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Content WILLIAM BLAKE AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM
by
John C. Villalobos
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(English)
December 19 87
UMI Number: DP23128
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3*ff CJ.
This dissertation, written by
JOHN-C. VILLALOBOS
under the direction of h i ,a Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re
quirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Dean of Graduate Studies
Date September 25, 1987
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
k ..........
Chairperson
A
11
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ................................................ 1
Chapter
I. William Blake and Biblical Interpretation ........ 33
II. Figural Patterns and Hermeneutics of Jerusalem .. 146
Epilogue .................................................... 273
Bibliography ................................................ 276
i
1
Introduction
Recently three important critics have argued that
closer analysis of Blake’s longer Prophetic Books is
needed. Hazard Adams notes that "it is always interesting
to observe what is simply skipped over in commentaries on
the prophecies."^ Morris Eaves has stressed that little is
understood of Blake’s longer prophecies, and has gone so far
as to state, "compared to what we know about Don Juan, we
2
know nothing whatever about Jerusalem." And in an important
review, V. A. De Luca has contended that some critics of
Jerusalem have failed to analyze "the texture of Jerusalem’6
verse, the surface movement of its narrative, [and] the
3
organization of its episodes." Indeed, one reason critics
have found Jerusalem so difficult is because some episodes
in the poem are considered interpolations in the narrative
of the epic. This has created complications for some
readers of Jerusalem who have not understood the
continuities and interconnections between the episodes.
Since the crucial episodes are often considered to be
parodies of biblical events, and there are multiple
allusions to the Bible in the narrative, this has created
2
even more difficulties in interpretation. Although the
Bible and biblical patterns figure prominently in much of
Blake’s poetry, in his later work Blake draws upon complex
aspects of biblical history, interweaving them with his own
private mythology. This essay attempts to demonstrate how
Blake’s understanding of the Bible and the extra-biblical
materials available to the eighteenth-century reader
influenced the tropological aspects of the surface narrative
and the episodic structure of Jerusalem.
By 1757, the year of Blake’s birth, numerous volumes of
biblical commentary, examinations of the historical
background of the Bible, and guides to the hermeneutical
problems and exegetical traditions had been published.
Booksellers, aware of the very lucrative profits that could
be made from the publication of these works, were interested
and receptive to new work from learned theologians and lay
controversialists. An examination of Blake’s annotations to
Richard Watson's Apology for the Bible, Robert Thornton's
The Lord's Prayer, Newly Trans1ated, and Jerusalem indicates
that Blake had read and closely studied the body of
interpretive thought that was available to the common
reader. Blake specifically alludes to much-debated
exegetical problems in his annotations and in Jerusalem,
which indicates that he was aware of the vexing textual and
interpretive problems— the loci classicus of the
3
disagreements--that were the subject of intense debate in
the seventeenth and eighteenth century. An examination of
these exegetical traditions and the repercussions of the
conflicts between these traditions can contribute to our
understanding of Jerusalem, a work that attempts to recreate'
biblical history within the mythic universe of Blake's
creation.
If one examines the biblical commentaries of the
period, two strands— essentially two distinct interpretive
traditions or what is now known as hermeneutical
communities— are discernible. They were established by the
mid-eighteenth century, and in some respects Blake was
resurrecting old, almost forgotten debates by the time
Jerusalem was first produced in 1819. The first tradition is
what one might term the "orthodox" position; the second was
the "deistic" or "unorthodox" position, which was
controversial, and directed against the orthodox. First, an
examination of the orthodox position, an overview of the
central and ancillary texts, and a brief discussion of the
hermeneutical principles practiced by the central figures
may help describe how these positions were established. In
addition this study will attempt to describe the grounds for
disagreement that came to be the subject of divisive debate
between the orthodox and the deists.
b -
It is not an overstatement to say that the publication
of the King James Bible was the beginning of the orthodox
exegetical tradition because when the King James Bible was
published in 1611, John Downame was commissioned to edit the
publication of The Assembly1s Annotations, which was
published in 1645. These annotations were later republished
in two volumes in 1657. The Assembly's Annotations was
4
profoundly influential on later, similar works. These
annotations, taken in conjuction with The Dutch Annotations
which was also published in 1657, created a basis for other
biblical scholars to draw from and expand upon. These
annotations were brief and gnomically concise, primarily
drawing upon the ancient authorities for documentation.
Such interpreters as Theophylact, Caninius, St. Gregory, St.
Jerome, St. Augustine and, on rare occasions, the
interpreters from the Renaissance and the Protestant
Reformation, were consulted. These annotations were
primarily devoted to philological— or, as it was spelled at
that time, "phylological"— concerns, and these annotations
were serviceable guides to both the learned theologian and
interested literate laymen. For example, in The Assembly1s
Annotations the authors assess the meaning of Matthew
1:19-25, where the Bible indicates as to whether or not
Joseph and Mary had conjugal relations, ignoring such points
as to whether Mary shamed Joseph when she became pregnant:
5
V.25 he knew her not] As Adam knew his wife,
Gen. 4:1. So the word is used, Luke 1:34. [till
she had brought forth] she was therefore a pure
virgin, when Christ was born, as well as when he
was conceived. Neither doth it necessarily
follow, that he knew her after, for the word till,
doth not import so much. See Gen. 8:7 and 28:15.
Deut. 34. ISam. 15:35. 2Sam. 6:23. Matt. 28:20."*
The editors of The Assembly * s Annotations avoided the
issue as to the appropriateness of the adjective "just,"
whether Joseph was "just" by not divorcing Mary when she was
found to be with child. This was a point which was much
discussed in the later seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. On the other hand, The Dutch Annotations briefly
touch on this aspect of Matthew 1:19-25, and with more
philological support: "Now Joseph her husband, being
righteous, and not willing openly to put her to shame, [The
Greek word signifies as much, as to make any one a publique
spectacle, and put him to disgrace, for an example unto
others] had a will privily to forsake her. [Gr. to unloose
(or release) her.]"** These annotations marked the beginning
of the intense English interest in biblical exegesis,
although these works are strictly explicative and do not
attempt to explore the larger doctrinal implications; that
is, although they do, at times, indicate the possibility of
alternative translations, these works do not examine the
theological and ideological controversies that surrounded
6
the passages, nor do they elaborate upon the possible
"practical" or "moral" applications of the Scriptural
passage. But the groundwork was paved for the "practical"
or moral instruction that later interpreters discovered in
this scriptural account. The biblical interpreters of the
eighteenth century viewed the relationship between Joseph
and Mary to be paradigmatic and, as a consequence, to be
imitated. It is these later interpreters that Blake is
commenting on or "criticizing" in Plate 61 of Jerusalem,
where the interesting dialogue between Joseph and Mary
reveals the limitations of the concepts of chastity and
excessive moral rigidity.^
This is not to say that there were no important English
examinations of the Bible published in the early or
mid-seventeenth century. Learned and astute scholars such
as John Mayer, Thomas Beverly, William Guild, Joseph Mede
and many other theologians published vast amounts of
material. However, roughly until the end of the Puritan
Interregnum, biblical commentaries were sectarian, and
obviously prejudiced against dissenters. Yet the criticism
was conspicuous for its lack of originality, and tendency
towards paraphrastic, repetitious analysis. John Mayer's
assessment of Matthew 4:3 is quite representative:
1
Greg. Men are ready to tremble, when they
heare, that Christ was carried by the Devill...
Hieron. This taking up of Christ, and carrying
him, was not out of imbecillitie, but out of the
Devils pride, who thought that which was in him
voluntary, to be neccessary... Remig. He carryed
Christ into the holy city, to shew, that the
Devill watcheth to doe hurt unto the faithfull,
even in holy places... Chrysost. How could Christ
be set bodily upon the pinacle, seeing that all
men must needs thus behold him?... Glos. He
setteth him upon the pinacle, the seate of
Doctours, because he had deceived many there
alreadie through vaine glory, and thought,
peradventure, to prevaile likewise with Christ...
Ruban. He shewed the kingdomes of the World unto
Christ, not by inlarging his fight, for that he
could not doe, but by praising the vaine pompe of
the world unto him, that hereby he might allure
him. ®
This quotation displays Mayer's habit of quoting six or
seven authorities, and then, in his magisterial voice,
synthesizing the body of work into one concise idea. There
was, in reality, very little exegesis, as the
seventeenth-century commentators were more widely known for
their polemical attacks on the "extremists," and they were
9
important allies for the political factions. Certainly some
important generic, structural, and stylistic characteristics
of the Bible had been explored, but there was little
original exegesis of the text. For example, John Trapp's
important biblical commentary, first published in 1660, is
little more than a compilation of the early commentaries.
Blake draws upon the interpretation of Matthew 10:29-33 in
Jerusalem Plate 25:4-9, and Trapp's interpretation of that
" 8
passage will illustrate his hermeneutical practices:
Ver. 29 Are not two sparrow, & c.] Birds
flying seem to be at liberty, yet are guided by an
over-ruling hand: they fly freely, yet fall by
Divine dispose, and not as the fowler will. But
we are better than many sparrows. God's
providence is punctual and particular, extending
even to the least and lightest circumstances of
all our occurrences; whatever Jerome thought to
the contrary, and Pliny with his Irridendum vero
curam agere rerum humanarum illud quiquid est
summum: It is a ridiculous thing, saith he, to
imagine that God takes care of our particular
affairs. How much better St Augustine, Deus sic
curat universos quasi singulos, sic singulos,
quasi solos.
However, a change occurred in the late seventeenth
century. Largely because of the efforts of John Lightfoot
and Henry Hammond— both extremely important British biblical
commentators— a distinctly English criticism began to
emerge. Some authorities decided that new biblical
commentaries were necessary, with less dependence on early
authorities. Perhaps the most important biblical commentarj
ever published in England was Matthew Poole's enormous
five-volume Synopsis Criticorum published between 1669-1674.
Poole's work is essentially a condensation of the massive
nine-volume collection of the important patristic and modern
biblical critics known as the Critici Sacri, which was
edited by John Pearson and published in 1660. In one sense
the publication of Poole's Synopsis marked the end of the
9
era. Poole’s compendious five-volume work was considered
authoritative until the late eighteenth century because it
synthesized the work of all the major ancient authorities,
including Grotius, Carverus, Castalio, Josephus, Willet,
Walphius, and more than two hundred other authorities.
However, there were two distinct aspects of the Synopsis
Criticorum that demonstrated a departure from earlier
works. First, although the synopsis was written in Latin,
substantial selections from English writers such as John
Lightfoot and Henry Hammond were incorporated in the
volume. And, secondly, Poole recognized the need for a
strictly English biblical commentary, freed from the
sectarian prejudice and political animus that adversely
affected earlier commentaries such as John Mayer's overtly
political interpretations. As a result, Poole began his own
commentary which was ostensibly a simple translation of the
Synopsis Criticorum, entitled Annotations upon the Holy
Bible, published in 1684. Poole did not live to complete his
commentary, and he died as he was working on the Book of
Isaiah, so other divines finished the work. Poole's
Annotations were published in an age when the Royal Academy
had begun scientific investigations into religious matters,
and completed when the movement towards commentaries written
in the "vulgar" tongue— in other words, for the barely
literate--had gained strength. Nevertheless, a perceptive
10
reader, if he compared the Synopsis with the Annotations,
would recognize that the Annotations minimized scholarly
disagreement, ignored much of the important textual points
of contention, and did not offer alternative explications.
Other exegetes of the period also recognized there was
a need for an autonomous, English exegetical tradition with
less reliance on earlier authorities. As early as 1655,
John Richardson noted in his fine commentary on the Old
Testament that The Assembly * s Annotations were "mistaken,"
and further "Additionals" in English were needed.^ And
furthermore Richard Kidder recognized in 1694 that, "we are
agreed that the People ought to read the Holy Scriptures,
and they are therefore Translated into the Vulgar Tongue."
Kidder went on to state plainly his central point:
It will be said that we have already several
Commentaries on the Bible in the English Tongue;
and there is therefore nothing wanting of this
kind. For those we have of this kind, some of
them are too voluminous; and the People have not
ability to purchase, or leisure to peruse them:
Others are not perhaps so fitted for common use.
But that which I insist mainly upon, in this, That
'tis fit something of this kind should be
contrived, which might serve the Reader's
necessity to the greatest advantage, that might be
short and perspicuous, cheap and easie to be
purchased, and after all such as bears the stamp
12
of publick allowance.
Kidder was arguing for the real need of inexpensive
11
biblical commentaries written for the relatively
uneducated--in other words, written for the capacities of
the average Englishman, and it can never be said the later
commentaries were intellectually demanding. What Kidder
thought necessary was soon supplied by some ambitious,
relatively learned, and moralistic theologians who were, by
any criteria, rationalistic.
Within seventy-five years of the publication of Poole's
Synopsis and his Annotations Upon the Holy Bible, most of
the major British biblical commentaries had been published.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes, the first of the
expressly "moral commentaries," was first published in 1700,
and achieved a considerable reputation; Matthew Henry's
extraordinarily popular moral commentary entitled An
Exposition of A11 the Books of the Old and New Testaments,
was first published in 1708 and is still in print; and,
arguably, the best of all the British commentaries,
generally referred to as the "Patrick, Lowth, Whitby,
Arnald," was published in 1727. This seminal work is
comprised of the annotations of four divines: Simon Patrick
and William Lowth on the Old Testament; the very learned
Daniel Whitby on the New Testament; and the singular
commmentary by Richard Arnald on the Apocrypha. Probably as
early as 1727 this body of interpretive thought had
coalesced to the point there was, to borrow Thomas R.
12
Preston’s phrase, a "received interpretation." Preston
extends his point to a considerable degree: "The primary and
secondary commentaries, taken together with the other works
of biblical criticism, form a body of received
interpretation of Scripture. The commentators and critics
echo each other, sometimes expanding and sometimes
13
condensing the exposition or exegesis." Preston rightly
notes that the commentators were interdependent, fully aware
of the work of prior authorities and contemporary
commentators.
This "received interpretation," or what might be
referred to as the univocal or single meaning of the text,
became the canonical assumption of both the learned and the
illiterate, as even the Sunday church sermons of the period
borrowed heavily from these authorities. And, more
importantly for the purpose of this study, these British
authorities came to be considered as equal or even superior
to earlier critics. In an important guide to biblical
research published in 1722, Samuel Blackwell's recommended
reading list reflects this change in interpretive authority:
Such as follow, cannot well be omitted:
Fagious upon the Pentatauch, Munster, Maus upon
Joshua, Nicholas Fuller, Ainsworth upon the
Pentatauch, Gregory, Mede, Lightfoot, Bishop Hall
upon the hard Texts of the whole Divine Scripture,
Grotius, Hammond, Pocock, Patrick, Dr. Lowth upon
!3
the Prophet Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamention, with his
Directions for the profitable reading of the Holy
Scriptures; Stokes upon the Twelve Minor Prophets;
Erasmus's Paraphrase in Latin upon the New
Testament; the Learned Dr. Whitby on the same, and
Mr. Burkitt, whose sound, pious Matter greatly
encourages to Perusal.^
Although some of the biblical criticism of the
Continental theologians had been translated into English,
most readers of the Bible, who inevitably read scripture
with a commentary at hand, would have had contact with
Munster, Maus, Grotius, Erasmus and the other Continental
critics by reading the Critici Sacri, or more likely,
Poole's Synopsis. Blackwell notes the modern major texts:
William Lowth, Nicholas Fuller, Henry Hammond, Daniel
Whitby, William Burkitt, and the other important English
commentators. These authorities were the precursors to the
most popular of the eighteenth-century biblical
commentaries, Philip Doddridge's The Family Expositor, John
Gill's An Exposition of the Old Testament and An Expositi on
of the New Testament, and Thomas Scott's edition of the Holy
Bible. These didactic works could be found in virtually
every home that was of upper middle class, and the
impoverished or the lower class had access to these works at
public or cathedral libraries.^ In addition, John Wesley’s
prolific Methodist presses also contributed to the spread of
these interpretive works. Wesley's own annotations, deeply
influenced by Doddridge's The Family Expositor, also
u
achieved a wide readership. In his correspondence with
Wesley, Doddridge stressed the need for the reader of the
Bible to read biblical commentaries, and his recommended
reading list--a list Wesley adopted for his own
ministry— again combines the continental critics with the
major English critics: "Erasmus, Castellio, Hernsius,
Patrick, Lowth, Locke, Pierce, Benson; Ainsworth, Grotius,
Brenius, Wells, Calvin, Poole, Le Clerc [and] Cradock."^
Doddridge, Gill, Wesley, and Scott drew heavily from William
Burkitt, Henry Hammond, Daniel Whitby, Simon Patrick,
Matthew Poole and other interpreters, transforming their
analysis into pure moral instruction. A brief examination
of Doddridge’s interests and methodology may indicate why
and how these interpretive methods aroused the interest of
William Blake.
Since Philip Doddridge, John Gill, and Thomas Scott
were primarily interested in moral instruction— what might
be termed the "practical" or "secular" application of
scripture— divergent opinions were largely ignored along
with the doctrinal implication of the text. Indeed, Philip
Doddridge spoke of an unwillingness to "depart from the
received reading and interpretation," and emphasized the
didactic aspects of scripture. For example, Doddridge
explicated Matthew 1:19-25 and substituted the word
"righteous" for "just"— deliberately changing the meaning of
15
the passage. Doddridge justified this modification with a
rather enigmatic and speculative comment:
If we consider the information which Joseph
might have received from persons of such an
extraordinary character as Zacharias, and
Elizabeth, [who would certainly think themselves
obliged to interpose on such an occasion, and
whose story so remarkably carried its own evidence
along with it;] besides the intimation the
prophecy of Isaiah gave, and the satisfaction he
undoubtedly had, in the virtuous character of Mary
herself, we must conclude, that he had acted a
very severe and unrighteous part had he proceeded
to extremities without serious deliberation; and
that putting her away privately would, in these
circumstances, have been the hardest measure which
justice would have suffered him to take.^^
And in his afterword on practical "improvement"
concluding the section, Doddridge amplified on his earlier
comments, and detailed the moral or "exemplary"
characteristics of Joseph that should be imitated: "We see
here, in Joseph, an excellent pattern of gentleness and
prudence. In an affair which appeared dubious, he chose, as
we should always do, rather to err on the favourable, than
on the severe extreme. He was careful to avoid any
precipitate steps; and, in the moments of deliberation, God
18
interposed to guide and determine his resolves." Robert
Hume, Aubrey Williams, and Thomas R. Preston have
extensively reviewed how the use of the "exemplary"
character influenced eighteenth-century literature, and it
16
is this kind of moral didacticism that Blake is commenting
1 9
on in Plate 61 in Jerusalem. Blake was very dubious about
the value of reading the Bible as a exemplary tale, as his
Annotations to Watson indicate: "none can doubt the
impression which he recieves from a book of Examples. If he
is good he will abhor wickedness in David or Abraham if he
is wicked he will make their wickedness an excuse for his &
so he would do by any other book," [E 618] In this case,
Blake is reacting against the prevalent eighteenth-century
opinion that the biblical figures were uniformly
instructive, in the sense that all men could derive moral
lessons by reading these accounts. Perhaps, in the
eighteenth century, William Law best exemplifies this
attitude.
Doddridge briefly discussed the debate over the
relationship between Joseph and Mary and explicitly
condemned the earlier British biblical critics— specifically
Lightfoot, Whitby, and Hammond— who were so interested in
the textual ambiguities of the passage:
On what terms Joseph and Mary afterwards
lived, is of so little importance to us, that I
cannot but wonder it should have been the subject
of so much debate. It is sufficient for us to
know, that she was a virgin, not only at the time
of Christ's conception, but at his birth, as the
propecy foretold she should be. The evangelist
therefore, wisely contented himself with recording
17
this, whithout affirming any thing farther either
way on this delicate subject: I say either way,
for the manner of expression here used, will not
certainly prove that Mary had more children
af terwards.^
John Gill's and Thomas Scott's interpretation of this
passage varies little from the comments of Doddridge, and
this reiteration and reinforcement of this moralistic
attitude contributed to Blake's belief that "the
Commentators on the Bible are Dishonest Designing Knaves whc
in hopes of a good living adopt the State religion" [E
21
616]. Indeed, eighteenth-century biblical criticism
unified a codified, moralistic form of biblical analysis.
This is one reason Blake was interested in and had qualified
admiration for the deist controversialists, who challenged
this form of biblical analysis. By 1727, the deists began
to dispute the orthodox exegetical tradition.
The deist exegetical tradition was an antithetical
movement, primarily directed against the orthodox
interpreters. The most significant figures of the
movement— Anthony Collins, Thomas Woolston, Arthur Ashley
Sykes, Lord Bolingbroke, Stanley Morgan, Thomas Chubb, and
Thomas Paine— had dissimilar backgrounds and critical
methodologies. And unqestionably they had very different
intellectual capacities; yet they all shared one common
goal. They believed contemporary religion was cloaked in
18
unwarranted mystery, and they viewed the orthodox exegetical
tradition as contributing to this mystery and the pointless
obscurity of the Bible, which they viewed as a contradictory
and imperfect narrative. It was their intention to
disintangle the interpretive encrustation from the
scriptural passage, what could be termed the interconnection
between the text and the single meaning of the text. For
example, in 1724 Anthony Collins, strongly attacked William
Whiston for his facile belief in the traditional opinion
that there was an exact correspondence between the Old
Testament predictive prophecies and the retrospective
revelations of the Messiah recounted in the Gospels. Hans
Frei well summarizes the crux of Collins' attack: "It is
more to his [Collins'] purpose to observe that orthodox
defenders of the faith claim that the rules for nonliteral,
typical, mystical interpretation (it is obviously all one to
him) have long since been lost, so that in effect we do not
know on what principles the New Testament writers
22
interpreted the Old Testament." In fact, Collins was
astute on this point. Because of the emphasis on moral
instruction, many of the principles of exegesis were not
carefully delineated by the orthodox interpreters. They
confused or conflated typological thinking with literal
forms of exegesis which made for considerable complications
in the presentation of the scriptural accounts.
19
Perhaps no biblical interpreter, including the deists,
did so much to damage the cause of the orthodox interpreters
as William Whiston, who was a very representative orthodox
interpreter. Whiston adduced elaborate "scientific"
evidence to support his claim that certain Old Testament
prophecies were prefigurative and that they did not violate
rational criteria of human probability. Since this was the
conventional belief, and since Collins' attacks were so well
substantiated by his citations of ancient secondary sources,
other orthodox interpreters were compelled to come to
Whiston1s defense. Collins emphasized the need for absolute
literalism, the basic historical, mimetic nature of the
biblical accounts. In other words, the denotative,
grammatical meaning of the text was the only interpretation
that could be applied to scripture. The orthodox defenders,
necessarily forced to come to Whiston's defense, pointed out
the various fulfillments of the Old Testament prophecies and
the prophecies from the Book of Revelation, insisting, in
support of Whiston's opinion, that the Apocalypse was
imminent. They became the subjects of ridicule when the
Apocalypse did not happen when it was prophecied to occur;
Whiston was discredited, and the orthodox interpreters were
quite unsucessful in their attempt to recover their former
23
prestige.
The other deist interpreters approached the issue
20
differently. Bolingbroke was interested in detecting
apparent contradictions in the genealogies of the Bible or
apparent inconsistencies in the narration of the events. On
the other hand, Thomas Chubb was concerned with establishing
criteria with which one could judge the veracity of the
biblical accounts. He was interested to what extent
eyewitnessess could serve as corroboration, given the fact
that the Evangelists were uneducated and, as a consequence,
no doubt overly credulous. Or, alternatively, could other
reporters have recorded the biblical events from other
sources and used the name Moses or Matthew? Should one, in
other words, trust historical public records? Blake
expressed his opinion on this disagreement in his
Annotations to Watson: "Nothing can be more comtemptible
(sic) than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True."[E 617] In
this case Blake was taking up the issue raised by the deists
such as Spinoza, Hobbes, and Bolingbroke, who questioned the
authorship and authority of the Pentateuch. Even though the
deist's argument was logical and Blake understood the
implications of the issues raised by the debate, Blake
refused to accept the argument and stated, "if Moses did not
write the history of his acts. it takes away the authority
altogether it ceases to be history & becomes a Poem of
probable impossibilities fabricated for pleasure as moderns
say but I say by Inspiration." [E 616] Recently, an
2l
important critic, Jerome J. McGann, has argued that these
annotations indicate Blake's awareness of the German higher
2 4
criticism. However, it is far more likely Blake was
referring to the controversialists, particularly Hobbes,
Spinoza, and the other deists, when he spoke of the
"moderns."
Other than Anthony Collins, the most important deist
biblical commentator was Thomas Woolston, an industrious and
somewhat contemptuous controversialist who aroused as many
responses as any writer of the eighteenth century. Woolston
set down his guiding belief with admirable clarity:
The literal History of many of the Miracles
of Jesus, as recorded by the Evangelists, does
imply Absurdities, Improbabilities, and
Incredibilities, consequently they, either in
whole or in part, were never wrought, as they are
commonly believed now-a-days, but are only related
as prophetical and parabolical Narratives of what
would be mysteriously and more wonderfully done by
. . 25
him.
Woolston attempted to discredit the authenticity of the
miracles of the Bible related in the accounts of the
Evangelists, and he was partially successful. Increasingly,
both the orthodox and the deists applied scientific,
rational criteria to establish the veracity of the events of
the Bible, and eventually neither side could sufficiently
22
prove or disprove whether the events actually occurred.
Both the deists and, more reluctantly, the orthodox conceded
this point. The area in which Woolston was more successful
was in his analysis of the biblical criticism of the
period. Woolston cannily noted the discrepancies in the
"received interpretation" or univocal meaning of the text,
and perhaps one specific instance best drives home his
point:
But then to do Justice to St. Augustin's
Assertion, he would have met with others, who
against their Wills, interpret this Miracle
figuratively such as Dr. Hammond and Dr Whitby,
who say, Jesus cursed the Figtree by way of Type
of the Destruction of the Jewish State, which
declined and wasted away after the Similitude of
this withering Tree. But why then don't these
Commentators allegorically interpret and apply
2 6
other Miracles of our Saviour?
To borrow Blake's terms, Woolston opened doors of
perception. By challenging the accounts of the miracles of
the Bible and the interpretations of these events, Woolston
caused readers to reexamine what should be the evidentiary
proof of the validity of the Scriptural accounts.
Eventually, the deists became so influential that Philip
Doddridge, in the most widely read commentary in the period,
takes time to disparage Woolston:
2 . 3
Woolston's perverse attack on this miracle
[the healing of the paralytic: Mat. IX:2], is as
plausible, as any thing he has written against
Christianity; but I have endeavoured, in as few
words as possible, to suggest an answer to the
chief of his objections; and it may be considered
as a specimen of the manner in which I shall
proceed in other cases of the like nature: for it
would be very improper to enter on the controversy
at large here, especially after all the convincing
and unanswereab1e treatises, which have lately
27
been written in defence of the evangelists.
Once the deist biblical criticism entered the
"orthodox" commentaries, they achieved a measure of popular
acceptance. In some very fundamental ways, the deists had
successfully challenged the concept of figuralism, and even
as the common reader perused his Bible, he was confronted
with the controversies concerning the Old Testament
prophecies, the use and value of allegory, and the debates
over what criteria one should use to establish the
authenticity of the miraculous events of the Bible. Blake
was born when these two conflicting traditions had begun to
be indissolubly linked, and yet the two sides were
habitually at war, recognizing the fact that the two
positions were incompatible.
William Blake did indeed read hundreds of biblical
commentaries, since his Annotations to Watson indicate an
awareness of the central issues raised by the biblical
commentators, especially the debates concerning the
authority and canonicity of the Pentateuch. And, given the
2%
exactitude of Blake's references, Blake was fully cognizant
of the two exegetical traditions. In addition, Blake
understood the implications of the deists' attacks on
prefiguration and the prophecies of the Bible. Nevertheless,
Blake also understood that prophecies were predictive and
prefigurative, and through internal conviction, prophecies
could be made to be comprehensible. In a conversation with
Henry Crabb Robinson, Blake stresses the importance of inner
conviction:
'I know now what is true by internal
conviction[.] A doctrine is told me— My heart
says it must be true— 'I corroborated this by
remarking on the impossibility of the Unlearned
man judging of what are called the external
evidences of religion in which he heartily
concurred[. ]
One may very well ask how does one acquire "internal
conviction," particularly if one does not subscribe to the
belief that "external evidence"— records, historical
information, and secondary sources— are accurate. For Blake
and for many other eighteenth century readers of the Bible,
internal conviction could only be attained by reading the
29
Bible in the original languages, Greek and Hebrew. Blake
spent years of his life learning to read these languages anc
Latin, which enabled him to read the Bible in the original
languages and the biblical commentaries of the continental
25
And early British commentators whose work in Latin was
reproduced in the biblical criticism. Jerusalem was written
after Blake's study of the original languages, and the epic
demonstrates that Blake attempted to offer an alternative to
purely literal or figural interpretation. Blake relies on
anagogy— the internalization of an enhanced spiritual
meaning— to mediate between these two divergent exegetical
traditions. Because Jerusalem alludes to controversies of
the early eighteenth century, a reader such as Alexander
Pope would have understood the significance of the wealth of
biblical allusions in the epic. Only an eighteenth-century
reader— or a reader conversant with the debates over
biblical interpretation in the eighteenth century could at
least begin to understand the unique features of Jerusalem,
a poem that reflects the changes in the exegetical
traditions of the period.
And it is important to remember that Jerusalem did not
mark the end of Blake's interest in biblical criticism. On
his deathbed, in the spring and summer of 1827, Blake wrote
some annotations to Robert Thornton's translation of the
Lord's prayer that have bewildered students of Blake:
"Doctor Thorntons [Tory] Translation Translated out of its
disguise in the [Classical &] Scotch language into [plain]
[the vulgar] English" [E 669]. Scholars have also been
puzzled why Blake wrote "Our Father Augustus Caesar who art
26
in these thy [Substantial Astronomical Telescopic] Heavens."
[E 669] In fact, Blake was referring to Thornton’s
indebtedness to the important Scottish mythographer, Sir
William Drummond, and his important work, The Oedipus
Judaicus, published in 1811. Blake recognized the influence
of Drummond's allegorical reading of the Old Testament,
which relied heavily on astronomical corroboration, on
Thornton's critical methodology. To the end, Blake
maintained an interest in intellectual traditions and works
30
of biblical interpretation.
27
NOTES TO INTRODUCTION
^ Hazard Adams, "Post-Essick Prophecy," in Studies in
Romanticism, 21 (Fall, 1982), 400.
2
Morris Eaves, "Introduction," in Studies in
Romanticism, 21 (Fall, 1982), 389.
3
V. A. De Luca, review of Minna Doskow, William
B1ake's Jerusalem: Structure and Meaning in Poetry and
Picture in Blake: An I1lustrated Quarterly, 18 (Summer
1984), 58.
See for example Edward Leigh's Annotations Upon A11
The New Testament (London: 1650) or John Richardson's Choice
Observations And Explanations Upon The Old Testament,
(London: 1655). As late as 1747, we see the direct influence^
of these works on Joseph Trapp's Explanatory Notes upon the
Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.
John Downame, The Assembly's Annotations (London:
1645), Matthew 1:19-25. '
^ Theodore Haak, The Dutch Annotations (London: 1657), I
i
Matthew 1:19. :
7 !
It is my belief that the primary interpreter Blake is
reacting against is Philip Doddridge or, possibly, William
28
Burkitt. Yet in the background of Doddridge's commentary on
Matthew 1:19 is Daniel Whitby's seminal exegesis. Whitby
stated "neither was Joseph certain that she was guilty of
this crime after the espousals, nor had he two witnesses of
the fact, without which she could not be subject to the
punishment by the Jewish canons, though she might be
divorced after espousals, without proof, by witnesses or
otherwise, of such defilement: thus, in the judgment of Dr. ]
I
Lightfoot and Mr. Selden, a just man, here retains its j
proper signification." Daniel Whitby, Paraphrase And
Commentary On The New Testament (London: 1849), p. 37.
8
John Mayer, A Commentary Upon The New Testament
(London: 1631) Matthew 4:5. j
I
9
John Mayer, in fact, prided himself on his ability to
i
interpret scripture in a way that would benefit contemporary
political figures.
^ John Trapp, A. Commentary on the Old and New
Testaments (London: 1656), pp. 165-157.
I
|
John Richardson, Choice Observations and
Explanations Upon The Old Testament (London: 1655), p. 1.
1 2
Richard Kidder, A Commentary On The Five Books Of
Moses: With A Dissertation (London: 1694), pp. 6, 16.
29
13
Thomas R. Preston, "Biblical Criticism, Literature,
and The Eighteenth-Century Reader" in Books And Their
Readers in Eighteenth-Century Engl and, edited by Isabel
Rivers (Leicester: Leicester University Press: 1982), 106.
14
Samuel Blackwel1, Several Methods Of Reading The
Holy Scriptures In Private (London, 1722), pp. 9-10.
^ The best essays on the reading habits of the
I
eighteenth-century Englishman are R. M. Wiles, "The Relish j
for Reading in Provincial England Two Centuries Ago," in The
Widening Circle, ed. P. J. Korshin (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976) 87-115; R. D.
Altick, The English Common Reader (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1957).
16
The Correspondence and Diary of Philip Doddridge,
edited by J. D. Humphreys (London, 1830), IV, p. 490.
Philip Doddridge, The Family Expositor (London,
1811) I, p. 52.
I
See above, p. 55.
1 9
Aubrey Williams, An Approach to Congreve (New Haven:j
Yale University Press, 1979). Robert Hume, The Development |
of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century (Oxford: j
Oxford University Press, 1976). See also Thomas R. Preston's1
30
comments in the previously cited essay, pp. 118-119.
20
Doddridge, The Family Expositor, p. 5 5.
21
Gill states the matter differently, but his position
is essentially the same: "Christ is called Mary’s
first-born, because she had none before him, whether she had;
any after him or not; for her perpetual virginity seems to
be no neccessary article of faith; for when it is said,
Joseph knew her not til she had brought forth, the meaning
is certain that he knew her not before. But whether he
afterwards did or not is not so manifest, nor is it a matter
I
of any great importance; the word until may be so understood!
as referring to the time preceding that thei contrary cannot !
be affirmed of the time following." [Mat. 1:25] John Gill, j
An Exposition of the New Testament, (London: 1746).
Interestingly enough, Thomas Scott, although he emphasizes
the justness of Joseph, also sharply condemns the earlier
English interpreters: "nor did it seem good to the Holy
Spirit to gratify mens' foolish curiosity, about the terms,
on which Joseph and Mary afterwards lived together: they,
t
who have contended for, and they who have denied, Mary's ,
perpetual virginity, have alike wandered in the pathless
regions of uncertain and useless conjecture." [Mat. 1:25] j
i
Thomas Scott, The New Testament (Philadelphia: 1812). j
22
Hans W. Frei, The Eel ipse of Biblical Narrative: A
31
Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New
Haven and London: Yale Press, 1974), p. 69.
23
See for example William Whiston, The Cause of the
Deluge Demonstrated (London: 1714); his seminal work
Praelectiones Astronomicae (London: 1715); and his important
work Astronomical Principles of Religion, Natural and
Reveal'd (London: 1716).
24
Jerome J. McGann, "The Idea of an Indeterminate
Text: Blake's Bible of Hell and Dr. Alexander Geddes," in
Studies in Romanticism, 25, (Fall 1986), 303-324.
25
Thomas Woolston, A Discourse On The Miracles Of Our
i
Saviour (London: 1972), pp. 4-5. i
2 6
Thomas Woolston, The Third Discourse On The Miracles;
of Our Savior (London: 1728). p. 19.
27
Philip Doddridge, The Family Expositor, vol, I. p.
258.
2 8
G. E. Bentley, Blake Records (Oxford: Oxford
i
University Press, 1969). p. 314. ,
i
i
29 1
On January 30, 1803, William Blake wrote "I go on ;
Merrily with my Greek & Latin: am very sorry that I did not [
i
begin to learn languages early in life as I find it very j
I
Easy, am now learning my Hebrew:" [E'727] Some of the many
32
works that emphasize this point are Robert Boyle, Some
Considerations Touching The Style Of The Holy Scriptures
(London: 1661); Jean Le Clerc, Twelve Disserations Out Of
Monsieur Le C1erc1s Genesis (London: 1696); Henry Lukin, An
Introduction To The Holy Scripture (London: 1669); John
Lightfoot, Some Genuine Remains Of The Late Pious And
Learned John Lightfoot (London: 1700); John Owen,
Exercitations On The Epistle To The Hebrews (London: 1668);
John Wilson, The Scriptures Genuine Interpreter Asserted j
(Cambridge: 1678).
30
I am beholden to G. Ingli James for this
information. For an excellent survey of this material, see
Albert J. Kuhn, "English Deism and the Development of
Romantic Syncretism," PMLA 71 (1956): 1094-1116. i
I
i
i
33
William Blake and Biblical Interpretation
In 1798 William Blake annotated Richard Watson’s An
Apo1ogy For the Bible in a_ Series of Letters Addressed to
Thomas Paine. As the preface indicates, Watson’s book is a
considered response to the "Deistical writings" of Thomas
Paine. Blake's elegant defense of Thomas Paine is noteworthy
on several accounts: Blake concurred with Paine's
cause-effect analysis of the miracles in the Bible, strongly
supported some of Paine’s contentions concerning the
authority of the Pentateuch, and evinced a considerable
command of biblical scholarship of the previous century.
However, his central agreement with Paine focuses on Paine's
discerning observations on the biases in the biblical
criticism of the eighteenth century:
Another Argument [of Paine's] is that all the
Commentators on the Bible are Dishonest Designing
Knaves who in hopes of a good living adopt the
State religion this he has shewn with great force
which calls upon His Opponent loudly for an
answer. I could name an hundred such [E 616]
Blake does not name any of the execrable "hundred
such," but in these annotations Blake associated Watson— as
3^
a biblical exegete— with John Locke, an important figure in
Jerusalem, and there is evidence Blake justified his later
harsh criticism of Locke, not because of Locke's works on
epistemology, but rather because of Locke's extensive
commentaries on the "reasonableness" of Christianity and his
exegetical applications of his theories. As Blake expressed
it, "the Bishop [Watson] laught at the Bible in his slieve &
so did Locke"[E 613]. In the Everlasting Gospel and Europe,
Blake satirized Isaac Newton's influential interpretation of
the Book of Revelation and Locke's commentaries on the
Bible; yet Blake elevated the celebrated
empirico-theologians--Newton, Bacon, and Locke— to the
status of prophetic poets in the apocalyptic coda to
Jerusalem, his greatest prophecy. Jerusalem represents
Blake's most comprehensive assessment of the
socio-theological problems of his age. His argument ranges
over many subjects: historiography, typology, nature
worship, and social contracts. In many respects, Jerusalem
is a criticism of an age— the "Age of Reason" to borrow
Paine's much-repeated phrase— and represents one of the most
sustained mythopoeic evaluations of the overarching
philosophical differences in the theological controversies
of the eighteenth century.
The tendency in Blake criticism is to oversimplify the
inordinately complex relationship between Blake and
35
"orthodox" Protestant religious attitudes. It is generally
assumed Blake rejected Milton's "religion"— a dubious
assumption indeed--and turned towards "radical"
Christianity.^ Florence Sandler has gone so far as to state
that "Blake, for his part, must surely expose the idolatries
latent in the whole cultural heritage, the legacy of Newton
2
and Locke, but also of Milton, Luther, Calvin, and Paul."
Yet Blake never criticized the basis of Milton's theological
beliefs. Both men shared the same faith in the authority of
the Bible and what should be the importance of the Bible to
the individual; in addition, Blake shared Milton's
resistance towards the rationalist explications that came
from the complex modes of biblical allegoresis that were
part of the late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century life of
the mind. Moreover, Blake's surviving comments on the
subject are unambiguous. Blake remarked to Henry Crabb
Robinson that Milton in his old age "returned back to God
3
whom he had had in his childhood— ." Surely critics are
correct in arguing that Blake was the first to note the
discordances, contradictions, and subversiveness in the
theology expressed in Milton's epics and the differences
between the theodicies of Paradise Lost and Paradise
Regained; furthermore, Blake had access to the prose works
of Milton which had been published in the eighteenth
century, in particular the insightful and compendious
36
edition of Milton’s prose edited by Thomas Birch that
William Hayley had in his library. Furthermore, it is quite
possible Blake was referring to Milton's D^e Doctrina
Christiana, which had just been published; the Arianism and
Arminianistic tendencies of that work profoundly changed the
public and scholarly perspective on Milton’s poetry.
Indeed, Blake willingly acknowledged the great indebtedness
the Protestant movement owed to Calvin and admired many
Calvinists such as James Hervey, George Whitefield, and
Edward Irving. Blake's attitude towards Luther was quite
different: ”1 [Blake] saw nothing but good in Calvin's
4
house— better than in Luther's; he had harlots[']— ." Blake
made careful distinctions between Luther and Calvin, and his
agon with Luther— an unexamined aspect of Blake— is revealed
in Jerusalem: Blake may have detected imperfections in the
theology or unacceptable inaccuracies in Luther's Biblical
commentaries. Certainly the concept of limited
election— the core difference between Luther and Calvin— was
totally unacceptable to Blake, although Blake experimented
with the concept in Jerusalem.
In many respects, Milton is a celebration of Milton's
theology, yet critics have not interpreted the epic as a
favorable criticism of Milton's imaginative
conceptualization of creation, salvation, and eschatology;
furthermore, Blake admired Milton's Christianity of vision
37
and his capacity to envision a world order, prophetically
inspired, but still faithful to the biblical antecedents.
What Blake did not admire— and, indeed, sharply
criticized— were the deists. In Mil ton, Blake presents his
vision with artistic clarity. After being confronted with
Los, the "Shadowy Prophet," Rintrah and Palamabron delineate
their vision of the historical evolution of theology.
Miltons Religion is the cause: there is no end
to destruction!
Seeing the Churches at their Period in terror &
despair:
Rahab created Voltaire; Tirzah created
Rousseau;
Asserting the Self-righteousness against the
Universal Saviour,
Mocking the Confessors & Martyrs, claiming
Self-righteousness;
With cruel Virtue: making War upon the Lambs
Redeemed;
To perverted Swedenborgs Vision in Beulah & in
Ulro ;
To destroy Jerusalem as a Harlot & her Sons as
Reprobates;
To raise up Mystery the Virgin Harlot Mother of
War,
Babylon the Great, the Abomination of
Desolation!
0 Swedenborg! strongest of men, the Samson
shorn by the Churches![M 22:39-50; E 117]
Most readers of the poem have accepted the received
opinion of the passage as Blake's straightforward and
accurate analysis of the contemporary problems of the day.
In his argument against this critical position, James Rieger
has suggested that there exists an element of deliberate
deceit in this speech."* Rintrah and Palamabron are quite
wrong in their estimation because they are separated from
the aegis of Los's eternal perspective; there is no causal
relationship between "Milton's Religion" and "Deism," no
linear, teleological causality in belief. Deism, the
oppressive polypus, was created independently of "Milton's
Religion." The transvaluation of ethics, beliefs, and the
forms of religious worship was caused by Voltaire and
Rousseau, and Blake attributed their present religious
influence to the "Feminine Will." The paragon of the
"Feminine Will" in Milton is Ololon and in the concluding
plates of Mil ton, Ololon articulates — and confesses — to
Milton that the prevalence of "Satan's Churches" is due to
the "Feminine Will."
Are those who contemn Religion & seek to
annihilate it
Become in their Femin[in]e portions the causes
& promoters
Of these Religions, how is this thing? this
Newtonian Phantasm
This Voltaire & Rousseau: this Hume & Gibbon &
Bolingbroke
This Natural Religion! this impossible
absurdity
Is Ololon the cause of this? 0 where shall I
hide my face[M 40:9-14; E 141]
The "State Religion" that Blake vilifies in his
annotations and epics is this "Natural Religion," and in
Jerusalem Blake answers Newton, Voltaire, and Rousseau on
39
their own ground: Voltaire and Rousseau were viewed by Blake
as the Covering Cherubs of eighteenth-century religious
thought, the repositories of "Divine Delusion." Perhaps
Voltaire's attitude towards the life of Christ can be
summarized in one excerpt: in his opinion, the common faith
in Jesus Christ as the savior stems from the Evangelists'
"fantasies from [their] imagination for his [Christ's]
little society."^ In Jerusalem Blake viewed his most
formidable adversaries to be those close students of
metaphysics and biblical exegesis, Isaac Newton, and
Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, literary figures often
believed to be the earliest philosophical spokesmen for the
Romantic movement. Blake viewed Voltaire and Rousseau as
the antipodes to Milton, archetypal "adversaries" in Blake's
cartography, and their philosophy is presented as the
prophetic antithesis to Los's visionary Christianity.
Blake's struggle in Jerusalem is to find historical and
theological justification for the repudiation of the
"Systems" of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Newton.
These speculations raise certain questions: to what
extent did Blake understand the historical importance of
Voltaire and Rousseau? Did Blake willfully
misrepresent— even caricature— Voltaire and Rousseau? Why
would Blake use "secular" typology--or, as it has come to be
known, "abstracted" typology— to delineate the nature of the
ll-o
failings of Voltaire and Rousseau? The following passage is
suggestive and illuminating:
But the Spectre like a hoar frost f i e a Mildew
rose over Albion
Saying. I am God 0 Sons of Men! I am your
Rational Power!
Am I not Bacon & Newton f i e Locke who teach
Humility to Man!
Who teach Doubt f i e Experiment f i e my two Wings
Voltaire: Rousseau.
Where is that Friend of Sinners! that Rebel
against my Lavs![J 54: 15-19; E 203]
In the quoted passage, Voltaire and Rousseau are
typologically revealed as the "twinned angels" from the Book
of Deuteronomy, and if Voltaire and Rousseau had lived to
read Jerusalem, they would have recognized the allusion.
One is reluctant to agree completely with Leslie Tannenbaum
when he asserts that "[t]ypology, for Blake, is synonymous
with the creative process itself."^ Yet Blake viewed
typology as a hermeneutical necessity, a form of social
criticism. It is an intrinsic part of Blake’s centripetal
and centrifugal movements in the visionary drama of
Jerusalem and a reaction against the "natural philosophers"
who rejected typology. In his various works such as The
Princess of Babylon, The Study of Nature, and The Ignorant
Philosopher Voltaire sought to understand— through Socratic
ironic interrogation— why man believed in the archaic and
insubstantial faith of the Catholic and Protestant
41
traditions. In addition, in the early popular Letters On
England, Voltaire discussed in some detail the philosophic
basis of Bacon's, Locke's, and Newton's thought, and in the
eighteenth century Voltaire's work was considered one of the
standard texts on sensationalist reasoning, metaphysics, and
empirical thought. The book was influential in
disseminating and popularizing the scientific views of these
philosophers whom Blake so passsionately argued against.
Northrop Frye has speculated that Blake read Micromegas, but;
it is probably Voltaire's extensive commentaries on the
authenticity of the Bible in The Phi 1osophy of History and
in The Philosophical Dictionary that most influenced Blake's
thinking. Voltaire's accents fall on statistical
verification, evaluating and calculating the accuracy of any
given narrative either historical or parabolic; for example,
in his interesting section entitled "Of The Jews From Moses
To Saul," Voltaire notes the figural patterns and prophecies
of the Jews and sarcastically notes that two hundred and
thirty-nine thousand six hundred and fifty Jews were killed
by God or in civil wars. In noting that the Jews are God's
chosen people, Voltaire decried the prophecies of the Jews
and rejected the Hebraic histories, denying that Moses and
Joshua wrote the "mystical histories" attributed to them.
The Old Testament lawgivers and prophets— Moses, Joshua,
Abraham, and David— were considered biblical types of
h2
Christ, and Blake incorporates this idea in both the poetry
and the prose of Jerusalem; "and when compulsory cruel
Sacrifices had brought Humanity into a Feminine Tabernacle,
in the loins of Abraham & David: the lamb of God, the
Saviour became apparent on Earth as the Prophets had
foretold? The return of Israel is a Return to Mental
sacrifice & War. Take up Cross 0 Israel & follow Jesus." [E
174] In his lengthy polemics against religion, Voltaire
questioned prophecy and the figural design of the Bible, and
the following quotation represents Voltaire’s estimation of
the value of typology:
The other way of developing the hidden
meaning of the Scriptures is to consider each
event as an historical and physical symbol. This
is the method that St. Clement, the great Origen,
the respectable St. Augustine, and so many other
Fathers have employed. According to them, the bit
of red cloth that the prostitute Rahab hangs in
her window is the blood of Jesus Christ. Moses,
extending his arms, foretells the sign of the
Cross. Judah tying his ass's foal to a vine,
portrays the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem.
St. Augustine compares Noah's ark to Jesus. St.
Ambrose, in book seven of his d_e Area, says that
the small passage door contrived in the ark
signifies the opening through which man ejects the
coarse part of his food. If indeed all these
explanations were true, what kernel could we
extract from them? Will men be more just when
they know the meaning of the little door in the
ark? This method of explicating the Holy
Scriptures is only a subtlety of the mind, and it
g
can do injury to the simplicity of the heart.
As Kenneth Appelgate has noted, Voltaire "becomes
^3
repetitious," and his commentaries on theology are
9
reiterations of the same basic themes. The Bible is
divorced from the progress of the soul and must be judged by
historiosophical methods; the Bible has no elaborate figural
pattern or typological structure; and, most importantly, the
stories and language of the Bible should be understood
literally: "Let us always distinguish history from dogma and
dogma from morality, from that eternal morality that all
lawgivers have taught, and that all peoples have
received."^ Voltaire's categorical denunciation of the
"figurativeness" or "mystical" virtues of the Bible endeared
him to eighteenth-century deists, and Voltaire associated
with and was befriended by many English deists such as
Bolingbroke, Anthony Collins, and Alexander Pope. Although
it is true John Toland and Matthew Tindal anticipated some
of Voltaire's criticisms, Voltaire's works became very
popular in England, as Voltaire was often asked to give
public lectures on the Bible in London. His works were
widely spread through England. These attacks on the Bible
were facilitated by "the publication of translations of
Voltaire, in inexpensive editions, and the works of Paine,
Gibbon, and Hume." * * Blake had access to the collected
works of both Voltaire and Rousseau when he was at Felpham,
in the impressive collection of works belonging to William
Hayley. And we now know the edition of Voltaire Blake used
kk
and quoted from, a collection that included Voltaire's
12
important works on the Bible. When, in the Annotations to
Reynolds, Blake quotes from Voltaire in French, he does so
in context, with awareness of the social implications, and
with full understanding of the historical importance of
Voltaire's challenge to the "Church's monopoly of
13
erudition." Blake quoted from the Essai sur 1es moeurs,
the work "in which Voltaire discussed Protestantism most
fully and in a manner most likely to make a lasting
14
impression on his readers." The following is an English
translation of the passage of Voltaire that Blake quoted:
"It may be said that Pope Leo X., by the encouragement he
gave to learning, furnished arms against himself. I have
been told by an English nobleman, that he had seen a letter
from Cardinal Pole to this pope, in which, while he is
felicitating his holiness upon having extended the progress
of the sciences in Europe, he gives him to understand that
it was dangerous to make men too knowing."^ Blake "glossed"
this passage with a strong comment on the English lack of
interest in intellectual improvement, a classic humanistic
defense, which is surprising since Blake stressed the
importance of scientific investigation: "0 Englishmen! why
are you still of this foolish Cardinals opinion?" [E 636]
This passage of Voltaire occurs almost in the middle of the
1 ^ 5
Essai sur les moeurs where Voltaire is commenting on the
excessive luxuries of the Catholic Popes— using Pope Leo X
as paradigmatic of the "voluptuous" aspects of Roman
Catholicism— and Blake clearly understood the social
implications of the Roman Catholic practices of
"indulgences" in the past and saw obvious similarities with
that time and contemporary conditions. The fact that
Voltaire in the Essai sur les moeurs was no less critical of
Protestantism— indeed, perhaps Voltaire was even more
critical of Calvin and Calvinism— also would have attracted
Blake's interest in the historiosophical analysis of
"Spiritual Causes," in how the world was affected by
religious conviction.
However, there is, perhaps, one commentary by Voltaire
that may have been most interesting to Blake, given Blake's
sustained and perceptive "criticisms" of the Book of Job.
Voltaire was suspicious of the "Figure in Theology"--what he
referred to as the "fabulous foundation" of figuration.
Voltaire associated typology with dreams or excessive
analysis into preposterous riddles, and he warns against
"drawing great consequences" from typological readings of
Scripture. Yet, on one very specific occasion, Voltaire does
enter into one of the controversies that surrounded an Old
Testament text. In his definition of Arabs in the
Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire briefly touches on the
k6
Book of Job, which Voltaire believed to be "of the greatest
antiquity"— the traditional belief of most
eighteenth-century biblical interpreters. Job, in
Voltaire’s opinion, "could not be a Hebrew, for he says, in
the forty-second chapter, that having been restored to his
former circumstances, he divided his possessions equally
among his sons and daughters, which is directly contrary to
the Hebrew Law."^ Voltaire also shows an awareness of the
philological implications of some of the words used in Job
and, most significantly, discusses Job's knowledge of
astronomy; however, Voltaire focused on an "allegorical"
portion of the book, the famous passage, Job 19:26:
For I know that my Redeemer liveth... The
immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of
the body at the last day, are truths so
indubitably announced in the New Testament, and so
clearly proved by the fathers and the councils,
that there is no need to attribute the first
knowledge of them to an Arab. ^
Of course, Voltaire interpreted this passage from a
strict rationalist perspective; Voltaire distrusted the Old
Testament as a whole, and he preferred the New Testament— if
the miraculous passages were excised. In this case,
Voltaire reads this passage as simply a plea for a temporal
cure, not as a prefiguration of the Christological mission.
Blake, in Plate 62 of Jerusalem and in his 1825
1 * 7
illustrations to Job, emphasized an expressly typological
reading of Job 19:26, which was the received opinion of many
of the important eighteenth-century biblical interpreters
who viewed this passage as a prefiguration of Christ’s
mission on earth. Voltaire, an influential rationalist
interpreter of the Bible, explicated the passage strictly
from a historical-literalist perspective, rejecting the
traditional "typical" or allegorical reading of the
passage. |
Although there are many characters in Jerusalem who
embrace rationalism as it applies to biblical
interpretation, the central exemplar of rationalist
reductionism is the Spectre of Albion who is the kingly
authority Arthur in Jerusalem. He pointedly questions the
veracity of the miraculous events in biblical narrative:
t
Saying, I am God 0 Sons of Men! I am your I
Rational Power!
Am I not Bacon & Newton & Locke who teach
Humility to Man!
Who teach Doubt & Experiment & my two Wings
Voltaire: Rousseau I
Where is that Friend of Sinners! that Rebel j
against my Laws!
Who teaches Belief to the Nations, & an unknown
Eternal Life
Come hither into the Desart & turn these stones
to bread.
Vain foolish Man! wilt thou believe without
Experiment ?
And build a World of Phantasy upon my Great
Abyss!
^8
A World of Shapes in craving lust & devouring
appetite[J 54:16-24; E 203-4]
The Spectre of Albion deprecates the miraculous
revelations of Matthew 4:3 in this speech addressed to
Albion. Voltaire and Rousseau, the paragons of rationalist
reductionism, have perverted interpretation, denounced
revelation, and repudiated the anagogical method of reading j
and writing where "poetry imitates human action as total
ritual," where there is "direct connection with religion,
and [it] is to be discovered chiefly in the more uninhibitec
18
utterances of poets themselves." To "Experiment," to
establish perimeters of confined understanding and to
demystify the miraculous, was the great lesson of Voltaire.
In particular, Voltaire’s doctrines superimposed "rational"!
justification for inner testimony; "realism" and "realistic!
narrative" supplanted any kind of aesthetic or spiritual
1 9
attraction. Jesus could not change "stones into bread"
because that would violate "natural law," natural
philosophy, and the "rational" judgment of man. Both
Voltaire and Rousseau believed that only by examining God's
i
creations could we come to terms with our beliefs; the ]
i
external world was substituted for the Bible. It is one '
r !
burden of Los's quest to revive anagogical understanding and
i
to restore the belief in inner testimony, the poet as the J
creator of religious truths. In the apocalyptic conclusion
*9
of Jerusalem, all doubt is eliminated.
Fear not my Sons this Waking Death, he is
become One with me j
Behold him here! We shall not Die! we shall be
united in Jesus.
Will you suffer this Satan this Body of Doubt
that Seems but Is Not
To occupy the very threshold of Eternal Life.
if Bacon, Newton, Locke,
Deny a Conscience in Man & the Communion of
Saints & Angels
Contemning the Divine Vision & Fruition,
Worshiping the Deus
Of the Heathen, The God of This World, & the
Goddess Nature
Mystery Babylon the Great, the Druid Dragon & I
hidden Harlot '
Is it not that Signal of the Morning which was j
told us in the Beginning[J 93:18-26; E 253-254] I
i
It is also important to remember the scope of the
achievement of both Voltaire and Rousseau. Both were
influential "natural" philosophers, and both made suggestive
<
I
comments about language and historical analysis. In j
particular, Rousseau called into question how language was
originally formed; in various works, he detailed how rhythm^
I
composite words, and accentual syllabication helped
determine the ideal original language. Yet language had
degenerated and with it, religious belief. The idea of
doubt presupposes a truth, a figural perfection of the
imagination, expressed in the "stubborn structure" of
language. Since the publication of Northrop Frye’s Fearful
Symmetry, scholars have agreed that Blake’s "Case Against |
50
Locke" was entirely based on epistemological grounds:
figurativeness and metaphoric language are to be eschewed by
20
the poet. However, linguistic theorists and critics
interested in language theory have traced the marked change
in linguistic principles in the eighteenth century by j
closely examining Locke’s theoretical presuppositions
concerning language. Thomas Vogler, following the lead of
Murray Cohen, has recently argued that eighteenth-century
linguistic theory and poetry magnify the difference between
words and things, a belief that has important theological
implications. Nominalism irretrievably separated mankind j
from isomorphism, from the precise identification of
reference: "He [Cohen] posits eighteenth-century linguistic
theory over against the 'long-standing claims among
seventeenth-century linguistics for an existing, J
retrievable, or created correspondence between words and
things,’ suggesting a relationship between the ’confessed
modesty of mid-century linguists' and what he calls the
'exquisitely developed aesthetics of failure' in
eighteenth-century poets who had the strong sense that j
<
'their poetic language no longer possessed the real presence
I
or grammatical appropriateness that made the languages of \
Aeschylus or Spenser or Milton adequate to their meanings
and feelings'
51
What has not often been discussed is Blake's struggle
with Lockean preconceptions about language. From Locke's
perspective, the reason religion has not been accepted by
all the true believers is linguistic confusion; if we can
correctly identify the arbitrary meanings attached to
religious belief, theology would be more comprehensible,
more accessible:
For every Idea in the Mind, clear or obscure,
distinct or confused, is but that one Idea, that
it is, and not another Idea, that it is not; and
the Mind perceives it to be the Idea, that it is,
and not another Idea that is different from...
Especially is it if we add this farther
consideration; That as it [Scripture] suits the
lowest Capacities of Reasonable Creatures, so it
reaches and satisfies, nay, enlightens the
highest. The most elevated Understandings cannot
but submit to the Authority of this Doctrine as
22
Divine;
In Blake’s Annotations to Reynolds, Blake demonstrates
an awareness of this shift in linguistic theory: "the Fault
is not in Words, but in Things Lockes Opinions of Words &
i
their Fallaciousness are Artful Opinions & Fallacious
also." [E 659] Blake's Annotations to the Works of Sir |
I
Joshua Reynolds were written during the period he was |
composing and possibly engraving Jerusalem, and there is a j
strong turn in the epic away from metaphoric, abstractive
myth and towards the literal-didactic doctrinal frame of the
Logos, following the guiding spirit of Calvin's thought
52
because Blake feared language was serving merely the
accomplished rhetoricians. There is an absence of
linguistic relativism and a return to the "grammatical
appropriateness" and rhetorical efficacy of Milton and other
earlier Protestant thinkers and poets. As Joseph A.
Wittreich, Geoffrey Hartman, and Kathleen Williams have
contended, epic prophecy subsumes narrative, prophetic, and
hermeneutical structures, but they cannot be subsumed unless
I
there is a close relationship between words and things. !
i
i
Hence, Los must reject all forms of rhetorical presentation
that do not imitate the simplicity and directness of,
23
specifically, the speeches of the prophets of the Bible.
Los implies this point in his oratorical conflicts in
Chapter II: !
I
Three thou [Albion] hast slain! I [Los] am the
Fourth: thou canst not destroy me.
Thou art in Error; trouble me not with thy
righteousness.
I have innocence to defend and ignoreance to
instruct:
I have no time for seeming; and little arts of 1
compliment, j
In morality and virtue: in self-glorying and !
pride.[J 42:24-29; E 189] j
Inner testimony demands exactness of expression, and
Protestant poets from the Renaissance to Blake's time viewed
themselves as conduits or "redactors," reifying the
quotidian utterance of man into the incarnation of the
53
Divine Logos. Louis Martz and Barbara Lewalski have
admirably elucidated the Protestant traditions inherent in
Milton’s poetry, and Joseph A. Wittreich has discussed their
24
less obvious presence in Blake’s encyclopedic epics. As a
coherent system, Protestant poetics are less organized and
evoke different responses than Martz, Lewalski, and
Wittreich have described in their otherwise magisterial
25
analyses. Nevertheless, one aspect of Blake's view of
I
language and prophecy is evident; Blake viewed the j
deterioration of 1anguage and poetic vision and the decay of
religious faith as a direct result of the
theologico-linguistic theories of Locke and possibly
Rousseau, the biblical criticism of Voltaire and, to a
lesser extent, the naturalistic rationalism of Rousseau that
!
altered our conceptions concerning revelation and J
consciousness forever. The last figure in Blake’s unholy j
panoply of theorists is Isaac Newton, and his response to |
i
the great metaphysician and commentator on the Book of
Revelation is a complex matter indeed.
I
1
The most perceptive critic on the Blake-Newton
relationship is Donald Ault, who has published several
studies analyzing how Blake constructed an "anti-Newtonian
narrative." Ault’s comments on Blake's reaction to the
"Alchemical," syncretic philosophy of Newton deserve to be
51 * ■
reproduced:
One of Blake's central purposes in
constructing anti-Newtonian narrative was to
create in his readers an experience of the
bankruptcy of the kinds of assumptions about the
interconnections in knowledge, perception, and
reality which were embedded in the doctrine of
prisca sapientia— the "ancient wisdom" which was
believed by Newton and his contemporaries to have
been revealed to Hoses and to have been passed
through the Hermetic Tablet and philosophers like
Epicurus and the atomists. Blake saw that this
doctrine of the "one true system," which could
connect such otherwise diverse modes of
explanation as biblical exegesis, alchemy, and
scientific demonstration, presupposed a particular
kind of single, coherent, unified world toward
2 6
which all true explanation must point.
Ault admirably discusses the Hermetic allusions in
Jerusalem, but only briefly glances at the importance of
\
t
Newton’s biblical criticism. Newton’s interpretation of the
Book of Revelation was influential in many ways: it achieved
a kind of exegetical, canonical authority; it became the j
model for later commentators to follow and respond to; and, j
I
most importantly, it presented a methodology so antithetical1
I
to Blake's vision of the world that Blake’s categorical
denunciations of Newton are hardly surprising. Newton was
one of the first to fully develop the idea of analogy— a
methodology Blake despised— and how analogical thinking can >
be applied to biblical interpretation: "For understanding j
the Prophecies, we are, in the first place, to acquaint
55
our-selves with the figurative language of the Prophets.
This language is taken from the analogy between the world
natural and an empire or kingdom considered as a world
27
politic." This interpretive methodology--sometimes
referred to as the doctrine of correspondences— influenced
many other biblical exegetes throughout the century,
although perhaps the one most influenced was David Hartley
who carried this doctrine to an epistemological and
psychological conclusion in his Observations on Man, a work
Blake disparaged as lacking in "judgement." Newton and
Hartley rejected "traditional" typology for analogy, and the
elaborate process of analogous reasoning— or, as it has come
to be known, abstracted typology— provided a context for
examining the physical world as a precise, correlative
analogy of the spiritual world. By closely examining the i
inner workings of the physical world, the world of spiritual
existence could be comprehended.
Newton directed his energies towards "suppressing
competing theories of interpretation," theories that may
2 8
stress anagogic system of explication. It was Newton’s
intent to find precise correlations, precise
l
correspondences, between the phenomenal world and the
noumenal world. This "historical-literalist" methodology j
has severe defects that Blake exploited because he objected
56
to the specious "univocality11 of Newton's vision of the
Bible. As Ault rightly notes, "Newton's 'rules’ for reading
biblical 1anguage establish a coercive relationship between
i
reader and text. In his biblical exegesis the gap between
the literal word and the meaning disappears: the Newtonian
narrator asserts the semantic limits of the possible
meanings of the text, making the text usurp the reader's
2 9
role." Some of the biblical "interpretations" in
Jerusalem— particularly the passages on Plate 75 and 98 that
allude to the Book of Revelation— seem directed at Newton's '
I
dogmatic explication, and it may very well be that the
"Demonstration" of rational evaluation in Jerusalem is
indebted to Newton's theories of how prophetic discourse
I
should be interpreted. Certainly Newton's theories on I
language influenced the poetry of the eighteenth century, |
and the metonymic voices of the muffled prophets of the age
reflect this linguistic and prophetic misprision.
Protestant prophecy was transformed in both form and
content throughout the late Renaissance and into the
30 !
eighteenth century. The revolution of hermeneutics and .
I
sensibility— influenced by Locke, Newton, and Voltaire— I
i
contributed to such explorations of theodicy as Dryden's
"Religio Laici," Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man," and Edward
Young's Night Thoughts. Perhaps the most exhaustive of the j
57
eighteenth-century explorations of rationalism, Pope's
"Essay on Man," is a compendium of "Deistic" wisdom, written
from an equivocally Catholic perspective, but the verbal anc
religious conflicts— rhetorical efficacy opposed to
vision— between the "Essay on Man" and John Milton's
31
Paradise Lost are evidence of Pope's agon with Milton. The
"Essay" was greatly admired when first published; Voltaire I
extravagantly praised the "Essay on Man" in the 1750's. The I
I
incorporation of many modern ideas into the epic— such as j
the analysis of mercantilism, discursive analyses of Humean
or Hartleian philosophies, and speculations on
iconography— greatly changed the epic themes and thrust of
32
the poetry of the period. What poems like the "Essay on
Man" lack, however, is the process of purification intrinsic
to earlier Protestant poetics. Pope's epic is sententious, j
i
didactic, and comprehensive in scope, but the "philosophy" J
I
of the poem— possibly derived from the teachings of
i
Bolingbroke— is impersonal and egocentric. Sublimity for J
Pope was the celebration of man's limitations and verbal j
inadequacy to convey the figural mystery of God. Perhaps
Blake's knowledge of Bolingbroke's philosophy may be the
result of his reading of Pope, a writer Blake disparaged but
33 I
read with qualified admiration. Yet these poetic j
adventures into the inner workings of the mind did influence
1
Blake. Blake strongly disliked fiction, in particular the
58
novel; the disjunctive narrative of Jerusalem reveals an
intensely historiographic imagination, a prophet concerned
with historical justification for his pronouncements. As
Hayden White has argued, this is a conspicuous feature of
the historian and, inferentially, the visionary prophet who
disapproved of "fictional narrative":
In the early nineteenth century, however, it
became conventional, at least among historians, to
identify truth with fact and to regard fiction as
the opposite of truth, hence as a hindrence to the
understanding of reality rather than as a way of
apprehending it. History came to be set over
against fiction, and especially the novel, as the
representation of the "actual" to the
representation of the "possible" or only
"imaginable." And thus was born the dream of a
historical discourse that would consist of nothing
but factually accurate statements about a realm of
events which were [or had been] observable in
principle, the arrangement of which in the order
of their original occurrence would permit them to
34
figure forth their true meaning or significance.
William Blake's most conspicuous usage of these !
j
historiographic traditions and his "criticism" of I
eighteenth-century epic traditions and ideology is in the
i
undergirding typological framework of Protestant poetics,
which will be discussed later in this study. What Milton, j
Donne, and Herbert understood was the Pauline-Augustinian I
I
belief in the dialectic between word and spirit: prayer and
doctrine were the vehicle and tenor of man's metaphoric
interaction with God. As opposed to the microcosmic,
59
circumscribed finiteness of man expressed in Pope's "Essay
on Man," Blake postulated that prayer and the rhetorical
effectiveness of prayer demonstrated man's potentiality. It'
cannot be overemphasized that prayer and meditation are
crucial to the rhetorical forms of Jerusalem, and Los's
studied use of these "genres" of expression is presented as
an example of how man can communicate to God in a spiritual
sense. Blake created a system of mythopoeic verse to
synthesize the Pauline dialectic between letter and spirit,
a tenaciously argued theological problem since the time of
!
Augustine and Origen. Yet this immediacy of communication
is fraught with complex problems; the antithesis of prayer |
I
I
is blasphemy, and the catalogue of blasphemy in Jerusalem is
an impressive one. If, as Blake argues, man has sacred J
intercommunication with God, then man's transgressions, !
j
either verbal or active, are also immediately known. For j
example, Albion's agonized speech of Chapter I reflects this
I
problematic interchange between man and the Creator: j
His snows fall on me and cover me, while in the
Veil I fold
My dying limbs. Therefore 0 Manhood, if thou
art aught
But a meer Phantasy, hear dying Albions Curse!
May God who dwells in this dark Ulro &
voidness, vengeance take,
And draw thee down into this Abyss of sorrow
and torture,
Like me thy Victim. 0 that Death & Annihilation
were the same!
60
What have I said? What have I done? 0
all-powerful Human Words!
You recoil back upon me in the blood of the
Lamb slain in his Children.
Two bleeding Contraries equally true, are his
Witnesses against me[J 23:35-40 & 24:1-3; E
169]
The "all-powerful Human Words"— "Death &
Annihilation"— are a blasphemous utterance that presents
"Death and Annihilation" as the two "Witnesses" from the
Book of Revelation, a subversive typological reference.
Because of his loss of his "Manhood," Albion has fallen
under "Feminine delusion." In Jerusalem there is a constant
struggle between the feminine characters and the masculine
characters over the precise methods that should be used in
argumentation. Spiritually enlightened characters such as
I
Jesus, Los, and Erin tend to focus on revelation, on the
"typical" configurations between Old Testament event and New
J
Testament fulfillment of the prophecy. Rationalist or
"naturalistic" characters such as Vala, Rahab, and Tirzah
focus on the visual world, in myth and in rationalistic j
rhetoric that uses— excessively— figurative and ornamental !
language. This language is "Vala's Veil," which obscures
the prophetic vision of Albion and prevents the spiritual
acceptance of the "Providence of God." In a state of
self-recrimination and under the influence of the feminine
delusion, Albion confesses his failure of will and
estrangement from God.
6l
Dost thou forgive me! thou who wast Dead & art
A1 ive
Look not so merciful upon me 0 thou Slain Lamb
of God
I die! I die in thy arms tho Hope is banishd
from me[J 24:58-60; E 170]
To attribute these modifications in perception and
interpretation entirely to the philosophical inquiries of
Locke, Newton, Voltaire, or Rousseau is to minimize the
scope of Blake’s vision; nevertheless, the sustained
argument in Jerusalem— the personal agon in the epic— is
directed towards these eighteenth-century French writers,
Sir Isaac Newton, and John Locke.
I turn my eyes to the School & Universities of i
Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof
rages dire
Washd by the Water wheels of Newton, black the
cloth
In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation;
cruel Works
Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel,
with cogs tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other: not as those
in Eden: which
Wheel within Wheel in freedom revolve in
harmony & peace.[J 15:14-20; E 159]
I
The ’’Loom of Locke" is an important symbol in the epic ;
1
I
because it is a Feminine device that weaves the "Woof" of j
!
the "nets of intrigue" and the "nets of religion." Garments
62
of various kinds function as shields, barriers that preclude
examination and enhance the binary opposition between the
literal sense and the spiritual sense. Like the "vast form
of Nature," garments function in a similar fashion to
"Vala’s Veil," the blinkering covering of the phenomenal
world, which serves as the "Limits" on prophetic vision that;
prevent belief in inner testimony. {
t
i
Voltaire argued that there were limits to understanding
|
and to revelation. In a crucial passage at the conclusion
of Chapter III, Blake offers an interesting ideological
i
comparison:
Voltaire insinuates that these Limits are the
cruel work of God
Mocking the Remover of Limits & the
Resurrection of the Dead
Setting up Kings in wrath: in holiness of
Natural Religion
Which Los with his mighty Hammer demolishes
time on time
In miracles & wonders in the Four-fold Desart
of Albion
Permanently Creating to be in Time Reveald
& Demolishd[J 73:29-34; E 228]
The oracle of "Natural Religion," Voltaire, is |
contrasted by Blake to the limitless "Four-fold" religious !
believer, Los, who is unquestionably an inspired individual,
a visionary seer of inner testimony. i
63
Teach me [Los] 0 Holy Spirit the Testimony of
Jesus! let me
Comprehend wonderous things out of the Divine
Law
I behold Babylon in the opening Street of
London, I behold
Jerusalem in ruins wandering about from house
to house
This I behold the shudderings of death attend
my steps
I walk up and down in Six Thousand Years: their
Events are present before me
To tell how Los in grief & anger, whirling
round his Hammer on high
Drave the Sons & Daughters of Albion from their
ancient mountains
They became the Twelve Gods of Asia Opposing
the Divine Vision[J 74:14-22; E 229]
Voltaire strongly argued against the idea of
"testimony," which— to an eighteenth-century reader— meant
I
that the living presence of the Spirit of Christ was inside
the believer; Voltaire consistently denied the apocalyptic,
the visionary and the prophetic. For instance, in his ■
extended "definition" of the term "apocalypse" in his I
Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire denied that St. John |
i
posessed the power of "testimony." Los's ability to
internalize the ideological stress of "miracles" is the
i
Christological nuance to his character, and this provides a;
context for Blake's refutation of Voltaire who is the
quintessential rationalist, establishing purely existential
philosophy as the criteria for the integrity of Scripture. !
Voltaire tersely declared "Locke and Newton would not have
3 6
created religion." Vala's "Covering Cherubs" of reason
6b
endeavor to transform the "churches" of England into the
Druidic "Stone-henge," the place of torturous human
sacrifice.
Here Vala stood turning the iron Spindle of
destruction
From heaven to earth: howling! invisible! but
not invisible
Her Two Covering Cherubs afterwards named
Voltaire & Rousseau:
Two frowning Rocks: on each side of the Cove &
Stone of Torture:
Frozen Sons of the feminine Tabernacle of
Bacon, Newton & Locke.
For Luvah is France: the Victim of the Spectres
of Albion.[J 66:10-15; E 218]
Whereas the eternal transcendence of the "feminine
Tabernacle of Bacon, Newton & Locke" is a crucial feature of
the conclusion of Jerusalem, Blake believed Voltaire and
Rousseau to be depraved almost beyond salvation. However,
in his conversations with Robinson, Blake did concede to
I
I
Robinson that Voltaire had recanted his beliefs; and Blake'sj
attitude towards Voltaire became one of hope, of visionary
conciliation and conversion. The difference between Blake \
and Voltaire was hermeneutical, and Voltaire "confessed" his
hermeneutical "error" to Blake in an imaginary conversation:
But then he [Blake] understands by the Bible
the Spiritual Sense[.] For as to the natural sense
that Voltaire was commissioned by God to expose—
[']! have had much intercourse with Voltaire and
65
he said to me ["]I blasphemed the Son of Man and
it shall be forgiven me [.] But they [the enemies
of V:] blasphemed the Holy Ghost in me and it
37
shall not be forgiven them
Towards the end of his life and the culmination of his
visionary poetry, Blake thought in terms of biblical
contexts, metaphoric parallels, and narrative analogy. The
repetition of key words— what has come to be known as
Leitwort— became a constitutive element of Blake’s
imaginative processes. Almost unconsciously, subliminally,
Blake thought in terms of the prophecies of the Bible.
Blake, either consciously or unconsciously, wrote verse and
constructed verbal patterns in the narrative structures of
the Bible, emphasizing the Four Gospels. For example, the
quoted imaginary conversation with Voltaire is a redaction
of a passage from Luke:
8 Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall
confess me before men, him shall the Son of man
also confess before the angels of God:
9 But he that denieth me before men shall be
denied before the angels of God.
10 And whosoever shall speak a word against
the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto
him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it
shall not be forgiven. [ K.J. Luke 12:8-10]
Of course, it may very well be asked why Blake reacted
against Voltaire; there is no direct evidence that Blake
read all the important biblical commentaries by Voltaire.
66
And, furthermore, the influence of French literature on
English writers had begun to wane by the late eighteenth
century. American literature--the spiritual narratives of
Jonathan Edwards, the ponderous and largely unreadable epics
of Joel Barlow, and the novels and short stories of men such
as Washington Irving and Charles Brockden Brown— had become
important in the London bookselling trade and intellectual
scene. And an American intercontinental near-vagabond and
revolutionary achieved a notoriety in France, England, and
America that, to a modern reader, seems unwarranted. Thomas
Paine, a writer greatly influenced by Voltaire's
philosophical positions and biblical commentaries, composed
various treatises, some of enduring value and some of
evanescent importance. One of his most celebrated works was
The Age of Reason published in two part form, the first in
1794, and the second in 1795. It is difficult to say,
precisely to what genre of literature The Age belongs: It is
an apologia; yet it is pungently unapologetic. It conforms
to some of our expectations as to what a biblical commentary
should consist of; but the reliance on and the
acknowledgement of earlier authorities is superficial. And
certainly The Age cannot be considered a well thought out
piece of ratiocination. It rambles, repeats the same basic
Deistic themes of analogic philosophy endlessly, and the
work cannot be attributed to a learned, intellectually
67
capacious mind if we compare it to, for example, Voltaire’s
Philosophical Dictionary. But The Age of Reason was widely
read, and the polemical essay commanded the attention and
close— and surprisingly appreciative— scrutiny of William
Blake. Blake’s annotations to Richard Watson’s Apology for
the Bible suggest how Blake read Watson and Paine and may
suggest how Blake read Voltaire, since Paine's argumentative
method— and basic hermeneutical practice— so strikingly
resembles the iconoclastic, more intellectually challenging
writings of Voltaire.
I
First, it may be beneficial to comment on some of the
features of The Age of Reas on. It is, first and foremost, a
protracted defense of Deism and Deistic readings of the
Bible: "Deism, then, teaches us, without the possibility of |
being deceived, all that is necessary or proper to be
known. The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there
reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the
certainty of his existence and the immutability of his |
power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him
3 8
forgeries." Paine stresses that if man can comprehend the
infinitely complex workings of the physical world and, in
doing so, decipher the order of the universe, the complete j
i
demythologized world of God will be made transparently
clear. "Revealed religion" or "prophecies"— concepts that
have, to Paine, pejorative connotations— are to be dismissed
68
as mere chimerical representations of a failed theological
belief. Paine very forcefully and with almost a forensic
intensity demonstrates the efficacy of "Mathematical
Demonstration," a phrase often used pejoratively in
Jerusalem. Indeed, in his "paean" to the intellectual
supremecy of man and capacity to discern the cosmic order in
the environment, Paine extrapolates from Cartesian and
Newtonian theories an equation for empiricism and
revelation: "It is fraud of the Christian system to call the
sciences human invention... The scientific principles that
man employs to obtain the foreknowledge of an eclipse, or of
J
anything else relating to the motion of the heavenly bodies]
are contained chiefly in that part of science which is
called trigonometry... In fine, it is the soul of science; it
is an eternal truth; it contains the mathematical j
demonstration of which man speaks, and the extent of its
3 9
uses is unknown."
But, perhaps, the central theme in The Age of Reason is
how scripture can be interpreted if the accounts are j
inauthentic or fictitious; or, to use Paine’s terms, the j
i
Bible is "a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for j
what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness
i
40 1
of man to the orders of the Almighty?" The crux of these j
falsities is in the accounts of Moses and, more importantly]
69
the Four Gospels, which Paine— following the lead of
Voltaire-discounted as mere "supernaturalism": "Jesus
Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage,
or any thing else; not a line of what is called the New
Testament is of his own writing... His historians having
brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were
obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the
4 1
first part of the story must have fallen to the ground."
Paine's marvelous phrase— "the wretched contrivance" of
Christ's ascension— reflects the caustic, abrasive tone of
the book and the kind of reader Paine hoped to appeal to.
In addition, Paine harshly disparaged the mythological
syncretists; Paine does not identify any specific writers he
found deficient, but George Stanley Faber, David Hartley,
i
and William Warburton were eighteenth-century theorists who j
built their mythologies to harmonize Christianity with pagan
or pre-Christian mythology. Paine, in his circular patterns
of examination, returns again and again to questioning the
miraculous and the communications of the revelatory; in a ;
cynical aside Paine referred to the Book of Revelation as a
I
"book of riddles that requires a revelation to explain j
it."42
Yet the book of the Bible Paine returns to most
I
frequently is the Book of Matthew. Paine states "The book of
TO
Matthew continues its account, and says (chap. xxvii., ver.
1), that at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn,
toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and
43
the other Mary, to see the sepulchre." Blake explores the
events surrounding this episode in the Bible on Plates 56
and 62, although it may just be a coincidence; however,
Paine— a recidivist Deist— was discussing a part of the
Bible that was questioned from the time of John Toland,
Matthew Tindal, Thomas Woolston, and especially Anthony
Collins. These Deists argued that Christ’s resurrection
]
violated every conceivable natural law or historically valid
concept of reality. The accounts of the resurrection
impugned every concept of verisimilitude and corrupted man’s
natural tendency towards accepting natural religion.
|
l
Paine's rather far-reaching argument ranges over many J
topics including the importance of learning the so-called
"dead languages," which Paine believed to be of no value.
Paine did not schematicize in charts or diagrams as
frequently as Voltaire, but Paine does demonstrate— in a
chronological table— the putative inconsistencies of the
genealogical "tables" of Matthew and Luke, which were
"reconciled" by the orthodox Christian interpreters of the
eighteenth century. Also, Paine echoed Voltaire's belief
that the Jews were manifestly murderous, a point Blake only
too willingly conceded. However, in his brief examination
I
___ I
71
of Christian thought, one exegetical method aroused Paine's
irritation and fulmination. Typological thinking was— in
Paine's opinion— misused, untenable as hermeneutical
practice, and a crucial deficiency in Christian thought:
It has been shown, in a former part of this
work, that the original meaning of the words
prophet and prophesying has been changed, and that
a prophet, in the sense of the word as now used,
is a creature of modern invention; and it is owing
to this change in the maning of the words, that j
the flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and I
phrases and expressions now rendered obscure by
our not being acquainted with the local
circumstances to which they applied at the time
they were used, have been erected into prophecies,
and made to bend to explanations at the will and
whimsical conceits of sectaries, expounders, and j
commentators. Everything unintelligible was j
prophetical, and everything insignificant was ij
typical. A blunder would have served for ;
44 J
prophecy, and a dish-clout for a type. j
Frequently Paine interlinked prophecy with typology, aj
if he considered them coevals or interconnected. Paine's |
The Age of Reason, at its most fundamental level, is an J
l
I
attack on theologians who see the New Testament as a ;
fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies: by constantly
denying the authority of the biblical accounts of the
prophecies in the Old Testament, Paine "displaces" the
I
typological interrelationship between the two books. In j
Paine's opinion, the degeneration of prophecy was due to the
eighteenth-century interpreters of the Bible, another point j
72
Blake agreed with. In a sense, the Bible became habitually
misread, leading to typological readings such as the
interpretation of the famous scene in Isaiah:
"Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a
son," Isaiah, chap. vii., ver. 14, has been
interpreted to mean the person called Jesus
Christ, and his mother Mary, and has been echoed
through Christendom for more than a thousand
years; and such has been the rage of this opinion
that scarcely a spot in it but has been stained
with blood , and marked with desolation in
f 45
consequence of xt.
I
Paine drives home his point with considerable acumen,
incorporating into his discussion a biblical passage that
the "received opinion" of the eighteenth-century
interpreters of the Bible had, indeed, explicated as a I
I
prefiguration of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, Paine did not
rehearse the religious controversies surrounding this
passage, which is a loss given Paine's strong objections;
however, Paine was clearly aware of the apposite
significance of the biblical pasage. In addition, the theme
j
of the Virgin Mary occupied Paine's skeptical examination in
the second part of The Age of Reason, a much disputed idea
since the time of Toland and Collins.
73
Paine summarizes his opinions in the concluding pages of the
second part of the The Age of Reason, and perhaps the most
striking of his observations and, in some respects, the
culmination of all his vitriolic condemnations is his final
assessment of the value of typology: "Between the Christian
Jew and the Christian Gentile, the thing called a prophecy
and the thing prophesied, the type and the thing typified,
the sign and the thing signified, have been industriously
rummaged up and fitted together, like old locks and
4 ^
pick-lock keys." In passing, Paine also alludes to the
Jonah-Christ typological interlinkage only to discredit it,
I
and ends his examination with a definition of Deism, j
l
which— in Paine's opinion--had an irrefutable appeal to the
truly religious. The Age of Reason is a tour de force, but
i
the essay functions as a very effective polemical tool. J
Many Christian "apologists" responded to the Age of Reason,
defending Christianity by reestablishing the hermeneutical
practice that emphasized the figural interpretation of the
Bible as congruent with— and complementary to— the
historical-literalist explication. I
I
i
There is a story— almost certainly apocryphal— that
Blake saved Paine's life by warning him that government
agents were actively pursuing him in order to put him under
arrest for sedition: nothing else is known of the
Paine-Blake relationship, although many scholars believe j
7^
they were briefly on good terms. However, Blake’s
annotations to Richard Watson’s Apology for the Bib 1e
delineate his attitude towards the ideological differences
between Watson and Paine, and, more importantly, reveal how
Blake knowledgeably, meticulously, and judiciously
criticized the biblical criticism of the period. There is
one other suggestive point: Robert N. Essick and G. Ingli
James have argued in independent studies that the
annotations were written over a period of time— possibly
4 7
years, possibly even decades. Blake may have augmented his,
annotations of 1798 during the period he was composing
Jerusalem. Certainly Richard Watson’s hurriedly impulsive
response to Paine caused Blake to pause and reflect on
matters that were crucial to his social and mythopoetic
concerns.
i
If Paine's work was an exercise in demystification,
then one would expect Richard Watson's Apology to be a
defense of the revelatory. It is not. One would expect a
"deep disquisition" on the authenticity of the Bible.
Watson’s Apology "presumes" a defense would be !
supererogatory. Indeed, in almost every way, Watson's work :
I
was unsatisfying to Blake, although Blake conceded the
l
validity of some of Watson’s central points. The deficiency
1
I
of Watson's argument— from Blake's perspective— was that it
possessed an almost hermetic nature, self-enclosing in the
75
same fashion as Paine’s The Age of Reason. The two works are
similar in critical approach. Watson’s learning is
superficial; the scholarship is misleading and inadequate to
refute Paine’s objections. Watson, for example, alludes
to— but does not incorporate into his examination— some of j
i
the classic defenses of the Bible often used in response to j
other Deist thinkers:
I shall, designedly, write this and the
following letters in a popular manner; hoping that
thereby they may stand a chance of being perused
by that class of reader, for whom your work seems
to be particularly calculated, and who are the
most likely to be injured by it. The really
learned are in no danger of being infected by the |
poison of infidelity: They will excuse me, |
therefore, for having entered, as little as j
possible, into deep disquisitions concerning the ;
authenticity of the Bible. The subject has been so 1
learnedly, and so frequently, handled by other
writers, that it does not want [I had almost said,
48
it does not admit] any farther proof.
In addition, Watson rightly notes that Paine’s thesis
stresses ”it [is] impossible that the Bible can be the Word
of God, because it is therein said, that the Israelites j
destroyed the Canaanites by the express command of God:... I
I
am astonished that so acute a reasoner should attempt to
disparage the Bible, by bringing forward this exploded and
i
frequently refuted objection of Morgan, Tindal, and
49 I
Bo1ingbroke." It is very difficult to reproduce the
7 6
frenzied handwriting of Blake in some of the annotations; on
the other hand, the bulk of the handwriting is of crystal
clarity. In his very legible remarks on page 4, Blake
restates the classic Christian justification for the actions
of the Jews, the defense that was used against the attacks
of Stanley Morgan, Matthew Tindal, and Lord Bolingbroke: "To
me who believe the Bible & profess myself a Christian a
defence of the Wickedness of the Israelites in murdering so
many thousands under pretence of a command from God is
altogether Abominable & Blasphemous. Wherefore did Christ
come was it not to abolish the Jewish Imposture" [E 614].
Blake’s position is that Christ, by fulfilling the
prophecies of the Old Testament, obviated the actions of the
Jews and by doing so, formed the "New Covenant."
Watson augments his argument by alluding to one of the
rationalists’ most severe contentions: how could a merciful
God permit earthquakes to happen? Certainly the earthquake j
of Lisbon shook the very foundations of the belief in a
benevolent God, a point discussed by Voltaire in his
important poem, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster in 17 55. Watson
recapitulates the argument: "When Catania, Lima, and Lisbon,
were severally destroyed by earthquakes, men with their !
wives, their sons and their little ones, were swallowed up i
alive:— why do you not spurn, as spurious, the book of j
i
nature, in which this fact is certainly written, and from |
I
_______________________________________________________________________ I
77
50
the perusal of which you infer the moral justice of God?"
Again Blake was moved to take a conventional position, the
conservative Christian defense, in justifying God's actions
that permitted these events to happen: "There is a vast
difference between an accident brought on by a mans own
carelessness & a destruction from the designs of another.
The Earthquakes at Lisbon & were the Natural result of Sin.
but the destruction of the Canaanites by Joshua was the
Unnatural design of wicked men" [E 614-615]. Somehow God— in
his ineffable wisdom— knew that the people of Lisbon were
sinners, as difficult as that is to accept.
Perhaps Blake's most telling defense of Paine is in his
i
annotations in Letter II where Watson accuses Paine of being
confused in his argumentative presentation, which is
certainly a valid objection. But Blake, with an almost
wearied cynicism, agrees with Paine's central objection to
the eighteenth-century commentators on the Bible quoted
earlier in this essay: "Another Argument is that all the
Commentators on the Bible are Dishonest Designing Knaves who
in hopes of a good living adopt the State religion this he
has shewn with great force which calls upon His Opponent
loudly for an answer. I could name an hundred such" [E
616]. The advocates of "State religion" that Blake so
sharply condemns interpreted the Bible as a moral code,
restrictive, narrow-minded, and a repressive guide for
78
everyday morality. Watson's biblical criticism is quite
representative of this critical methodology.
Blake also alludes to the traditional reading of the
Jonah plot only to discredit it. Blake, evidently, did not
see Jonah as a Christological prefiguration, rejecting the
understanding of many other interpreters. And where Blake
does not annotate, Watson quite perceptively delineates
Paine's indebtedness to other Deist thinkers, Bolingbroke
and, especially, Voltaire: "We will not, sir, give up Daniel
and St. Matthew to the impudent assertions of Porphyry and
Voltaire... There is certainly some novelty, at least in
your manner, for you go beyond all others in boldness of
t
assertion and in profaneness of argumentation; Bolingbroke
and Voltaire must yield the palm of scurrility to Thomas j
i
5 1
Paine." And of course Blake would have recognized Paine's
self-conscious echoings of Voltaire. j
j
Perhaps the most interesting remarks in the Blake ,
i
annotations are where Blake faults both Paine and Watson for
I
what Blake understood to be a basic philosophical and
theological misunderstanding. Watson, well trained in
biblical exegesis, responds to a Paine attack on typology |
I
with a defense of the "received interpretation" of Isaiah j
I
44:45. It is important to read Watson's comment in its !
entirety:
79
The latter part of the forty-fourth, and the
beginning of the forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah,
are, in your opinion, so far from being written by
Isaiah, that they could only have been written by
some person who lived at least an hundred and
fifty years after Isaiah was dead:... What shall
be said of you, who, either designedly, or
ignorantly, represent one of the most clear and
important prophecies in the Bible as an historical
compliment, written above an hundred and fifty !
52
years after the death of the prophet?
Blake cryptically— almost enigmatically— disparaged
them both: "The Bishop never saw the Everlasting Gospel any
more than Tom Paine" [E 619]. Neither writer understood the j
role of the Old Testament prophecies and how they were
fulfilled by the accounts in the Synoptic Gospels;
consequently, neither writer understood how the Bible's j
ostensive contexts can be applied to cosmic determinism or j
how the Bible guides us towards salvation, the "progress of j
the soul." |
l '
There are two other points germane to this discussion.
Interestingly, both Watson and Paine accepted and stressed
the "fact" that Matthew was the first of the Gospels
written, perhaps as soon as twenty-five years after the
death of Christ. This was accepted by virtually all of the
i
theologians in the seventeenth and eighteenth century as the
correct chronological ordering of the New Testament,
repeated in all the important biblical commentaries. Blake*
80
curiously enough, rejects this opinion on two different
pages of his annotations: "There are no Proofs that Matthew
the Earliest of all the Writings of the New Testament was
written within the First Century See p 94 & 95" [E 618]. In
I
this case, Blake was in sharp disagreement with what was— at:
that time— the established opinion surrounding the
chronology of the composition of the Four Gospels. Whether
Blake arrived at this conclusion independently or was
influenced by a theologian, we will never know; however, the
fact that Blake rejected the contemporary wisdom on the ;
subject is suggestive. Blake may come to this belief
because of "internal evidence"; the Book of Matthew, in
Blake’s opinion, may not have been the first of the Synoptic
Gospels written, though Blake relies on the gracefully j
written account for many of his allusions in Jerusalem. The j
other point is quite simple; Watson adduced the Apology of
Justin Martyr as evidence that a theologian can challenge
kings and ruling bodies. Watson does not give a specific
I
date for the composition of Justin's Apology, but j
I
Blake— substantiating his claims as to the chronology of the
i
Gospels— corrects Watson and offers the "correct" date for
the date of the Apology. The following is Watson’s argument
concerning the origin and chronology of Justin Martyr’s
I
Apology and its significance: "Yet in this apology, which
I
was presented not fifty years after the death of St. John,
81
not only parts of all the four gospels are quoted, but it is
I
expressly said, that on the day called Sunday, a portion of
53
them was read in the public assemblies of the Christians."
In the margin Blake wrote "A. D. 150" [E 619]. Blake either
read St. Justin Matyr's Apo1ogy where Justin explicitly
states he was writing 150 years after the death of Christ, i
I
or he read the works of such theologians as William Whiston
who closely studied St. Justin's writings and dated the
54
Apology in the year 150.
If Paine and Watson were literalists— examining the
accuracy or inaccuracy of a biblical account by objective,
rationalist criteria— then Blake, one would expect, would
rely on the subjective, inwardly moving dimension of the
revelatory. However, his reaction to this problem is quite (
difficult to describe because he expresses his subjective
hermeneutics with great economy. In his enfilade against j
Paine's criticism of the Mosaic Pentateuch, Watson addresses
the tendentious problem of the defects in the "internal
evidence" of the Bible, which Watson believed was no
impediment to belief: "Having done with what you call the
grammatical evidence that Moses was not the author of the j
i
I
books attributed to him, you come to your historical and j
!
chronological evidence... The learned have shewn, that '
interpolations have happened to other books: but these
82
insertions by other hands have never been considered as
invalidating the authority of those books.Blake, who
disliked authorities who relied purely on the historical
factuality of a story, faulted reliance on "grammatical
evidence," and was more innately skeptical than either Paine
or Watson, suggests that the empirical approach— analysis
into the authenticity of the text or the ostensive
background of the text— was pointless because of the
subjectivist attitude of the biblical critic:
I cannot concieve the Divinity of the Ebooks
in theS* Bible to consist either in who they were
written by or at what time or in the historical
evidence which may be all false in the eyes of one
man & true in the eyes of another but in the
Sentiments & Examples which whether true or
Parabolic are Equally useful as Examples given to
us of the perverseness of some & its consequent
evil & the honesty of others & its consequent good
this sense of the Bible is equally true to all &
equally plain to all. none can doubt the
impression which he recieves from a book of
examples. If he is good he will abhor wickedness
in David or Abraham if he is wicked he will make
their wickedness an excuse for his & so he would
do by any other book. [E 618]
In this context Blake was rejecting the tendency to
allegorize texts, in particular the miraculous sections of
the Bible or the elaborate parables of the Bible that were
interpreted from a purely analogical perspective.
Allegorical readings, valid in some circumstances, should
not be misused, and Blake very insistently emphasizes the
83
typological or figural meaning of the text. At times,
however, Blake stressed the need for literalism. For
example, Watson sardonically noted "Who but yourself ever
interpreted literally the proverbial phrase— ’If a man smite!
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also?'— Did
Jesus himself turn the other cheek when the officer of the
high priest smote him? It is evident that a patient
acquiescence under slight personal injuries is here
enjoined; and that a proneness to revenge, which instigates
men to savage acts of brutality, for every trifling offence,
5 6
is forbidden." Blake replied that in this case the events
I
related are literal in the strictest sense of the word: "Yes
!
I have no doubt he did"[E 619]. Literalist or typological
readings must be incontrovertible, objectively and
independently verifiable, so the didactic sense--or the
"Parabolic" essence— of the Bible can contribute to the
progress of the soul.
The worldly, materialistic and condemnatory letter of
the law, clearly prescribed in the Old Testament, must be
reconciled with the spiritual growth--the "good tidings" of
the Gospels— of the New Testament, particularly evident in
the Four Gospels. Christ mediated between two eras, two I
i
philosophies. Blake not only acknowledged this dichotomy, i
i
but he goes to the extreme of presenting these two religious
I
I
concepts in the same individual. The Spectre of Urthona in i
-1
a
84
Jerusalem is the embodiment of the letter of the law, the
archetype of the Old Testament principles; the character Los
is the spiritual selfhood, the archetype of New Testament
covenant. Because they have divided, Los and the Spectre of
Urthona have destroyed the essential interrelationship and
convergence between promise or prophecy and fulfillment and
revelation. The shape of the narratives of the Gospels,
•narratives interrupted by brief kerygma, are realistic and
are comparable to the spiritually mimetic structures of
Jerusalem. Yet the Spectre of Urthona and Los must resolve
their inherent theological attitudes in order for the two
concepts of religious conviction ultimately and peacefully
to coexist. !
85
The Female Will and the Question of Character in
Jerusalem
The shifts in Blake's cartography and ideology in
Jerusalem are particularly noticeable in the elimination of
the Orc-rebel1 ion and the Ore cycle, and in Jerusalem we
have a constant revision of previous attitudes, societal
perspectives, and world "purview"; Jerome McGann has
astutely commented on this aspect of Blake:
Perhaps the best examples of "primary"
Romantic works, in the sense I have put forward
above, are to be found in the early Blake: in the
Songs, for example, or the The Marriage of Heaven
and Hel1. Works like these possess an unusual
confidence in the mutually constructive powers of
imagination and criticism when both operate
dialectically... In studying English Romanticism,
then, we must be prepared to distinguish three
different phases, as it were, of "primary",
visionary and "secondary" [or revisionist]
relationships. In Blake, The Marriage of Heaven
and Hel1 is "primary" in relation to works like
Mil ton and Jerusalem, which are "secondary" and
revisionist in this structure of relations.
Jerusalem is a secondary work because of its extreme
complexity and because the central characters strive so hard
for catharsis and reintegration, particulary Los and the
i
86
Spectre of Urthona. Leonard Deen rightly notes the expressly
"Evangelical" nature of Los’s quest and journey, although he
fails to see how the schism between Los and his Spectre have
affected the Christological nature of Los:
A later evangelist or "visionary of Jesus"
like Paul— the focus of the evangelists’ active
power of vision— Los enacts both the purification
of Old Testament poetry by the Gospels and a
further purification made necessary by such errors
as those of Dante and Milton. In doing so, he
"acts" or imitates Christ; and the distinction
between evangelist and Christ, the poet and the
divine humanity he envisions, lessens... The poet
becomes what he beholds; the creator becomes his
creation; the biblical poem comes to life. Blake,
acting through Los, has turned back to and
recreated the genuine poetry of the source,
5 8
purifying it of pagan corruptions.
The essence of the intellectual conflict between Los I
I
and the Spectre of Urthona revolves around their individual ;
understanding of what constitutes "heteroglot social !
j
5 9
consciousness." In many respects, Los is lost in an j
I
interior, fanciful, "idyllic" life where there is a stable
life, familial connections, a life of total, absolute
consonance. The Spectre, riddled with insecurities, is
involved with society, and the matrix of society which, from
the Spectre's perspective, is the Law rather than the
spirit. This process of dialogization entails extended
examinations into the basic theological beliefs of the
87
individual, and this process often represents the key to the
theological differences, the ideological divergences and
convergences of the society as a whole. The Spectre’s
arguments are devoted to extending the spiritual
psychomachia of the epic, which revolves around the concepts
of mutability and eternality, synchronic as opposed to j
i
diachronic discourse.
This form of psychological and theological tension is
typical of the "domestic epic," and Jerusalem borrows from
I
Paradise Lost this crucially important narrative !
configuration. The complex theological interactions between
characters is a conspicuous feature of the "domestic motif"
in Paradise Lost, and this narrative technique is of
considerable importance to Jerusalem, a "domestic epic" if \
\
one can apply this term from Renaissance and
eighteenth-century generic criticism.^ The pivotal figure
in their dialectical exchange is Enitharmon; it is difficult
I
to comprehend why Enitharmon, the emanation of Los, should
be envisaged by Los and the Spectre of Urthona as a
transgression. This may be a measure of Blake's
recalibration of the function of masculine and feminine
i
|
roles in Jerusalem. Blake was discreetly interested in the !
j
dramatic properties surrounding the themes of misogyny,
incest, and sexual perversion in the later epics. Perhaps
Blake’s sexual ideology has been best examined by Diana Hume
88
. . 61
George, Susan Fox, Christine Gallant, and Brenda Webster.
However, the socio-theo1ogica1 foregrounding of the feminine
and masculine roles in Jerusalem has not attracted much
critical attention other than an important essay by Jackie
6 2
DiSalvo. Although Jerusalem is an apocalypse--an
exploration of "end time"— Blake’s emphasis falls on the
restoration of prophetic vision to the two characters that
suffer the most from social and theological repression,
Jerusalem and Enitharmon. Los's apocalyptic fears that
nothing will escape the dominion of the Antichrist center on
|
the fate of the two female characters; DiSalvo has argued j
that "there is no real contradiction between Blake's call
for the liberation of women and his castigation of 'Female
Will,' which, closely examined, is an attack not on women
but on the role of the mother-bearer, nourisher, and
6 3
socializer— under patriarchy." However, DiSalvo's study is
predominantly focused on The Four Zoas, and the
patriarchial-matriarchial roles are recontextualized in j
Jerusalem. In the mid-eighteenth century women, even if theyj
were enlightened and very well educated like Lady Mary I
I
Wortley Montagu, were given to the publication of letters,
I
brief and sometimes puerile examinations of epistemology, i
I
and, occasionally, a brief study of Shakespeare. Biblical I
I
studies and hermeneutics were still masculine "roles." Yet I
I
times had changed by the early nineteenth century, and the
89
inchoate feminist movement had began due in part to Mary
Wol1stonecraft*s A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Women
such as Hannah More had begun to publish works on the Bible,
although they were not, strictly speaking, theoretical
analyses of the Bible. More's works, tremendously popular in
the 1790's and into the nineteenth century, were the first
excursions by women into what had been an exclusively male
province. Women were advised to limit their inquiries to
the possible moral applications of the text and, because of
their putative limited intellect, avoid discussion of the
more controversial episodes of the Bible. John Wesley, for
example, criticized women for entering the field of biblical
exegesis. And Wesley, as Linda H. Peterson has convincingly
argued, "represents the stance that became increasingly
common during the eighteenth century as biblical ;
I
!
hermeneutics came to be regarded as a privileged endeavor, j
!
one that required knowledge of the original biblical j
languages as well as a systematic use of interpretive
64
principles and procedures." In Jerusalem the female
characters— particularly Jerusalem— must be instructed in
l
biblical matters by the male characters, Jesus and Los, '
I
because they have the greater facility in interpretive j
strategies.
At the center of these interactions and archetypal
changes is a central transformation, a metaphoric revision.
9°
In one of his many conscious imitations of the genealogical
tables and catalogues in the Old and New Testaments, Blake
posits that the Spectre of Urthona, Los's demonic
consciousness of will, has characteristics similar to the
paragon of rationalism, Hand. The Spectre of Urthona is a
curious individual in Jerusalem; Blake goes to some extremes
to stipulate that the Spectre is distinct from the character!
of Los, yet there are elaborate, discernable psychological
interconnections between the Spectre and Los. Perhaps the
most significant intellectual inhibition of Los is that the
Spectre may, indeed, appropriate rationalist mentality: on
Plate 7, Blake notes that there is an intellectual
I
continuity or similarity between the Spectre of Urthona and
Hand:
Hand sits before his furnace: scorn of others &
furious pride:
Freeze round him to bars of steel & to iron
rocks beneath
His feet: indignant self-righteousness like
whirlwinds of the north:...
Rose up against me thundering from the Brook of
Albions River
From Ranelagh & Strumbolo, from Cromwells
gardens & Chelsea
The place of wounded Soldiers, but when he saw
my Mace
Whirld round from heaven to earth, trembling he
sat: his cold
Poisons rose up: & his sweet deceits coverd
them all over
With a tender cloud. As thou art now; such was
he 0 Spectre[J 7:71-73 & 8:1-6; E, 150-151]
91
E. J. Rose has detailed the antithetical nature of
Hand. Hand is an anti-Los and the antagonist to Los's
visionary quest: "Hand is fallen man's hand, that is, the
perverted instrument through which man communicates
physically...Hand is clearly the chief instrument of the
destruction of England and, by extension, Europe. He is
I
subject always to the Female Will which rationalizes the
6 5
emotions." But Hand is also the abhorrent precursor of the
Spectre of Urthona; rationalism and empirical criteria
become part of the Old Testament "codes." Despite his
i
psychic aversion to wrath and admonitory action, Los finds
the psychological repercussions of the Hand-Spectre of
Urthona relationship unendurable in his address to the
Spectre:
I [Los] know thy deceit & thy revenges, and
unless thou desist
I will certainly create an eternal Hell for
thee. Listen!
Be attentive! be obedient! Lo the Furnaces are
ready to recieve thee.
I will break thee into shivers! & melt thee in
the furnaces of death;
X will cast thee into forms of abhorrence &
torment if thou
Desist not from thine own will, & obey not my
stern command!...
For I am one of the living: dare not to mock my
inspired fury
If thou wast cast forth from my life! if I was
dead upon the mountains
Thou mightest be pitied & lovd: but now I am
92
living; unless
Thou abstain ravening I will create an eternal
Hell for thee.[J 8:7-12 & 35-38; E 151]
The Jungian interpretation of Morton Paley is quite
specific in his shrewd interpretation of the paralleling
interactions of the epic. He describes the
Enitharmon-Los-Speetre of Urthona triad as a shift in
mythopoeic interests: "The psychomachia formerly dramatized
through the zoas is now projected through the two major
groups of figures in Jerusalem: the Albion (with Sons and
Daughters)-Vala-Jerusalem constellation and the triad
Los-Spectre-Enitharmon."^ Blake elaborately presents the
"anima" of Los, Enitharmon, who shares the fate of Jerusalem
in the poem, and the two female mythological figures are
linked ideologically and intuitively; and their shared error
is interpretational and sexual. The struggle of Los to
control rationalism and naturalism "compels" him to gain
mastery over the Spectre of Urthona. This dominance, once [
i
achieved, will overthrow the unchallenged naturalistic i
theology of Vala, the materialistic philosophy of Hand and
Hyle, and permit Albion to reject Vala: J
i
I
t
i
For Los said: Tho my Spectre is divided: as I
am a Living Man j
I must compell him to obey me wholly: that j
Enitharmon may not
Be lost: & lest he should devour Enitharmon: ah j
Me !
Piteous image of my soft desires & Loves: 0
93
Enitharmon!
I will compell my Spectre to obey: I will
restore to thee thy Children.
No one bruises or starves himself to make
himself fit for labour!
Tormented with sweet desire for these beauties
of Albion
They would never love my power if they did not
seek to destroy
Enitharmon: Vala would never have sought &
loved Albion
If she had not sought to destroy Jerusalem;
such is
that false[J 17:16-25; E 161]
The meticulously calibrated narrative tension of Jerusalem
increases as the psychic implications of the disagreements
I
between the Spectre of Urthona and Los is manifested. The ;
dialectical conflict between Los and the Spectre of Urthona
is important, although not to the extent that Harold Bloom
has argued; for instance, the Spectre of Urthona is never !
mentioned in Chapter III of Jerusalem. Chapter III is a
self-conscious experiment whose accents fall on the
visionary spectacle— a Blakean "trajic" scene— of the
I
masque-like torture of Luvah, and the extended tropological j
sections of the chapter. However, Chapter I of Jerusalem
articulates the interconnectedness of the "two" characters.
Their differences are epistemological, ideological, and
theological. On Plates 7-11, Los and the Spectre of Urthona
oratorically thrust and counterthrust, dialectically
examining the issues of contention. Their debates encompass
many ideological views: "negativism" and the j
9k
socio-historical importance of progression, the
interdynamics of empathetic reaction, philosophical
"escapism" and insulation, monism and skepticism and, most
centrally, reason and revelation.
I
!
In the extensive dialogues of Chapter I, the Spectre of
Urthona displays a willfully subversive nature, establishing
his position as a phallic and prophetic usurper. Since the
Spectre is the antithesis to Los, he demonstrates the acute
failings of spiritual prophecy and the putative "dominion"
of the "Feminine Will." "Cambel & Gwendolen weaves webs of I
war & of/Religion," that involve all of Albion's sons." ThJ
Spectre of Albion, "Satan" or "Arthur," will "reign over
thee 0 Los." The governing metaphoric comparison in Chapter
i
I is of the transient, earthly government of woman with the
eternal and benign guidance of God, and the "religion" of
Satan, Deism, is the historical context for their
disagreement. Blake understood Deism as a doctrinal belief j
in man's finiteness, his tendency towards naturalistic
worship and "anti-heroic," anti-prophetic qualities in man. |
As Matthew Tindal expressed, reason dictates mankind's
actions particularly as it pertains to revelation and
I
interpretation: j
i
i
i
Were we not capable by our Reason of
distinguishing Good from Evil, or knowing from the
95
Consideration of the invariable Perfections of
God, what the divine Goodness cou'd command, or
forbid his Creatures antecedently to any external
Revelation, we cou'd not distinguish the true
instituted Religion from the many false ones: Or
if by Accident we stumbl'd on it, avoid running
into many Absurdities in the Interpretation of it,
thro' the Difficulties that must attend a Book
writ in a dead Language, and so many Ages since;
and where, thro' the vast Variety of Readings, we
might mistake the true Reading; and tho' we were
certain of the Letter, even the Letter killeth.
John Toland shared Tindal's belief in mankind's
inability to discern, accurately, the ideological import of
revelation: "Now since by Revelation Men are not endu'd with
any new Faclties [sic], it follows that God should lose his
I
end in speaking to them, if what he said did not agree with |
their common Notions. Could that Person justly value himself;
upon being wiser than his Neighbours, who having infallible
Assurance that something call Blictri had a Being in Nature,
6 8
in the mean time knew not what this Blictri was?" Blake
emphasizes the Christocentric nature of prophecy and the
authoritative nature of biblical tradition. The question to
be answered is what Protestant religion Blake considered to i
be of temporal importance and worthy of mankind's faith and
devot ion.
It was something of an embarrassment for Blake's
i
friends that survived him that Blake never attended church, !
I
nor did he think much of organized religion, although he
read widely in works on Christian thought. Yet there was
9 6
one religion Blake believed contributed to prophecy and
vision. Los turns to a specific religion in Chapter I
despite the fact it remains unstated:
Pity must join together those whom wrath has
torn in sunder,
And the Religion of Generation which was meant
for the destruction
Of Jerusalem, become her covering, till the
time of the End.
0 holy [Image] of regeneration!
0 point of mutual forgiveness between Enemies!
Birthplace of the Lamb of God incomprehensible!
The Dead despise & scorn thee, & cast thee out
as accursed:
Seeing the Lamb of God in thy gardens & thy
palaces:
Where they desire to place the Abomination of
Deso1ation.[J 7:62-69;E 150]
A variety of religious beliefs have been "discovered"
in Blake's prophecies. He has been described as a "radical"
Christian who moved beyond the orthodox Protestant j
traditions. Morton Paley has contended there is evidence j
I
"of Blake's reawakened interest in Swedenborg during the
6 9
period in which Jerusalem was being written." There are no
I
"indications" in Jerusalem of Blake’s "renewed" interest in |
Swedenborgianism, and it is inconceivable that Blake would j
have returned to Swedenborg for a covering, a "Religion of !
Generation." However, Paley rightly notes the astringent ,
I
Calvinism of the Spectre of Urthona, his "contraction" due j
to his understanding of predestinarianism and
97
foreknowledge.
It continues accumulating to eternity! the joys
of God advance
For he is Righteous: he is not a Being of Pity
& Compassion
He cannot feel Distress: he feeds on Sacrifice
& Offering:
Delighting in cries & tears & clothed in
holiness & solitude
But my griefs advance also, for ever & ever
without end
0 that I could cease to be! Despair! I am
Despair
Created to be the great example of horror &
agony: also my
Prayer is vain I called for compassion:
compassion mockd
Mercy & pity threw the grave stone over me &
with lead
And iron, bound it over me for ever: Life lives
on my
Consuming: & the Almighty hath made me his
Contrary
To be all evil, all reversed & for ever dead:
knowing
And seeing life, yet living not; how can I be
beheld & not abhorrd[J 10:46:59; E 153-4]
Prophets permit purification and purgation: they
I
interpret and make comprehensible God’s Word and mediate j
between the world of heavenly prescience and the world of
earthly baseness. Blake's implication is that by denying
I
the "Law of God[s] commands," Los is denied his visionary |
capacities: the Spectre of Urthona relies almost exclusively;
on Old Testament commandment of letter and law with no
uncertainty or ambiguity. In her masterful analysis of the
!
constitutive elements of prophecy, Kathleen Williams 1
98
discusses the "doubt11 and "uncertainty" of the prophet: "The
prophetic poet has at once a supreme faith in the vision,
and a certain scepticism about the effect of the vision in
the world...[h]e cannot hope to explain to everybody who
hears him this deeply secret and inward thing; he can only
hope to stimulate some of them to commit themselves to
it."^ The Spectre does not want to cause mere "perplexity,"
"anxiety," or "disbelief" in the consciousness of Los. The
Spectre carefully constructs an argument that will convince
Los of the inadaquacy or impracticality of his ideology, the
I
simple philosophical framework of the spirit of the living j
i
heart indwelling in God1s glory. What is Los’s "Religion of
i
Generation" that must suffice as temporal support for his
Christian belief in internal revelation? Los returns to the
I
Old Testament, specifically the Book of Exodus, for his
argument.
And Los said. I behold the finger of God in
terrors!
Albion is dead! his Emanation is divided from
him!
But I am living! yet I feel my emanation also
dividing
Such thing was never known! 0 pity me, thou
all-piteous-one!
What shall I do! or how exist, divided from
Enitharmon?
Yet why despair! I saw the finger of God go
forth
Upon my Furnaces, from within the Wheels of
Albions Sons:
Fixing their Systems, permanent: by mathematic
99
power
Giving a body to Falshood that it may be cast
off for ever.
With Demonstrative Science piercing Apollyon
with his own bow!
God is within, & without! he is even in the
depths of Hel1![J 12:5-15; E 155]
The typological context of this allusion to Exodus 8:19
indicates that God no longer has the capacity to be actively
involved in world events or the progress of the soul. With
his emphasis on universal redemption and forgiveness, Los isj
fundamentally Arminian in his perspective. Blake would not
have countenanced "Universalism" as a viable Christian
belief, despite Michael Ferber's argument to the contrary.
Salvation is not predicated on God's freely given grace to
the disbeliever.^ Predestinarianism was not wholly
acceptable to Blake, but disbelief and disobedience
constitute the core doctrine to the "Feminine Will." i
Predestination was not, for Blake, an absolute decree. Goodl
works and faith, salient features of Los's character, can
serve to change man's eternal fate. The fact that Blake's
basic theological framework is similar to the Arminianism ofi
the eighteenth century is not a coincidence. The spread of (
Arminianism and the controversies surrounding the j
Arminian-Calvinist arguments were the cause of deep division
in eighteenth-century England due to the schism in the
j
Methodist movement. John Wesley and George Whitefield and
their supporters engaged in unending disputation, and
100
Blake’s awareness of these controversies— and other aspects
of Methodism— contributed to his admiration of these
exponents of the Augustinian tradition.
I
j
101
Augustini.ani.sm, Methodism, and the Form of
Confession in Jerusalem
Several historians of thought of the eighteenth century
such as Perry Miller, Rosalie Colie, and Horton Davies have
attempted to define "Arminianism"— the theology derived from
the teachings of Jacobus Arminius— and Richard E. Brantley’s
new book, Locke, Wesley and the Method of English
Romaticism, most carefully traces the influence of
------------- I
i
72
Arminianism, as defined by John Wesley, on William Blake:
"Wesley's God, as I have elsewhere sketched him, was
primarily an Arminian God. of pity, who desired nothing less
than redemption for all, and this conception undoubtedly
7 3 !
formed the basis of Blake’s admiration for Wesley:"
Although it is indisputable Blake admired Wesley, he also
held the theological adversary of Wesley, George Whitefield,
in high esteem, as this quotation taken from Mil ton attests:
j
But then I rais’d up Whitefield, Palamabrom j
raisd up Westley, i
And these are the cries of the Churches before
the two Witnesses!’] j
Faith in God the dear Savior who took on the j
likeness of men: !
102
Becoming obedient to death, even the death of
the Cross
The Witnesses lie dead in the Street of the
Great City
No Faith is in all the earth: the Book of God
is trodden under Foot:
He sent his two Servants Whitefield & Westley;
were they Prophets
Or were they Idiots or Madmen? shew us
Miracles![M 22:55-62; E 118]
In Blake’s prophecies, there exists a series of binary
oppositions, struggles between opposing ideologies expressed
in the visionary prophecies. In the quoted passage Rintrah,
the archetype of prophetic wrath paradigmatically
represented by John of Patmos, is properly associated with
the Calvinist minister, George Whitefield; Palamabron, the
archetype of pity and forgiveness exemplified by the prophet
j
Daniel, elevates Wesley, the Arminian thinker, from his
quotidian state. The Methodists' "devout use of the Bible i
I
1
to aid in tracing and treading the path from sin to !
perfection" was a kind of demarcation point in the j
understanding of the Bible; they were some of the last j
i
thinkers to believe that "objective and objectively
transforming events" could guarantee the salvation of the
74
individual. Generally, Blake scholars have concentrated
on the larger archetypal struggles of the epics; however,
i
Blake used dialectical forms for the examination of
theological opinion. Blake's awareness of the i
Methodist-Calvinist controversies and the Wesleyan
publications created a historical background for |
103
speculations on vision, revelation, and truth in prophetic
I
insight. J
The received interpretation of Blake's Mil ton correctly
identifies the religious dialectic of the poem. In Milton,
Blake adduces the "fury" caused by "Calvin and Luther," a
subtle binary opposition, and notes the internecine 1
"division" between "Papists and Protestants." Some critics
have noted the typological reference to the Book of
Revelation in the quoted passage— the "two Witnesses"—
chronologically, the first of the numerous explicit or
implicit allusions to the Arminian-Calvinist controversy. I
I
Blake's respectful admiration for the Calvinist thinker, j
George Whitefield, is something of an anomaly for most BlakJ
scholars; George Whitefield and John Wesley engaged in
extensive religious discussion for over thirty years, and
Blake may have read some of their polemical exchanges. In
their debates over the ostensive meanings of Biblical texts j
and the possibility of inner testimony of faith, Whitefield
and Wesley maintained interest in the Augustinian meditative
traditions that Blake incorporated in his epics. Through
these meditative methods of internal inquiry, Wesley
believed that man could understand what constituted sensible
inspiration or, expressed differently, the sensible
experience of religious illumination. Perhaps the central
difficulty of this theory— or doctrine of spiritual !
104
sensation— is that "Wesley continued to insist upon the
direct witness as a requirement for Christian belief.
Hence, Wesley was susceptible to charges that he actively
demystified Christianity, that he rejected the idea of
"Inner Light" and Calvinist predestinarianism. Wesley
"synthesized" the idea of "assurance of grace," however, in I
his putative "fundamentalist" theology, indicating he was
determined to assimilate the overarching principles of
Calvinist doctrine into his religious beliefs; nevertheless,
this was not sufficient for George Whitefield. Whitefield
i
and Wesley continued to engage in theological disputes over j
I
t
predestinarianism and reason as opposed to inner divination |
l
i
until the late eighteenth century, ending when Wesley gave
his famous funeral sermon on the death of Whitefield in
1770. Their constant interest in specific religious symbols
and metaphors such as the act of circumcision would have
t
intrigued William Blake. And the fact that Blake used the
|
original family name "Westley" in the quoted passage is also
suggestive. Wesley changed the spelling of his name to
simplify the pronunciation, which leads to speculation that
Blake read some of the biographical or autobiographical
material concerning the Wesley genealogy.^
I
In addition, Blake's agreement with a poetic precursor]
I
William Cowper, has also attracted critical attention. A |
105
man driven mad by melancholia and, perhaps, sexual
dysfunction, Cowper embraced the Methodist movement through
the ministerial agency of the Reverend John Newton who
advocated traditional Calvinist theology. Both Newton and
Cowper rejected free will, sanctification, and Wesleyan
eclecticism. They uncritically accepted and espoused the
Calvinism of Whitefield who was a profound intellectual
influence on John Newton. Our extant knowledge of the
Cowper-Blake relationship is minimal: Blake made some
passing comments in his letters about Cowper that are not
!
very revealing. However, probably in 1817 Blake annotated j
Spurzheim's Observations on Insanity. Spurzheim's work is
comparatively difficult to read. He is discursive in his
analysis, but on one occasion Spurzheim pauses to reflect on
the problems caused by Methodism, how Methodism caused j
derangement in the believer. Blake's annotation indicates j
I
that he thought of Cowper as a paradigmatic Methodist, a man
who was sincere in his belief and psychologically sane:
Methodism &c p. 154. Cowper came to me & j
said. 0 that I were insane always I will never
rest. Can you not make me truly insane. I will i
never rest till I am so. 0 that in the bosom of
God I was hid. You retain health & yet are as mad j
as any of us all— over us all— mad as a refuge
from unbelief— from Bacon Newton & Locke. [E 663]
Scholars usually take portions of this gnomic imaginary
106
conversation out of context to substantiate their arguments
about Blake’s attitude towards insanity, empirical '
I
epistemology, or to document the provocative influence of
Cowper on Blake; however, Blake was associating the
Methodist movement with William Cowper. Rejecting the
prevalent misconception of his contemporaries, Blake did not
attribute Cowper’s unbalanced psychological state to the
Calvinist underpinnings of Cowper's religious beliefs.
Contextually analyzed, the passage indicates that Blake
believed Cowper was sane but troubled, and insulated from
i
»
the empiro-theological philosophies of Bacon, Newton, and ;
I
Locke. During his "Felpham Retreat"— 1800-1803— Blake had
access to Cowper's manuscripts since Cowper lived with
William Hayley in the late eighteenth century. Given the
increased range of religious allusions in his later epics,
Blake's knowledge of Methodism— and Christian thought— may
have been augmented by his use of Hayley's library.
The influence of William Cowper on Blake has been best
discussed by Morton D. Paley who has stressed that the -
I
Spectre of Urthona in Jerusalem resembles William Cowper. j
Stuart Curran brings to our attention that it is equally j
possible that Blake derived his understanding of Calvinism j
from reading the works of Jonathan Edwards who was an
7 7
important figure for the Methodist movement. Certainly it
can be said that the Spectre, an ideological contrary to
107
Los, focuses on the depravity of man and the mercilessness
of an Old Testament God. Blake's vision of Calvinist dogma
is prejudiced and ignores the positive aspects of inner
divination so crucial to the Calvinist: the antinomian
touch— "Prayer is vain"— is also of crucial importance. In
a speech on Plate 7, Los offers comfort to the Spectre,
offering a doctrine of forgiveness as opposed to the
condemnatory attititude of the Spectre of Urthona:
Comfort thyself in my strength the time will
arrive,
When all Albions injuries shall cease, and when
we shall
Embrace him tenfold bright, rising from his
tomb in immortality.
They have divided themselves by Wrath, they
must be united by
Pity: let us therefore take example & warning 0
my Spectre.
0 that I could abstain from wrath! 0 that the
Lamb
Of God would look upon me and pity me in my
fury.
In anguish of regeneration! in terrors of self
annihilation:
Pity must join together those whom wrath has
torn in sunder[J 7:54-92; E 150]
Throughout Jerusalem, Los emphasizes the need for
i
universal redemption and the absolute, unconditional I
i
"forgiveness of sin", although the temptations of Calvinist j
I
doctrine overwhelm him at times. On Plate 17, Los expresses
the internalized torment caused by the rationalism of Hand, !
the materialism of Hyle, and the Calvinism expressed by the
108
Spectre of Urthona.
Go thou to Skofield: ask him if he is Bath or
if he is Canterbury
Tell him to be no more dubious: demand explicit
words
Tell him: I will dash him into shivers, where &
at what time
I please: tell Hand & Skofield they are my
ministers of evil
To those I hate: for I can hate also as well as
they![J 17:5— 63; E 162]
In this passage, Los was revealed as a wrathful,
punitive Jehovah-like figure that Blake associated with !
Calvinism; yet, in Chapter I, there are moments of epiphany j
i
when the revelation of redemption and the confirmation of (
I
the covenants of good works and faith are accepted by Los: j
Los wept with exceeding joy & all wept with joy
together!
They feard they never more should see their
Father, who
Was built in from Eternity, in the Cliffs of
Albion.[J 11:13-15; E 154]
Blake developed complex antitheses and dialectical
i
oppositions throughout his poetry, but biblical allusions ;
i
are among his most intricate oppositions. This passage is
an echo of Matthew 2:10 and is one of the first of many i
I
I
allusions to the Four Gospels. During moments of torment, j
I
Los will recall passages from the Four Gospels to reaffirm j
109
his Arminian faith. The advocates of the Feminine i
Will--Vala, Rahab, Tirzah, and, implicitly,
Enitharmon— incorporate passages from the Old Testament in i
their speeches throughout the narrative to espouse
historical determinism. This dialectical process provides
the background for the narrative continuum until Plate 96
when Jesus appears and sanctions Arminianism and restores
the broken federal, mutual, and unilateral covenants between1
man and God. In his definitive vision of absolute harmony on
I
Plates 98 and 99 of Jerusalem, Blake creates a mythopoeic j
vision describing the humanizing of the experiential nature
of Christian belief:
And I heard Jehovah speak
Terrific from his Holy Place & saw the Words of
the Mutual Covenant Divine... j
And the all wondrous Serpent clothed in gems & j
rich array Humanize I
In the Forgiveness of Sins according to j
the Covenant of Jehovah.[J 98:40-45; E 258] I
»
|
In the surface narrative of Jerusalem, there are more j
i
provocative allusions to Methodism and Methodist figures.
At the conclusion of Chapter III of Jerusalem, B1ake
incorporates this very intriguing sequence of religious |
divines to guard the "Four-fold Gate [t]owards Beulah:" J
i
I
!
110
And the Four Gates of Los surround the Universe
Within and
Without; & whatever is visible in the Vegetable
Earth, the same
Is visible in the Mundane Shell; reversd in
mountain & vale
And a son of Eden was set over each Daughter of
Beulah to guard
In Albions Tomb the wondrous Creation: & the
Four-fold Gate
Towards Beulah is to the South[.] Fenelon,
Guion, Teresa,
Whitefield & Hervey, guard that Gate; with all
the gentle Souls
Who guide the great Wine-press of
Love;[J 72:45-51; E 227]
This apparently disparate group of religious figures
serves a very important function in the prophecy; the
eloquent confirmation of the covenant of redemption by Jesus
on Plate 62 and the tropological focus of the parable of
Joseph and Mary on Plate 61 serve as spiritual support for 1
I
Los’s religious quest. Yet there is an absence of exemplars
of religious devotion or moral rectitude in the epic. These
figures— Whitefield, Hervey, Fenelon, Guion, and
Teresa— paradigmatically represent the unequivocal sincerity
of religious faith that has been debased by the efforts of
the Satanic Accusers; their relationship to the Methodist \
movement is suggestive and demonstrates Blake’s usage of the
spiritual attitudes and instruction of Methodism. ;
James Hervey, a minor controversialist of the period,
was an original "Methodist,” a founding father of the
movement and well known to Blakeans because of Blake's
I l l
illustration to Hervey's Meditation Among the Tombs. Because
Blake mentions the Meditations in Chapter VIII of An Island
in the Moon in conjuction with some satiric comments about
Edward Young’s Night Thoughts, we know Blake's interest in
7 8
Methodism extended over a period of at least thirty years.
Hervey's relatively short life span— he died in 1758 at the
age of 44— prevented him from achieving the notoriety of
I
either Whitefield or Wesley. His Calvinist tendencies were
i
■manifested in his erudite, though uninspiring, polemics, andi
he engaged in religious argumentation with Wesley virtually
until his dying day, arguing over matters of Biblical
exegesis and the Calvinist-Arminian controversy; as a
life-long Anglican minister, Hervey also objected to the
79
incipient separatist tendencies in Methodism. Hervey was
also known to the so-called Graveyard poets; as Morton D. !
Paley and Robert N. Essick have argued, Blake was more
influenced by the "Graveyard School of Poetry" and the j
meditational prose of the eighteenth-century evangelical
movement than is generally known: "As a further indication
of the links between Graveyard literature, Evangelical
Christianty and Blake, we should recall that Blake would
also paint a beautiful pictorial epitome of Hervey's
8 0
Meditations, now in the Tate Gallery, for Thomas Butts."
Hervey did not have the intellectual capacity of Wesley, nor
did he have the fiery style of sermonic oration that
112
distinguished Whitefield; nevertheless, Hervey provided an
interesting contrast to the Deists of the period, and his
comments on the concepts of reprobation and predestination
would have found an interested— if not sympathetic— reader
in William Blake.
The other three religious figures have a different
Methodist connection to Blake. Blake remarked to Samuel
I
8 1
Palmer that "St. Teresa was his delight." In Blake1s
Records, G. E. Bentley Jr. records this interesting comment
with a pertinent observation: "It seems likely that Palmer j
i
considerably exaggerated Blake's conformity for the benefit '
i
of the niggling orthodoxy of Macmillan, the publisher of j
8 2 !
Gilchrist's Pic tor Ignotus." Bentley does not mention the J
fact that Wesley edited and supervised the publication of
numerous books of religious devotion for his teachings and
for instruction given by the Methodist ministers which were
profoundly influential on the Methodist itinerant ministry
and, as a consequence, the literate English people. One of
Wesley's strongest beliefs was that an uneducated man or
woman could not be a good Christian, and Wesley's interest
in bibliomancy and pedagogy led to the editing of over four
hundred volumes of religious instruction. Wesley edited
some works of Fenelon and Guion— or, more properly, Madame
Jeanne Marie Guion— who were French quietists; their
113
pertinence to Methodism and consequently, to Blake, is
rather complicated. They were not well known in England,
although the poetry of Guion and the Dialogues of Fenelon
were occasionally cited in academic and intellectual
circles; for instance, to alleviate the melancholic sadness
of his life, William Cowper translated some of the poetry of
Guion. However, it was not until Wesley translated and
abridged their autobiographies and other writings and
supervised their publication by the Methodist presses that
their works became readily available in England. These
volumes contain some symbols and religious doctrines that I
would not be inimical to Blake as this quotation, taken from
An Extract of the Life of Madam Guion, suggests;
I
I
!
Vanity, which had been excluded out of my
heart, now resumed its seat there. I began to
pass a good deal of my time before a
looking-glass. I found so much pleasure in
viewing myself therin, that I thought others were
in the right who practised the same. Instead of
making use of this exterior, which God had given
me as a means of loving him the more, it became to |
me only the means of a vain complacency. All
seemed to me to look beautiful in my person, but I
8 3
saw not that it covered a polluted soul.
Ilk
Most scholars have followed S. Foster Damon's definition of
the "Looking-Glass" as a traditional Neoplatonic metaphor or|
as a vanitas symbol; however, the "Looking-Glass of
Enitharmon" on Plate 63 is a different usage of the "Divine
Analogy," establishing the difference between sinful
depravity and visionary prophecy.
i
Los knew not yet what was done: he thought it
was all in Vision
In visions of the Dreams of Beulah among the
Daughters of Albion
Therefore the Murder was put apart in the
Looking-Glass of Enitharmon[J 63:36-38; E 214]
In essence, the "Looking-Glass of Enitharmon" offers ah
opportunity for purification in insight and prophecy; the |
"Looking-Glass" enables Los to examine the world with an |
I
atemporal, aspatial prophetic viewpoint, and provides a
context for Los's more acute understanding of the analogical
methodology of interpretation practiced by the feminine
characters. ,
i
!
There are other explicit allusions to the Methodist i
movement in Jerusalem. In Plate 52, the prose preface to
Chapter III, Blake engraved: "Foote in calling Whitefield,
I
Hypocrite: was himself one: for Whitefield pretended not to j
be holier than others: but confessed his Sins before all the
i
world." [E 201] What Blake and Foote were alluding to is i
l
J
I
115
one of the seminal works written by a Methodist minister;
spiritual autobiography was an important genre in the
eighteenth-century literature, and one of the most discussed
paradigms of this form was George Whitefield's Journals,
published in 1740 and extended in 1747. The work, to the
twentieth-century reader, reads like a series of conversion
plots, redemptions recanted and reaffirmed. Whitefield
attempted to justify his harsh criticism of the ministers
who did not join Jonathan Edwards and Whitefield in the
"Great Awakening." The profits from the sale of the Journal
were allegedly to be given to an orphanage in Georgia; the
i
common opinion was that Whitefield pocketed the money, -
i
1
Martha W. England and Robert F. Gleckner have
demonstrated how Blake was influenced by Foote's work. They
have focused on how Foote's social and political satire
influenced Blake's presentation of social and intellecutal
i
conditions in An Is1and in the Moon. But the quoted allusion
I
to Foote's The Minor has not sustained much critical
84
investigation. S. Foster Damon discusses the historical
importance of this allusion in A B1ake Dictionary; "Blake's
precise reference is lost, because Foote's attack caused
such a storm of protest from the Methodists that in the j
printed version of the play, almost all scenes in which Dr. ;
Squintum appeared were omitted, and the epilogue, which j
Foote had delivered in the character of Squintum (according j
116
to his picture published in 1779), was rewritten for
8 5
Shift." The publishing history of Samuel Foote's The Minor!
is involved with considerable lacunae. At least two
different, and evidently satisfactory, versions of the
play— The Minor and Spiritual Minor— are of Foote's
authorship. The play was extremely controversial and a
i
1
storm of impassioned protests surrounded the play; however, j
an apologist for Foote wrote a five-act "extension" of The
Minor. A series of pamphlets, citing the redoubtable Jeremy
Collier and the divine William Law as support, sharply
criticized the play— and Foote personally— and these
8 6
circulated through London. Foote defended his play on
moral, aesthetic and artistic grounds; Foote steadfastly
maintained that his play was a comedy and not satire: "But
Comedy is an exact representation of the peculiar manners ofi
8 7
that people among whom it happens to be performed." Since
the play was written around 1760 and on the stage at least
through 1792 at the Haymarket, it is equally possible Blake
saw The Minor on stage, read the play in Foote's collected !
I
works printed in 1788 and again in 1797, read the
i
controversial pamplets or simply heard of the play in the j
8 8 !
London taverns. Because Whitefield is not mentioned by
name in The Minor— he is identified as Squintum in The
8 9
Spiritual Minor — it seems likely Blake came across the
117
pamphlets where Whitefield is mentioned by name and is
eloquently defended. Still, substantiation for this view is
1
exiguous, and the evidence is inconclusive.
Blake criticized the predestinarianism of Swedenborg in
his Annotations of Swedenborg's Divine Providence, and he
made sharp distinctions between "Spiritual
Predestinarianism" and physical predestinarianism: "he
i
[Swedenborg] says A Place for Each Man is Foreseen & at the !
!
I
same time Provided,"— "Predestination after this Life is
more Abominable than Calvins & Swedenborg is Such a
Spiritual Predestinarian." [E 610] What makes William
Blake's admiration for Whitefield such an extraordinary
aspect of his personality is Whitefield's stringent
i
Calvinism. His sympathy for Whitefield— and James Hervey— is,
difficult to understand given Whitefield's and Hervey's
Calvinist beliefs. However, there may be a historical
justification. On Plate 52 of Jerusalem, Blake offers this
harsh judgment of Rousseau: "The Book written by Rousseau
calld his Confessions is an apology & cloke for his sin &
i
not a confession." [E 201] Voltaire and Rousseau are j
frequently castigated in Jerusalem, and Blake compares the
theology of Voltaire and Rousseau to the Methodist thinkers,
Wesley, Hervey, and Whitefield. "Confession" is the key word1
for Blake: Whitefield and Hervey confessed their "Sins
before all the world" enabling them to achieve holiness
118
without hypocrisy, to accept Jesus Christ as their savior.
As authoritative practitioners of the Augustinian meditative
traditions of the confession of sin, blame, and faith,
Whitefield and other members of the Methodists were true
prophets to be contrasted with the false prophets, Voltaire
and Rousseau. Los must reject the teachings and naturalistic
I
philosophy of Rousseau and the Deistic, historiographic
method of interpretation of Voltaire. When Los discovers the1
"Forgiveness of Sins" through confession, he can achieve hiJ
apotheosis on Plate 91-95 of Jerusalem.
Enthusiasm has an important connotative meaning for
90
Blake as Roger R. Easson has observed. In the eighteenth
century religious "enthusiasm" and prophetic "enthusiasm"
was a dichotomy as this quotation from Samuel Foote makes
c1ear:
Socrates, the Divine Socrates, was to all
intents and Purposes an absolute Methodist fatally
for himself, a deluded frantic
Methodist... Enthusiasm in Arts, is that Effort of
Genius, that Glow of Fancy, that Aetherial Fire,
which at particular Times, transports the Artist
beyond the Limits of his usual Execution... But
though we do not feel the force of these mystic
Doctrines, the miserable Effects are obvious
enough; Bedlam loudly proclaims the Power of your
preacher, and scarce a Street in Town, but boasts
9 1
its Tabernacle;
Blake was so moved by enthusiasm that he vowed on Plate
________________________________________________________________________I
119
52 of Jerusalem to defend either a "Monk or a Methodist," an
,
alliterative linking that may demonstrate Blake's ecumenical
I
position. For Blake, restrained temporal "enthusiasm" was a1
complement to visionary prophecy:
That he who will not defend Truth, may be
compelld to defend
A Lie: that he may be snared and caught and
snared and taken
That Enthusiasm and Life may not cease: j
arise Spectre arise?[J 9:29-31; E 152]
Unbounded "enthusiasm" would ineluctably lead to
fanaticism, and Wesley defined the difference: "Wesley's
Dictionary defines 'enthusiast' as 'a religious madman, one
that fancies himself inspired,' and 'inspiration' as 'that ;
secret influence fo the Holy Ghost which enables man to love
92
and serve God.'" Blake, like Wesley, deplored fanaticism
that could subordinate prophecy to pure hypocritical
self-glorification and self-absorption. Additionally, the ,
Methodist reaction against demystifying philosophers such as
Voltaire and Rousseau may also have influenced Blake. Wesleyj
respected the "judgment" of Voltaire and Rousseau, but
denounced them because they "contributed all their labours
I
to extoll humanity to the skies, as the very essence of j
i
93
religion." Karl Kroeber has discussed Blake's attack on |
these secular thinkers:
120
Jerusalem appears less a labyrinthine
hunting-ground for erudite archetypalists than a
relatively straightforward exposition of a
religious vision pertinent to many current secular
issues... Blake identifies as his chief enemies
neither religious nor political leaders, but
intellectuals: Bacon, Locke, Newton, Voltaire. It
is the modern intellectual who most effectively
conceals, especially from himself, the irrational
foundation of his activities, his blind faith in
94
intellectuality.
Rousseau was another intellectual that Blake found
wanting in intellectual discipline. Blake's antipathy
towards Rousseau was caused by Rousseau's perversion of the
religious literary form known as the confession; Rousseau’s
Confessions were, in Blake's opinion, a literary travesty,
the cause of much misleading philosophy, and a I
i
transvaluation of one of the greatest of the Western !
I
I
"epics," St. Augustine's Confessions. It has been speculated
95
that Blake read St. Augustine's Confession. Jerusalem
bears unmistakable traces of certain aspects of Augustinian |
thought and form. Augustine's insightful comments on the !
utility of rhetoric, scriptural explication, analogical and
i
anagogical thinking, and his emphasis on the Four Gospels i
I
would have impressed Blake. However, at the most fundamental
I
j
level, Jerusalem is similar to Augustine’s Confessions.
Augustine's Confessions exerted a tremendous influence on
the paradigmatic English spiritual autobiography, Bunyan's
Pilgrim* s Progress, although Bunyan's Grace Abounding had a
considerable impact on the succeeding spiritual
autobiographies, particularly those by the Methodists.
Following the pattern of the Four Gospels, the English
writers wrote spiritual autobiography, introspective works
of self-interpretation. Yet they all wrote under the
influence of Augustine, and his penetrating examinations of
interpretation and the application of the "hermeneutical
mode" served as pattern for the examination of religious
self-consciousness, the polar opposite of Rousseau's
celebrated "Romanticism" that centered on secular matters.
As W. J. T. Mitchell has noted, Blake carefully
discriminated between "the authoritative voice of the
inspired prophet [and] the authoritarian role."^ Los's
crucially important speech on Plate 42 best illustrates
Blake's attitude towards the "rhetorical sublime":
Thou art in Error; trouble me not with thy
righteousness.
I have innocence to defend and ignoreance to
instruct:
I have no time for seeming; and little arts of
compliment,
In morality and virtue; in self-glorying and
pride.[J 42:25-28; E 189]
However, the secondary aspects of the Augustinian
tradition do not have the importance of the matrix of the
122
legacy: the concept that Jesus Christ is within every man
and that humility, repentance, and the effacement of pride
should be the hallmarks of the Christian believer is at the
center of Augustinian legacy and the dialectical valences of
Jerusalem. Confession of sin, faith, and praise demonstrates
the inner search for the communication of God's principles
to mankind as an interiorized token of salvation. When
Blake refers to Los as a "Pilgrim," he cites the
precursors— or, more properly, the visionary kindred— of
Los.
These to preserve them from Eternal Death Los j
Creates j
Adam Noah Abraham Moses Samuel David Ezekiel !
[Pythogoras Socrates Euripedes Virgil Dante j
Mi1 ton] I
Dissipating the rocky forms of Death, by his !
thunderous Hammer
As the Pilgrim passes while the Country
permanent remains
So Men pass on: but States remain permanent for
ever[J 73:40-45; E 229]
Neither Bunyan nor Augustine are mentioned in this
I
interesting list, although the "suppressed" line reveals a
"revisionist" attitude in Blake. Dante's and Milton's
I
!
jwritings, deeply influenced by Augustine, were viewed by
Blake as less successful, perhaps reflecting his personal
^crisis in the Felpham years or wider reading in prophecy.
Evidently, his reading late in life— and the purgative
123
exorcising of the Miltonic demons in Milton— conduced to a
revaluation of Milton's and Dante's theodicies. Certainly
Blake's scatological reference to Dante's Inferno does not
reflect a very sympathetic attitude. Blake described the
infernal hell of Dante as "The Hole of a Shit house," and
"The Goddess Fortune is the devils servant ready to Kiss any
ones Arse" [E 689].
When Augustine analyzed the form of the internal
pilgrimage, he did so with his vision firmly on the problem
of inner testimony and the interpretational difficulties of
scripture: "So it was with the most intense desire that I
seized upon the sacred writings of your Spirit, and
I
especially the Apostle Paul. Those difficult passages, where
t
at one time he seemed to me to contradict himself, and where
the text of his discourse appeared to be at variance with ]
the testimonies of the law and the prophets, melted away. I
saw those pure writings as having one single aspect, and I j
J
97
learned to exult with joy." [Book VII, Chapter 21] Or,
alternatively, Augustine's perceptive discussion of the
relationship between form, formlessness, and the spiritual
pilgrimage may very well be an influence on Blake: "This
formlessness, this earth invisible and without form, is not
numbered among the days. Where there is no form, no order,
nothing comes or passes away. Where this does not take
1 2 4
Q Q
>lace, surely there are no days and no change of time."
iBook XII, Chapter 9]. Establishing verbal parallels or
netaphysical similarities between Blake and Augustine could
>e carried on almost indefinitely, adumbrating the complex
!
spiritual affinities. Augustine was the first to stress the!
fact that the "fleshly imagination" distracts one from the
proper contemplation of spiritual matters, and this became a
cornerstone of the Protestant search for inner conviction
and salvation: this Augustinian element in Blake is most
notable in the difficult and most expressly orthodox of
Blake’s writings, the prose introduction to Chapter IV:
We are told to abstain from fleshly desires
that we may lose no time from the Work of the
Lord. Every moment lost, is a moment that cannot
be redeemed every pleasure that intermingles with
the duty of our station is a folly unredeemable &
is planted like the seed of a wild flower among
our wheat. All the tortures of repentance. are
tortures of self-reproach on account of our
leaving the Divine Harvest to the Enemy, the
struggles of intanglement with incoherent roots.[E
231 ]
But Blake's agon in Jerusalem was not with Augustine:
i
his conflict was with Voltaire and Rousseau and, in j
particular, the Rousseauan form of the confession. Why
Blake would view Rousseau's Confessions as a subversive
influence is an interesting question. From Blake's :
i
perspective, Rousseau's Confessions modified societal I
125
understanding of what constituted transgression: "Rousseau
thought Men Good by Nature; he found them Evil & found no
friend. Friendship cannot exist without Forgiveness of Sins|
continually. The Book written by Rousseau calld this
confessions is an apology & cloke for his sin & not a
confession."[E 201] Blake is making an important distinction
here: in his opinion, Rousseau's Confessions were not,
generically speaking, confessions; rather, they took the
form of the apologia. The religious dialectic in Jerusalem,
which subsumes all of the conflicts, often is symbolized by
the "cloak," an ideological and theological barrier.
"Veils" and "obscuring" garments such as cloaks, coats, and
woven material, prevent man from inner testimony and faith i
I
exemplified, as Blake notes, by the narratives of the j
J
99 1
Methodists: "Voltaire Rousseau Gibbon Hume, charge the
Spiritually Religious with Hypocrisyl but how a Monk or a
Methodist either, can be a Hypocrite: I cannot
concieve... Foote in calling Whitefield, Hypocrite: was
himself one: for Whitefield pretended not to be holier than
others: but confessed his Sins before all the World." [E
201 ]
!
There are other reasons Blake so deeply resented i
I
Rousseau's philosophy. Paul Cantor has argued that it is j
Rousseau's "essentially secular and scientific account of j
I
human development in the Second Discourse" that profoundly j
126
affected Blake's vision of Genesis in The Book of Urizen.^^
Whether Blake actually read the The First and Second
Discourse or the The Reveries of the Solitary Walker is a
matter of conjecture, but it is evident that the Rousseauan
myth of the creation, the passions, and the historical
rejection of government influenced Blake's thinking.
However, it was the formal and contextual consideration of
the Confessions that most acutely disturbed Blake. In his
brilliant "criticisms" of the form of the confession, Blake j
may have followed the critical tradition fostered by the
eighteenth-century reviews of Rousseau's Confessions. Edward
Duffy has succinctly detailed the shifts in critical opinion
directed towards the Confessions in the eighteenth century,
but his accents fall on Shelley's putative response to the
Confessions. B l a k e ' s reaction was neither so equivocal
nor restrained, and whether the early, predominantly j
I
I
negative criticism of the Confessions affected him is a j
I
question that can never be satisfactorily answered; however,,
his animus appears to be based on the subversive elements inj
the Confessions that were, from Blake's perspective, a
subversion of an epic form. This animadversion, an almost
irrational hatred, is founded on the tergiversations Blake
understood to be at the heart of the Confessions. For
instance, Rousseauan confidence in the "regal"
interpretation of the Bible, an irrefutable fact to
127
'Rousseau, would have been an abomination to Blake:
As the Gospel was the same for every
Christian, and as the essential part of the
doctrine only differed in the attempts of
different people to explain what they were unable
to understand, I said to myself that, in each
country, it was the right of the Sovereign alone
to defined the manner of worship and to settle
this unintelligible dogma, and that it was
consequently the duty of every good citizen to
accept the dogma and to follow the manner of
worship prescribed by the law... The reading of
the Bible, especially the Gospels, to which I had
for several years devoted myself, had taught me to
despise the low and foolish interpretations given
to the teaching of Jesus Christ by persons utterly
unworthy of understanding it. In a word,
philosophy, while firmly attaching me to what was
essential in religion, had released me form the
petty and rubbishy forms with which it has been
102
obscured." [Book VIII]
Of course, the fact that Rousseau respected Voltaire [
and the rapturous eloquence of his descriptions would have
been a misuse of prophecy from Blake's perspective. More
importantly, Rousseau’s religiosity, fictive or actual,
would have been at the core of Blake's strong criticisms.
Rousseau's facade of strong religious convictions and his
interesting support of the "lawful" exegetical power of the
king comprises the philosophical antithesis to Blake's
understanding of hermeneutics. Indeed, one is reminded of j
the Spectre of Urthona's authority being compared to "papal
j
dignity." Blake's "theory" of exegesis is based on the j
internalization of God's Word, the Protestant belief in the i
128
inevitability of God granting to the individual the sanction
of his resurrection. The hermeneutical combat, ultimately
reconciles the dialectical structures of Jerusalem. When
Jesus and Los correctly interpret the "Holy Writ" in their
dialogic exchanges with the "Feminine Will," their prophetic
task is to convince the female characters of their
hermeneutical error: the Feminine characters are encumbered
by the sensationalist, empirical thought of Vala, and they
must reject Vala and her philosophy of disbelief and
idolatry. Vala is acquisitive, dogmatic, and disdainful of
dialectical thinking; Northrop Frye has noted that "Hand and
Hyle have become the two great pillars of Deism, reason and
103 j
nature, incarnate in Voltaire and Rousseau." Certainly i
I
Hand and Hyle, servants of Vala, are frequently identified j
I
in Blake’s poetry in biblical contexts: Voltaire and |
Rousseau, peripheral figures in The French Revolution, often
are described in biblical contexts similar to the conditions
of Hand and Hyle:
i
i
i
On pestilent vapours areound him
flow frequent spectre of religious men weeping
In winds driven out of the abbeys, their naked
souls shiver in keen open air,
Driven out by the fiery cloud of Voltaire, and
thund'rous rocks of Rousseau,
They dash like foam against the ridges of the
army, uttering a faint feeble cry.[F. R. p.
14:274-277; E 298]
129
Newton is also an important figure in The French
Revolution, a practitioner of historical exegesis. In
Jerusalem, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Newton are contrasted
with the true prophets of insight, Jesus and Los. In their
archetypal struggle for hermeneutic mastery, Blake
postulates his understanding of God's foreknowledge and
providence. At the conclusion of Jerusalem, all error is
eliminated, naturalistic philosophy is repudiated, and the
world is brought back into contact with God's Logos. This
t
can only be accomplished by the "correct" explication of the1
l
Bible, and much of Jerusalem is concerned with I
interpretation and hermeneutical conflict. Jerusalem, truly
a revisionist work, attempts to redefine the rules for
scriptural exegesis, and the triumph of the hermeneutical
conflicts is when the reader comprehends the spiritual
message communicated in the Old and New Testaments and the j
relationship between the Old Testament prophecies and the j
New Testament prophecies. '
130
Notes To Chapter I
1. Donald Pease, "Blake, Whitman, Crane: The Hand of
Fire" in Wil1iam B1ake and the Moderns ed. by Annett Levitt
and Robert J. Bertholf (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1982), 15-38. Thomas J. J. Altizer, The New
Apocalypse: the Radical ChristIan Vision of William B1ake
(Michigan State University Press, 1967). Joseph Anthony
Wittreich, Jr. , Ange1 of Apocalypse: Blake * s Idea of Mil ton
(Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1975).
2. Florence Sandler, "The Iconoclastic Enterprise:
Blake's Critique of 'Milton's Religion'" Blake Studies 5,
(1972), 14.
3. G. E. Bentley Jr., Blake Records (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1969), p. 316.
4. G. E. Bentley Jr., Blake Records (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1969), p. 313.
5. James Rieger, "The Hem of Their Garments: The Bard's
Song in Milton" in B1ake's Sublime A11egory ed. by Stuart
Curran and Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr. (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1973), pp. 267-270.
6. Kenneth Appelgate, Voltaire on Religion: Selected
Writings (New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1974),
131
p. 136.
7. Leslie Tannenbaum, Biblical Tradition in B1ake*s
Early Prophecies: the Great Code of Art (Princeton, N. J.:
Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 99.
8. Kenneth Appelgate, Voltaire on Religion: Selected
Writings (New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1974),
p. 75.
9. Kenneth Appelgate, Voltaire on Religion: Selected
Writings (New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1974),
p. 9 .
10. Kenneth Appelgate, Voltaire on Religion: Selected
Writings (New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1974),
p. 7 6.
11. Leslie Tannenbaum, Biblical Tradition in Blake's
Early Prophecies: the Great Code of Art (Princeton, N. J.:
Princeton University Press, 1982). p. 13.
12. Voltaire, Essai Sur Les Moeurs Et L 'Esprit Des
Nations, Et Sur Les Principaux Faits De L 1Histoire, Depuis
Charlemagne Jusqu1 a Louis XI11 Vol. 4, (Lausanne: 1780), p.
201 .
13. Kenneth Appelgate, Voltaire on Religion: Selected
Writings (New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1974),
132
p. 15.
14. Graham Gargett, Voltaire and Protestantism (Oxford:
The Voltaire Foundation, 1980), p. 19.
15. Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire translated by
William F. Fleming. (New York: Dingwall-Rock, 1927), vol.
II.
16. Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire translated by
William F. Fleming. (New York: Dingwall-Rock, 1927), vol.
III, p. 13.
17. See above, p. 15.
18. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 122.
19. Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in
Cultural Criticism (Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1978), pp. 121-135. See also Hayden
White, MetaHistory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 19 7 3).
20. Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of Wil1iam
Blake (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1969),
pp. 3-30.
21. Thomas Vogler, "The Tropology of Silence In
133
'Eighteenth-Century English Blank Verse" The Eighteenth
'Century; Theory and Interpretation 26, 1985: 213. Murray
Cohen, Sensible Words: Linguistic Practice in England
1640-1785 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins
I
University Press, 1977).
22. John Locke, Mr. Locke * s Reply to the Right Reverend
the Lord Bishop of Worcester’s Answer to his Second Letter:
I
Wherin, besides other inceident Matters, what his Lordship
I
has said (London: 1699.), pp 21, 22. John Locke, The
I
'Reasonableness of Christianity, As delivered in the
Scriptures. 2nd ed. To which is added, _A Vindication of the
same, from Mr Edwards 1s Except ions. (London: 1696).
23. Murray Cohen, Sensible Words: Linguistic Practice
in England 1640-1785 (Baltimore and London: The Johns
I
Hopkins University Press, 1977). Russell A. Frazier,
lLanguage of Adam: on the Limits and Systems of Discourse
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).
24. Louis Martz, The Poetry of Meditat ion: A Study in
English Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1954). Barbara Lewalski,
Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth-Century Religious
Lyric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). Joseph
I
Anthony Wittreich, Jr., Visionary Poetics: Mil ton's
Tradition and His Legacy (San Marino: The Huntington Library
13^
Press, 1979).
25. Leland Ryken, "Paradise Lost and Its Biblical Epic
Models" Mil ton and Scriptural Tradition: The Bible Into
Poetry ed. by James H. Sims and Leland Ryken, (University
of Missouri Press, Columbia, 1984), 43-81.
26. Donald Ault, "Incommensurability and
Interconnection in Blake's Anti-Newtonian Text" Studies in
Romanticism 16 (Summer, 1977), 277. See also Donald Ault,
Visionary Physics: Blake1s Response to Newton (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1974) and Donald Ault,
"Re-Visioning The Four Zoas," in Unnam'd Forms: Blake and
Textuality ed. by Nelson Hilton and Thomas A. Vogler.
(Berkeley, L. A. and London: University of California Press,
1986) .
27. Sir Isaac Newton, Observations Upon the Prophecies
of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (London, 1731), p.
16.
28. Donald Ault, "Incommensurability and
Interconnection in Blake's Anti-Newtonian Text" Studies in
Romanticism 16 (Summer, 1977), 296.
29. Donald Ault, "Imcommensurability and
Interconnection in Blake's Anti-Newtonian Text" Studies in
Romanticism 16 (Summer, 1977), 296.
135
30. See for example, David B. Morris, A1exander Pope,
the Genius of Sense (Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1984). Eric Rothstein, Restoration and
Eighteenth Century Poetry 1660-1780 (Boston: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1981).
31. David B. Morris, Alexander Pope, the Genius of
Sense (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), pp.
152-178 .
32. David B. Morris, Alexander Pope, the Genius of
Sense (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
33. See Blake's comments on Pope and Dryden in S.
Foster Damon, A B1ake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of
William Blake (Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University
Press, 1965 ) .
34. Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse; Essays in
Cultural Criticism (Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1978). p. 123.
35. Karlfried Froehlich, "’Always to Keep the Literal
Sense in Holy Scripture Means to Kill One's Soul': The State
of Biblical Hermeneutics at the Beginning of the Fifteenth
Century" in Literary Uses of Typology: From the Middle Ages
to the Present ed. by Earl Miner. (Princeton: Princeton
136
University Press, 1977), p. 20-48
36. Kenneth Appelgate, Voltaire on Religion; Selected
Writings (New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1974),
p. 158
37. G. E. Bentley Jr., Blake Records (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1969), p. 322
38. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (Buffalo, New York:
Prometheus Press, 1984), p. 184.
39. See above, pp. 38-39.
40. See above, p. 93
41. See above, p. 12.
42. See above, p. 18.
43. See above, p. 155.
44. See above, p. 68.
45. See above, p. 124.
46. See above, p. 170.
47. William Blake, Annotations to Richard Watson ed.
G. Ingli James, Regency Reprints III (Cardiff: University
College, 1984.) William Blake, The Works of William Blake jLn
137
the Huntington Collections a complete catalogue by Robert N,
Essick, (San Marino: The Huntington Library Press, 1985),
p.183 .
48. William Blake, Annotations to Richard Wat son, ed.
'G. Ingli James, Regency Reprints III (Cardiff: University
College, 1984) p. 4.
49. See above, p. 5.
50. See above, p. 5.
51. See above, pp. 49, 51.
52. See above, p. 49.
53. See above, p. 95.
54. Saint Justin Martyr, The First Apology translated
by Thomas B. Falls, (New York: Christian Heritage, 1948),
p. 83. William Whiston, The Genuine Works of Flavius
Josephus (Dublin, 1741) p. xi.
55. William Blake, Annotations to Richard Wat son ed.
G. Ingli James, Regency Reprints III (Cardiff: University
'College, 1984) pp. 22-23.
56. See above, p. 109.
57. Jerome McGann, The Romantic Ideology: A Critical
138
'Investigation (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
!
Press, 1983), p. 109.
58. Leonard W. Deen, Conversing in Paradise: Poetic
Genius and Idenity-as-Community in Blake’s Los (Columbia,
I
London: University of Missouri Press, 1983), p. 17.
59. M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four
Essays (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. 283.
'
60. Stuart Curran, "The Mental Pinnacle: Paradise
Regained and the Romantic Four-Book Epic" in Calm of Mind:
tercentenary Essays on Paradise Regained and Samson
Agonistes in Honor of John S. Diekhoff ed. by Joseph
Lnthony Wittreich, Jr. (Cleveland: Press of Case Western
Reserve University, 1971), 133-162.
61. Diane Hume George, B1ake and Freud (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1980). Christine Gallant, Blake and the
Assimilation of Chaos (Princeton: Princeton University
I
Press, 1978). Brenda Webster, Blake * s Prophetic Psychology
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983.)
62. Jackie DiSalvo, "Blake Encountering Milton:
Politics and the Family in Paradise Lost and the Four Zoas"
In Mil ton in the Line of Vision ed. by Joseph Anthony
Wittreich, Jr. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1975) .
139
63. Jackie DiSalvo, "Blake Encountering Milton:
Politics and the Family in Paradise Lost and the Four Zoas"
in Mil ton in the Line of Vision ed. by Joseph Anthony
Wittreich, Jr. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1975), 168.
64. Linda H. Peterson, Victorian Autobiography: The
Tradition of Self-Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1986), p. 131.
65. E. J. Rose, "Blake’s Hand: Symbol and Design in
Jerusalem" Texas Studies VI, 1964, 51.
66. Morton Paley, Continuing City: Wil1iam Blake 1s
Jerusalem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 235.
67. Matthew Tindal, Christianity As Old As the
Creation: Or, The Gospel, A Republication of the Religion ofi
Nature (London: 1732), p. 56.
68. John Toland, Christianity Not Mysterious (London:
1696), p. xxvi.
69. Morton Paley, Continuing City: Wil1iam Blake’s
Jerusalem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 210.
70. Kathleen Williams, "Milton, Greatest Spenserian" in
Milton and the Line of Vision ed. by Joseph Anthony
1 ^ 0
Wittreich, Jr. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1975), 39.
71. Michael Ferber, The Social Vision of Wil1iam Blake
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp.
116-130.
72. Perry Miller, The New Eng1 and Mind: From Co1ony to
Province (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952).
I
jRosalie Colie, Light and Enlightenment: A Study of the
.Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians (Cambridge,
I
jEngland: Cambridge University Press, 1957). Horton Davies,
Worship and Theology in England (Princeton: Princeton
I
University Press, 1961-1975).
73. Richard Brantley, Locke, Wes 1ey and the Method of
English Romanticism (Gainesville: University of Florida
I
Press, 1984).
74. Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A
Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New
Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 153.
75. Frederick Dreyer, ’'Faith and Experience in the
Thought of John Wesley" in American Historical Review, 88
(1983), 19.
76. Robert Monk, A Study of the Christian Life: John
Ikl
Wesley and His Puritan Heritage (Nashville, New York:
Abingdon Press, 1966).
77. Stuart Curran, "Blake and the Gnostic Hyle: A
Double Negative" B1ake Studies Vol. 4, Number 2, [Spring
1972].
78. William Blake, "An Island in the Moon" in The
iComplete Poetry and Prose of Wil1iam B1ake ed. by David V.
Erdman, (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1982), p. 942.
79. James Harvey, El even Letters From the Late Rev. Mr.
Hervey, to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (London: 1789) and
Aspasio Vindicated and the Scriptual Doctrine of Imputed
[Righteousness defended in Eleven Letters From Mr. Hervey to
'Mr. John Wesley (Philadelphia: 1744).
80. Robert N. Essick and Morton Paley, Robert Blair's
The Grave, Illustrated by William B1ake (London: Scolar
Press, 1982), pp. 11-12.
81. G. E. Bentley, BJLake Records (Oxford; Clarendon
Press, 1969), p. 321.
82. G. E. Bentley, B1ake Records (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1969), p. 321.
83. John Wesley, An Extract of the Life of Madam Guion
Ik2
(London: 1776), p. 22.
84. Martha W. England, "Apprenticeship at the
Haymarket?" Blake * s Visionary Forms Dramatic ed. by David
V. Erdman and John E. Grant. (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1970), 3-29. Martha W. England, "The
Satiric Blake: Apprenticeship at the Haymarket?" Part II,
Bulletin of the New York Public Library LXXIII [1969].
Robert F. Gleckner, "Blake and Satire" The Wordsworth Circle
8 [1977], 311-325.
85. S. Foster Damon, A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and
Symbo1s of William Blake (Providence, Rhode Island: Brown
University Press, 1965), p. 450-451.
86. Abraham Portal, A Letter to David Garrick Esq.
(London, 1760), p. 7.
87. Samuel Foote, An Apology for the Minor in Letter
to the Rev. Mr. Baine (Edinburgh: 1771), p. 5.
88. G. Winchester Stone, [Index to] The London Stage
1660-1800 (Carbondale and Edwardsvi1le: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1960-1968), p. 319. Samuel Foote, The
Dramatic Works of Samue1 Foote (London: 1797). Samuel Foote,
The Dramatic Works of Samuel Foote esq. to which is
prefixed a_ life of the author (London: 1788).
1 ^ 3
89. Martha England, "Apprenticeship at the Haymarket?"
B1ake *s Visionary Forms Dramatic ed. by David V. Erdman and
John E. Grant, (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University
Press, 1970), 3.
90. Roger R. Easson, "William Blake and His Reader in
Jerusalem" in B1akef s Sublime A11egory: Essays on The Four
Zoas, Mil ton, Jerusalem ed. by Stuart Curran and Joseph
Anthony Wittreich, Jr. (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1973), p. 311.
91. Samuel Foote, A Letter From Mr. Foote to the Rev.
Authors of the Remarks, Critical and Christian on the Minor
(London: 1760).
92. Richard E. Brantley, Locke, Wes1ey, and the Method
of English Romanticism (Gainesville: University of Florida
Press, 1984), p. 233.
93. Richard E. Brantley, Locke, Wesley, and the Method
of English Romanticism (Gainesville: University of Florida
Press, 1984), p. 17.
94. Karl Kroeber, "Delivering Jerusalem" in Blake's
Sublime A1legory: Essays on The Four Zoas, Mil ton, Jerusalem
ed. by Stuart Curran and Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr.
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973), 365.
Ikk
95. Leslie Tannenbaum, Biblical Tradition in B1ake's
Early Prophecies; the Great Code of Art (Princeton, N. J.:
Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 303.
96. W. J. T. Mitchell, B1ake1s Composite Art; A Study
of the 11luminated Poetry (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1978), p. 173.
97. Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine
translated with an introduction and notes by John K. Ryan.
(Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1960).
98. Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine
translated with an introduction and notes by John K. Ryan.
(Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1960).
99. See Isabel Rivers, "'Stangers and Pilgrims':
Sources and Patterns of Methodist Narrative" in Augustan
Worlds: New Essays in Eighteenth-Century Literature ed. by
J. C. Hilson, M.M.B. Jones, and J. R. Watson. (Leicester:
Leicester University Press, 1978), 189-203.
100. Paul A. Cantor, Creature and Creator: Myth-making
and English Romanticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1984), p. 13.
101. Edward Duffy, Rousseau in England: the Context for,
Shelley * s Critique of the Enlightenment (Berkeley and Los
lii-5
Angeles: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 9-85.
102. Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions of Jean
Jacques Rousseau (New York: Random House, Modern Library,
1954), p. 405.
103. Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of
Wil1iam Blake (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press,
1969, p. 377.
Ik6
The Figural Patterns and Hermeneutics
of Jerusalem
Early in 1803 William Blake decided that the patronage
of William Hayley was wholly undesirable and
counterproductive. It was financially advantageous to stay
i
in Felpham, but the emotional unrest and creative {
I
constraints were simply intolerable. In a revealing letter j
I
to his brother dated January 30, 1803, Blake states his
objections to William Hayley: "I must own that seeing H.
like S[atan] Envious (& that he is I am now certain) made me
very uneasy, but it is over & I now defy the worst & fear
not while I am true to myself which I will be." [E 725] The.
work that Hayley assigned to Blake during the Felpham period
j
was monotonous drudgery, basic reproductive art that was not;
I
imaginatively challenging. Blake willingly admitted the
possibility of significant "pecuniary" gain from a longer
stay; however, the strain of abandoning his sti11-unfinished
i
prophecies was unendurable. He also proudly included this J
I
i
most illuminating afterthought: !
I go on Merrily with my Greek & Latin: am
1^7
very sorry that I did not begin to learn languages
early in life as I find it very Easy, am now
learning my Hebrew: I read Greek as fluently as an
Oxford scholar & the Testament is my chief
master. astonishing indeed is the English
Translation it is almost word for word & if the
Hebrew Bible is as well translated which I do not
doubt it is we need not doubt of its having been
translated as well as written by the Holy Ghost [E
727 ]
i
There are several points to be made about the
importance of this paragraph if Blake's comments are
accurate: first, Blake assumes that his facility in Greek is
equal to that of an Oxford scholar; secondly, Blake suggests
that he is learning Greek in a "comparative" fashion— using
an interpretational methodology— by translating the New
Testament text; thirdly, Blake implies his future course of
studies will entail research into Hebrew and the Hebrew
Bible; finally, and most crucially, Blake implies that
"translation"— judicious, accurate translation— will be the
primary "pedagogical" focus of his studies. The wealth and j
l
I
scope of biblical allusions in his poetry, particularly in !
Jerusalem, reveal a command of the Bible unsurpassed by the
major English poets with the possible exception of Herbert
and Milton. Almost unquestionably, W. J. T. Mitchell is
l
] _ l
correct in stating that Blake knew "the Bible by heart." i
!
The sacred texts informed his imaginative processes in a way
difficult for the twentieth-century reader to comprehend: as;
a consequence, the biblical allusions in Jerusalem are more
than a verbal display of intellectual dexterity, erudition,
148
or recondite ornamentation. In Jerusalem Blake uses the
Bible as a forum for some of the archetypal conflicts. As a
digressive, spiraling sequence of episodes, Jerusalem
reflects Blake's many years of close examination of the
Biblical texts, including his speculations on the "correct
explication" of some of the most controversial episodes of
the Old and New Testament.
The Bible possessed an authority that was unquestioned
until the late eighteenth century, and the root cause of the'
doubt concerning the validity of the Bible was due to the
biblical interpreters of the period. Thomas R. Preston has
detailed the broad spectrum of reading material available to
I
the eighteenth-century reader on matters of biblical j
t
i
2 *
hermeneutics. Preston notes the interest of the typical
eighteenth-century reader in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and
Blake's belated studiousness at the age of 45 is hardly
unusual; on the contrary, Blake, like most
eighteenth-century intellectuals, read literature ranging
from sermons and novels to historical studies, from essays
on epistemology to critical examinations of poetryj and from
I
studies of aesthetics to the Homeric and Virgilian epics. I
i
Yet, first and last, the Bible was "the Great Code of Art". '
I
It is interesting that Blake should use the word "Code" I
because he implies there are levels of interpretation,
encrypted signals, and inherent difficulties in exegetical
149
enterprise. Although we know Blake read biblical
commentaries, the illiterate— perhaps the majority of
Englishmen in the eighteenth century— were indoctrinated in
a kind of received interpretation of the Bible by the
interpretive community: "For even the illiterate, who,
perhaps, heard the Bible expounded only during Sunday
services, the basic meaning of any biblical text would
almost inevitably be charged with its received
interpretation. For the general reader the heart of I
biblical criticism undoubtedly consisted of the biblical
commentaries, which were usually accompanied by the biblical
text and which distilled and adapted to concise exposition
3
the main scholarly discoveries and debates." In Jerusalem,
i
'Blake incorporated biblical allusions to offer elaborations |
I
and criticisms of the received interpretation of the Bible,
offering an analysis of the explicative methods of exegesis
of the eighteenth century.
Essentially, there are two forms of biblical criticism,
j
although the two cross-reference on certain subjects. The
i
"Higher Criticism" of the Bible is concerned with canonical j
!
authenticity, authorial identification, and the separation j
I
of the apocrypha from God’s Word. The more common '
I
•interest— and, at times, a rather tedious interest— is in ,
the explication of the sacred texts. As G. E. Bentley has
documented, Blake's iconographic criticism and interest in
150
the Book of Enoch— a slight allusion to the prophetic
elements of the book are included in Jerusalea as early as
1808— indicates a more than superficial understanding of the
4
complex problems of canonicity. Nevertheless, Blake viewed
the "Higher Criticism" as superfluous and a distraction from
a proper form of critical inquiry, the exegesis of the
I
standard sacred texts: "Of what consequence is it whether
Moses wrote the Pentateuch or no." [E 617] To the end of
his life, Blake maintained that "The Beauty of the Bible is
that the most Ignorant & Simple Minds Understand it Best" [e|
667]. And when Blake incessantly reviles "Deism" in ]
Jerusalem, it was the result of his intense scrutiny into
l
the matter of the historical relevance of the Bible and the
inroads made by the Deistic interpreters of the Bible.
Thomas R. Preston has expressed the importance of the
subsidiary or ancillary works on the Bible, including— by
implication— the explications by the Deists, when he stated
that "the primary and secondary commentaries, taken togetherj
!
i
with the other works of biblical criticism, form a body of
i
5 !
received interpretation of Scripture." Although Leslie
Tannenbaum and Joseph Wittreich have argued that Blake was
familiar with biblical criticism in his early prophecies, ;
Jerusalem, written between 1805-1818, reflects a measured,
i
more considered understanding of the biblical criticism of
the eighteenth century, criticism that affected the use of
151
the "expanded" biblical allusions in the epic. There are of
course scholars who believe Jerus a1em is randomly ordered, a
disorganized epic with an "artificial," structureless plot.
Yet Blake offered this comment on the organization of the
epic: "Every word and every letter is studied and put into
its fit place:" [E 146]. This comment has aroused certain
skepticism, and scholars such as W. J. T. Mitchell and V. A.
De Luca, perhaps the most brilliant recent commentators on
the poem, have attempted to reject the critical perspective
that any form of structural coherence can be discovered in
the epic. They argue that Blake exaggerated the extent of
his learning and was being facetious or cavalier when he
made certain statements; however, this study will argue that
Blake understood the form of the "Primitive Narrative," and
that Jerusalem does indeed have structural unity if the
biblical contexts— and the implications of these
contexts— can adequately convey to the reader what Tzvetan
Todorov has referred to as "the divinatory future of men."^
The Paine-Watson controversy that engaged Blake's
•interest in 1798 marked the conclusion of scholarly focus on
jthe Bible by the eighteenth-century English biblical
commentators, although some still carried on the tradition.
At the most fundamental level, the criteria for the
eighteenth-century interpreter for "evidentiary truth" was
based on what came to be known as reason and "testimony."
152
The Anglican and Dissenting ministers who wrote on the Bible
often explicated the Bible from the point of how it
pertained to "natural philosophy," how mankind viewed the
external world and the possible biblical correspondences or
analogies.^ God’s great coordinate gifts, reason and
revelation, were uneasily wedded to one another throughout
j
most of the eighteenth century. In many ways, William Blake
is a transitional figure in the history of English biblical
interpretation, bridging the gap between the
eighteenth-century interpreter and the nineteenth-century
interpreter who was more influenced by German philosophy.
Some of the nineteenth-century biblical commentators that
Blake— with considerable reservation— admired were
influenced by the German "Higher Criticism," and
commentators such as James Hartley Frere and Edward Irving,
with a shared critical perspective, were more interested in
polemical discourse than subtilitas explicandi. The
biblical "tradition" of the Deistic readings began with John
Toland, John Locke, and Matthew Tindal , and the later
commentators of the period were influenced by these late
seventeenth-century thinkers. Perhaps the most important
Deist interpreter of the age was Anthony Collins who Paine
and Watson viewed as a crucially important biblical
commentator. Collins, a truly brilliant exegete, wrote a
j
remarkable document entitled A Discourse of the Grounds and
153
Reasons of the Christian Religion. Collins, like most
"rationalists," suspected the "mysteries of scriptural
Christianity." Collins sharply questioned the textual,
evidential proof of revelation and the literalist
explications of the Book of Revelation and other biblical
prophecies. In a fundamental way, Collins sharply undercut
scriptural influence in the world— the divine providence v
outlined in the Bible— and the typological or figural
patterns of the Bible. In short, the prefigurative and the
prophetic was no longer an indisputable or genuine facet of
belief:
The quotations made from the Old Testament
and said to be fulfill'd in the New, had some of
them, perhaps, no meaning in the minds of the
Prophets, who sometimes understood not what they
meant themselves: and all the quotations, as far
as we can understand them, seem to have as remote
a sense given them from the Prophets words, as the
quotation in question; which sense, would have had
no foundation had not the inspir'd Apostles put
that sense upon them; nay, many of those
quotations would seem not to be prophesies, did
not the Apostles say, they were fulfill'd or
8
prophesies fulfill'd.
Collins' work was a response to William Whiston, a
minor biblical exegete, who wrote An Essay Towards Restoring
the True Text of the Old Testament, an eminently forgettable
work. Whiston was a noted scientist, but he had few gifts
|
in biblical interpretation; as Hans Frei has argued, Whiston
l$b
9
took "his stand firmly in thin air." Whiston contended,
repeatedly, that there was an exact, empirically confirmable
connective structure between the Old and New Testament
I
jprophecies if the "corrupt" Old Testament text could be
I
restored, and, in his opinion, his discoveries of the
prefigurative structures of the Old Testament were an
incontrovertible fact. Collins dismissed these "enigmatic"
readings of the Bible that relied on "mystical" suspensions
of disbelief and contended that "types" were not as
prevalent, nor as ascertainable, as other critics had
argued. A spate of acrimonious attacks on Collins followed
including one by the judicious biblical critic, Thomas
Sherlock, but Collins1 theories became part of the received
interpretation of the Bible, even if only as an antithetical
force. The Deist attacks on typology exerted a profound J
influence despite the fact the influence did not manifest
itself until much later in the century. To what extent
Blake was familiar with the vagaries and controversies of
the eighteenth-century biblical interpreters is unknown, but
Blake was well aware of the crux of the disagreements as his
Annotations to Watson reveal.
Blake incorporated many biblical allusions into the
narrative, but if, as Robert F. Gleckner has argued, Blake
made "significant" as opposed to simple allusions to poems
of an earlier age, then Blake's pattern of biblical allusion
155
may have a similar importance.^ Some of his biblical
allusions are inconsequential, but some were the very
essence of Christian prophecy and often were the subject of
critical interest in the eighteenth century. Because of the
1
}shifts in narrative focus of Jerusalem with the dialectical
tension between "discourse" and "narrative," and the
different kinds of Hebraic and Christian historical
backgrounds, the biblical allusions are submerged in Blake's
cartography, complicating the process of interpretation.^ ^
The concept of the use of "simple" allusion to the
prophecies of the Old Testament goes back at least as far as
Benjamin Reach, whose theories greatly influenced Robert
Lowth. Prophecies that were allusive— reordered, echoing
earlier prophecies and apocalyptic sayings— created a
disjunctive narrative, but generated a broader scope of
associations as Lowth made clear:
j
i
It must however, be admitted, that in many
places, the connexion of the parts cannot be
traced. But on due reflection, this ought not be
accounted a blemish. The books of the prophets
should not be read as a series of events arranged
in exactly chronological order[; ] they consist of
several detached messages, delivered at different
times, and on subjects and occasions very
different from each other. It was not the
business of the prophets themselves, to record and
arrange their own predictions. This employment
belonged to the public scribes of the church and
nation. The prophets in the first place delivered
their inspired instructions, verbally to the
people, in a full and pathetic manner. They
156
afterwards wrote a fair and faithful abridgement
of these discourses; and that every individual
might have an opportunity to peruse them with
deliberation, they affixed the writing to the gate
12
of the temple.
The Exodus narrative, the Jobean plot, the haunting
figural patterns of the "Fourfold Gospel," and the Book of
Revelation had entered Blake’s mythopoeia to the extent that
they become inseparable from Blake's individual
cartography. The Bible had become part of his very
consciousness and his creative imagination. Joseph Anthony
Wittreich has described the ideological comparisons
intrinsic to the prophetic epic: "The prophet's objective is
to re-form history... Since apocalypse occurs only after
mankind is readied for it, the prophet submits others to the
processes of purgation and purification which, inwardly
directed, result in mankind's transformation into a race of
1 3
visionaries. Blake self-consciously returned to "those
revealed plots— the Chosen People, Redemption, the Second
Coming— that appeared to subsume transitory human time to
the timeless," and these plots, as Peter Brooks notes, were j
rejected first by Voltaire and then by the historians of thJ
14
eighteenth century. Blake's tendency in narrative
technique was to follow the self-interpretive action of
Midrash, the use of narrative to clarify and discriminate j
between alternative meanings; Blake was not interested in
"interfering" with the original meaning but in j
157
"[restoring]...the full original meaning, a plenum that
human endeavour cannot ever hope to achieve."^ Any
visionary occlusion or form of rhetorical obscurity would
not be acceptable. Kathleen Williams has argued "the
mysteriousness of the Orphic poet is neither affectation nor
deliberate obfuscation. It can no more be helped in
Spenser, Milton, Blake, or Ovid, than in St. John of the
Book of Revelation or Hermes Trismegistus."^ However, the
complexity of Jerusalem delineates the struggle within the
interpreter to comprehend the intricate relationship between
text and soul. Jerusalem elaborates on the traditional
hermeneutical structures of the Christian epic that permit a
fusion of the two forms of the inspired, vatical poet— the
"Makers," and the poet-prophets, "who do no more than repeat
the eternal truths of religion.
A study of the character Reuben may reveal some of the
t
dialectical processes of the figural patterns. On Plate 11
of Jerusalem, Blake establishes a concise comparison:
Ragan is wholly cruel Scofield is bound in iron
| armour!
He is like a mandrake in the earth before j
Reubens gate:
He shoots beneath Jerusalems walls to
undermine her foundations![J 11:21:23; E 154]
As Henry Ainsworth, Thomas Scott and other
158
eighteenth-century biblical critics noted, the usage of the
i
term "Mandrakes" in Genesis 30:14 was possibly corrupt.
Mandrakes— the root word is Dudaim in Hebrew— was variously
translated as "either fruit, or flowers pleasing to the eye,
the smell, or the taste; probably the latter" in the
eighteenth century, and it was a passage that aroused
18
considerable critical interest. From Blake’s synthesis of
biblical allusion and personal cartography, we see that
Reuben is identified as the protector of sensual
feeling— Reuben’s gate— and Scofield is compared to a
"mandrake," an obscure form of vegetation that may have
aphrodisiacal power. In this case, Blake followed the
received interpretation of Genesis 30:14, and it is in
accord with what Blake attempted to do with his
characterization of Scofield and Scofield's relationship
with Vala. Reuben has been inaccurately described as the
paragon of Oedipus repression, but he has many
dimensions— both benign and negative— that are refracted
throughout the narrative until the climactic revelation of
Enitharmon, the last mention of Reuben in the epic:
Could you Love me Rintrah, if you Pride not -^n
my Love
As Reuben found Mandrakes in the field & gave
them to his Mother
Pride meets with Pride upon the Mountains in
the stormy day
In that terrible Day of Rintrahs Plow & of
159
Satans driving the Team.
Ah! then I was my beloved ones fleeing from my
Tent
Merlin was like thee Rintrah among the Giants
of Albion
Judah was like Palamabron: 0 Simeon! 0 Levi!
ye fled away[J 93:7-14; E 253]
Paley argues that "Reuben is the mother-fixated man,
who would rather sleep in the womb of Nature than awaken to
1 9
life in order to realize his own form." Yet Paley
emphasizes the slow, synchronously moving narrative that
minimizes the hermeneutical importance of the metaphoric
structures of the epic. Enitharmon's speech, sometimes
interpreted as a plea for the demonic unity of biblical and
English symbolism, actually functions as a conversion. The
Christian experience, as defined by theologians from
Augustine to Wesley, was described as an internalization of
the Scripture, and this internalization of God's Word must
be a transference of what Robert Alter has referred to as
the communication of "a complete interfusion of literary art
with theological, moral, or historiosophical vision, the
fullest perception of the latter dependent on the fullest
20
grasp of the former." Up to this point in the narrative
continuum, Reuben functions as an inarticulate observer, not
a "womb-enveloped" individual as often understood by the
legion of Blake scholars. Because he is incapable of
speech, he cannot engage in philosophical or theological
disputation, and he is immune to hermeneutical discourse.
160
Reuben's “presence" iate in the poem, taKen in context, is
an intertextual consolidation of typological references.
Eventually Enitharmon acknowledges the fact that Reuben
represents patriarchy, the return to masculine authority;
Reuben's presence in the epic indicates that there is an
attempt to change from feminine ideological hegemony to
i
patriachial authority because of the biblical backgrounding
of the character that Blake establishes early in the epic.
These configurations of biblical background suggest how
visionary prophecy can subsume dialogic examination and, by
implication, the plot of the spiritual conversion. The
essence of the "conversion plot" is the hermeneutical
structure, where characters debate, meditate on, and explore
the meaning of scriptural passages, the telos of inner
spirituality. As Leonard Deen has noted, "Augustine's
Confessions is of course one of the great examples of a
conversion plot....in Blake's poetry Eros plots are often
converted into or dominated by redemption plots, as in The
21
Four Zoas and Jerusalem."
The second mention of Reuben in Jerusalem posits how
J"type-scenes" in the poem should be interpreted:
4
1
While Reuben enroots his brethren in the narrow
Canaanite
From the Limit Noah to the Limit Abram in whose
l6l
Loins
Reuben in his Twelve-fold majesty & beauty
shall take refuge
As Abraham flees from Chaldea shaking his goary
locks
But first Albion must sleep, divided from the
Nations...[J 15:25-29; E 159]
Drawing on the narrative sequences in the Book of
Genesis, Blake alludes to a transformation; Abram and
Abraham were the names for the same individual. As Simon
Patrick, the influential eighteenth-century Old Testament
scholar notes, the reader's knowledge of the etymological
importance of these names is essential to the understanding
of the biblical narrative: "Abram is commonly interpreted,
high Father; and Abraham the Father of a Multitude. So the
very Text expounds the reason of this name: For a Father of
22
many nations have I made thee." Reuben is posited as a
transformational power that can transmute consciousness and
identity. Portions of Plates 14 and 15, perhaps written
after the core of Chapter I was engraved, offer a comparison
2 3
of vision. At this point Los's vision of the world is
i i11us ory, disrupted by the "vegetable world" because his
i
1
world is one of enclosure and "maternal anguish. This
vision should be contrasted with the depiction provided by
the narrative voice who sees with greater clarity the acute
failings in the ideology and ratiocinative powers of the
individuals. The comparison between the perspectives of the
narrative voice and Los demonstrates that an archetypal j
162
conflict in the epic is the contrast between different
worlds or, rather, two different perspectives of the world;
this involves what Blake viewed as analogy. Northrop Frye's
discussion of this theory is worth reproducing:
In Jerusalem Blake expresses this
relationship by the term "analogyThe
occurence of the word may raise the question
whether Bishop Butler's Analogy of Religion has
any influence on Jerusalem...Butler attempted to
refute Deism by establishg an analogy between a
known series of facts with which natural reason
deals, and an unknown series which is revealed to
us by faith. But the attempt to show that reason
is limited by the unknown is, according to Blake,
itself a cardinal doctrine of Deism, and a logical
compulsion to accept an ultrarational mystery
confirms Deism instead of destroying it. It is a
paradox to associate revelation, or vision, with
what we do not know rather than with what we can
24
see.
Frye's uncertainty about Blake's knowledge of Butler's
work is understandable, but the correspondences in
Jerusalem, so minutely circumstantial, indicate that Blake
did indeed read— and attempted to refute— Bishop Butler and
his progeny. Joseph Butler was an extraordinarily learned
man, although he had a difficult, circumlocutive prose style
I
that does not lend itself to comprehension. Revelation, in
the opinion of Bishop Butler, must be subsumed to experience
and reason: "It relates, that God has, by revelation,
jinstructed men in things concerning his government, which
jthey could not otherwise have known; and reminded them of
163
things, which they might otherwise know; and attested the
truth of the whole by miracles. Now if the natural and the
revealed dispensation of things are both from God, if they
j
coincide with each other, and together make up one scheme of
Providence; our being incompetent judges of one scheme of
Providence; our being incompetent judges of one must render
it credible, that we may be incompetent judges also of the
25
other." The criteria for belief and the acceptance of the
dispensations of God are dependent upon experiential
knowledge, the cause and effect of rational understanding
gained from the senses. What analogical thinkers stressed
was an absolute "literalist" reading of the Bible that
ignored— and actively disparaged and disdained— spiritual or
typical readings of the Bible that accepted those stories as
fact that violated the workings of the phenomenal world.
The episodes in the Bible that offended the Deists are the
cornerstone of the intertextual relationships in Jerusalem. I
Blake was a friend to many of the booksellers of the period
and may have read Toland, Collins, A. A. Sykes and the
numerous Deists that followed the critical methodology of
analogical or allegorical interpretation. Their
conventionalized readings became influential by the end of
the century, and the Paine-Watson controversy marked a kind
(
of epochal conclusion. The German "Higher Criticism" had
begun to infiltrate the English intellectual circles.
1 6 1 1-
Even if one concedes the existence of an extended
critique of analogical thinking in Jerusalem, what are the
ramifications of these elaborate comparisons? What does
Blake find fault with in analogical thinking, and why is
Reuben central to the "repudiation" of analogical thinking?
Chapter I prefigures much of Jerusa1em, and the central
archetypal conflicts are carefully presented: the central
toppositions, Los and the Spectre, Vala and Jerusalem, Albion
and his Spectral consciousness, are presented with fourfold
clarity. Reuben, "in his Twelve-fold majesty and beauty,"
is the embodiment of the "prophetic" transformational
power. His transformational power is the ability to
transmute the mundane, earthly individuals such as "Abram"
or "Noah" into the great prophets such as "Abraham."
Reuben's presence indicates mutation or modification will j
occur or has occurred in the prophetic vision and the
characters in that vision. This transformation power is one
idimension of the binary oppositions in the epic, where
characters become involved in internecine intellectual
warfare. As many critics have noted, the conflicts in the
Hand-Reuben-Mer1in triad have a complex relationship because
Hand, a vegetated false prophet, is a debased antithesis of
Reuben:
Hand! art thou not Reuben enrooting thyself
165
Into Bashan
Till thou remainest a vaporous Shadow in a
Void! 0 Merlin!
Unknown among the Dead where never before
Existence came
Is this the Female Will 0 ye lovely Daughters
of Albion. To
Converse concerning Weight & Distance in the
Wilds of Newton & Locke[J 30:36-40; E 177]
i
I There is understandable confusion and "despair" when
the Daughters of Albion, fearing metamorphosis, escape the
pursuit of Reuben on Plates 30-32. Northrop Frye has
asserted that Blake was widely read and that Blake read
books differently; some books, peripheral or tangential to
his studies, Blake would read desultorily. Some books,
crucial to his intellectual concerns, he would read with
2 6
"concentration." As Frye notes, Ovid's Metamorphosis was a
book Blake examined most carefully, and his indebtedness to
Ovid is clearly evident in his characterization of Reuben.
M. M. Bakhtin is excellent on the ideological implications
of the metamorphosis: "Here the general idea of
metamorphosis has already become the private metamorphosis
of individual, isolated beings and is already acquiring the
characteristics of an external, miraculous transformation.
The idea of representing the whole world of cosmogonic and
historical process from the point of view of
metamorphosis— beginning with the creation of the cosmos outj
of chaos and ending with the transformation of Caesar into a
27
star— is retained." The transformational qualities of
166
Reuben are negated when he sleeps, and Los loses a valuable
protector of his senses; yet, when awake, Reuben has
tremendous strength of will:
Reuben slept in Bashan like one dead in the
valley
Cut off from Albions mountains & from all the
Earths summits
Between Succoth & Zaretan beside the Stone of
Bohan
While the Daughters of Albion divided Luvah
into three Bodies
Los bended his Nostrils down to the Earth, then
sent him over
Jordan to the Land of the Hittite: every-one
that saw him
Fled! they fled at his horrible Form: they hid
in caves
And dens, they looked on one-another & became
what they beheld
Reuben return'd to Bashan, in despair he slept
on the Stone[J 30:43-51; E 177]
Reuben, in his passive phase in this episode, is
temporally dormant when he is sleeping on the "stone." In
his active phase, Reuben strenuously encircles the feminine
characters, compelling them to "become what they behold":
the feminine characters are, in effect, repelled by the
vision of their own disruptiveness. Again Blake is drawing
and enlarging on the eighteenth-century understanding of the
character of Reuben, a selfless, childlike guide. His
cultural opposite, Hand, the symbol of rational
■reductionism, "arrogates" to himself Godlike power and
167
dissolves the bonds of Reuben just prior to the apocalypse:
Hand has his Furnace on Highgates heights & it
reachd
To Brockley Hills across the Thames: he with
double Boadicea
In cruel pride cut Reuben apart from the Hills
of Surrey
Comingling with Luvah & with the Sepulcher of
Luvah
For the Male is a Furnace of beryll: the Female
is a golden Loom[J:90:23-27; E 249-250]
These actions by Hand occasion one of the most
impassioned speeches of Los who delineates the "blasphemous"
aspects of Hand’s sin and, indeed, the religious
implications of this form of self-aggrandizement.
Los cries: No Individual ought to appropriate
to Himself
Or to his Emanation, any of the Universal
Characteristics
Of David or of Eve, of the Woman, or of the
Lord .
Of Reuben or of Benjamin, of Joseph or Judah or
Levi
Those who dare appropriate to themselves
Universal Attributes
Are the Blasphemous Selfhoods & must be broken
asunder
A Vegetated Christ & a Virgin Eve, are the
Hermaphrodit ic
Blasphemy, by his Maternal Birth he is that
Evil-One
And his Maternal Humanity must be put off
Eternally
Lest the Sexual Generation swallow up
Regeneration
Come Lord Jesus take on thee the Satanic
Body of Holiness!J 90:28-38; E 250]
168
Los’s position, a constant in the epic, is that
"regeneration" for the reprobate is necessary for the
restitution of vision; the millenial hope of regeneration is
closely aligned to the absolute integrity of the
"Regeneration" of man's eternal and temporal form. In the
concluding stanzas of Jerusalem, Blake identifies all
forms— animate and inanimate— as post-eschatological
elements of an endless, free transition, and he does so to
elucidate the vision of the afteraffects of judgment and
redemption:
All Human forms identified even Tree Metal
Earth & Stone, all
Human Forms identified, living going forth &
returning wearied
Into the Planetary lives of Years Months Days &
Hours reposing
And then Awaking into his Bosom in the
Life of Immortality.[J 99:1-4; E 258]
In this condition there is rhetorical and religious
freedom, which can only be attained by close analysis of
"primitive myth," the events and dialogues of the Old and
New Testament.
j In Jerusalem Blake insists on the existence and the
proper exegesis of an Ur-myth, an Ur-Bible. The most
(fundamental dialectic in Blake's figural design— history and
scripture--is a kind of heuristic interaction throughout
169
Jerusalem. In a sense, history is a teleological "system" of
disquisitive communication, whereas scripture is revelatory,
encompassing all forms of spiritual etiology. There are,
apparently, random allusions and typological figures that
are difficult to interpret, but there is a referential
touchstone, the "Sixteen Pillars":
Shudder not, but Write, & the hand of God will
assist you!
Therefore I write Albions last words. Hope is
banish’d from me.
These were his last words, and the merciful
Saviour in his arms
Reciev'd him, in the arms of tender mercy and
repos'd
The pale limbs of his Eternal Individuality
Upon the Rock of Ages. Then, surrounded with a
Cloud:
In silence the Divine Lord builded with
immortal labour,
Of gold & jewels a sublime Ornament, a Couch of
repose,
With Sixteen pillars: canopied with emblems &
written verse.
Spiritual Verse, order'd & measur'd, from
whence, time shall reveal.
The Five books of the Decalogue, the books of
Joshua & Judges,
Samuel, a double book & Kings, a double book,
the Psalms & Prophets
The Four-fold Gospel, and the Revelations
everlasting
Eternity groan'd & was troubled, at the image
of Eternal Death![J 47:17-18 & 48:1-12; E 197]
These "Sixteen Pillars" constitute what Blake viewed as
the repositories of historical and prophetic vision, which,
if closely studied, will permit the restoration of man's
170
fallen being. Albion, in a Blakean parody of the lines in
Dante *s Inferno, denies apocalyptic regeneration, and he
"reposes" in a supine position on the "Couch" supported by
the "Sixteen Pillars." It is by no means a coincidence that
•Blake includes in the "Sixteen Pillars" the most important
books of the Bible to the biblical interpreters because
these books formed the basis for the exegetical methods from
patristic times to the eighteenth century. First, in linear
I
fashion, Blake postulates the "Decalogue"— the Pentateuch
thought to be composed by Moses— as the foundation of
"Scriptual Verse." Blake only used this term once, in the
quoted passage, and it has great significance: the Decalogue
consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
!
Deuteronomy, which are, of course, the records and
i
ordinances of God transcribed by Moses. As discussed
earlier, Blake interpreted these books spiritually or
"typically," accepting that Moses, indeed, wrote of his own
death; Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch has been debated
I
for centuries. Blake's explanation was simple; inspired
prophets move in and out of time, allowing for an atemporal
vision of the world. Also the Decalogue refers to the Ten
Commandments, the code of conduct. Although Blake had an
equivocal attitude towards Moses, the law constituted an
inviolate doctrine that cannot be obviated. Michael
Ferber’s belief that Blake assimilated antinomian tendencies
171
into his mythopoeia and advocated this belief cannot be
2 8
countenanced. Blake was a Christian poet who constantly
emphasized his orthodoxy, and very movingly "professed" that
he was a Christian.
The books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel I and II, Kings I
and II and the Psalms have a different importance. As Isaac
Newton noted, "the books of the Kings and Chronicles quote
one another, [and] they were written at one and the same
time. And this time was after the return from the
Babylonian captivity, because they bring down the history of
2 9
Judah, and of the High Priests to that captivity." These
books were believed to be of great antiquity, and they were
often read typologically and as prefigurations of the coming'
of the Divine Savior, they were explicated by biblical
interpreters as foretelling of Christ's deeds and
resurrection. The accuracy of these prefigurations, however
debatable, was of great consequence to Blake. As inspired
"written verse," "Spiritual verse," their meaning was
understandable only by internalization. Their "literal"
meaning— or the ostensive contexts— should be devalued in
importance because the visionary elements are more
I
significant. The "Prophets"— Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
Daniel and St. John— were viewed as foretelling Christ's
earthly mission and life, or they were analyzed for their
172
symbolic virtues, and their archetectonic superstructures
jthat may have influenced Blake's narrative principles in
Jerusalem.^
The inclusion of the "Fourfold Gospel" is hardly
unexpected, but Blake's curious use of the
term— "Gospel"— is interesting. Traditionally, the Gospels
were esteemed as relatively "harmonized," informed
narratives of the life and death of Jesus that profoundly
influenced narrative theory in the eighteenth century. John
Calvin was a seminal force in this hermeneutical practice,
and his commentaries were a guiding influence on
eighteenth-century interpreters. Calvin wrote that "it is
beyond all dispute, that it is impossible to expound, in a
proper and successful manner, any one of the Evangelists,
without comparing him with the other two; and, accordingly,
faithful and learned commentators spend a very great portion
of their labour on reconciling the narratives of the three
Evangelists... I thought that it might prove to be
sensible... to arrange the three histories in one unbroken
chain, or in a single picture, in which the reader may
perceive at a glance the resemblance or diversity that
3 1
exists." As idealized and perfected biographies of the
"exemplary" character, Jesus Christ, the form of the Gospels
(and the characterization of Jesus exerted a tremendous
173
influence on eighteenth-century literature, partly due to
the exegetical commentaries so prominent in the period,
particularly those by Jeremy Taylor and Samuel Clarke. The
need for paragons of virtue to be posited as examples— what
Paul Korshin has referred to as "character types" who are
interinvolved with "predictive structures"— necessitated the
search for "exemplary readings" of scripture that could be
32
applied to works of "fiction." Yet, as Bishop Taylor
argued, even the most well-meaning of men, the most virtuous
and humble of men, are backsliders and sinners, a point well
made in Pilgrim's Progress. As Thomas R. Preston has noted,
3 3
"only Christ can be the perfect ’exemplar’." Every
biblical figure, save Christ, was guilty of frailty of some
kind, and the biblical exegetes of the eighteenth century
focused on the life of Christ, his actions and sayings and
their applications to the soul.
Jesus’s presence in Jerusalem does seem indebted to the
critical examinations, but not to literary paradigms such as
the "exalted" figure in Paradise Regained or the
jChristological figure Joseph in Joseph Andrews. Unless the
[circumstances demanded it, Blake avoided the iconic
implications of Christomimetic comparisons, and only on one
occasion does Blake define Christological likeness, and the
Messianic messages are remarkably concise:
17^
Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the
Good Shepherd
By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion
knew that it
Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion
saw his Form
A Man. & they conversed as Man with Man, in
Ages of Eternity
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness &
similitude of Los...
In the divine Image nor can Man exist but by
Brotherhood
So saying, the Cloud overshadowing divided them
asunder
Albion stood in terror: not for himself but for
his Friend
Divine, & Self was lost in the contemplation
of faith[J 96: 3-7 & 28-31; E 255-256]
This blinding vision enables Albion, a recalcitrant
fallen eternal, to attain his primordial and prelapsarian
prophetic comprehension of what his role should be in
society. The fact that Los is the "similitude" of Christ
indicates that there is a transcendence, as in the
eighteenth century the word similitude denoted a higher,
greater meaning. The accents, again, fall on the "Fourfold"
i i
vision which is allied to the Four Gospels and four levels
34
of exegesis of the Bible as E. J. Rose has argued. The
phrase "Fourfold" vision invokes a broad range of biblical
tonalities and meanings. The word "fold" often denotes a
herd of sheep— the children of Christ in a figurative
sense— and the metaphoric structures of Jerusalem share some
175
of the Gospel’s inward realization of faith, what has been
termed the dialectic between "consistent" eschatology and
"realized" eschatology, where revelation is given unto an
individual concerning temporal and transcendental reality
and salvation.
Blake's indebtedness to "Revelations everlasting" and
his parodies and criticisms of the book has been
suggestively analyzed by Joseph A. Wittreich Jr. and Stuart
35
Curran. Certainly Blake borrowed symbols and archetypes
from the Book of Revelation, but some precise allusions have
been overlooked. In the quoted pasage from Plate 48, the
"finger of God"— an allusion of Exodus 8:19 and Hebrew
1:3— delineates a feature of the passage overlooked by Blake
scholars and editors. The "Sixteen Pillars" are in the Four
Square form of the new Jerusalem. They are organized in this
k » • »
manner:
• •>
• » • •
Scholars have noted the numerological symbolism in
Blake's epics, and the numbers four and seven and their
multiples are evidence of inspired or prophetic message; the
demonic antithesis is the number three. Sixteen would be
ithe holiest of numbers because it is four-squared. In
[Revelation 21, the apostle John envisions the "new
l
Jerusalem":
176
And he carried me away in the spirit to a
great and high mountain, and shewed me that great
city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven
from God,... And the city lieth foursquare, and
the length is as large as the breadth: and he
measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand
furlongs. The length and the breadth and the
height of it are equal. K. J. Rev. 21:10 & 16
Furthermore, in the Book of Revelation the city is
described in these terms:
And the building of the wall of it was of
jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto
clear glass... The first foundation was jasper;
the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the
fourth, an emerald; The fifth, sardonyx; the
sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolity; the
eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a
chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the
twelfth, an amethyst. Rev. 21:18-20
Some of these precious stones— "jewels and gold" and
"Beryls and Emerald"— are mentioned in Plates 48-54 in
Jerusalem, which indicates Albion is "reposing" on the "new
Jerusalem," the restored holy city. Albion's debilitated
condition is caused by the strife between Jesus and Satan
with Los functioning as the harbinger of Jesus. Satan
subverts the Bible through the agency of the "Feminine
Will . "
Stuart Curran has rightly argued that the "philosophy"
of an epic, the ideological position of the author, is
articulated ad centrum and the traditional opening is in
177
3 6
medias res. In the middle of the epic on Plate 60, a
parodic Song of the Lamb from the Book of Revelation is sung
to Jerusalem, offering the prelapsarian vision of harmony
and pastoral quietude:
And sweet Hesperia even to Great Chaldea &
Tesshina...
Why wilt thou deface thy beauty & the beauty of
thy little-ones
To please thy Idols, in the pretended
chastities of Uncircumcision[?]
[J 60:20 & 29-30; E 210]
The complex intertextual echoes to the Book of Exodus
and Deuteronomy included in this passage from the Book of
Revelation typologically fuse the two different versions of
the Divine Logos, Hebrew and Christian. As the important
seventeenth-century biblical interpreter Henry Hammond
notes, the Song of the Lamb was a specific typological
reference, an allusion to the myths surrounding Moses: "and
they sung to Christ the same song (or another after that
pattern) that Moses had done upon the victory and
deliverance out of Egypt, when the Egyptians were
overwhelmed in the sea, noting their acknowledgment of God’s
3 7
goodness and mercy to them." Yet the Satanic Mills of the
mind have affected Jerusalem's vision and her mentality, and|
she is unable to apprehend the spiritual nature of their
biblical chant:
But Jerusalem faintly saw him, closd in the
Dungeons of Babylon
Her Form was held by Beulahs Daughters, but all
within unseen
She sat at the Mills, her hair unbound her feet
naked
Cut with the flints: her tears run down, her
reason grows like
The Wheel of Hand, incessant turning day &
night without rest
Insane she raves upon the winds hoarse,
inarticulate:
All night Vala hears, she triumphs in pride of
holiness
To see Jerusalem deface her lineaments with
bitter blows
Of despair, while the Satanic Holiness triumphd
in Vala
In a Religion of Chastity & Uncircumcised
Selfishness
Both of the Head & Heart & Loins, closd up in
Moral Pride[J 60:39-49; E 210-211]
Because of her reduced mental capacity, Jerusalem is
given to "sin & b1aspheme[ing]", which is the archetypal
error of Albion. Jerusalem’s dialogic exchanges with the
"Divine Voice" and Jesus function as a kind of dialectical
debate over theology. The fact Blake interrupted this
sequence, interjecting Plate 61— a late addition— also is of
crucial importance. Plates 60 and 62 detail how Blake j
developed narrative tension in the poem by interjecting
biblical allusions into the verbal exchanges.
Jerusalem’s irreducible and governing thesis centers on
one fundamental point: does Jesus Christ eternally exist or
is the facticity of his existence more important? The
179
"Divine Voice" answers her with a synthesis of several
biblical passages:
Mild Shade of Man, pitiest thou these Visions
of terror & woel
Give forth thy pity & love, fear not! lo I am
with thee always.
Only believe in me that I have power to raise
from death
Thy Brother who Sleepeth in Albion:
fear not trembling Shade[J 60:66-69; E 211]
Traditional biblical symbolism usually consists of a
minimum of metaphoric contexts, an economy of tropes that
signify an explicit, direct authority of revelation, words
that translate God’s Logos by imaginative intuition. Blake
discounted the idea that biblical prophecy is to be
interpreted metaphorically. In his response to Joshua
Reynolds who believed in the mythic, metaphoric approach to
revelation, Blake stated "the Ancients did not mean to
Impose when they affirmd (sic) their belief in Vision &
Revelation Plato was in Earnest. Milton was in Earnest. They
believd that God did Visit Man Really & Truly & not as
Reynolds pretends" [E 658]. "They" are the inspired
prophets— Daniel, St. John of Patmos, Milton, and, of
course, Blake himself— and that partly explains the variety
of allusions in the speech of the "Divine Voice" or Jesus;
they convey the actual living presence of the divine Word.
The quoted speech alludes to one of the prophetic passages
of the Four Gospels, the "Divine Commission" from the Book
1 8 0
of Matthew 28:18-20:
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,
All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world. Amen. K. J. Matt. 28:18-20
Blake was responding, positively and appreciatively in
this context, to the biblical interpretations of the
eighteenth century of the Divine Commission such as the one
offered by William Burkitt, the important New Testament
scholar: "That is, I am and will be with you and your
successors, lawfully called by my Power and authority, by
the Blessing and assistance of my Holy Spirit. I will be
i
with you to uphold my own Ordinance, to protect, encourage,
and reward you and all your Successors in the faithful
Discharge of your Trust; and this not for a Day, a Year, or
3 8
an Age, but to the End and Consummation of all Ages."
*
I
Blake critics have interpreted the "Divine Vision" as an
aspect of the imagination, yet Blake implies that there are
two different "forms" of Jesus. There is the resurrected
Jesus— the "Divine Voice"— and the mundane Jesus who must
govern his wayward sheep. The Divine Voice is a less
I
commanding figure, possessing less authority and
articulating God’s framework and providential plan with less
l 8 l
force, but His message to Jerusalem must be understood as an
ironic command. The "Divine Vision" requests that Jerusalem
assume a masculine position and go forth with apostolic
conviction. Jerusalem, her reason bound by rationalism and
materialism, inevitably rejects the didactic focus of the
"Divine Vision" in Jerusalem;
Jerusalem replied. I am an outcast; Albion is
dead !
I am left to the trampling foot & the spurning
heel!
A Harlot I am calld. I am sold from street to
street !
I am defaced with blows & with the dirt of the
Prison![J 62:2-5; E 202]
In the narrative context, Plates 60 and 62 have a
direct connection: Plate 61, a late interpolation, may be
the most important plate in the poem given the concerns of
this essay, but the accumulative effect of Plates 60 and 62
lelps shape the distinction between the "Divine Voice" and
Jesus. Jerusalem rejects the "Divine Vision" and is left
ruminating on the "seed of the Woman." The various
"Daughters of Vala," "Cainah, & Ada & Zillah & Naamah wife
of Noah," are elements of the matriarchial line, and
matriarchial government is an institution to be eliminated.
W. J. T. Mitchell stresses this point in his penetrating
discussion of Jerusalem; "The fact is that there are signs
that the order of the two middle chapters reflects a vision
1 8 2
of the historical development of consciousness as a movement
39
from masculine to feminine dominance." This "Matriarchial
jLine" is a form of demonic perversion, which acts as an
»
!
(ideological antithesis to Los and Jesus. In an allusive
]
confession, Jerusalem almost involuntarily reveals the
deficiency in feminine patterns of thinking and religious
I
comprehension:
But I thy Magdalen behold thy Spiritual Risen
Body
Shall Albion arise? I know he shall arise at
the Last Day!
I know that in my flesh I shall see God: but
Emanations
Are weak, they know not whence they are, nor
whither tend.[J 62:14-17; E 213]
Jerusalem conceives of herself as the Mary Magdalen of
the Book of John, a mistaken preconception, and adduces the
central covenant of religious thought, the covenant of
I
resurrection, as support for her beliefs. Blake was
alluding to one of the most controversial and much discussed
portions of the Four Gospels, John 20:13. Greatly condensing
Lhe scope of the critical interest of his interpretative
predecessors, Matthew Poole noted that "The other
Evangelists differing in their accounts of this part of the
History, have raised some questions here not easily to be
resolved." Poole was elaborating on the argument over
whether Peter and John had been at the Sepulcher before
183
'Mary; moreover, Poole notes the essential point that Blake
incorporates into his epic. Mary could not recognize the
resurrected Jesus, and could not comprehend the grand
metaphysical act of Christ that, as Poole interprets, "fully
! 40
revealed the Resurrection to her." Jerusalem
misunderstands the atemporal, antisequential nature of
Jesus, his ability to move through states: her empirical
perspective is confined to literal, scientific examination.
She describes the "Divine Vision" as a "Spiritually Risen
Body," a temporally restrained entity existing in a linear,
as opposed to dialectical, time-framework. Her
interrogation— "shall Albion arise?"— reflects this
inadequate comprehension. Jerusalem’s spiritual crisis is
magnified by her incapacity to interhalize the spiritual
sense of atemporality. Her vision is historicized, literal,
and her hermeneutics demythological. This misguided
attitude towards mortalism— the "Last Day"— reflects her
i
historical understanding of eschatology.
Blake also includes one of the most disputed phrases
from the Old Testament; "I know that in my flesh I shall see
God" alludes to a controversial passage in the Book of Job.
Thomas Sherlock, one of the most brilliant biblical
interpreters of the eighteenth century, argued that "the
Book of Job must be founded in History, and not in
Invention. In the Time of Job, true Religion was preserved
18k
among a few, and communicated by special Revelation; whether
therefore Job had himself this Knowledge by Prophecy, or
received it by Tradition in his own House, from those who
had, he might very well know what his Friends and Neighbours
knew not." Sherlock went on to say that in this passage
"Job’s Friends understood him to speak of a Resurrection to
Judgment, and not of a temporal Deliverance; otherwise what
Occasion was there to reproach him with pretending to be
wiser than all Men, to know the Secret of God, beyond what
41
the first Man knew, or any who succeeded him?" This
passage from the Book of Job was the source of considerable
debate in the eighteenth century, and virtually every
important commentator on the Bible either was in agreement
with Sherlock or attempted to controvert his "explication"
and offer an alternate translation. What Jerusalem is
experimenting with— in a religious sense— is the
hermeneutical theory of "accommodation." This theory, simply
stated, is based on two ideas. First, scripture cannot be
made to contradict itself, and, secondly, the Bible should
not be interpreted in a way to confute "orthodox" Christian
doctrine. In addition, God "accommodated" his truth through
the "shadowy types" of the Old Testament which are made
clear by the prophetic understanding of the New Testament
writers who "explicated" the prophecies of the ancient
writers.
185
Jerusalem's "confession"— her mixture of Old Testament
and New Testament passages— illustates her rational criteria
for prophecies. Yet she dimly sees the Divine Truth that is
granted to the close reader of the Bible. She correctly
notes "that in my flesh" shall she see God, transforming the
Job passage which posits "and though after my skin worms
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God" [Job
19:26]. Blake argues for an incarnational as opposed to
transcendental God. The typological superstructure between
Old Testament type and New Testament antitype are disrupted
because emanations are fixated in a spatial and temporal
frame, and the "know not whence they are, nor whither
tend." In this passage Blake brings into argumentative
focus two passages— perhaps the two most debated
passages— on covenantal theory in the eighteenth century.
Robert F. Gleckner has argued that the characters in Blake's
poetry, particularly in Jerusalem "are but types of types,
none preceding or eventuating from or repeating another, so
that a reader's insistence on the functioning of type and
antitype in the prophecies is a reflection of that reader's
allegorizing the poem, or (essentially the same thing) j
42 I
accepting Los's allegory as Blake's." Gleckner's j
extraordinary study, so gifted in explicating the j
antial1egorist element in Blake, misunderstands Blake's
understanding of Old Testament and New Testament theology.
I
f
__________________________ I
186
With Blake, there is a constant dialectic between letter or
law and spirit which is, perhaps, most evident in his usage
of the biblical allusions to Job, a book— from Blake's
perspective— that is a perfect realization of a man bonded
to the law of materialism. Because of their temporalization
and their misconception about type and antitype, Jerusalem
and the other feminine characters fail to comprehend the
spiritual sense and typological implications of fulfillment
in the speeches by Jesus who repudiates materialism.
In the dialogue of Plate 62, Jesus finally responds,
which is his initial speech in the epic. Because Jesus can
escape the centripetal and centrifugal movements of
temporality, the speech by Jesus concatenates numerous
prophecies from the Pentateuch and the Four Gospels, and
Lnds with a reiteration of the covenantal "commission" from
I
Matthew:
i
i
j
' Jesus replied: I am the Resurrection & the
Life.
I Die & pass the limits of possibility, as it
appears
To individual perception. Luvah must be Created
And Vala; for I cannot leave them in the
gnawing Grave.
But will prepare a way for my banished-ones to
return
Come now with me into the villages, walk thro
all the cities.
Tho thou art taken to prison & judgment,
starved in the streets
I will command the cloud to give thee food &
187
the hard rock
To flow with milk & wine, tho thou seest me no
| a season
I Even a long season & a long hard journey & a
j howling wilderness!
I Tho Valas cloud hide thee & Luvahs fires follow
thee!
Only believe & trust in me, Lo. I am always
with thee![J 62:18-29; E 213]
The idea that there should exist hermeneutical
conflicts in the epic— meditative examinations of secular
and religious matters of conscience, theology, and
historical events as they pertain to visionary
experience— originates in Milton's encyclopedic prophecies,
and Blake may have learned this narrative form from his
43
intense study of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.
Certainly Jesus succinctly answers the questions of
Jerusalem with full knowledge that it is his duty to
communicate the vision of the Word that He alone
incarnates. In his allusive speech on Plate 62, Jesus
reaffirms the idea of accommodation, and He stipulates the
security of covenantal theory; the idea that there exists a
[covenant— a mutual covenant between man and God and God and
man— is the crux of his argument. Not only will Albion
["arise," but Luvah will be restored, thereby allowing the
|
[full import of the vision provided by the Evangelists and
Saint John of Patmos to be understood by every human being.
Jesus's speech acknowledges that matriarchy has attained
dominance— "Vala's cloud"— but confidently ignores their
188
temporal authority, and these visions of belief and trust
must sustain Jerusalem in her spiritual crisis.
189
Biblical Criticism and the Narrative of
Jerusalem
Northrop Frye and W. J. T. Mitchell have erroneously
contended that the climax of Jerusalem is "surprising,"
almost an anticlimax, where, to borrow Mitchell's phrase,
l \ 4
"nothing is concluded." The complexity of the reticulated
biblical allusions, however, indicates that an apocalypse
will take place and, approximately, when the vision of end
time is to be depicted. Attentive examination of the early
plates of the poem may illustrate that the prophetic
configurations of the epic— what could be termed "epical
typologies"— provide the overarching superstructure to build
upon. The supreme achievements in the field of dialogic
meditative examinations of doctrine either internalized or
interactive— Augustine's Confessions and The City of God,
Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress— are influences in this limited genre,
I
jwhere biblical allusions enhance and prefigure other
I
allusions and conflicts in the epic, supplementing and
augmenting the contexts of the prior visions. The first
plate of the epic, Plate 4, has an important, undiscovered
1 9 0
allusion that elaborates on the biblical contexts of the
epic: the accents of the biblical echo in Plate 4 falls on
the Four Gospels:
I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and
friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in
me :
Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not
seeking recompense![J 4:18:20; E 146]
These lines are synthesized from an important biblical
passage. John 17:1, 21, 23 are the salient lines that
background this section: "that they may all be one; even as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may
j
be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent
me/I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly j
I
one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and
hast loved them even as thou has loved me." As Thomas Scott
noted, these lines indicate both the prophetic dynamics and
i
ithe homiletic features of the Gospels:
What standard of their doctrine have we, if
the New Testament be not of standard? The miracle
which they wrought proved the truth of
Christianity; but if they were not inspired
infallibly to communicate to the world the
religion of Jesus, without addition, adulteration,
or omission, where shall we for certainty learn
45
the nature of that religion?
191
On Plate 5 Blake Includes the first of his many
allusions to the Book of Matthew, the most respected of the
iFour Gospels in the eighteenth century because it was
considered, chronologically, the first of the Gospels and
valued for its prophetic style:
Immense, and Jerusalem & Vala weeping in the
Cloud
Wander away into the Chaotic Void, lamenting
with her Shadow
Among the Daughters of Albion, among the Starry
Wheels;
Lamenting for her children, for the sons &
daughters of Albion[J 5:61-65; E 148]
The underpresence of Matthew 2:18 indicates that we are
reading an apocalypse if we are to define "apocalypse" as an
expressly Christian experience, a Christian transcendence.
Matthew 2:18 is a lamentation, a complex fulfillment of an
Old Testament prophecy: "A voice was heard in Ramah,/wailing
and loud lamentation,/Rachel weeping for her children;/she
refused to be consoled,/because they were no more." Blake
gradually integrated apocalyptic paradigms early in the
Jepic, and, for example, Matthew 2:18 was considered an
lextremely important prophecy. The passage was considered an
Jexample of how government can impose societal repression as
Iwilliam Burkitt noted:
192
Observe here, the loud and bitter Cry which
the Mothers of Bethlehem make for the Death of
their innocent Children, which were barbarously
slain by the Sword of Herod:...Obs. 2. The cause
and reason of this Cry, and bitter Lamentation;
the Mothers weep, not because their Children are,
but because they are not; they did not with some
wicked Parents, repine because they had Children,
but because they had lost them: Mothers have the
sharpest Throws both in their Childrens Births and
_ . . 46
Burials.
Elaborate prefigurative devices— typology, biblical
allusions, and discourse concerning hermeneutics— serve to
adumbrate apocalyptic contexts in the epic, as Blake
attempted to define his position in terms of apocalyptic
vision as one of the adventist belief. There are multitudes
of biblical allusions, parodies and paraphrases that are
important in Jerusalem, but the most significant echo in
Chapter I is on Plate 7:
0 holy Generation! [Image] of regeneration!
0 point of mutual forgiveness between Enemies!
Birthplace of the Lamb of God incomprehensible!
The Dead despise & scorn thee, & cast thee out
as accursed :
Seeing the Lamb of God in thy gardens & thy
palaces:
Where they desire to place the Abomination
of Desolation.[J 7:65-70; E 150]
The delicately interwoven texture of the poem
emphasizes "prophetic" or "apocalyptic" elements of the Old
and New Testament, prophecies of Christ’s Coming and the end
of time. This allusion to Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 is
193
distinctive in the sense that these passages from the Bible
are known as the "little apocalypses." Matthew's graceful
"redaction" of the words of Christ is another interesting
intertextual reference: "So when you see the desolating
sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the
holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who
are in Judea flee to the mountains." This allusion to the
IBook of Daniel and the two Gospels was considered, even in
|the eighteenth century, an extremely important
I
"intertextual" allusion to the Book of Daniel. William
Burkitt, one of the most influential of the New Testament
exegetes, commented on how this passage, in the Book of
Matthew, is changed into an apocalyptic figure of speech anc
a promise of the imminence of the apocalypse:
But when ye shall see the abomination of
desolation, spoken of by Daniel the Prophet,
standing where it ought not... From whence learn,
1. That God has Instruments ready at his Call to
lay waste the strongest Cities, and to ruin the
most flourishing Kingdoms which do reject his son,
and refuse the Tenders of his Grace. 2. That God
can, and sometimes doth, make use of those very
Persons whom sinners most abhor, to be the
Instruments of their Punishment, and the Occasions
47
of their Destruction.
As noted earlier, Blake relied on the narrative of
Matthew, the Gospel "that subsequent generations usually
used when they wished to cite Jesus's message about the
19^
48
End." Henry Hammond believed that it was more important
for the reader of the Bible to examine the authors of the
Gospels that "were perpetually present with him, and saw,
and heard all the particular words and actions, which they
I 49
jrelate, viz: Matthew and John." Conyers Middleton, an
jinsightful student of prophecy in the eighteenth century,
'expressed the opinion that Matthew "seems to have been more
diligent than the rest, in collecting these prophetic
testimonies, and applying them severally on all occasions,
as so many distinct proofs of the mission of Jesus...the
more sure word of Prophecy.These points even the
iconoclastic Anthony Collins conceded, and he acknowledged
the authority and intrinsic vision of the Book of Matthew.
Blake’s insistence on the more "Hellenistic" viewpoint of
Matthew also reflects a change in his attitude towards
vision. The "last times" of mankind's earthly existence are
iviewed through the spectacles of Matthew and Saint John of
Patmos, the prophet-redactor from the Book of Revelation.
This Little Apocalypse, said to be a presentiment of the
Antichrist from the Book of Revelation, illustrates Blake's
intent to focus on the apocalyptic sayings, deeds, ideology,
and actions of Jesus. Although the references are sometimes
attenuated, the foundation is set for a distinctly Christian
apocalypse.
195
The mission of Jesus and, implicitly, of Los in
Jerusalem is to eliminate the archetypal error of
I
misinterpretation of prophecy. When Blake introduces the
Little Apocalypse from the Books of Matthew and Mark, he
does so for a reason: the dialectical structures of
Jerusalem revolve on the struggle between the two
"Evangelists," Los and Jesus, and the beast from the Book of
Revelation, the Antichrist and Satan for the soul of man.
These "significant allusions" are foreshadowings and
prefigurations of the apocalyptic conflict between Los,
Jesus and the Antichrist; yet the presence of the
Antichrist— tacitly counterpointing every effort of Los and
Jesus— is not evident until Plate 75, and the demonic
i
(perversions of his nature are not made clear until Plate 89.|
I j
(But Blake presents the structure of emphases early in the
!epic by introducing the Christological features of Los and
incorporating allusions to various apocalypses, allusions
ithat prefigure the confrontations with the Antichrist. The
Antichrist, obiquely referred to as the "Abomination of
Desolation," is a constant presence in Chapter I either as a
dimension of the spectral selfhood or as a manifestation of
the God of the Deists. On the other hand, certain elements
!
i I
■of Chapter I are elaborations of cosmogonic myth derived
! t
ifrom the Book of Genesis. These extensive elaborations on |
I f
; i
jcosmogonic myths anticipate the archetypal strife later in
196
the epic by indicating the genealogical train— or hereditary
traits— of the characters.
The obvious interconnection within the narrative
framework to these biblical echoes is to suggest the generic
jfeatures of the apocalypse in Jerusalem. Traditionally,
apocalypses include three aspects of narrative: "(a) a
review of history, as well as its coming crisis and
transformation, or (b) crisis and transformation without a
general review of history, or (c) a purely personal
51
eschatology." Supernatural or heavenly journeys,
discursive analyses of scribal and oral traditions, and an
elaborate historiographic perspective often are salient
features of the apocalypse. Following the outline
I
|established in the delineation of the Sixteen Pillars, Blake
jemphasizes certain Old Testament texts— Exodus, Job, and
Genesis— which indicates that he considered these works to
be prefigurative, more important as doctrinal expositions,
and possibly of greater antiquity. As Barbara Lewalski has
noted, biblical commentators were extremely interested in
the historical ordering of the Old and New Testaments: "the
Book of Job...was thought to be among the first literary
productions of mankind, its root origins shrouded in
mystery. Many later Christian writers located it between
jthe Pentateuch and Joshua because of its supposed great
l
jantiquity. Most commentators argued that Job himself lived
197
in patriarchal times before the Mosaic law was delivered,
since he offerd sacrifices and lived righteously without any
52
reference to that law." Portions of the Pentateuch and Job
contain cosmogonic myths, elaborate apocalyptic ex ventu
surveys, and journeys and lengthy allegories of spiritual
crisis in the metaphoric form of the journey. Blake
borrowed these patterns and motifs to detail many aspects of
Jerusalem; however, the Jobean "correspondences" or
"parallels" in the actions of Albion are, in context,
revealing in the sense that they inform the dialectic of
Word and Way.
Among the most interesting of the early biblical
references is on Plate 8, repeated in a different context on
Plate 21. The extensive allusions to the Jobean plot have a
singular importance to Blake because of his close
identification with the biblical character and because Job
was considered a type of Christ, a motif that Blake
incorporated in his iconographic art: "In illustrations to
the Book of Job, inconographic details, such as visible or I
I
hidden crosses, depict Job as a type of Christ; and various I
1 I
symbols representing the Law and the Gospel are employed to j
i
show that Job’s final redemption represents the
53
reconciliation of the Law and the Gospel through Christ."
Hence, in Jerusalem, the plot of Job — a narrative of
198
deprivation because of the exigencies of divine Providence,
and then regeneration and restoration— profoundly affected
i
Blake’s reiterative narrative structure, and he incorporated
numerous allusions from Job that elucidate the metaphoric
structures of the epic. After the dialogue between Vala anc
Jerusalem on Plate 20:12-41, that presents the dialectic of
sin and forgiveness, Blake gives us a vivid, defining
vision:
0 Vala! 0 Jerusalem! do you delight in my
groans
You 0 lovely forms, you have prepared my
death-cup:
The disease of Shame covers me from head to
feet: I have no hope
Every boil upon my body is a separate & deadly
Sin.
Doubt first asssaild me, then Shame took
I possession of me [J 21:1-5; E 166] I
Blake’s paraphrase of Job 2:7-8 delineates the
typological features of Albion as he exists in the temporal,
mimetic perspective of the epic, and this passage prefigures
^archetypal conflicts in Chapter II. Albion, the parabolic
I
character representing England, lives in an age when his
wealth, progeny, and profits from his landholdings have been
stripped from him. Penniless, in the "power" of Satan and
estranged from his emanation, Albion exists as a shadow of
his former splendor. The Napoleonic wars and internal
revolution in England have left Albion— from Blake's
199
perspective— bereft and self-deceived. This is the first
major reference to the Job plot in the epic, and Blake will
greatly expand on these patterns. Whether Blake actually
viewed the Book of Job as an epic and as a generic influence
on literature is a much debated question in Blake studies:
what can be said, without equivocation, is that the content
and contexts of Job and the biblical criticism of Job were
important to Blake. Mil ton and Jerusalem have been described
as "composite orders" because they tend towards formal and
perspectival inconclusiveness, privileged apocalyptic
communications amalgamating various genres of literature.
{However, the Book of Job is indeed a curious admixture of
I
both poetry and prose, a combination that has roused
considerable critical interest— particularly in the
eighteenth century— in the kaleidoscopic images as they
pertain to the providential themes of the work.
Interestingly, Blake borrows from both the prose and the
poetry; the allusions to the prose are used for adumbrative
purposes; the poetry of Job plays an "essential role...in
54
the imaginative realization of revelation."
j One of the problems in Jerusalem is the almost
imperceptible incorporations of the biblical allusions in
the narrative. At the conclusion of Chapter I, Blake adds a
reference to a passage from the Book of Matthew:
200
Planting these Oaken Groves: Erecting these
Dragon Temples
Injury the Lord heals but Vengeance cannot be
healed:
As the Sons of Albion have done to Luvah: so
they have in him
Done to the Divine Lord & Saviour, who suffers
with those that suffer:
For not one sparrow can suffer, & the whole
Universe not suffer also,
In all its Regions, & its Father & Saviour not
pity and weep.[J 25:4-9; E 170]
The intertextual reference to this passage is Matthew
10:29-31:
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?
and one of them shall not fall on the ground
without your Father. But the very hairs of your
head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye
are of more value than many sparrows.
Matthew Poole, the eminent though derivative
eighteenth-century interpreter, explicated this passage to ;
i
mean that "there is a God that governeth the World, and by
jhis Providence influenceth, and watcheth over the most
i
minute, and invaluble (sic) beings in it, and preserveth,
jand upholdeth them, it extendeth to the very Harirs (sic) of
I
5 5
your Head, and to a Sparrow." The hermeneutical
implication is that the apostles, the Twelve addressed by
Jesus, failed in their task. The "Father's Will" has been
ignored, and there has been willful subversion of His
201
ideals. Los must restore fallen society and reconstruct the
inner vision of transcendence.
Chapter II presents insoluble problems in textual
[analysis because Blake changed the ordering of the plates.
j
'For the purposes of this study, the A-C-F ordering, the
lErdman "preferred" order, will be followed. Chapter II
differs markedly in formal presentation from Chapter I.
There is less "self-critical" introspection and expository
introduction to Blake's cartography. The biblical allusions
are, generally, more difficult to delineate and often do not
have an ascertainable function. Because the biblical echoes
in Chapter II have less importance to the metaphoric
structures and the hermeneutic enterprise of the epic, the
focus of this part of the study will be on the Jobean
parallels on Plates 43 and 44.
Evidently, the core of Chapter II is Plates 43 through
*50, which goes into considerable detail in comparing
Albion’s condition with Job. As a prelude to Blake's
"revisionist criticism" of the Job plot on Plates 43 and 44,
the "Voice Divine" speaks:
I
i
j
I !
I come that I may find a way for my banished
ones to return |
Fear not 0 little Flock I come! Albion shall !
rise again. [J 43:25-26; E 191] j
202
The underlying intertext is Luke 12:31-32, a passage
Henry Hammond believed to be a prophecy of the "everlasting
kingdom, will fails to allow you your portion here":^
But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and
all these things shall be added unto you. Fear
not, little flock; for it is your Father's good
pleasure to give you the kingdom.
This brief extract from the speech of the "Voice
Divine" demonstrates how Blake applied the "received
interpretation" of the teachings of Jesus. Blake, at times,
will use the lucid sermons of Jesus or, alternatively,
synthesize the parable-filled speeches in other parts of the
Four Gospels. The "Voice Divine" articulates a vision of the
l
I
effects of Albion's "Reactor," Satan, concluding with this
(paraphrase of Luke. The Divine Vision functions as archetype
t
(to be compared with the God of the Deist, the Reactor. The
!"Voice Divine" also anticipates the Jobean passages on {
jpiates 43 and 44. The initial extended allusion to Job and J
an important typological reference is to the "two J
messengers" of Job 1:13-19:
I
I
t
Forthwith from Albions darkning [r]ocks came
two Immortal forms
Saying We alone are escaped. 0 merciful Lord
and Savior,
We flee from the interiors of Albions hills and i
mountains!
I
203
From his Valleys Eastward: from Amalek Canaan &
Moab :
Beneath his vast ranges of hills surrounding
Jerusalem.[J 43:28-32; E 191]
i
This extraordinary passage introduces the Jobean
redactions on Plate 44, and the presence of Job 1:13-19
suggests how Blake "criticized" the Job plot. Blake
identifies those that "flee" as the two messengers from the
Book of Job, and the Spectre of Urthona and Enitharmon flee
the confines of temporal eschatology to the loving embrace
of the Lamb of God: they will speak again, as one, which
functions as a kind of repetitious ending, a note of
conclusion or structural separation:
Whether of Jerusalems or Valas ruins
congenerated, we know not:
All is confusion: all is tumult, & we alone
are escaped.[J 43:81-83; E 193]
One of the complexities of Jerusalem is the fact that
Blake often makes allusions to controversies that were the
subject of public debate a century or more before Blake's
birth. The reference to Job is deliberately repeated,
signifying a repetition or parallelism, which is a feature
of biblical narrative. Robert Lowth established the three
forms of parallelism: synonymous, antithetical, and
1
(Synthetic parallelism. Lowth's theories have been strongly!
i |
called into question by James L. Kugel and Robert Alter, but
20k
what Blake discovered in biblical parallelism was the
constant repetition of sublime prophecy, repetition, as
jRobert Lowth noted, that signified a "sublimer kind of
[allegory.""^ Poetry was considered the antithesis of
t
^prophecy until well into the eighteenth century when Lowth's
theories began to gain currency; perhaps, of the important
English poets, only Goleridge and Blake were influenced by
Lowth. The Spectre of Urthona and Enitharmon, biblical types
and antitypes, are the audience to this "trajic scene" of
Plate 43. Plate 43 is not only a parody of the Book of Job,
but a criticism of this crucially important book of the
Bible. Blake posits his viewpoint on the generic and
ideological features of Job to demonstrate the I
deterministic, materialistic aspects of Job that are the
cause of his fate. In Blake's opinion, Job "is undone, not
by his vices, but by the very things which in the Old
[Testament are told as his chief glories: his material
l
(wealth, his frequent burnt-offerings for sin, his ceremonial
solicitude for his immediate family, even his material gifts
5 8
to the poor." Blake conceived of Job as a "materialist's"
tragedy, an evocative tragedy, but a tragedy nonetheless.
From Blake's prospective Job obeyed the letter of the law,
i
not the spirit gained from testimony. In this instance, j
Blake was reacting against the interpretation of Job in the
eighteenth century that emphasized his Christian humility
205
jand penitence. In fact, no other book in the Bible was
jquoted as freely as Job, and Job’s studied piety and
restraint were accounted as paradigmatic, exemplary, and to
be imitated by the reader of the Bible.
Lines 33-83 on Plate 43 contain a multiplicity of
perspectives on biblical contexts, and the thread of the
narrative is so overtly disjunctive with such intricate
verbal exchange that the plate invites close examination.
In the opening sequence, Albion is revealed as a "mourning”
figure, which emphasizes his self-abasement. A further
elaboration of the Jobean matrix is delineated in the
following passage:
Saying 0 Lord whence is this change! thou
knowest I am nothing![J 43:42; E 192]
The audience that hears the speech of Albion, the
Spectre of Urthona and Enitharmon, are "astonished,"
repelled by the transformation of Albion. Blake is
stipulating that there is a further separation in the
consciousness of Albion from the Eternals. Instead of the
questioning, inquisitive Job archetype inquiring into the
rational justification of God's actions, Blake portrays a
passive character who fails to challenge God's judgment.
The most sustained Jobean analogy— if that is the
206
appropriate term— synthesizes different sections of the Book
of Job, emphasizing Job 8:12. Lines 47-52 are a plangent
lament, a sobering confession of a loss of faith:
0 I am nothing when I enter into judgment with
thee!
If thou withdraw thy breath I die & vanish into
Hades
If thou dost lay thine hand upon me behold I am
silent:
If thou withhold thine hand; I perish like a
fallen leaf:
0 I am nothing: and to nothing must return
again:
If thou withdraw thy breath. Behold I am
oblivion.[J 43:47-52; E 192]
What the eighteenth-century interpreters attempted to
(justify was the catastrophic "adversities" that God
j
jinflicted on Job. Many commentators— Simon Patrick, Matthew
I
Henry, and William Warburton were the central j
critics— argued that Job’s tribulations were necessary and, J
indeed, part of the near-tragic aspects of the drama; even j
in the eighteenth century, commentators contended that Job
was either a tragic drama or an epic. Blake forcibly notes
the tragic elements of Job, the avoidable pains he endured
because of his materialism:
And Luvah strove to gain dominion over Albion
They strove together above the Body where Vala
was inclosd
And the dark Body of Albion left prostrate upon
207
the crystal pavement,
Coverd with boils from head to foot: the
terrible smitings of Luvah.[J 43:61-64; E 192]
Blake is alluding to one of the most important biblical
episodes in the Old Testament. As Thomas Scott argued, the
practical applications of Job's condition— "great pain,
sickness, deserted, insulted, [and] destitute of necesaries
lor convenient attendence"— indicates that Job "was an
I
(especial type of Christ, whose inward sufferings, both in
the garden and on the cross, are generally allowed to have
been for the most dreadful, and in a great degree occasioned
59 I
by the assults of the devil in the hour of darkness." !
Blake will deliberately play on the Job-type,
Christ-antitype theme in his characterization of Albion who
undergoes the greatest parabolic change in character. On
Plate 21, Blake introduced the Jobean throes of Albion and
the quoted passage elaborates on the agonistic tendencies in
both characters: Luvah, the disaffected, refractory, and
failed philosophical idealist, is both post-revolutionary
France and the Jehovah-like repressive deity in the Book of
Job; Albion is the troubled Job existing in a cyclical life
of torturous non-entity. The unconditionally
l
anti-revolutionary tenor of this passage should not be
joverlooked although critics have ignored this aspect of j
Blake manifested in the later epics. There is a distinct
conservative trend in Blake's political views, and this
208
cosmic viewpoint is clarified in his assessment of the
damage caused by the warfare between France and England.
Lines 76-80 stress the cause-effect relationship between
warfare and nature worship:
And the vast form of Nature like a serpent
playd before them
And as they fled in folding fires & thunders of
the deep:
Vala shrunk in like the dark sea that leaves
its slimy banks
And from her bosom Luvah fell far as the east
and west.
And the vast form of Nature like a serpent
rolld between,[J 43:76-80; E 192-193]
The "vast form of Nature" is a serpentine impediment, a
barrier between the Spectre of Urthona, Enitharmon and the
protection of the Divine Vision. The concluding lines of 43,
a parody of Job, reflect a change in the narrative
structure. The typological identifications of Luvah and
iAlbion indicate that world events— the administration of ,
Ipitt, the French Revolution, and the anti-Jacobin
period— were counterproductive, antithetical apocalypses.
As many critics have noted, the French Revolution and the
period following the Revolution was thought to be the time
of Christ's second coming, when the opening of the seals,
the sounds of the trumpets, and the pouring of the vials hac
taken place. From Blake's perspective, the French
Revolution was an illusory apocalypse and the radicals who
209
caused this specious apocalypse, destructive. Blake's
^tendency was to evaluate cultural movements, and the root
jcause of all these events— from Blake's perspective— was the
iteachings of Rousseau and the philosophy of the intellectual!
t
deist, Voltaire.
Blake extends his Jobean parody on Plate 44, but for a
very different reason. The "Two that escaped" are
identified by Blake as the messengers from the Book of Job
and the two Witnesses from the Book of Revelation.^ This
"epical typology," a important device in Jerusalem, is most
evident in this section, but the justification for this
identification is difficult to ascertain. Perhaps— and this
is by no means certain— Blake intended the reader to
comprehend the imaginative virtues of the Spectre of Urthona
because Blake posits that "his [Los's] Spectre is named
Urthona." The archetypal confusion has been noted by several
critics, and it could be speculated that Blake may be
indicating that the Spectre is a metaphoric representation
of Moses, one of the Two Witnesses. Certainly this would be
a confirmation of the Spectre's ideology and theology and
would provide a context for the correlative typology when
Blake presents the Spectre's adversarial position in Chapter
I and the hermeneutical disagreement between Los and the
Spectre of Urthona.
210
Even if one concedes the antinarrative and antimimetic
discontinuities of Jerusalem, there are episodes of moving
Iself-examination that reflect the deeply Protestant and
Augustinian tenor of the epic. Los’s meditative prayer on
Plate 44 is perhaps the best example of this aspect of the
poem because the speech is a supplication for Divine
sanction and Divine communication. Los's speech is not a
traditional prayer or "liturgical meditation," but it does
have a certain intensity of expression. There is much
argumentative drive to the speech— pressing the need for
social reform— but the praxis of the prayer is based on
biblical prophecies as Blake "telescopes" several Biblical
echoes to indicate in this speech that the Old Testament
I
(sanctuaries are temporal, not eternal, protection.
Chapter II would, to follow Frank Kermode's theories,
seem occupied with the "secret" of narrative, where there iJ
"evidence of suppression." Yet, as Kermode rightly notes,
this restraint in narrative "will sometimes tell us where
the suppressed secret is located."^ There is an additional
jbiblical reference that modifies our perception of the epic,
indicating where the "secret" of the narrative is located.
Until the conclusion of Chapter II, Albion is identified as
a Job figure; however, Blake alters contexts, and by
altering contexts, he recontextualizes characters and
changes meaning. The speech by Erin on Plates 48:54-64, 49,
211
and 50:1-16 is the longest speech in the Blake canon and is
vitally original. Blake frequently borrows from Mi1 ton and
the Four Zoas in his composition of Jerusalem, but this
speech is a radical departure and has no real parallel in
his other poetry. Despite her femininity, Erin represents
(
the vestige of revolutionary hope for mankind. A few
critics have noted Blake’s shift in sensibility towards
women in Jerusalem, and Erin is the most humanized vision of
the metaphoric women in Jerusalem. But this metaphoricity
marks a change in Blake’s mythopoetic patterns because Erin
reiterates the importance of Mosaic law— the "Divine
Analogy"— and the covenental fulfillment of Christ to the
Daughters of Albion in a reflective, informative prayer. In
the peroration of Erin's speech, Blake elaborates on the
I
mythic intersections of the epic, focusing on the condition j
of Albion:
Albion is now possess'd by the War of Blood!
the Sacrifice
Of envy Albion is become, and his Emanation
cast out:
Come Lord Jesus, Lamb of God descend! for if; 0
Lord!
If thou hadst been here, our brother Albion had
not died.
Arise sisters! Go ye & meet the Lord, while I
remain—
Behold the foggy mornings of the Dead on
Albions cliffs![J 50:8-13; E 199-200]
In this passage Blake borrows extensively from John
212
11:11-15 and 11:32 to detail the necessity of resurrection,
the essential ideology expressed in the epic. Albion’s
character is transformed from the debilitated representation
of Job into the Lazarus figure, the "friend" much loved by
Jesus. The hermeneutical principles of this passage are
quite suggestive. Blake often established extended biblical
parallels in the epic, and this echo of John, presumably,
clarifies an earlier text and amplifies on the ideological
import of an Old Testament text, in this case the Jobean
revisions on Plate 43. Blake may be following the
methodology advanced by the important theorist, William
Lowth, whose son achieved such fame; William Lowth advocated
in Directions for the Profitable Reading of the Holy
Scriptures that textual analysis benefited from the
jcomparison of one's explications of two different but
integrally connected biblical passages: "...For this rule
ought inviolably to be observ'd in judging of the sense of
Scripture; Never to interpret an obscure Text in such a
sense, as to make it contradict a plain one. For certainly |
we must judge of what is Obscure from what is Plain; not on
the contrary; because the rule whereby we judge ought to be
more known than the thing is upon which we are to pass our
Judgement.
This passage from the Book of John is not repeated in
any of the other Gospels, and the veracity of this episode
213
was challenged by the Deists as contrary to the workings of
the phenomenal world. John Mayer, a very influential
seventeenth-century critic, concisely expressed the
doctrinal importance of the miraculous events in his
interpretation of this passage: "hence by way of similitude,
as that, as Lazarus was, so is the dead in sinne, not onely
dead, but stinking, and seeming unrecoverable; and as he yet
was raised by Christs power, but many expresions going
before, declaring the greatness and difficulty of the worke:
so any sinner is dead & stinking so that it is most hard to
raise him, yet he is recoverable, but many things must be
6 3
done to this end." Blake prefigures the restoration of the
I !
(broken covenant between man and God by indicating Jesus wil..
j
I
"descend" into the discontinuous narrative and confirm His
promise and second coming. The promise is, of course, from
John 11:25-26: "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection,
and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live: 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in
Jme shall never die. Believest thou this?" This promise,
fulfilled on Plate 62, illustrates that the Bible and
Jerusalem are living eschatons, which reflect the wisdom of
the historical Jesus and the logocentrism of His Word. Jesus
; !
will fulfill His prophecy— fiction transformed into fact— oh
Plate 62, and the quoted passages from Plate 50 anticipate
this advent. Albion, therefore, is both Old Testament type
21k
and New Testament antitype indicating his transformation and
the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.
W. J. T. Mitchell has argued that Jerusalem possesses
three different narrative structures: "(1) linear,
i
sequential models governed by the temporal paterns of sacred
or natural history, including forms such as the epic
journey, the quest, and the pilgrimage (’the passage
through/ Eternal Death’); (2) dialectical, undulating,
dramatic models governed by the contrast between a nightmare
world ('the Sleep of Ulro') and the ever-present alternative^
of 'awaking to Eternal Life'; (3) 'vorticular,' spiraling
models constructed from the union of linear and dialectical
64
organizations." It has been argued that Milton was as
capable and as learned as any modern theorist in
6 5
narratological theory. However, Blake, perhaps, surpasses
Milton in his capacity for narrative deflection and
inventiveness; Blake learned narrative techniques from later
i
(theorists such as Benjamin Keach who argued that "the
Allusive allegory" can be interpreted as a "translated
6 6
description." Allusion became the primum mobile in
Jerusalem, as Blake consistently interinvolved the reader in
scriptural interpretation. Certain passages in Chapter II
are linear exposition, extrapolating on what may be the
consequences of action and reaction. Yet even in Blake's
215
most distilled and compressed passages, Blake is
illustrating— dialectically, circuitously--how the linear,
jhistorical concepts of the Gospels should be interpreted.
jYet Blake would never have accepted Robert Lowth's
considered opinion that "for the mystical allegory is on
this very account so agreeable to the nature of prophecy,
that it is the form which the latter generally, and I might
add lawfully, assumes, as most fitted for prediction of
future events. It describes events in a manner exactly
conformable to the intention of prophecy; that is, dark,
disguised, and intricate manner...and seldom descending to
minuteness."^ Indeed, Blake's emphasis on the revelation of
hidden meanings in Scripture, particularly after Chapter I,
illustrates his interest in conveying the immediacy of
divinatory revelation in narrative; yet Blake returns to the
|"vorticular elements" in Chapters III and IV to suggest how
sequential narrative refabricates the living plenum of
vision. The vorticular elements that transcend time and
space are located in the last chapters, where the biblical
type-scenes are sharpened and more clearly delineated.
Blake concludes Chapter II with a presentiment of
Christ's "advent." The speech by the Daughters of Beulah
that ends Chapter II contains an important biblical echo:
216
Come 0 thou Lamb of God and take away the
remembrance of Sin
To Sin & to hide the Sin in sweet deceit, is
lovely!!
To Sin in the open face of day is cruel &
pitiless! But
To record the Sin for a reproach: to let the
Sun go down
In a remembrance of the Sin: is a Woe & a
Horror!
A brooder of an Evil Day, and a Sun rising in
blood
Come then 0 Lamb of God and take away the
remembrance of Sin[J :50:24-30; E 200]
In these lines is a lamentation of the "consciousness
of sins," a repeated theme in Jerusalem. These lines allude
to an important speech by John the Baptist, John 1:29, where
John perceives the coming of the Lord, although Bloom J
suggests Ephesians 4:26 as a source. The intimation is that
Christ must come again and eliminate the "remembrance of
sin," which preludes the systematic unveiling of Chapter
III. Although the books on the morphology of typology have
avoided "secular" literature such as Blake’s, the
typological implications of the introduction to Chapter III
are analogous to the letters of St. Paul, the "allegorical"
letters— Corinthians 10:1 and, more centrally, 2 Corinthians
3— where St. Paul interprets "the veil on Moses1 face
(Exodus 34: 33-35) as a veil which still covers the Jewish
understanding of Scripture but is removed in the Christian
l
experience and by the Christian ministry of the 'new j
1
l
I
6 8 I
covenant.1" Chapter III of Jerusalem takes the form of an
unveiling, both literal and metaphorical, and the totality
217
of man's subversion of faith and biblical interpretation are
depicted: there is bestial torture, which is a manifestation
of the subversive efforts of Tirzah, Vala, and Rehab as it
pertains to Biblical exegesis in Chapter III. The
prefigurative conclusion of Chapter II, which ends a
superficial external structure of the epic, foreshadows the
dramatic tension of Chapter III where the conflicts revolve
around the feminine characters and the incarnations of the
word, Jesus and Los. The dialogic conflicts in Chapter III
are corresponding more specific: the "new Covenant" is
subjected to verbal assault, and the pure typological
references in the Bible--the events in the Old Testament
that prefigure the New Testament— are the topics of close
s crutiny.
I
Blake ingeniously indicates a shift in the narrative j
(form of Chapter III by incorporating a biblical reference in
the prose introduction to the Chapter. The prose prefatory
arguments in the epics of the seventeenth and eighteenth
century tend towards arrogant statement of elevated purpose,
which is often vitiated by the modesty topoi of the
narrative voice or the main character of the epic. The
prose preface to Chapter III, ostensibly directed towards
the Deists, functions as a brief historical examination, a
]review of the historiographic methodology of Gibbon and
Hume. In addition, Blake disparages the "corrupt
218
philosophies" of Voltaire and Rousseau. And, as an
introductory comment, Blake includes this definition of
Deism:
Your Religion 0 Deists: Deism, is the Worship
of the God of this World by the means of what you
call Natural Religion and Natural Philosophy, and
of Natural Heart. This was the Religion of the
Pharisees who murder'd Jesus. Deism is the same &
ends in the same.[E 201]
Although there is a biblical cadence to much of Blake's
verse— particularly in Jerusalem— this passage signifies an
important modification in the kerygmatic narrative. The
general thrust of this prose introduction is autodidactic,
instructive, and corrective, drawing from the teachings of
St. Paul. What is of central importance in this passage is
Blake's allusion to II Corinthians 3:12-16 and 4:1-4: II
Corinthians 2:12-16 is a fundamental statement of New
Testament covenant theory: "Since we have such a hope, we
I
j are very bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face
so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading
splendor. But their minds were hardened; for to this day,
when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains
unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.
»
■Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over
their minds; but when a man turns to the Lord the veil is
removed." The "veil" of Moses is transformed into the veil
2 1 9
of nature, the contrary to "Revelation." The "abrogation of
Experimental Theory" is necessary because experimental
jtheory is the antithesis to revelation. Accordingly, the
Itenor of the poem is changed; the pauline doctrine of the
dialectic of letter and spirit is particularly evident in
Chapter III. What the eighteenth century has done is to
displace God and to idolize the "God of this World" who has
been transformed by both "Voltaire and Rousseau" into
nature. As Matthew Poole noted, the "God of this World" was
a difficult term to define: "Though some, by the God of this
World, understand the true living God, the Lord of Heaven
and Earth: yet the Notion of the most interpreters, That it
is the Devil, who is here called the God of this World,
because he ruleth over the greatest part of the World, and
they are his servants and slaves, is most consonant to
Scripture: For though we no where else find him called the
God of this World, yet our Saviour twice calls him the
6 9
Prince of this World." The central objective of Los and
Jesus in Chapters III and IV is to argue against this
misrepresentation of Satan. Blake seems to suggest that
Voltaire and Rousseau perverted God's providential plan, and
the "self"— "man must & will have some Religion"— cannot j
comprehend theology if the Bible does not sustain our faith
in the events in the Bible that confirm our life as a
"Witness" of God's Providence.
220
The narrative of Chapter III is organized around one
jepisode: the sacrificial torture of Luvah on Plates 65-66.
The introductory plates, 53-60, detail the growing
antagonism of the feminine characters, and they are occupied
in their skeptical, existential search for an understanding
of "Rational Philosophy and Mathematical Demonstration," the
i
I
grounds of their "belief." There are some passing references
to Jeremiah and to John, but they are not of importance to
the figural design of the epic. What is of importance, and
one of the most creative of Blake's interpenetrative
strategies, is Blake's "synthesis" of Matthew, Mark, and
Luke. The Spectre of Albion, Arthur, utters his irreligious
or, more accurately, areligious speech:
But the Spectre like a hoar frost & a Mildew
rose over Albion
Am I not Bacon & Newton & Locke who teach
Humility to Man!
Who teach Doubt & Experiment & my two Wings
Voltaire: Rousseau.
Where is that Friend of Sinners! that Rebel
against my Laws!
Who teaches Belief to the Nations, & an unknown
Eternal Life
Come hither into the Desart & turn these stones
to bread.
Vain foolish Man! wilt thou believe without
Experiment ?
And build a World of Phantasy upon my Great
Abyss!
A World of Shapes in craving lust &
devouring appetite[J 54:15-24; E 203-204]
Of course the allusion is to the miraculous events
221
related in Matthew 4:3 and Luke 4:1-4; the language is
closer to the narrative of Matthew, but clearly the
narrative of Luke is firmly in the background. Matthew 4:3,
as Samuel Clarke and John Mayer and many other critics
noted, focuses on the idea that "Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the Mouth of
God," and the typological importance of the passage: "Moses
and Elias fasted the like time but they were hungry, and
suffered; for to fast, and to hunger belongeth to humane
patience but to fast, and not to hunger, to the divine
70
essence." Depending on the rational, "experimental"
philosophies of Voltaire and Rousseau, the Spectre of Albion
|entices Albion, drawing him in the same manner as Satan
"tempts" Jesus in the Gospels and in Paradise Regained. It
has been suggested that Paradise Regained1s structure
]
■influenced Jerusalem, yet this passage has not been the
subject of critical interest. Evidently, regal
authority— fundamentally Satanic in appeal— is
"constrictive," a vehicle for the philosophy of his two
angels, Voltaire and Rousseau. Regal authority supports the
process of demythologization that Voltaire and Rousseau, the
i
|
quintessential rationalists, disseminated throughout
| i
England. The linkage of kingly dominion and these French
jwriters invites historical identification, but probably that
1
is not Blake’s intent. The "State Religion" is sanctified
222
by the kingly presence, and Blake simply contextualizes the
"minute particulars," organically unifying a world
perspective; however, Blake is still closely following the
many biblical interpretations of Matthew 4:3 that saw the
biblical passage as a center of Christ’s earthly mission in
life. The Miltonists, certainly, have sufficiently covered
this biblical episode.
Until Plate 62, the biblical allusions of Chapter III
do not develop the figural design of the poem. The emphasis
is on the linear structure of the strife between Los and the
Feminine Will, and there is a paucity of biblical
backgrounding. However, on Plate 56 Blake concludes an
intriguing section with an allusion from the Four Gospels,
and this allusion is enclosed in an accusative speech by
Los:
1
I
I Los utter'd: swift as the rattling thunder upon
the mountains[:]
Look back into the Church Paul! Look! Three
Women around
The Cross! 0 Albion why didst thou a Female
Will Create?[J 56:41-43; E 206]
This is a curious speech by Los, and it has occasioned
jconsiderable critical discussion. The three women are,
|Tirzah, Rahab, and Vala in place of the "many women" and
Mary and Mary Magdalene of Matthew 27:55, Mark 15:40-41, and
223
John 19:25. Blake was alluding to one of the most discussed
narrative problems in the New Testament; much criticism was
devoted to establishing who was around the cross of Jesus.
The "ideological" import of the speech can only be
comprehended if the sequential arrangement of Plate 56 is
understood; drawing from the very extensive theoretical
examination of the interconnection of musical theory and
narrative theory in the eighteenth century, Blake presents a
dialectical dialogue between the Daughters of Albion and
Los. The basis of the disagreement is whether the "Eternal
Man" should be subservient to the "Female Will" or accept
the imaginative virtues of Christ’s sacrifice. The
irregularities in the narrative of the Gospels and the
theological implications will be expounded upon in the
speech by Jesus on Plate 62.
There is an elaborate interconnectedness in Jerusalem,
a complex and sustained revision of previous apocalyptic
visions. As noted earlier, the Book of Revelation was an
important "source book" for Blake and apocalyptic paradigm.
Blake’s accents in Chapter III fall in the Book of
Revelation on two important occasions: the first is on Plate
i
j 6 0. Luvah is identified as Albion's Spectre, and Los, I
i
{"terrified," beholds what were the invidious effects of
I
revolution in post-revolutionary France: "While Los sat
terrified beholding Albions spectre who is Luvah/ Spreading
22k
in bloody veins in torments over Europe & Asia;/ Not yet
formed but a wretched torment unformed & abyssal/ In flaming
fire." After the brief introductory passages in Plate 60,
there is this meditative song:
I gave thee liberty and life 0 lovely Jerusalem
And thou hast bound me down upon the Stems of
Vegetation...
I gave thee Hand & Scofield & the Counties of
Albion:
They spread forth like a lovely root into the
Garden of God:
They were as Adam before me: united into One
Man,...
And sweet Hesperia even to Great Chaldea &
Tesshina
Following thee as a Shepherd by the Four Rivers
of Eden
Why wilt thou rend thyself apart, Jerusalem?...
Why wilt thou deface thy beauty & the beauty of
thy little-ones I
To please thy Idols, in the pretended {
chastities of Uncircumcision[?]...
And I will lead thee thro the Wilderness in
shadow of my cloud
And in my love I will lead thee, lovely
Shadow of Sleeping Albion.[J 60:10-36; E 210]
I
I This lengthy speech is a "revision" of Revelation 15:3:
I
"And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and thej
song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy
works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou
King of saints." Biblical exegetes from the time of the
Renaissance have argued that the "Song of the Lamb" in the
Book of Revelation concatenates some central apocalyptic
themes: a purely eschatological viewpoint, allusions to Old
225
Testament texts, and a world view without nationalistic
separations. It was also, as Thomas Scott noted, a pivotal
section in determining whether the prophecies from the Book
of Revelation were futuristic, retroactive, or in the
present. Scott offered this thought on the essence of
Revelation 15:3: "Nothing seems more important, in
explaining prophecies, than to determine, as far as we can,
which events are past, and which are to come: under this
conviction, I must proceed to consider what follows, in
general, as yet in futurity; and shall, therefore, not
detail any of the interpretations, or conjectures, that have
been made of them, with relation to past events."^1
Following the traditional form of the apocalypse, there
exists in St. John’s vision a series of synchronistically
I
ordered, embedded apocalypses, and the Song of the Lamb is
such a miniature apocalypse. How Blake transforms the Song
of the Lamb to illustrates his own prophetic purposes
illustrates how contemporary historical events, both secular
and religious, affected apocalyptic paradigms and vision.
I
I
Blake’s "revision" of this episode develops a structure of
i
antithesis. Existence is viewed before Adam's
transgressions and the "advent" of Babylon, the Scarlet
!Whore of the Book of Revelation identified as Rahab. Rahab's
presence in Chapter III signals that apocalyptic disclosures
and divine dispensation will soon occur. This speech,
226
addressed to Jerusalem and Los, does not enlighten
Jerusalem, and as a consequence Jesus must descend and
confirm the "New Covenant" to Jerusalem by revealing what
the underlying philosophical basis is for the "Wheel of
Hand." The fact that Jerusalem's reason is severely impaired
is an important distinction. Her reason cannot comprehend
the innate principles of belief or the workings of God in
the physical world. Her imagination, therefore, cannot
grasp the order of God, which leads one to know with
certitude that God exists or is operative in world events.
Blake postulates that Jerusalem is deranged because of her
diminished "will," her inability to come to terms with
spiritual understanding. Still, Jerusalem's conclusion that
"I am deluded by the turning mills" delineates that she
comprehends the suppressed sense of inadequacy in her
I
faith.
Blake frequently interrupts the narrative by
I
I incorporating "interpolations, distortions, [and] temporal
I 72
condensations" in the continuity of the epic. In Plate 61
he integrates an extended tropological sequence. Plate 61
of Jerusalem, which has provided some embarrassment for
Blake critics, is Blake's only experiment in moral
allegory. This particular episode is "abstractive,"
developing moral principles internally through close
association between reader and biblical figure, redefining
227
the role of the individual in society through scriptural
comparison. Thomas R. Preston, following the lead of Thomas
P. Roche, has defined eighteenth-century tropology in these
terms: "From its original use in medieval exegesis,
tropological means that the literary or historical person,
event, or theme renews the meaning of the biblical
correspondences, not the biblical person, event, or theme
themselves. A tropological narrative, then, imitating
biblical counterparts, in turn, offers itself for imitation,
7 3
refracting the biblical meanings." Like Plate 56, Plate 6.
may be a late addition to the prophecy, and it postulates
Blake’s attitude towards the "exemplary" readings of the
Four Gospels, particularly the readings of Matthew 1. The
eighteenth century believed Matthew to be the authoritative
text, and the authorities and the common reader thought Mark
to be a compressed, inexact version of the Lord’s word.
Although patristic writers and Calvin discovered the
"Harmony” of the Gospels and interpreters such as John
Lightfoot, Jeremy Taylor, and Samuel Clarke followed his
procedure, the Deists traced the incongruities, the
conflicts in narrative structure of the Gospels. Deists such
as Thomas Woolston and Thomas Chubbs argued that purposively
the Gospels deflect expectations, and induce somewhat
^conflicting interpretations and remain secretive, at a
distance from explication. Blake's position was that the
228
Gospels— particularly Matthew— communicated the absolute
essence of the Logos to the reader, and, as a consequence,
he relied on Matthew, generally, for the narrative sequences
he intermixed with his epic.
Plate 61 constitutes his "redaction" of Matthew 4:3, a
passage that engendered considerable commentary in the
eighteenth century because the episode— and the ideological
significance of the episode— is ignored or left
underdeveloped in the narratives of Mark, Luke, and John. In
their incessant search for "exemplary" readings, the
eighteenth-century biblical interpreters discovered a
moralistic code of conduct in the Four Gospels, a form of
moral discipline. By rejecting the vision of chaste
detachment propounded in the criticism of the Four
Gospels— particularly Matthew 1:19— in the eighteenth
century, Blake argues for a forgiveness of sins essential to
his beliefs:
That there was a God of Mercy: 0 Mercy 0 Divine
Humanity!
0 Forgiveness & Pity & Compassion! If I were
Pure I should never
Have known Thee; If I were Unpolluted I should
never have
Glorified thy Holiness, or rejoiced in thy
great Salvation.[J 61:43-46; E 212]
The eighteenth century searched for examples of
matrimonial bliss, and the relationship— chaste and
asexual— between Joseph and Mary served as the paradigm to
229
be followed. It was a constant question as to whether or
not Joseph should have forgiven Mary for her
"transgressions.” Individual biblical scholars debated
whether Joseph and Mary actually had sexual intercourse.
j
jMatthew Poole perhaps best expresses the matter:
He took onto him his Wife, that is, he took
her unto his House [for betrothed Virgins, used to
abide at their own Friends Houses, till the
Consummation of the Marriage] and owning her as
his Wife, yet not fully using her as such, for the
Text saith he knew her not [a modest Phrase used
from the beginning of the World, as appears from
Genesis 4:1 to express the Conjugal Act] till she
had brought forth her first born Son. Some make a
great stir in determining, whether he knew her
afterwards, yea or no: Some of the Ancients were
stiff in their Opinion that he did not, so are
Popish Writers, and many Protestant interpreters.
Mr Calvin I think determines best, That none will
move such a Question, but such as are
unwarrantably curious, not contend for either
74
part, but such as are unreasonably quarrelsome.
Blake would have gone even further in his position than
Calvin, as Blake dilated the narratives of the Four Gospels,
distending them almost beyond recognition to facilitate the
fusion of character-reader (God's Word to man). In this
case Blake demonstrated that chastity was irrelevant to the
theological implications of the birth of Jesus because such
considerations are immaterial to the salvation of the soul.
Blake's contention that paradise must be internalized,
as Jesus stresses in the Divine Commission, is one aspect of
230
the quest of the individual to achieve paradise in this
world at this point in time. However, to attain an
internalized paradise, where there is complete forgiveness
of sins, concepts of chastity and virginity must be
i
^modified. Blake adduces motifs from the Gospels and the
Book of Revelation to criticize, perhaps, the Roman Catholic
authority over the European government:
Mary leaned her side against Jerusalem,
Jerusalem recieved
The Infant into her hands in the Visions of
Jehovah. Times passed on
Jerusalem fainted over the Cross & Sepulcher
She heard a voice
Wilt thou make Rome thy Patriarch Druid & the
Kings of Europe his
Horsemen? Man in the Resurrection changes his
Sexual Garments at will.[J 61:47-51; E 212]
In another context, Blake refers to the "papal dignity"
of the Spectre of Urthona, which indicates that the Spectre
preserved an almost "canonical" power of authority. In a
conversation with Samuel Palmer, Blake indicated that he
l
admired some aspects of Roman Catholicism such as the strong
central authority figure, the governmental efficacy of the
faith; but the "interpretive fallacy" of the church— the
Pope as infallible explicator of doctrine— was
unacceptable. Also the fact that the Roman Popes commanded,
in effect, some of the governments in Europe, dictating
policy and inciting wars, was, from Blake's perspective, a
231
case of aggravated ideological and theological suppression.
Blake's view of a torturous "Trajic scene," the savage
mutilation of Luvah on Plates 65 and 66, has been the source
of considerable critical interest. The psychological and
visionary aspects of the "sacrificial" art have been
examined in detail, but the after-affects of the torture,
when the dominance of rationalism has perverted the vision
of the world, has been overlooked. Northrop Frye analyzes
the matter briefly: "There is a long fantasia on the
Crucifixion, the point of which is to show that Jesus also
was killed as a Luvah in the role of the dying Albion. This
is clear in the Passion from the mockery of him by the
soldiers, the crown of thorns and the pretense that he was a
king. Mockery is closely related to analogy."^ Nature and
reason may be in their ascendency, but flight should not be
countenanced as a viable alternative. A biblical allusion
jfrom the Book of Genesis indicates that flight is
(detrimental, separating mankind from the possibility of
< I
vision: I
And Nights, the uncertain Periods: and into
Weeks & Months. In vain
They [Albion's Daughters] send the Dove &
Raven: & in vain the
Serpent over the mountains.
And in vain the Eagle & Lion over the four-fold
wilderness.
They return not: but generate in rocky places
232
desolate.
They return not; but build a habitation
separate from Man.[J 66:69-73; E 219]
Blake borrows from Genesis 8:8-9 and he uses the
narrative of Noah to establish that the time for flight and
sensual gratification has passed for the feminine
characters. In Genesis, doves were sent out to discover if
land was uncovered, if there was a habitat for mankind and
the animals, and this passage was considered an important
typological reference to the prophecies of Christ: "The
first dove signifieth the prophetical spirit, which arose
under Moses, viz, under the outward Law and offerings, and
pointed through the offering into the ark of Noah, and
Christ."^ The figural patterns of Blake’s epic indicates
that this discovery is immaterial. The "mighty polypus" has
attained dominion, and the prophetic man must stand and
fight the growing desire to degrade Albion, the "King of
Canaan." Blake compares Albion to the "King of the Jews" in
Chapter III of Jerusalem emphasizing the fact that Albion’s
characterologic function in the epic is fluid,
metamorphosizing into different biblical types, as the type
pertains to the event and the emotion. Portions of Plates
65 and 66: 16-30 are redactions from the accounts of
Christ's crucifixion— Matthew 27:26-36, Luke 23:32-43, Mark
15:15-32 and John 19:1-24— but the typologies are
deliberately secularized. Again Blake emphasizes the
233
narrative of Matthew rather than Mark, Luke, or John,
perhaps because Matthew’s account is more expressly
apocalyptic. The Covering Cherubs of Vala, "Voltaire &
Rousseau," supervise this phantasmagorical torture as the
icons of "Natural Religion" and "Natural Morality":
The Daughters of Albion clothed in garments of
needle work
Strip them off from their shoulders and bosoms,
they lay aside
Their garments; they sit naked upon the Stone
of trial.
The Knife of flint passes over the howling
Victim: his blood
Gushes & stains the fair side of the fair
Daug[h]ters of Albion.
They put aside his curls; they divide his seven
locks upon
His forehead: they bind his forehead with
thorns of iron
They put into his hand a reed, they mock:
Saying: Behold
The King of Canaan whose are seven hundred
chariots of iron![J 66:17-25; E 218]
Garment imagery, important to the "Passion Sequence,"
jalso pertains to one of Blake’s most sophisticated use of
i
the Bible as a typological intersection between Old
Testament and New Testament figures. In the quoted passage
from Plate 66, Blake alludes to the fulfillment of all the
typological references of the Old Testament; as Matthew
Henry noted in his exhaustive analysis of all the
typological features of the garment imagery in the
crucifixion, the "Passion" sequence indicated "that Jesus is
234
the true Messiah; for in him all the Old-Testament
prophecies concerning the Messiah had, and have, their full
accomplishment."^ On Plate 67 Blake alludes to one of the
most discussed prefigurations of the "blood11 shed by Jesus:
And the Twelve Daughters of Albion united in
Rahab & Tirzah
A Double Female: and they drew out from the
Rocky Stones
Fibres of Life to Weave[,] for every Female is
a Golden Loom...
They adore: & his revenge cherish with the
blood of the Innocent
They drink up Dan & Gad, to feed with milk
Skofeld & Kotope
They strip off Josephs Coat & dip it in
the blood of battle[J 67:2-4 & 21—23; E 220]
It is by no means a coincidence that Blake incorporated
an allusion to "Joseph's Coat" in a contiguous plate with a t
description of the crucifixion: Joseph's blood— or what
Jacob believed to be Joseph's blood— was considered a
prefiguration of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and Joseph
was an "especial type" of Christ as William Guild noted: "So
was Christ stript of his garments, and cast into the pit of
death and the grave, after he had beene (sic) sold for
thirtie (sic) pieces of silver to the Scribes & Pharises
7 8
(sic) by one of his own Disciples." But Guild was not the
primary commentator on this passage from Genesis. Jacob
Boehme was a writer Blake read with ambivalent feelings--he
235
admired the intellect but dismissed the esoteric
occultism— but Blake never quite forgot Boehme's
considerable intellectual gifts. Boehme was a very gifted
typologist, and his commentaries on Genesis, collected in
Hysterium Magnum, influenced this section of Jerusalem: "Anc
thus they murder the spirit of his father, in the coat; that
is, in his name they scandalize, slander and reproach him
falsely, and say of him that he doth vilify the blood of
Christ with his coat of many colours. And thus they deceive
his father, viz. the whole congregation, with the false
7 9
goat's blood, wherin they have dipped his coat." In
context, Blake incorporates a prefiguration of Christ in an
allusion to a deception of a matriarch, which is one of the
manipulative designs of the feminine characters in the
epic.
The most gifted commentator on the poem, Stuart Curran,
has contended "it is evident that Blake positions certain
events and descriptions to correspond with analogues in
Revelation." Furthermore, Curran states "but just as obvious
as these parallels are altered contexts, revisions, even
parodies." But perhaps Curran's most insightful point is
\
his suggestion that "the identification of Rahab at the end j
of Chapter III is exactly analogous with Christ's revelation
8 0
of the Great Whore, even to the same words." Indeed, Plate1
236
75 corresponds almost perfectly with Revelation 17, which
was the pivotal chapter for the commentators on Revelation
from Joseph Mede to the present. Plate 75 is the
fulfillment of some of the apocalyptic themes in the epic,
as Blake has inculcated images, motifs, and apocalyptic
ideologies from Daniel, Mark 13:14, and Matthew 24:15, what
Blake viewed as the prefigurative or "miniature"
apocalypses. As Michael Murrin has noted, "Revelation both
calls for structural analysis and at the same time tends to
impede it...It [Revelation] explicitly encourages this
search [for historical identification] by the angel’s gloss
in chapter 17, the chapter which provided Mede with a key to
8 1
the whole book." Plate 75 is Blake’s interpretation of
Revelation 17, but the biblical parallels of the passage
have not elicited critical attention. The "ten kings" that
will achieve temporal authority when the Whore of Babylon
attains her position are not named in the Book of
Revelation, and one surmises that the twenty "Female Males"
may serve as surrogates: "Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan,
Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch,/ Methuselah, Lamech; these are the1
Giants mighty, Hermaphroditic/ Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Cainan
the Second, Salah, Heber,/ Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah:
these are the Female Males:" The list of the "Male Females"
is an important distinction for Blake, and this catalogue
may be his most distinctive collocation of biblical and
237
historical figures. These historical figures are posited as
the "seven kings" of the Book of Revelation. Blake very
jrarely drew from the historical-literalist methodology of
explication of the Book of Revelation, and this is one of
the few occurences of this interpretive strategy in Blake's
prophecies.
The "Male Females" are far more demonic and fearsome
than the "Female Males" because externally they appear as
men, but internally they have the behavorial and
intellectual patterns of women. The seven "Male Females"
are, to say the very least, an unusual collection:
Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Paul, Constantine,
Char1emaine,
Luther, these Seven are the Male Females: the
Dragon Forms
The Female hid within a Male: thus Rahab is
reveald
Mystery Babylon the Great: the Abomination of
Desolation
Religion hid in War: a Dragon red, & hidden
Harlot[J 75:16-20 E 231]
i
I
Up to a certain point, Blake was following the
traditional identifications of the seven kings. Other
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century commentators offered the
interpretation that Constantine and Charlemaine were two of
the kings from Revelation 17, but Blake was not following
the identifications of either Henry More or Joseph Mede, the
238
two seminal commentators on the Book of Revelation. Mede and
More believed that "the seven heads of the Beast...[were]
the Kings, Consuls, Tribunes, Decem-viri, Dictators" and
they were under the influence of the "Pagan Caesars or
8 2
Emperours." It would be sheer speculation to say why these
figures should pertain to one another: perhaps the five that
are "fallen" are Abraham, Solomon, Paul, Constantine, and
Charlamine; the one in the process of falling is Moses; and
the one yet to fall, metaphorically, is Luther. One reason
Blake so strongly censured Luther was because Luther
disapproved of the Book of Revelation, and Luther refused to
accept it as canonical. In addition, Luther was the first
to identify— erroneously, in Blake's opinion— the Antichrist
as the Roman Catholic Pope; of course, Blake believed the
Antichrist to be the isolated selfhood of man. These seven
are the "Dragon Forms," the physical aspect of the dominion
of Rahab. By implication, the "Female Males" can be
transformed since Blake is following the biblical account
closely: the overthrow by Christ will consume both Rahab ant
the twenty supernumeraries of her will. The seven "Male
Females" are different, and a far more potentially
jdestructive force.
I
Evidently, the "seven kings" from Revelation 17— the I
"Male Females"— are more demonic, adversarial, and efficient
instruments of Babylon than the "Female Males." Blake
239
incorporates this historical literalist interpretation of
the world view of Revelation by deliberately offering a
"revisionist" presentation. Abraham, Moses, and Solomon
jwere Kings that misused or abused their power. Paul, on the
other hand, was an allegorist that separated letter from
spirit. Blake followed Moses Lowman and other critics in
identifying Charlemaine and Constantine as two of the
kings. Blake understood Luther’s role in the Reformation to
be a false prophet, one who created a false sense of
apocalyptic expectation; this point Blake makes in Mil ton
and extends in Jerusalem. Blake’s equivocal attitude towards
this historical-literalist attitude and towards the typology
of historical literalism has been well discussed by Joseph
A. Wittreich, Jr.:
As a commentator on the Book of Revelation,
William Blake opposed himself to the mode of
interpretation practiced in the sixteenth century
by many Revelation commentators and set in the
eighteenth century by Isaac Newton, a mode that
reduced John’s visionary drama to a rigid
historical allegory. He sets limits, I emphasize,
8 3
but he does not wholly deny its utility.
Wittreich rightly argues that Blake doubted the
validity of precise correspondences or elaborate and exact
historical allegorical readings of the Bible. Nevertheless,
this did not prohibit him from using this hermeneutical
methodology on this occasion.
2kO
Much of the narrative in Chapter IV is dialogic or
extended monologue, and the monologues are lamentations
generally and are not heavily freighted with typological
phrasings. Yet there are certain biblical associations that
determine the kind of Christological linkings that Blake
incorporates into his epic prophecy. In her first extensive
lamentation, Jerusalem, naked and in chains with her
children in captivity, bitterly curses her fate:
I walk to Ephraim. I seek for Shiloh: I walk
like a lost sheep
Among precipices of despair: in Goshen I seek
for light
In vain: and in Gilead for a physician and a
comforter.
Goshen hath followd Philistea: Gilead hath
joind with Og![J 79:10-13; E 234]
In this extraordinary passage, Blake identifies
Jerusalem as the disaffected Jeremiah in Jeremiah 8:22 where
Jeremiah laments over his daughter's condition, the rampant
idolatry of his society, and the dissipation and adultery
prevalent in his age. Yet it is also an important
typological reference as Henry notes: "The blood of Christ
is balm in Gilead, his Spirit is the physican there, both
sufficient, all-sufficient, so that they might have been
84
healed, but would not." The appropriateness of this
allusion to Jerusalem’s condition reveals how meticulously
2*H
Blake incorporates biblical features into his epic. It is
important to remember the fact that apocalyptic prophecies
are often "paired" creating a palimpsest transliteration:
"Whichever pairing of prophecies is studied, the
comprehension of the new prophecy is dependent upon first
comprehending the old one. This understanding was
commonplace during the Renaissance and persisted into the
8 5
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." And the
complementary visions of the prophets are granted to the
reader as history, symbolically or inferentially revealing
to the reader important correspondences and revelations, in
this case elaborating on the earlier dialogic conflicts on
Plate 62.
As Blake builds towards the apocalyptic revelation of
the Antichrist on Plate 89, he includes one of the most
understated allusions in the epic. Jerusalem elaborates on
her relationship with Albion:
Albion gave me to the whole Earth to walk up &
down; to pour
Joy upon every mountain; to teach songs to the
shepherd & plowman
I taught the ships of the sea to sing the songs
of Zion
Italy saw me, in sublime astonishment: France
was wholly mine:
As my garden & as my secret bath; Spain was my
heavenly couch:[J 79:36-40; E 235]
2k2
Blake indicates that Albion has been transformed from
the questing Job character representing the tortures of
England to the Satan character in Job. Jerusalem, wholly
taken in by Albion’s duplicitous, craven ideology, echoes
Job 1:7 and 2:2 revealing Albion as a Satanic tempter, a
secularized antitype of the biblical type. The sense of an
ending— "our confidence in the uniqueness of our crisis that
the character of our apocalypse must be known"— begins to be
8 6
manifested in this section of Chapter IV. Utilizing
intensifing narrative techniques, Blake increases the
dramatic tension of the work, interlocking brief apocalyptic
allusion to the Old Testament and the Gospels that signal
historical or personal crisis.
The metamorphoses in Chapter IV do not necessarily
reflect an inversion of the biblical paradigms or
typologies. In the case of the transformation of Hand and
Hyle on Plate 82, Blake is simply reiterating how analogy is
practiced by the Feminine characters, specifically Cambel
and Gwendolen, who have important functions in the epic.
Hand is transmuted, reformed, and then becomes dominant in
Chapter IV when Gwendolen undergoes a conversion, discovers
pity, and is "repentant." Los is engaged in evaluating what
should be his Christological function in Chapter IV, and
Blake establishes that Babylon has infected the Daughters of
Albion; they are drinking from the "cup of delusion," the
21*3
cup of fornicators and adulteresses.
In the extended "Song of Los" on Plate 85 and 86, Blako
cross-references other metaphoric extensions, developing the
contrast between type and antitype:
Twelvefold I there behold Israel in her Tents
A Pillar of a Cloud by day: a Pillar of fire by
night
Guides them: there I behold Moab & Ammon &
AmalektJ 86:26-28; E 248]
Blake now reduces the narrative to the irreducible, the
nexus of vision. The absence of biblical contexts in Plates
80-85 is now boldly interrupted, "recontextualized" into an
explicitly Old Testament myth. Los is identified as Moses,
viewing God leading the Jews out of Israel from the Book of
Exodus. Matthew Henry has an excellent discussion on the
typological features of this passage in his explication of
Exodus 13:21-22:
There was something spiritual in this pillar
of cloud and fire. Some make this cloud a type of
Christ. The cloud of his human nature was a veil
to the light and fire of his divine nature; we
find him clothed with a cloud, and his feet as
pillars of fire. Christ is our way, the light of
our way and the guide of it. It signifies the
special guidance and protection which the church
8 7
of Christ is under in this world.
In Chapter IV Blake develops the ideological, ethical
2kh
and theological contrasts between Moses and antitype: Moses,
confined by temporal and spatial restrictions, is bound to 1
cyclical life of journeying; Jesus breaks through "time" anc
"space," recognizing the duality of the two positions.
Blake grimly posits that there can be metamorphoses, but
only divinely inspired metamorphoses.
In his perceptive analysis of the conclusion of
Jerusal em, Northrop Frye notes the absence of a working 'up
of a climax; the Antichrist simply appears, although Blake
has been elaborately preparing for his appearance by
including various biblical prefigurations to the Antichrist.
Finally, the Antichrist is described in Plate 89, and Blake
closely parallels the Book of Revelation. Blake emphasizes
the imagery of Hell as the antithesis of the luminescence of
Heaven. On line 28 Blake describes the "black wings" of the
Antichrist, and on line 31 Blake includes a reference to
Moloch and Chemosh, heathen deities. The distinction Blake
is making— and it is of some importance— is that there will
be an everlasting night, the dominion of the authority of
the "Feminine Tabernacle," which is the "unknown Night
beyond the silent Grave." In this parody of the Book of
Revelation, Blake returns to the futuristic vision when the
Lord God will be their light," when "there shall be no night
there" and "night shall be no more." Other than some
postfigurative allusions to Revelation on Plate 98, this is
2k5
the last of echoes to Revelation, and this "revision" of
Revelation indicates the seventh seal is broken, the seventh
vial is poured, and the seventh trumpet is blown. All that
remains is the return of Christ, which will occur on Plate
96.
The apotheosis of Los on Plate 91 precedes the
separation of the Spectre "into a separate space," which
permits Los to regain his phallic drive, which coincides
with the restoration of his "Intellect." After Enitharmon’s
confusion concerning arrogation and pride on Plate 93, Los
finally attains his vatic vision as a seer. Los's speech on
Plate 93 amalgamates several biblical passages:
Fear not my Sons this Waking Death, he is
become One with me
Behold him here! We shall not Die! we shall be
united in Jesus.
Will you suffer this Satan this Body of Doubt
that Seems but Is Not
To occupy the very threshold of Eternal Life.
if Bacon, Newton, Locke,
Deny a Conscience in Man & the Communion of
Saints & Angels
Contemning the Divine Vision & Fruition.
Worshiping the Deus
Of the Heathen, The God of This World, & the
Goddess Nature[J 93:18-24; E 253-254]
Line 19 parallels the memorable speech by Jesus in
John, as Los is arguing against the Old Testament
perspective of Enitharmon. Blake once again establishes the
2 h 6
veracity of the Lazarus myth. Blake deliberately expounds
upon a "miraculous" event in the life of Christ where, as
Blake so finely expressed it, "Jesus could not do miracles
where unbelief hinderd (sic) hence we must conclude that the
man who holds miracles to be ceased puts it out of his own
power to ever witness one." [E 616] In Blake's opinion,
John 11:25 related an event in Christ's life where belief
was sustained, and there is no "hindering of belief."
Indeed, Blake's poetry depends on faith, which is
interconnected with truth, as faith is closely associated
with vision. Blake aligned truth with vision and the
"miraculous," and as Matthew Poole illustrates, the speech
by Jesus demonstrates how faith must be restored for the
"miraculous" to take place:
Mary by her speech seemed not to have a true
Notion of Christ; She believed that there should
be a general Resurrection from the dead in the
last day, by the mighty Power of God; but she did
not truly understand, what influence Christ had
upon this Resurrection, that the raising of the
Dead, should be the peculiar work of Christ, not
without the Father, but as he was Ordained by the
Father, to be the Judge of the Quick and of the
dead. Christ doth therefore here further instruct
her and tell her, He was the resurrection; where
[as is usual in Scripture] the Effect is put for
88
the Cause:
Also the peripheral importance of the Pauline teachings
should not be overlooked. There may be an echo of the first
2h7
letter to the Thessalonians» I Thes. 4:17. Paul's reference
to "end-time," when Jesus will return to earth to resurrect
the believers, elaborates on some of the Evangelists'
teachings. In addition there may be a slight reverberation
of Matthew 24:68 in lines 24-26 and, unquestionably, Blake
again alludes to a crucial biblical passage, II Corinthians
4:4, where "The God of This World"— "Hidden Nature"— has
replaced Satan in the world order.
Plates 94 and 95 are an expository narration that
details the after-restoration of faith, when Nature and
Spectral self-consciousness is accepted but then eliminated
by the Eternals. Plate 96 refracts and consolidates so many
biblical allusions that it is difficult to separate them.
Plate 96 initiates the world celebration of the overthrow of
the Antichrist by including a consolidation of passages from
the Gospels:
Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the
Good Shepherd
By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion
knew that it
Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion
saw his Form
A Man. & they conversed as Man with Man, in
Ages of Eternity
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness & (
similitude of Los[J 96:3-7; E 255]
Blake is drawing on two different but complementary
248
sections of the Gospels. In John 10:11, Jesus "interprets"
an elaborate metaphor because "they [his audience] did not
understand what He [Jesus] was saying to them."
Additionally, Blake alludes to Luke 15:31, another equally
enigmatic parable: Blake synthesized these two challenging
biblical parables so the ideological impact of the language
of Jesus would not be misused. Parables, as Benjamin Keach
and many others argued, were the most difficult and
challenging of Jesus’s teachings and the most important for
the reader to understand: "Learn to be studious, and search
into the Spiritual Meaning and Mysteries, of Allegorical anc
Parabolical Scripture. 0 be Wise and Experienced Hearers,
and be sure you do not despise men's preaching on these
Parables, since the Substance of our Saviour’s whole
8 9
Ministry to the World is contained in them." Yet Blake
disapproved of the enigmatic, the allegorical, or the
mythical, and he sought to simplify the difficult parables
of Christ. After having been associated with the Job-type
and the Lazarus antitype, Albion now literally returns to
the fold, enabling Albion to "converse" with Jesus who "was
the likeness and similitude of Los." Likeness and similitude
were two different terms. Similitude, in the eighteenth
century, was defined as a metaphoric extension of the
sacrament, an identification between the worldly and the
sacramental. Albion, now unencumbered by Spectral
2h9
restraints, can express his ambiguities, doubts and
reservations about his faith, and Jesus can reestablish the
foundation of the covenant.
Before the elimination of the Antichrist and the
Spectral doubt of the Covering Cherub, Blake must offer a
portrayal of truly humanized Christ, consonant in both
ideology and identity with Los. This deliberate act of
"demystification"— a reflective, accessible Christ-figure,
sacralized but not an advocate of atonement— begins with
Plate 3, when Blake embraces his vatic purpose. It
culminates on Plate 96 when Jesus discusses his modified
"good tidings." Jesus elucidates His revised theological
position:
Jesus replied Fear not Albion unless I die thou
canst not live
But if I die I shall arise again & thou with me
This is Friendship & Brotherhood without it Man
I Not[J 96:14-16; E 255]
Blake ingeniously transforms an important Christian
attitude by the use of the subjunctive: whereas in John's
Gospel Jesus emphasizes the necessity of His demise— the
necessitarian postion— Blake offers a more human vision of
friendship and resurrection. Man truly has free will.
Blake ingeniously transforms a central teaching of Christ:
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
250
life for his friends,/ Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever
I command you." [John 15:13-14] Blake incorporates other
background allusions to John, possibly John 3:21 and
12:32-34, as Albion finally comprehends that there can be
Christian doctrine without atonement. Yet he interrogates
further:
One for another to put off by forgiveness,
every sin
Albion replyd. Cannot Man exist without
Mysterious
Offering of Self for Another, is the Friendship
& Brotherhood[J 96:19-21; E 256]
The reply by Jesus illustrates how the "Self" can be
obviated by the "contemplation" of faith.
Jesus said. Wouldest thou love one who never
died
For thee or ever die for one who had not died
for thee
And if God dieth not for Man & giveth not
himself
Eternally for Man Man could not exist, for Man
is Love:
As God is Love: every kindness to another is a
little Death[J 96:22-27; E 256]
These biblical allusions are postfigurative, indicating
that an apocalypse has taken place, and the prophecies of
the Old Testament have been fulfilled. Plates 97, 98, and
99 are celebrations of man's triumphs over mundane
251
restraints, resembling in many ways the post-apocalyptie Act
IV of Prometheus Unbound. For example, on Plate 97 Blake
alludes to a moment of exultation from Isaiah:
Awake! Awake Jerusalem! 0 lovely Emanation of
Albion
Awake and overspread all Nations as in Ancient
Time[J 97:1-2; E 256]
The pertinent passage is from Isaiah 51:9-17 and 52:1,
a very important biblical passage for Blake's mythopoetics
and an important typological reference. Blake was following
the "received interpretation" of Isaiah and as Matthew Henry
notes, this passage was interpreted as a call for
deliverance:
It is a call to awake not so much out of the
sleep of sin [though that also is necessary in
order to their being ready for deliverance] as out
of the stupor of despair. When the inhabitants of
Jerusalem were in captivity they, as well as those
who remained upon the spot, were so overwhelmed
with the sense of their troubles that they had no
heart or spirit to mind any thing that tended to
90
their comfort or relief.
This initiates the memorable three plate reconstruction
of man's liberation from socio-sexual restraints and j
I
I
govermental autocracy. The "Mutual Covenant Divine" has
been returned to man. The last significant typological
reference in the epic is to the Book of Revelation,
252
revealing that nationalism, though mimimized in the
post-apocalyptic era, is still infiltrating the English
government:
The Oak Groves of Albion that coverd the whole
Earth
beneath his Spectre
Where are the Kingdoms of the World & all their
glory that grew on Desolation
The Fruit of Albions Poverty Tree when the
Triple Headed Gog-Magog Giant
Of Albion Taxed the Nations into Desolation &
then gave the Spectrous Oath[J 98:50-53; E 258]
The reference to Revelation 27:10 perhaps can be
interpreted as Christopher Heppner has suggested: "Here Gog
and Magog still function as a symbol of the totality of
political and economic aggression that gathers to a head
before the final liberation, no doubt with the implication
of a more specific aim at Pitt and subsequent war
administrators."91 With Satan and Gog-Magog overthrown and
Deism eliminated, Los's mission of exculpation of guilt and
expiation of sin is concluded.
253
Narrative and the Apocalyptic Conclusion of
Jerusalem
Roland Barthes has speculated whether "everything in a
narrative [is] functional? Does everything, down to the
slightest detail, have a meaning? Can narrative be divided
92
up entirely into functional units?" In Jerusalem, Blake
answers these questions with an affirmative, and Barthes
probably would have recognized the complex interrelatedness
of Jerusalem, an epic that attests to the fact that a
narrative can facilitate the act of interpretation,
particularly the troublesome events narrated in the Bible.
The interpretational difficulties of Scripture, though not
wholly resolved, are at least made comprehensible. Dimly,
the mediating actions of the imagination, hermeneutically
clarified with vision, is freed to examine both secular and
ecclesiastical matters. And valid spiritual growth,
authenticating the insights gained from this hermeneutical
correction, are conspicuous in this concluding affirmation |
i
i
of society. The equilibrium among speech, action, belief,
and practical application of biblical subtilitus explicandi
is achieved through the revelatory attainment of inner
254
discovery, identification of error, and the eradication of
that error. Secure in his understanding of empirical and
revelatory vision, the reader understands the correlation
between biblical types and the progress of the inner soul
(towards salvation. Indeed, Blake goes even further: Blake
transforms the idea of accommodation. As Erich Auerbach
notes, figura eliminates temporality: "The horizontal, that
is the temporal and causal, connection of occurrences is
dissolved; the here and now is no longer a mere link in an
earthly chain of events, it is simultaneously something
which has always been, and which will be fulfilled in the
future; and strictly, in the eyes of God, it is something
eternal, something omni-temporal, something already
93
consummated in the realm of fragmentary earthly event."
Man can not only understand how the shadowy types of the Old
Testament function, but he is permitted to delineate the
exact correlation between type and antitype, character and
reader, and the temporal and the atemporal. Vision and
prophecy is the essence of man's process of humanization,
which is accomplished through meditation on the eternal
forgiveness of sins rather than on man's temporal depravity
and reprobation.
255
Notes to Chapter II
1. ¥. J. T. Mitchell, B1ake1s Composite Art: A Study of
the I1luminated Poetry (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1978), p. 122.
2. Thomas R. Preston, "Biblical Criticism, Literature,
and the Eighteenth-Century Reader" in Books and their
Readers in Eighteenth-Century Engl and ed. by Isabel Rivers.
(Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), 97-126. For
other works that have influenced this study, see Paul
Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1980) and Frederick W. Farrar, History of
Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1961), a
reprint of the important 1885 Bampton Lectures. See also
Frank Kermode's The Art of Telling (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1983). The standard work on Blake and
typology is Leslie Tannenbaum's Biblical Tradition in
Blake's Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1982). My differences with
Tannenbaum are on matters of emphasis and fundamentals.
3. Thomas R. Preston, "The Uses of Adversity: Worldly
Detachment and Heavenly Treasure in The Vicar of Wakefield"
in Studies in Philology (LXXXI), (1984), 231.
4. G. E. Bentley, Jr., "A Jewel in an Ethiop's Ear" in
256
B1ake in His Time ed. by Robert N. Essick and Donald
Pearce. (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press,
1978), 213-240.
5. Thomas R. Preston, "Biblical, Criticism, Literature,
and the Eighteenth-Century Reader" in Books and their
Readers in Eighteenth-Century England ed. by Isabel Rivers.
(Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), 106.
6. Tzvetan Todorov, The Poetics of Prose (Ithaca, N.
Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 64. V. A. De Luca,
"The Changing Order of Plates in Jerusalem, Chapter II" in
B1ake: An I1lustrated Quarterly 16, 192-205. W. J. T.
Mitchell, Blake *s Composite Art: A Study of the 11luminated
Poetry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978),
p. 172.
7. Gerald Reedy, The Bible and Reason: Anglicans and
Scripture in Late Seventeenth-Century England (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985). See also Hans W.
Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative a. Study in
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven,
London: Yale University Press, 1974).
8. Anthony Collins, A Discourse of the Grounds and
Reasons of the Christian Religion (London: 1724), p. 239.
9. Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A
257
Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New
Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 67.
10. Robert F. Gleckner, B1ake and Spenser (Baltimore
and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), p.
1. See also Gleckner's essays, "Blake’s Miltonizing of
Chatterton” B1ake Newsletter 11 (1977): 27-29; "Blake, Gray,
and the Illustrations" Criticism 19 (1977): 118-40; "Blake's
'I Saw a Chapel All of Gold’" Colby Library Quarterly 15
(1979): 37-47; "Antithetical Structure in Blake's Poetical
Sketches" Studies in Romanticism 20 (1981): 143-62, and his
book Blake's Prelude: "Poetical Sketches" (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1982).
11. Hayden White, "The Value of Narrativity in the
Representation of Reality" in Critical Inquiry 7 (1980): 7.
In this essay, White well summarizes some of the theories of
Emile Benveniste, Gerard Genette, and Roland Barthes.
12. Robert Lowth, Isaiah. A New Translation (Albany:
Printed by Charles R. and George Webster, No 2,
Pear1-Street, 1794), pg. 5. Lowth repeated and elaborated
on these comments in his important Lectures On The Sacred
Poetry of the Hebrews.
13. Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., Visionary Poetics:
Mil ton's Tradition and His Legacy (San Marino, Ca.:
Huntington Library, 1979), p. 26.
258
14. Peter N. Brooks, Reading for the Plot; Design and
Intention in Narrative (New York: Knopf, 1984), pp. 5-6.
15. Frank Kermode, The Art of Telling (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 25. The eighteenth
century biblical interpreters were interested in Midrash as
John Edwards notes: "I will instance first in the Writings
of the Old Testament, and shew that there is a secondary or
mystical Sense lodged in several Passages of them. Indeed
the holy Language it self, in which these were wrote, is big
with Mysteries. The Jews, who were conversant in these
Writings, acknowledg'd there was not only a literal but a
mystical Interpretation of them, which latter they called
Midrash, because there was no attaining to it but by a
diligent Inquisition." A Discourse Concerning The Authority,
Stile, and Perfection Of The Books Of The Old And New
Testament (London, 1694), p. 14.
16. Kathleen Williams, "Milton, Greatest Spenserian" in
Mil ton and the Line of Vision ed. by Joseph Anthony
Wittreich, Jr. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press,
1975), 39-40.
17. S. K. Heninger, Jr., "Sidney and Milton: The Poet
as Maker" in Milton and the Line of Vision ed. by Joseph
259
Anthony Wittreich, Jr. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin
Press, 1975), 58.
18. Thomas Scott, D. D., The New Testament
(Philadelphia: Dikerson, Printer. 1813), p. 112. Henry
Ainsworth, Annotations Upon the Five Books of Moses, The
Book of the Psalmes, and the Song of Songs, or Canticles.
(London, 1627). In Matthew Poole's compendious Synopsis
Criticorum published in the 1670's, there is almost a full
page discussion of the term; in effect, Scott translates and
condenses from the Latin interpretation of Poole. For a
provocative modern analysis, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative
Art in Genesis (Amsterdam, Van Gorcum, Assen, 1975), pp.
127, 136-138. Fokkelman argues on page 136 that Reuben has
"but little notion" of what he does.
19. Morton Paley, The Continuing City: Wil1 jam B1ake's
Jerusalem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 270.
20. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New
York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1981), p. 19.
21. Leonard Deen, Conversing in Paradise: Poetic Genius
and Identity-as-Community in Blake's Los (Columbia, London:
I
University of Missouri Press, 1983), p. 15.
22. Simon Patrick, A Commentary Upon the First Books of
Moses Called Genesis (London, 1697), pp. 286-287.
260
23. Stuart A. Curran, "The Structures of Jerusalem" in
Blake * s Sublime Allegory: Essays on The Four Zoas, Milton,
Jerusalem ed. by Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr. and Stuart
Curran. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1973),
338.
24. Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William
B1ake (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp.
382-383.
25. Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and
Revealed to the Constitution and Course of Nature (New York:
Robert Carter & Brothers, 1785), p. 189.
26. Northrop Frye, "Introduction" in B1ake: A
Collection of Critical Essays ed. by Northrop Frye,
(Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hal1, 1966), 3.
27. M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four
Essays (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. 114.
28. Michael Ferber, The Social Vision of William B1ake
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp.
116-130.
29. Isaac Newton, Observations Upon the Prophecies of
!
Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St♦ John (London, 1732.), p.
9.
26l
30. See, for example, Harold Bloom, "Blake’s Jerusa1em:
The Bard of Sensibility and the Form of Prophecy" in Ringers
in the Tower: Studies in Romantic Tradition (Chicago,
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1971), 65-80.
31. John Calvin, Commentary on a_ Harmony of the
Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Edinburgh: Printed for
the Calvin Translation Society, 1845), p. xl. Further work
needs to be done on the influence of Calvin on the
eighteenth century and, in particular, William Blake.
32. Paul Korshin, "The Development of Abstracted
Typology in England, 1650-1820" ^in Literary Uses of
Typology: from the Late Middle Ages to the Present ed. by
Earl Miner. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977),
147-203. Paul Korshin, Typologies in England, 1650-1820
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1982).
33. Thomas R. Preston, "Biblical Criticism, Literature,
and the Eighteenth-Century Reader" in Books and Their
Readers in Eighteenth Century England ed. by Isabel Rivers.
(Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), p. 119.
34. E. J. Rose, "Blake’s Fourfold Art" Philological
Quarterly, 49 (1970), 400-423.
35. Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., Angel of Apocalypse;
262
Blake’s Idea j>£ Mil ton (Madison: University of Wisconsin,
1975). Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., Visionary Poetics:
Mil ton’s Tradition and His Legacy (San Marino, Ca.:
Huntington Library, 1979). Stuart Curran, "The Structures of
Jerusalem" in Blake * s Sublime Allegory: Essays on The Four
Zoas, Milton, Jerusalem ed. by Joseph Anthony Wittreich,
jjr. and Stuart Curran. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin
Press, 1973), 329-346.
36. Stuart Curran, Shelley’s Annus Mirabilus: The
Maturing of an Epic Vision (San Marino, Ca.: Huntington
Library, 1975), p. 38.
37. Henry Hammond, D. D., A Paraphrase, and Annotations
Upon all the Books of the New Testament (London: 1681), p.
I
920.
38. W n i i am Burkitt, Expository Notes (London: 1759).
Matthew 28:18-20.
39. W. J. T. Mitchell, Blake's Composite Art: A Study
of the I1luminated Poetry (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1978), p. 189.
40. Matthew Poole, Annotations Upon the Holy Bible
(London, 1696), [St. John 20:13].
41. Thomas Sherlock, The Use and Intent of Prophecy, in
263
the Several Ages of the World (London, 1755). All the major
commentators— Henry, Poole, Doddridge, Patrick, and Scott
discussed this passage in detail. However, the writer that
this passage most influenced was William Warburton. In his
farrago of comments on epistemology, philosophy, and
semiotics entitled The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated
On The Principles Of A Religious Deist published in London
in 1741, Warburton was much impressed with the Methodists
who he referred to as "honest Zealots." Yet Warburton
rejected the Christianized interpretation of this passage of-
Job: "the Book of Job is proved to be an Allegoric Poem,
written on the Return from the Captivity and representing
the Circumstances of the People of that Time. The famous
Words, I know that my Redeemer liveth, signify, in their
literal Sense, the Hopes of a temporal Deliverance only."
p. 275.
42. Robert Gleckner, B1ake and Spenser (Baltimore and
London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 310.
43. For example, see Mary Ann Radzinowicz, "Paradise
Regained as Hermeneutic Combat" in Hartford Studies in
Language 16 (1984) 99-107. William Kerrigan, The Prophetic
Milton (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia,
1974). William Kerrigan, The Sacred Complex: on the .
Psychogenesis of Paradise Lost (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
_ ----------------
2 6k
University Press, 1983). Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr.,
[Visionary Poetics; Milton1s Tradition and His Legacy (San
Marino, CA.: Huntington Library, 1979). Stuart Curran, "The
Mental Pinnacle: Paradise Regained and the Romantic
Four-Book Epic" in Calm of Mind: Tercentenary Essays on
Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes in Honor of John S.
Diekhoff ed. by Joseph Anthony Wittreich. (Cleveland: Press
of Case Western Reserve University, 1971), 133-162.
44. Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of Wi1liam
B1ake (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p.
357-358. W. J. T. Mitchell, Blake's Composite Art: A Study
of the I1luminated Poetry (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1978), p. 170.
45. Thomas Scott, The New Testament of Our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ (Philadelphia: Dickinson, Printer.
1813) , [John 17:1].
46. William Burkitt, Expository Notes (London: 1749),
[Matthew 2:18].
47. William Burkitt, Expository Notes (London: 1749),
[Matthew 24:15].
48. Bernard McGinn, "Early Apocalypticism: The Ongoing
Debate" in The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and
Literature Patterns, Antecedents and Repercussions ed. by
265
Joseph Wittreich and C. A. Patrides. (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1984), 21.
49. Henry Hammond, A Paraphrase and Annotations Upon
A11 the Books of the New Testament (London: 1681), p. 4.
50. Conyers Middleton, An Examination of the Lord
Bishop of London1s Discourse Concerning the Use and Intent
of Prophecy (London, 1750), pp. 19, 20, 63.
51. Bernard McGinn, "Early Apocalypticism: The Ongoing
Debate" in The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and
I
Literature Patterns, Antecedents and Repercussions ed. by
Joseph Wittreich and C. A. Patrides. (Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press, 1984), 4.
52. Barbara Lewalski, Milton's Brief Epic: The Genre,
Meaning, and Act of Paradise Regained Providence, Rhode
Island: Brown University Press, 1966), p. 11. The
controversies continued throughout the eighteenth century.
53. Leslie Tannenbaum, Biblical Tradition in B1ake * s
Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art (Princeton, N. J.:
Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 12.
54. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York:
Basic Books, INC., Publishers, 1985), p. 87
55. Matthew Poole, Annotations Upon the Holy Bible
266
(London: 1696) [Matthew 10:29-31].
56. Henry Hammond, A Paraphrase and Annotations Upon
A H the Books of the New Testament (London: 1681) [Luke
12:32 ]
57. Robert Lowth, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the
Hebrews (Boston, 1815). Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical
[poetry (New York: Basic Books, INC., Publishers, 1985).
James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry Parallelism and
Its History (New Haven, London: Yale University Press,
1981) .
58. Joseph Wicksteed, B1ake1s Vision of The Book of Job
yith Reproductions of the Illustration (London: J. M. Dent &
I
Sons Limited New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1910), p. 36.
59. Thomas Scott, The New Testament of Our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ (Philadelphia: Dickinson, Printer.
1813) [Job 1:1].
60. Stuart Curran, "The Structure of Jerusalem" in
B1ake * s Sublime Allegory: Essays on The Four Zoas Milton and
llerusalem ed. by Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., and Stuart
Curran. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1973),
339.
61. Frank Kermode, "Secrets and Narrative Sequence"
267
Critical Inquiry 7 [1980], 88.
62. William Lowth, Directions for the Profitable
Reading of the Holy Scriptures (London, 1708), pp. 41-42.
63. John Mayer, A Commentary Upon the New Testament
(London, 1631), p. 477.
64. W. J. T. Mitchell, Blake * s Composite Art; A Study
of the I1luminated Poetry (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1978), p. 172.
65. Joseph Wittreich, Interpreting Samson Agonistes
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), p.
126.
66. Benjamin Keach, A Key to Opening Scriptual
Metaphores (London, 1682), p. 200.
67. Robert Lowth, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the
Hebrews (Boston, 1815), p. 153.
68. Karl Froehlich, "’Always to Keep the Literal Sense
in Holy Scripture Means to Kill One’s Soul’: The State of
Biblical Hermeneutics at the Beginning of the Fifteenth
Century" in Literary Uses of Typology: From the Late Middle
Ages to the Present ed. by Earl Miner. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1977), 21.
268
69. Matthew Poole, Annotations Upon the Holy Bible
(London, 1685) [2 Corinthians 4:4].
70. John Mayer, A Commentary Upon The New Testament
(London: 1631), p. 78.
71. Thomas Scott, The New Testament (Philadelphia:
Dikerson, Printer, 1813) [Revelation 15:3].
72. Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay In
Method (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 157.
73. Thomas Preston, "The Uses of Adversity: Worldly
Detachment and Heavenly Treasure in The Vicar Of Wakefield"
in Studies in Philology LXXXI, (1984), 230-231 .
74. Matthew Poole, Annotations Upon the Holy Bible
(London: 1686) [Matthew 1:19]
75. Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William
Blake (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1969).
p. 398.
76. Jacob Boehme, Mysterium Magnum or an Exposition of
the First Book of Moses Called Genesis (London: John M.
Watkins, Charing Cross Road, 1924), p. 312.
77. Matthew Henry, An Exposition of all the Books of
the Old and New Testaments (London, 1708-1714). See the
269
comments on Matthew.
78. William Guild, Moses Unvai1ed; Or Those Figures
Which Served Unto the Pattern and Shadow of Heavenly Things,
Pointing Out the Messiah Christ Jesus (London, 1620), p.
33.
79. Jacob Boehme, Mysterium Magnum Or An Exposition of
the First Book of Moses Called Genesis (London: John M.
Watkins, Charing Cross Road, 1924), p. 731.
80. Stuart Curran, "The Structures of Jerusalem" in
Blake*s Sublime A11egory: Essays on the Four Zoas, Mil ton
and Jerusalem ed. by Joseph Anthony Wittreich and Stuart
Curran. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1973).
339.
81. Michael Murrin, "Revelation and Two
Seventeenth-Century Commentators" in The Apocalypse jLn
English Renaissance Thought and Literature ed. by Joseph
Anthony Wittreich and C. A. Patrides. (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1984), 126.
82. Joseph Mede, The Key of the Revelation, Search and
Demonstrated Out of the Natural and Proper Characters of the
Visions (London, 1650), p. 173. Henry More, Apocalypsis
Apocalypseos; Or the Revelation of St. John the Divine
Unveiled (London, 1680). Virtually every commentator from
270
Luther to Scott interpreted this passage virtually in the
same manner as More and Mede. For example, see Moses
Lowman’s commentary that states in part "there appears no
reason why the imperial government under Christian emperors
should, or even can, be called a new form of Roman
government: for all the powers of government were the very
same under heathen and Christian emperors. I cannot
therefore apprehend, that Constantine and his successors,
when the empire became Christian, can be meant by the
seventh king, or the kingdom which was not yet come."
Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament by Daniel
Whitby. (London: William Tegg & Co., Cheapside, 1849), which
includes Lowman's 1737 edition of A Paraphrase and Notes on
the Revelation of St. John. See also Dissertations on the
Prophecies by Thomas Newton. (London. 1760), p. 301 for an
opposing view. Of course, the great synthesizer, Phillip
Doddridge, succinctly expresses the contentions between
Mede, More and Moses Lowman: "Some reckon these to be the
Roman Kings, Consuls, Dictators, Decemvirs, military
Tribunes, Emperors, and Popes. But I much question whether
this be a right Solution. Mr. Lowman supposes here is an
Intimation, that the seventh Form of Government was not to
begin, till the Imperial Power was destroyed." p. 561 of
his A Family Expositor (London, 1756). Also see the
important commentary by Emanuel Swedenborg, The Apocalypse
271
[Explained first published in London in 1781. This work
jdevotes over one hundred pages of tedious, repetitious
explication to Revelation 17: this may account for Blake's
later disavowal of Swedenborg.
83. Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., Visionary Poetics:
Mil ton1s Tradition and His Legacy (San Marino, Ca.:
Huntington Library Press, 1979), p. 235.
84. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible
(London, 1708-1714) [Jeremiah 8:22].
85. Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., Visionary Poetics:
[Milton1s Tradition and His Legacy (San Marino, Ca.:
Huntington Library Press, 1979), p. 31.
86. Frank Kermode, The Sense of An Ending: Studies in
the Theory Of Fiction (London, Oxford, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1966). p. 96.
87. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible
(London, 1708-1714) [Exodus 13:21—22].
88. Matthew Poole, Annotations Upon the Holy Bible
(London, 1686) [John 11:25].
89. Benjamin Keach, Gospe1 Mysteries Unvei1'd: Or An
Exposition of All the Parables (London, 1701), p. 7.
272
90. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible
(London, 1708-1714) [Isaiah 51].
91. Christopher Heppner, "Blake’s ’The New Jerusalem
Descending’: A Drawing (Butlin #92) Identified" in B1ake/An
Illustrated Quarterly 20 (1986), 11.
92. Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text Essays Selected
and Translated by Stephen Heath, (New York: Hill and Wang,
1977), p. 89.
93. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of
Reality in Western Literature (Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1953), p. 74.
273
Epilogue
One would hope that Jerusalem is destined to become the
most closely studied long poem in the Blake canon, since his
last epic consolidates so much of his "philosophy"
articulated— with a measured sense of irony— in his earlier
work. Critics have discussed the asymmetry in the
poetical-pictorial interplay, and some perceptive readers
have detailed the structural cohesiveness of the work, the
transmutation from imaginative vision to iconographic
revelation. Yet Jerusalem remains the greatest challenge to
the student of English Romantic poetry, and, as Morris Eaves
has recently stated, "compared to what we know about Don
Juan, we know nothing whatever about Jerusalem. But I refuse
to pretend to believe that even the wisest Blake scholars
feel confident in their understanding of The Marriage of
Heaven and Hel1, much less the strange poems in the
Pickering manuscript, and less still Europe, The Four Zoas,
Mil ton or Jerusalem." Even in this age of imposing critical
sophistication, Jerusalem sustains infrequent critical
examination. Because of its topicality and complexity, it
resists explication and analysis.
27^
However, this study, though by no means exhaustive, has
attempted to place William Blake in a specific intellectual
context. No one study can begin to assess the intellectual
motivations of Blake, especially in such an intricate and
discursive poem as Jerusalem. But perhaps Blake's
perspective on some aspects of eighteenth-century thought
has been made slightly less opaque. Several critical
generations ago, Northrop Frye noted that in Jerusalem there
are only two questions to answer: "how Blake interpreted the
Bible, and how he placed that interpretation in an English
context." Furthermore, Frye went on to state "as a
recreation of the Bible, Jerusalem fits the parts of that
vast and chaotic book together with a more than theological
precision. We are expected to make every dry bone in the
Bible live, to recognize that its catalogues and genealogies
preserve a fossilized memory of otherwise forgotten history,
to appreciate the puns and associations of the proper names
in their Hebrew significance." Frye's suggestive lead has
not been sufficiently followed because critics have been
reluctant to do the heavy spade work necessary for a study
of Blake’s use of the Bible in Jerusalem. This study should
be viewed as a "preludium" to larger, more comprehensive
studies. Critics are correct in noting Blake's profoundly
biblical cast of mind and his indebtedness to biblical
paradigms; yet by the late eighteenth century, the Bible was
275
indissolubly linked to some specific exegetical traditions.
We know Blake read "hundreds" of biblical commentaries,
possibly covering the entire span of the "critical
tradition," from the Masoretic texts to the
nineteenth-century critical examinations. This study
attempts to demonstrate that in Jerusalem Blake surveys the
traditional exegesis of the biblical texts, considering the
permutations in the hermeneutical practices of the
eighteenth century. Blake's accents, inevitably, fall on
the deist controversies. To speak, then, of Jerusalem as a
biblical analogue or "parody" of certain books of the Bible
is to imply that the poet recognized the problematic nature
of the interpretative traditions and the ramifications of
modifying these traditions. Anagogy— internal, spiritual
searches for understanding in a mythopoeic framework— became
a desideratum for Blake. And, ultimately, the concluding
plates of Jerusalem attest to the apocalyptic conviction of
Blake; there are no longer "abstractions." All forms are
identified, and all the prophecies of the coming of the
Messiah have been ascertained. Mankind no longer exists,
aimlessly, in the "Indefinite," but is bound to the
infinitely merciful vision of the Logos, where time, space
and mutability no longer exist.
276
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