The philosopher Socrates, for instance, shares a similar ideology of endurance and humility.

"All things are best fulfilled in their due time; / And time there is for all things"

This simple statement provides Jesus’s rationale for rejecting Satan’s most ostentatious offers of power and glory. The time for Jesus to take his place within human and cosmic history has not yet come, so he will wait until the “due time” appointed by God arrives.

"But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit / Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes / The monarchies of the Earth, their pomp and state— / Sufficient introduction to inform / Thee, of thyself so apt, in regal arts, / And regal mysteries; that thou may'st know / How best their opposition to withstand"

In an attempt to sway Jesus and perhaps to present his temptations more subtly, Satan continues to emphasize power and sophistication—but does not emphasize these qualities for their own sake. Rather, through contact with powerful and sophisticated enemies, Jesus will presumably be abler to counteract the evil in the world.

"Prediction still / In all things, and all men, supposes means; / Without means used, what it predicts revokes"

For Satan, prophecy or “prediction” is idle without active human agency. Here, the tempter’s words constitute yet another attempt to win Jesus over to a more active approach to power and activity—an approach that could (if followed) wrongly impose human will on God’s gradual, mysterious design.

"No; let them serve / Their enemies who serve idols with God. / Yet He at length, time to himself best known, / Remembering Abraham, by some wondrous call / May bring them back, repentant and sincere"

Jesus’s philosophy of patience and apparent passivity finds one of its more extreme expressions here. Instead of actively seeking to save those (particularly the Israelites) who have lapsed in observance to God, Jesus is willing to wait for God’s own will to operate in leading these fallen people back to the true faith.

"So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse/ Met ever, and to shameful silence brought, / Yet gives not o'er, though desperate of success, / And his vain importunity pursues"

Milton here calls attention to one of the prominent features of Paradise Regained: the fact that Satan has not prevailed in a single one of the debates with Jesus. Despite such consistent failure, Satan is determined to continue, committed to his role as the adversary of goodness.

"Then embassies thou shew'st / From nations far and nigh! What honour that, / But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear / So many hollow compliments and lies, / Outlandish flatteries?"

Jesus here denounces another one of Satan’s temptations, but could just as well be denouncing Satan’s entire mode of address. Indeed, in attempting to appeal to the virtuous Jesus, the base Satan has indeed resorted to “hollow compliments” that hide his contempt for Jesus and for the Christian model of virtue.

"If given, by whom but by the King of kings, / God over all supreme? If given to thee, / By thee how fairly is the Giver now / Repaid! But gratitude in thee is lost / Long since"

With these words, Jesus deals a severe blow to Satan’s pride. Satan may believe that he has real dominion over the affairs of humankind, but in fact, Satan’s control of humanity is simply permitted by the “King of kings”—God.

"Ill wast thou shrouded then, / O patient Son of God, yet only stood'st / Unshaken!"

In this description of the storm that bombards Jesus, Milton provides an intensely physical sequence that returns to the main themes of Paradise Regained. The storm (like Satan’s temptations) is a trial that takes an extreme form, but Jesus is able to resist and remains self-possessed.

"I to thy Father's house / Have brought thee, and highest placed: highest is best. / Now shew thy progeny; if not to stand, / Cast thyself down"

This quotation represents the last of Satan’s temptations of Jesus, and indicates one last time the set of values that Satan grants his approval. For him, dramatic signs of power—such as standing higher than other men and performing supernatural feats—are signs of true worthiness.