Summary
Adam awakes from a peaceful sleep, but Eve appears to
have been restless during the night. She relates to him the disturbing
dream she has had. She explains that in the dream she hears a voice
and follows it to the Tree of Knowledge. There, a creature who looks
like an angel appears, takes a fruit from the forbidden tree and
tastes it. The angel tells Eve that she could be like the gods if
she eats too, but before she can try it, he vanishes and she returns
to dreamless sleep. Adam is troubled by the dream, but assures her
that it is not necessarily a prediction of what will happen in the
future, because she still has the faculty of reason to control her
actions. Comforted, they return to their work and praise of God.
Meanwhile, in Heaven, God calls the Archangel Raphael
to his side. He does not want Adam and Eve to claim that the devil
took them by surprise if they are lured into disobedience, so he
instructs Raphael to tell Adam about the danger in store for him.
When Raphael arrives in Paradise, the couple warmly welcomes him.
They eat together, and Raphael explains the differences between
heavenly food and earthly food. After the meal, Eve leaves the scene
and allows Raphael to speak to Adam.
Raphael first describes the composition of the things
God created on Earth. God gave different kinds of substance to all
living things. The highest substance is spirit, which God put into
humankind. Below humans are animals, which have living flesh but
no spirit, followed by plants and then inanimate objects. Each group
possesses the attributes of the groups below it; for instance, whereas
animals have physical senses, humankind possesses all of the same
senses plus the ability to reason. Raphael says that man is the
highest being on Earth because of his God-given ability to reason,
and warns Adam to always choose obedience to God. Adam wonders how
any being created by God could choose to be disobedient, but Raphael explains
that Adam was created as perfect yet mutable, endowed with the power
to maintain his perfection but also the power to lose it. Adam desires
to know more, and asks how disobedience first came into Heaven.
To answer, Raphael relates the story of Satan’s fall.
When Heaven was still at peace, Raphael explains, all
the hierarchies of angels were obedient to God. One day the Father announced
to them that he had begotten a son, who was to rule at his right
hand. While God’s announcement pleased most of the angels, one of
them was angry. That angry angel lost his heavenly name, and is
now called Satan. Proud to be one of the highest archangels, Satan
felt that he deserved the same powers as God. Jealous of the Son,
he persuaded one third of the other angels in Heaven to join him.
Satan erected his own throne in heaven, and told his followers that
they should not allow themselves to be unjustly ruled. One of these
followers, however, disagreed. He was named Abdiel, and after arguing
with Satan he faithfully returned to the side of God, braving the
scorn of the other rebellious angels.
Analysis
Eve’s dream, created by Satan’s whispering in her ear
as she sleeps, foreshadows her ultimate temptation and downfall.
God’s decision to send Raphael to warn Adam about the dangers ahead
also foreshadows their fall, although the fact that it does so is
paradoxical. After all, the ostensible purpose of sending Raphael
is to arm Adam and Eve with knowledge, so that they won’t fall from
sheer ignorance. We might expect Raphael’s visit to give Adam and
Eve a fighting chance, creating more suspense and doubt as to the
outcome, but this is not the case. Every Christian reader already
knows that Adam and Eve will fall, so instead of creating suspense,
Raphael’s words of instruction only heighten our sense of the gravity
of their sin and the tragedy of their disobedience.
There is a further paradox in the fact that even as Milton
foreshadows the fall and makes it seem inevitable and predestined,
he strives to prove that the fall was anything but inevitable. Paradise Lost insists
that Adam and Eve had free will and were protected by adequate knowledge
and understanding. In fact, Milton’s poem goes much further in this
regard than the Bible, which does not include Raphael’s warning
visit or God’s own assurance that Adam and Eve have free will. These
parts of the story are Milton’s invention, and his insistence on
humankind’s free will flew in the face of what most Puritans believed.
Since we know the end of the story from the first line of the poem,
this emphasis on free will does not generate an impression of greater
possibility, but rather informs our understanding of what Adam and
Eve’s sin means.
