In Paradise Lost, John Milton endows the angels with magnificent qualities, both positive and negative. Through symbolism, it shows their greatness. In a significant departure from earlier ideas of his time, Milton's angels are shown to possess complete free will. This ability makes them creatures of choice rather than a defined force of good or evil. They are shown to be superior to humans in some ways, but very similar in others, including their desire to unify with God in a sexual, but not lustful, way. Three texts in particular explore these and more aspects of the divinity of Milton's angels: Milton's Angels by John Andrew Himes, Desiring Angels: The Angelic Body in Paradise Lost by Karma DeGruy, and Milton's Warring Angels by William Kolbrener. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Milton uses symbolism in Paradise Lost to convey truths, but this is specifically explained in Milton's Angels by John Andrew Himes, who analyzes the nature of both. righteous and fallen angels according to Milton's symbolism. This symbolism represents great things: the worst of sins and the best of virtues in the world. These ideas show the reader both the meaning that the symbolism seeks to represent and the meaning of all angels. Himes begins his argument by relying on the "'angelic' fetishism of unity, authority, and spirit" observed in his time and which continues to this day. But angels are imperfect, although they are celestial beings of great beauty, capable of true greatness. In Paradise Lost, many of these angels committed the ultimate sin, leaving God and "falling", exercising their God-given gift of free will in a complete but misdirected way: in fact, perfect in use and the complete benefit with which they have made their lives a reality. their free will, but quite imperfect given that their ultimate choice is sin. Thus, the severity of the properties used to symbolize each angel should be even more significant since angels have been proven to have free will and do not necessarily have to choose as they do. Milton's Angels suggests that the angels, like many of Milton's other characters, are symbolic for one thing or another, writing that "the shape, stature, dress, words, and actions of each are always consistent with its central nature”, from which it draws the symbolic quality. Although Milton does not overtly express the symbolism of angels in Paradise Lost, given Himes's thorough analysis, it is highly plausible that this is the intended purpose. According to Himes, “good and bad spirits therefore represent virtues and vices respectively in the moral construction of the world.” This is indeed a strong level of symbolism to attribute to any character. The seven spirits that rise from the burning lake after Satan and Beelzebub are said to be the seven deadly sins, ordered thus: murder, lust, pride, envy, covetousness, gluttony, and idleness. Milton's use of creatures generally seen as both perfect and holy to represent the deadly sins shows that life is a little more "gray" than "black and white", giving perspective on the shared gift of choice and choice. free will. What is particularly compelling in Himes's analysis is not the common fallen angel, although he is bold and strong; his analysis of Satan, another fallen angel, also attracts attention. In many theological expressions, Satan is the ultimate incarnationevil. However, instead of him being the embodiment of all sin, Himes specifically associates him with Ambition, perhaps speaking of some kind of chaos. “There is a hint of a wandering and unstable nature in the word itself,” Himes writes of Ambition. “[Satan] is the head of the whole body of demons. He is the principle of evil in general and the adversity of all good. Although Himes associates Satan with the symbolic vice of ambition, he also shows how sins change in the world in the face of circumstances by showing this evolution of symbolism depending on which archangel Satan addresses. According to Himes, “Before Uriel, lover of truth, he represents hypocrisy; before the wise Gabriel, Madness; before the faithful Abdiel, Skepticism; before the righteous Michel, the lifeless “Letter of the Country”. This makes sense, in that sin affects everyone, despite individual strengths, and how it can be represented in different ways depending on circumstances. This plays with the idea of ​​moral luck, because even if a person does not commit a certain sin, if they had been in a different situation, they could have committed that sin simply because of the circumstances. Different circumstances give rise to different vices in people, and Satan fully represents this principle. According to Karma DeGruy in Desiring Angels: The Angelic Body in Paradise Lost, "In Milton's world, God's creation is a matter of process and becoming rather than fixed states of being", which plays directly into the concept of free will and the idea that states of being change. This explains why angels who were once good decided to follow Satan rather than the truth, and why angels tend to want to unify with others through sexual-type acts instead of just taking pleasure in themselves : a selfish and vain act, but understandable given their comparatively supreme beauty compared to that of humanity. In Milton's Warring Angels, William Kolbrener, like Himes, comments on the "polarity" of "angelic" and "satanic" ideas from Milton's Enlightenment origins. Absolute angelic polarity is, however, refuted in Milton's Paradise Lost, notably through the symbolism found by Himes in Milton's Angels. “Critics of Milton often present 'difference' or 'unity' as ends in themselves, whereas for Milton the two exist in productive tension. » He also argues that intuition and reason are not mutually exclusive, as even angels must rely on discursive reasoning and cannot understand everything, although they have great powers to sense things. Although angels are divine beings, “there are many things they do not know.” Thus, we know that despite their divinity, these celestial beings are not perfect. They have a complete sense of free will and not all use it perfectly. They lack complete knowledge. Although they are superior in many ways, they also share many similarities with humans in these ways. But this does not mean contradicting their superiority. One of the ways they show this superiority is through their sexuality, a concept including the unification of more than the body, described by Karma DeGruy in Desiring Angels: The Angelic Body in Paradise Lost. DeGruy speaks of sexuality as part of the downfall of humanity. But the eros involved in sexuality present before the fall goes beyond a simple physical desire and love, but into a deeper desire to be one, to unify. In Rafael, Adam sees something he dreams of: a beauty and divinity greater than his own. He sees a higher understanding, a kind of higher power. The unity he desires can be achieved by engaging in conversationsdeep and soulful, as shown when he tries to keep Rafael with him. But a more perfect union involves a kind of sex, and he aspires to that too, because it is a total unification of body and spirit. This can be demonstrated in other works: for example, in the Bible, Mary is known to be pure and holy, without sin, and such is in a state of grace unlike what most humans experience. She is closer to God and she trusts him. And he gave him a child. This does not mean that they had physical sex, but that she had a spiritual and physical oneness with God that few people can achieve. This open soul unity is what man longs to have with others – God, and with people in order to experience it with God, although this is often misinterpreted by those same people. With the Fall, Adam and Eve lost any unity they previously had with God, and a hole was formed that needed to be filled. In losing a perfect connection with Him, they also lost a perfect connection with each other, and the hole grew bigger. Humanity seeks to fill this same hole through imperfect means. This “gap filling” manifests itself in the news, in pop culture and in everyday life. Money and drugs are distractions. Alcohol numbs him. Sex and romance try to fill it with inferior bonds. But this hole is made for God by the absence of this perfect unity. Even angels feel the need to engage in unifying activities, despite their close relationship with God. A desire to know and be known. To love and be loved completely to “be one” or “unify”. The desire to “be one,” especially in addition to eros, can become a thirst for bodily pleasures with another person. Even angels engage in a pure form of this "oneness", but it is different from the sex portrayed by the media. It is a sex of the soul and the body. It is a total gift of self, as we do for God in moments of adoration and praise. So it makes sense that angels are “desirable not only for their superior goodness and intelligence, but also for their incredible beauty and the mutual enjoyment of their beauty.” They do not need another to be complete, but it is a good and desirable thing to be one with other beautiful creatures. In comparison, "humanity is rational, not fully intelligent; humans have divisible selves that they must learn to form and temper, just as they have desirable bodies and originally divided, sexual, and gendered states that make them incomplete without their partners. » But although their means are different, the final desire is the same: unity. These analyzes call into question the priesthood. Although they are stereotypically spiritually superior to the rest of the secular, they possess free will and did not have to choose this greatness. Few have had experiences in which God spoke to them physically, asking them to choose the priesthood. For most, discernment continues even in seminary, with the time spent in seminary acting as the “encounter period” before marriage as in the vocation to marriage. Although they have a call to the priesthood, they usually also feel a call to married life and know that they would be equally happy in either life of their choosing. For a priest who does not aspire to the type of relationship that marriage entails cannot fully serve the people – he must have a heart that desires the souls of the people around him. His vocation was therefore not predetermined. A priest is not just a priest, but a person who has risen to his calling and chosen God.