Time and Temptation in Paradise Regained

TIME AND TEMPTATION IN PAMDISE REGAINED PATRICK GRANT A main problem for cntlClsm of Paradise Regained stems from the unpopularity of the poem's subject matter in Christian art and letters.' Milton's success is, consequently, in large measure dependent on his ability to bring this subject matter into fruitful relation with literary and iconographical traditions already well established in the Renaissance. The assessment of Milton's achievement in such a task has produced many theories about the number and kinds of temptations in Paradise Regained, the main interpretations being those of Elizabeth Pope and Barbara Lewalski.2 Miss Pope explicates the Patristic background, arguing that the traditional association of Adam's temptations with Christ's provides the 'triple equation' on which Paradise Regained is structured. Milton, however, following Protestant exegesis, interprets the stones-to-bread temptation as a test of faith, not of abstinence as was traditional, and innovates by providing the banquet to tempt to gluttony, and by developing the tower temptation into an identity test for Christ. Both Pope and Lewalski agree on the point that Milton's Christ is not omniscient and must discover his true nature. During the poem Christ is in process of finding out both his mission and his identity as Son of God. Lewalski argues further that Christ's self-discovery involves specifically the roles of prophet, king, and priest, about which the Son finds illumination as he resists Satan. For Lewalski, Paradise Regained deals with these three roles in turn, and this scheme is the inner structure of a poem which, in broad terms, is modelled on the sub-genre of the brief epic. Both critics do much to illuminate the richness of traditions which have moulded Milton's sensibility on various levels. Both, however, render it difficult for the reader to assess which elements of the complex and learned background Milton may have isolated for the deliberate structuring of his particular work. All that Lewalski suggests in her synthesis of the criteria for the brief epic, the process of Christ's self-discovery, and the prophetking -priest sequence, may well be there, for Milton was exceptionally learned, but the clarity and elegance of Paradise Regained suggest some more direct and uncomplicated controlling principle than her analysis UTQ, Volume XLIII, Number 1, Fall 1973 TIME AND TEMPTATION IN Paradise Regained 33 indicates. In this respect, I suggest that a contemporary iconography of time provides not only a simple yet rich background for explicating the poem, but also a principle for poetically motivating the temptations. Milton, moreover, may be expected especially to exploit such a set of conventions in a work so fundamentally concerned with history and typology as Paradise Regained. As Laurie Zwicky has convincingly argued, 'the cornerstone of Christ's rejection of the temptations' is precisely his attitude to time, to 'the proper moment,'" in contrast to Satan's importunity. First, in general tenns, there is a clear opposition throughout Paradise Regained between the Son's and Satan's views on the meaning of time and history. Christ's trust in the 'fullness of time' is contrasted repeatedly to Satan's trust in fortune and chance. The Son interprets time as a Platonic 'image of eternity' in which God's purposes are declared, and through which man will be redeemed in the 'due time' which Christ equates with 'providence." In sum knowledge Christ finds strength to 'endure the time' until 'my season comes,' for he believes 'All things are best fulfill'd in their due time' CIII 182). Without this sense of participation in eternity, time becomes chaos, as it is for Satan. He does not know the meaning of Christ's coming, and consequently is at the mercy of the seeminglyrandom moment that will bring his downfall. Satan's knowledge of the prophecy Cas Milton con6nns in The Christian Doctrine)' serves only to pain him, and his first question to the Son reflects his total point of view: 'Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place?' CI 321). For Satan, time is the realm of 'ill chance,' of fortune, of accident: a category which he attemps to use, explOit, and tum to his own ends. 'But on...