For Son of God to me is yet in doubt: is that of plausible hypocrisy, through which, when elicited by the sudden irritation of defeat, his diabolical malignity frequently flashes out, and displays itself with singular effect. Dun ster. 501. For Son of God to me is yet in doubt:] The Tempter had heard Christ declared to be Son of God by a voice from heaven. He allows him to be virgin-born. He hath no scruples about the annunciation, and the truth of what Gabriel told the blessed woman, (Luke i. 35. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall 505 510 515 overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,) and yet he doubts of his being the Son of God notwithstanding. This is easily accounted for. On the terms of the annunciation Christ might be the Son of God in a sense very particular, and yet a mere man as to his nature: but the doubt relates to what he was more than man, worth calling Son of God; that is, worthy to be called Son of God in that high and proper sense, in which his sonship would infer his divinity. Calton. All men are sons of God; yet thee I thought Therefore I watch'd thy footsteps from that hour, Where by all best conjectures I collect Thou art to be my fatal enemy. Good reason then, if I beforehand seek And what he is; his wisdom, pow'r, intent; To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee Of adamant, and as a centre, firm, To th' utmost of mere man both wise and good, 523. —this waste wild;] And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness, b. i. 7. Again, with v. 533. Proof against all temptation, as a rock of adamant. Compare Sams. Agon. 134. -frock of mail Adamantean proof. 520 525 530 535 "tinct from any which belongs "unto the rest of the sons of "God, that he may be clearly "and fully acknowledged the "only-begotten Son. For al"though to be born of a virgin "be in itself miraculous, yet is "it not so far above the produc"tion of all mankind, as to place "him in that singular eminence, "which must be attributed to the "only-begotten. We read of Adam "the son of God as well as Seth "the son of Adam: Luke iii. 38. "and surely the framing Christ "out of a woman cannot so far "transcend the making Adam "out of the earth, as to cause so Worth naming Son of God by voice from heaven, So say'ing he caught him up, and without wing great a distance, as we must " believe, between the first and "second Adam." Calton. 541. and without wing Only the beast he rode was not of art, hideous are, And passing strength and force, and vent'rous heart, But all the rest may with a horse 540 545 541. Eschylus in his Prometheus, v. 282, makes Oceanus travel on a winged steed. Dun ster. 545. The holy city lifted high her towers,] Matt. iv. 5. Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, &c. Jerusalem is frequently called the holy city in the Old Testament; but Dr. Townson remarks, that St. Matthew alone of all the Evangelists ascribes titles of this kind to Jerusalem. And this arose, as he conceives, from St. Matthew being the earliest writer of the four, and from the character of sanctity being transferred, when the others wrote, to other cities which had embraced Christianity. The towers of Jerusalem are frequently mentioned in Scripture. See 2 Chron. xxvi. 9. xxxii. 5. Dunster. 549. There on the highest pinnacle he set The Son of God,] He has chosen to follow the order observed by St. Luke in placing this temptation last, because if he had with St. Matthew The Son of God, and added thus in scorn. There stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright Will ask thee skill; I to thy Father's house 550 Have brought thee', and highest plac'd, highest is best, Now show thy progeny; if not to stand, introduced it in the middle. it would have broke that fine thread of moral reasoning, which is observed in the course of the other temptations. Thyer. In the Gospel account of the temptation no discovery is made of the incarnation; and this grand mystery is as little known to the Tempter at the end, as at the beginning. But now, according to Milton's scheme, the poem was to be closed with a full discovery of it: there are three circumstances, therefore, in which the poet, to serve his plan, hath varied from the accounts in the Gospels. 1. The critics have not been able to ascertain what the Tegov or pinnacle (as we translate it) was, on which Christ was set by the demon: but whatever it was, the Evangelists make no difficulty of his standing there. This the poet (following the common use of the word pinnacle in our own language) supposeth to be something like those on the battlements of our churches, a pointed spire, on which Christ could not stand without a miracle. 2. In the poem, the Tempter bids Christ give proof of his pretensions by standing on the pinnacle, or by casting himself down. In the Gospels, the last only is or could be suggested. 3. In the Gospel account the prohibition Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God is alleged only as a reason why Christ (whose divinity is concealed there) must not throw himself down from the top of the temple, because this would have been tempting God. But in the poem it is applied to the demon, and his attempt upon Christ; who is thereby declared to be the Lord his God. Calton. in the Gospels called guy, 66 valley was so deep that a man "could scarcely see the bottom "of it, Herod built a portico of 66 so vast a height, that if a man "looked from the roof of it, his "head would grow giddy, and "his sight not be able to reach " from that height to the bottom "of the valley." Eusebius (Hist. given by Hegesippus of the death Eccles. ii. 23.) cites the account of St. James, in which it is said that the Scribes and Pharisees brought him, επι το πτερυγίον του vaov, up to this elevated point of the temple, and cast him down from thence. Dunster. 554. Now shew thy progeny; &c.] The general tenor of the thought is from St. Matth. xxvii. Cast thyself down; safely, if Son of God: 39, 40. And they that passed by reviled him, &c. saying, If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.-He will give command concerning thee, &c. this refers, according to St. Matthew and St. Luke, to Psalm xci. 11, 12. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways; they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Also it is written, Tempt not, &c. Deut. vi. 16. Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God. Dunster. 561. Tempt not the Lord thy God: he said and stood:] Here is what we may call after Aristotle the avayagis, or the discovery. Christ declares himself to be the God and Lord of the Tempter; and to prove it, stands upon the pinnacle. This was evidently the poet's meaning. 1. The miracle shews it to be so; which is otherwise impertinently introduced, and against the rule, Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vin dice nodus Inciderit. It proves nothing but what the Tempter knew, and allowed before. 2. There is a connection between Christ's saying and standing, which demonstrates that he stood, in proof of something he 555 560 had said. Now the prohibition, Tempt not the Lord thy God, as alleged in the Gospels from the Old Testament, was in no want of such an attestation: but a miracle was wanting to justify the application of it to the Tempter's attack upon Christ; it was for this end therefore that he stood. Calton. I cannot entirely approve this learned Gentleman's exposition, for I am for understanding the words, Also it is written, Tempt not the Lord thy God, in the same sense in which they were spoken in the Gospels; because I would not make the poem to differ from the Gospel account, farther than necessity compels, or more than the poet himself has made it. The Tempter set our Saviour on a pinnacle of the temple, and there required of him a proof of his divinity, either by standing, or by casting himself down as he might safely do, if he was the Son of God, according to the quotation from the Psalmist. To this our Saviour answers, as he answers in the Gospels, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, tacitly inferring that his casting himself down would be tempting of God. He said, he gave this reason for not casting himself |