The Marriage of Heaven and Hell · William Blake

Chapter 2: The Voice of the Devil

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the cause of the followingerrors:--

  1. That man has two real existing principles, viz., a Body and a Soul.

2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body; and that Reason,called Good, is alone from the Soul.

  1. That God will torment man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following contraries to these are true:--

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul. For that called Body is aportion of Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soulin this age.

2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is thebound or outward circumference of Energy.

  1. Energy is Eternal Delight.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to berestrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governsthe unwilling.

And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is onlythe shadow of desire.

The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, and the Governor orReason is called Messiah.

And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenlyhost is called the Devil, or Satan, and his children are called Sin andDeath.

But in the book of Job, Milton's Messiah is called Satan.

For this history has been adopted by both parties.

It indeed appeared to Reason as if desire was cast out, but theDevil's account is, that the Messiah fell, and formed a heaven of whathe stole from the abyss.

This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send theComforter or desire that Reason may have ideas to build on, the Jehovahof the Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming fire. Knowthat after Christ's death he became Jehovah.

But in Milton, the Father is Destiny, the Son a ratio of the fivesenses, and the Holy Ghost vacuum!

Note.—The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels andGod, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a truepoet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.