Spoiler Alert // Justin Johnson


    In Book X of Paradise Lost, we get to see a first glimpse of Christ as humanity's intercessor. He pleads with God and offers to take their place in punishment, while clothing and comforting Adam and Eve despite their failure. The whole passage is theologically shake-y at best, but I don't want to dive down that rabbit hole because I'd like to focus on book XI. I will concede though that the image of God the Son in the garden is a nice comforting picture, even if it's problematic to take that sequence as resembling reality.

    In Book XI, the archangel Michael seeks to offer Adam a piece of hope to carry him through this new difficult life in a fallen world. From Cain and Abel to Noah and his ark, Michael gives Adam an ambivalent view of humanity’s relatively near future. These visions bring Adam fear and regret at first but seeing a glimpse at humanity’s first salvation from judgement brings Adam hope for the future.

            What I don’t really understand is why Michael has decided that Adam needs this information, or why God would allow him to show Adam such a view of the future. I just see Adam wanting to use that information to improve the world outside of his turn, and I can’t see too much long-term good from him having this information. There were people alive in Noah’s time that were born before Adam’s death (with Methuselah being the most obvious example) and you’d think that this information (or at least a vague warning) would have been passed on. This view is supposed to give Adam hope, but Cain and Abel’s struggle and the general debauchery of man seen in Michael’s visions would realistically (in my mind at least) bring more heartache than hope. 

            I know that in Milton’s time and times before the idea of knowing the end of a story wasn’t a big deal like it is to us today, but it’s weird to see this mentality extended to the characters within their own story. The story of mankind’s fall and early history should be well known to a Christian audience (well, I suppose not Milton’s bizarre dramatization of it, but the original story) but I still don’t really understand the point of sharing this information with the character of Adam. It’s just a strange addition to top the mountain of extra plot points Milton has engineered to enhance his tale.

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