ENL 122: Raphael’s Blunder: The Hope of Ascension and the Fall of Man

Jolene Patricia Brown

ENL 122: Milton

24 November 2009

Raphael’s Blunder:
The Hope of Ascension and the Fall of Man

Satan’s temptation of Eve begins long before his captivating her as a talking serpent in the garden in book IX. The dream sequence in which Satan first gives Eve the tantalizing fantasy of humans revered as gods puts the idea of ascension into Eve’s mind, but it is Raphael’s speech that allows that fantasy a hope for reality. Raphael is the first to mention the possibility that God might one day raise man up to join the angels in heaven, and by doing so, leaving room for an ambiguous interpretation of the promise. Adam and Eve are left to wonder whether it must be God only to elevate man higher in the heavenly hierarchy, or if the Tree of Knowledge might bypass that route altogether. Raphael is not explicit in his warning to Adam in the first place, but by sending Eve away, Raphael leaves opportunity for miscommunication—and assuredly ambiguity—of the warning between Adam and Eve. This ambiguity would spell disaster for the earthly pair giving Eve an excuse to taste of the fruit of knowledge, damning the pair to eternal strife.

The dream that Satan inspires in Eve in Book V crescendos just after he promises to Eve that, should she eat the fruit, she would “be henceforth among the gods / thyself a goddess, not to earth confined” (V.77-78). This dream was obviously disturbing to Eve, as she slept with “tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, / As through unquiet rest” (V. 10-11) as well as her reaction to Adam as she wakes with “startled eye,” to embrace him (V. 26-27). When Raphael tells Adam of the possibility of man’s ascension to Heaven, it must have triggered an immediate memory for Eve when Adam passed the message to her. The similarity of Eve’s evil dream to Raphael’s musings on the potential of man is subtle:

…time may come when men
With angels may participate, and find
No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare:
And from the corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improved by tract of time, and winged ascend
Ethereal, as we, or may at choice
Here or in heav’nly paradises dwell… (V.493-500)

Perhaps Eve, Adam, or both, wondered that since they might ascend as angels, if there was a possibility they might also ascend as gods. After all, making the jump from man to angel would seem almost impossible from their perspective, especially considering Raphael had already put a distinction between the physical form of man and the physical form of angels. The substance from which each is made is vastly different, man of flesh and angels of ether; even the way man reasons is different from that of angels, man discursively and angels intuitively. With all these differences between man and angel it does not seem possible that one, namely man, would be able to make the switch into the other, and even the purpose for such a switch is odd. If God wanted man to be angels eventually, it would seem he would just create more angels instead of implementing a plan for eventual ascension. With all these unusual questions that Raphael leaves open in posing the opportunity for ascension it is no wonder Adam and Eve become tempted by a quicker rise through the ranks by choosing to eat the apple.

Eve is a curious creature: she wonders about the night and for whom the stars are for; she wonders about God, the hierarchy they are a part of, and her place within it. There is no reason why she would not also be inherently curious about the one forbidden tree in the garden, and though she may not have set out intending to eat of it, it can be argued that she was giving herself time away from her two guardians, God and Adam, to satiate her curious appetite. When Eve decides to venture out on her own to work she convinces Adam by arguing that fear in the garden is unfounded, and even if there were something to fear, God would protect them:

“If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe…
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
…Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
As not secure to single or combined.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
And Eden were no Eden thus exposed.” (IX. 322-323, 326, 337-341)

This is an important decision in the garden because it gives Satan the opportunity to exploit the curiosity in Eve’s mind on his own terms without interference from Adam. Eve’s argument seems well-founded: she would rather not “suspect” their happy state, for true happiness would not be experienced in fear. Her separation at this point, however, seems suspicious as their purpose in the garden is not solely for work, as argued by Adam, and certainly God would not have given Adam a partner in the garden only to mandate they work separate from one another. Her motive at this point is questionable, and one wonders if she was naturally curious about the tree, intending to investigate it whether or not the snake was there to tempt her. She does not realize that God is omniscient at this point either, for after she eats of the fruit she wonders if God might have missed her sin because “Heav’n is high, / high and remote to see from thence distinct / each thing on earth” (IX.811-813).

Eve’s dream turned to reality in book nine as the serpent, in place of Satan, reminds Eve to the hope of godhood. The serpent subtly hints to the promise of the dream: that a bite of the fruit will allow her ascension into a goddess-like status, as it moved the serpent to a man-like status. He begins to worship her as if she were already a goddess, which only heightens the excitement of ascension to come:

Fairest resemblance of they Maker fair,
Thee all things living gaze on, all things thine
By gift, and they celestial beauty adore
With ravishment beheld, there best beheld
Where universally admired; but here
In this enclosure while, these beasts among,
Beholders rude, and shallow to discern
Half what in thee is fair, one man except,
Who sees thee? (and what is one?) who shouldst be seen
A goddess among gods, adored and served
By angels numberless, thy daily train. (Book IX.538-548)

The language the serpent uses is one of seduction with words such as fairest, ravishment, beheld, adored, with which the snake pays tribute to her beauty claiming it is beyond the sphere she currently occupies. Her beauty is “celestial,” and belongs to Heaven, not on the earth where it can be enjoyed by only one man and “rude” animals. There is an echo within these lines as well from her original statement to Adam recalling her dream: “A goddess among gods” which is eerily similar to Book V.77-78 mentioned above. The echo here is important because Satan seems almost hypnotically seducing her by worshipping her, assuring her of beauty, and reminding her of the promise of ascension within her dream. The warnings from God, through Raphael, would only confuse her further, for she would remember that ascension might very well be possible even if it means disobeying the orders of God to attain it.

Raphael gave Adam and Eve the reason to believe that the hierarchy of heaven is fluid, and moving between realms is possible. Unfortunately, he is ambiguous enough in his explanation of this ascension that it leaves room to believe there might be other ways to ascend beyond those offered by God. He only exasperates the problem by excluding Eve from direct communication of the warning, exposing the earthly pair to the blunders of miscommunication between one another. Also, has she been present during this conversation, her curious nature might have forced Raphael to be more direct in his warnings, thereby subverting the possibility for ambiguity altogether. By allowing the curious Eve to imagine a world in which man and woman might attain heavenly bodies closer to God, Raphael gives her a reason to try to fruit to speed up that progress. If Adam and Eve had not thought it possible to change the status of the hierarchy they probably would have reconsidered eating the fruit, wondering if the snake was instead an evil enemy of God’s.