possibly be said to be logically implied. It is open to question whether there is in Scripture any sure authority at all for the exile of the angels from Heaven. Dean Stanley boldly states that there is not. He is speaking of the Book of Enoch, and he says that "the first vision at which the prophet assists is no less than the fall of the angels who kept not their first estate, not the Fall of Milton's Paradise Lost, of which neither in the Hebrew nor the Christian Scriptures is there any trace, but the fall of Byron's Heaven and Earth, which took place when the Heavenly Watchers descended on the snow-clad top of Hermon, the highest height that an Israelite had ever seen, and intermixed with the daughters of men.' Similarly Professor Courthope writes: "Satan nowhere distinctly appears in Bible history as the leader of rebel angels. There is, I believe, no appearance of this portion of the Satanic legend in Christian literature before the poem of Avitus, De Originali Peccato, composed towards the end

1 The Jewish Church, vol. 1, pp. 328–329.

of the fifth century. . . . Long before Dante painted the circles of the Inferno, an AngloSaxon poet, whether Caedmon or some other is doubtful and immaterial, had furnished in his Paraphrase of Genesis a striking narrative containing the germ of Paradise Lost, of the events culminating in the fall of man. He describes the rebellion and expulsion from Heaven of the proud angels; the creation of the earth to fill the void left in the system of the universe; the debate of the devils as to the measures to be taken against the new work of the Creator; the mission of one of them to tempt man to disobedience; the arguments employed vainly to seduce Adam, successfully to persuade Eve. It is scarcely necessary to say that none of these incidents are to be found in the narrative of Scrip

Dean Stanley, however, thought that the passage in Isaiah xiv, verses 12 and 13, concerning the fall of the Morning Star (that is to say, of Babylon) was the origin, through the Vulgate translation, of the name of 1 History of English Poetry, vol. 1, p. 41.

Lucifer and of the Miltonic doctrine of the fall of the angels.1

On the other hand, Professor R. G. Moulton has expressed his belief to me that Milton felt himself bound by the verse in the General Epistle of Jude (the very words quoted by Dean Stanley): The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day.2

Authorities differ; yet is it not more likely that Milton based his epic on the accepted legend rather than on isolated texts of Scripture; on Avitus and the AngloSaxon poet, rather than on a single verse of a dubious epistle, even if we were entitled to assume that he did not know that it was dubious? 3 It is, of course, perfectly

1 The Jewish Church, vol. 1, p. 57, note.

2 Verse 6.

3 It has been pointed out to me that Milton was conversant with the work of Hugo Grotius, Annotationes in Evangelistas, published in 1644, in which the writer (1) assigns the authorship of the Epistle of Jude to Jude, Bishop of Jerusalem, “Adriani temporibus," and

true that "the authority attaching to every word of the inspired writings gives an opportunity to the myth-making faculty inherent in human nature. The in

ward spirit of the letter needed to be explained by the doctors who had given themselves up to the long study of its mysterious truths. . . . A similar method of reasoning has created the whole cycle of legend embodied in the poetical treatment of the devil and the celestial hierarchy." Certainly, however, not only Milton but the writer of the Epistle of Jude found the myth already made. "The existence of the principle of evil is the necessary incident of the existence of the principle of good, as the shadow is the necessary incident of the presence of light. In the old legends of dualism the evil spirit is said to have sent a serpent to ruin the Paradise which the good

(2) quotes Liber de Morte Mosis: "Aza et Azael de cælo descendentes viam suam corruperunt"; for this very commentary of Grotius is quoted by Milton in his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.

1 Courthope's History of English Poetry, vol. 1, p. 40.

spirit had made." It is a very natural and easy process to refer all evil to a supernatural author. But as soon as this is done, another necessity is laid on the myth-maker, supposing him to be a worshipper of one God, and that God a Spirit of Goodness. The question arises, how did the subordinate Spirit of Evil become evil? and the answer is invented that he fell from his first estate, -not, be it noted, because he was tempted (for there was no one to tempt him except God himself), but because of his own inherent pride.

The childishness of the method is apparent. Yet it has served its purpose; for the instinct of the human mind, confronted by a problem of which it dislikes the conclusion, is to insert terms between the premises and the demonstration, so as to divide the one from the other as far as possible; introducing, as it were, between the two, a debatable land in which careless intellects may lose their way. In the same

1 Draper's Conflict between Religion and Science, p. 15.