“Higher Argument”: Paradise Lost 1665–1669on the restoration of the fallen earth to its paradisal beauty, so that “the Earth / Shall
all be Paradise, far happier place / Than this of Eden, and far happier daies” (12.463–
5). Michael also points to the apocalyptic climax of this period, the Son’s final epic
victory against Satan, Sin, and Death, followed by the dissolution in flames of “Sa-
tan with his perverted World,” and the emergence of a new, purged, and refined
creation: “New Heav’ns, new Earth, Ages of endless date / Founded in righteous-
ness and peace and love / To bring forth fruits Joy and eternal Bliss” (12.547–51).
Then Adam can apply the messianic promise to himself, acknowledging Christ as
“my Redeemer ever blest” and as a model for the new heroism (12.560–73).
Adam and the reader are also to take a political lesson from history, as they see
how, over and over again, one or a few righteous humans stand out against, but are
at length overwhelmed by, the many wicked, resulting in the collapse of all attempts
to found a permanent version of the Kingdom of God on earth. Michael sums up
that pattern as he comments on the way of the world after Christ’s ascension: “so
shall the World goe on, / To good malignant, to bad men benigne, / Under her
own waight groaning” until Christ’s second coming (12.537–51). That tragic vision
of an external paradise irretrievably lost, along with the promise of “A paradise
within thee, happier far” might seem a recipe for quietism, indicating Milton’s re-
treat from the political arena. But the entire thrust of Michael’s prophecy is against
any kind of passivity, spiritual, moral, or even political. He shows that in every age
the few just have the responsibility to oppose, if God calls them to do so, the Nimrods,
or the Pharaohs, or the royalist persecutors of Puritans, even though – like the loyal
angels in the War in Heaven – they can win no decisive victories and can effect no
lasting reforms until the Son appears. Michael offers Adam and his progeny exam-
ples of both kinds of heroism: heroic martyrdom and heroic action. And Adam
understands. He has learned that “suffering for Truths sake / Is fortitude to highest
victorie,” and also that God often uses weak humans to accomplish great things: “by
things deemd weak / Subverting worldly strong” (12.565–70).
Eve also learns something of this history by a mode of prophecy that validates her
distinct order of experience. She claims to have received in dreams directly from
God some understanding of the “great good” to come. Dreams were a recognized
vehicle of prophecy, though inferior to vision.^146 How much history Eve’s dreams
conveyed is left unclear, but they lead her to recognize her own divinely appointed
agency in bringing the messianic promise into history. As she speaks the last words
we hear in Eden, she voices her own version of the new heroism and claims her
central role in God’s plan and Milton’s poem, as primary protagonist of the Fall but
also primary human agent in redemption:
This further consolation yet secure
I carry hence, though all by mee is lost,
Such favour I unworthie am voutsaft,
By mee the Promis’d Seed shall all restore. (12.620–3)