He’s A Rebel and He’ll Never Ever Be Any Good: Satan’s Rebellion in Paradise Lost

By Ian Fortey, High School Student

Satan's rebellion in Paradise Lost as read in light of An Homily Against Willful Rebellion, by Cranmar

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

In Paradise Lost, Milton depicts a Heavenly rebellion borne from pride against what is deemed to
be an unjust decree from God, that his Son should be worshipped by the angels just as God
himself is, when Satan feels that he is more worthy of this honour because he was first amongst
the angels, “great in power, in favor and pre-eminence” (5. 660-661). An Homily Against
Disobedience and Willful Rebellion presents rebellion as the greatest sin against God that man can
commit. Rebellion is not a single affront, such as murder or theft, but it is all sins as one, the
embodiment of sin as a whole. Satan’s rebellion, assuming it can be viewed as a rebellion and not
as the enactment of a plan forged by God, reflects the description of rebellion in the Homily and
this biblical rebellion seems to be the very basis of comparison that Thomas Cranmar had in mind
for those who would read the sermon.
The Homily states that those who engage in rebellion “compel others that would gladly be
well occupied to do the same”. Rebellion is, in this way, a far more reaching sin than any single
act against man or God, in that it does not effect a small group of people, but many, perhaps an
entire nation, when it happens. “Rebels are the cause of infinite robberies and murders of great
multitudes...and, as rebels are many in number, so doth their wickedness and damnation spread
itself unto many” the Homily says. This is evident in Paradise Lost when Satan first organizes his
rebellion and “with lies, drew after him the third part of Heav’n’s host”(5. 709-710), taking those
previously good angels and bending them to his rebellious plan of war against God. Though
angels cannot die, the war does, for a time, create casualties of “great multitudes” on both sides.
This is especially prevalent on the second day of battle when the rebels lay waste to the first
legions of God’s armies with cannon fire, knocking them down “by thousands” (6.594).
Compelling others to turn against God is, of course, the plan proposed by Beelzebub at
Satan’s urging in Hell. Satan’s next in command proposes to venture to the realm called earth
and corrupt the inhabitants of that world, to “seduce them to our party, that their God may prove
their foe” (2. 368-369) and thus perhaps force God to “abolish his own works” (2. 370).
However, the problem with how this “compelling others to act against God” is “to be
reconciled with God's grin”, as Wooten puts it, needs to be addressed. God is smiling when he
speaks to his son and tells him a “foe is rising” (5. 724-725). The weight of Cranmar’s argument
then, in this instance, is lessened, for this rebellion is not such a crime against God. God does not
seem to be disturbed at all, if he is smiling, which most likely is due to God’s foreknowledge of
events and this not coming as a surprise to him, rather as an opportunity to showcase his son.
Just as the Homily condemns rebels for bending others to their cause, it condemns them
for compelling “good men that would gladly serve the Lord . . . to assemble and meet armed in
the field to resist the fury of such rebels” which seems to be much of the reason that rebellion is so
disdained, as it forces all men to participate, whether for or against it. Just as Satan has a legion
of rebels, God has his defenders in Paradise Lost ready to meet the rebels. “The troops who fight
to expel the rebel angels cannot relax their rigor” as Boesky says, exemplifying Cranmar’s point.
When the angel Abdiel, the only faithful angel amongst the fallen, returns from the North to tell
what Satan has planned, he finds “thick embattled squadrons bright, chariots and flaming arms,
and fiery steeds reflecting blaze on blaze”(6. 16-18); an army at the ready, well aware of Satan’s
plan. God sends an army “equal in number” (6.49) to meet Satan, thus occupying a full two thirds
of Heaven’s numbers in the battle, as well as God’s son. “Heaven is organized as a military
regime” (Boesky) with God at the head, set to fight off the rebels. Where this differs from
Cranmar’s analysis, however, is that in Heaven, these angels are not being taken away from some
other task to fight the rebels. Rather, the angels who wage war against the rebels are fulfilling
their tasks, for it is in service to God that they fight the rebels, and at the command of God. “For
the angels, military preparation is required not because their force is necessary, but because their
capacity to wage battle with evil is assured only by constant drill” (Boesky), which means that the
angels must always be at the ready for this, and it is this that God must want, for he has no actual
need of an army, which is made clear by the actions of his son expelling the rebels from Heaven
alone, but he keeps one at the ready anyway. In this respect, it is possible that Satan is in fact not
doing what Cranmar suggests, namely leaving work to be undone, and compelling those who
would worship God to leave their duties, but rather fulfilling his required tasks, as are all parties
involved in the rebellion. If God knows of the rebellion, is ready for the rebellion, and allows it to
occur towards his own ends, towards using Satan and his fallen to fulfill the greater good,
allowing his son to be born on earth and so on, then there is, in effect, no rebellion at all.
However, that only applies to God’s perspective, and not to that of the rebels.
In defiance of God, and of the Messiah, the Son of God, who Satan does not want to bend
knee to, Satan builds his own tower, “the palace of great Lucifer” (5. 760), in the North. From
here, he sits upon his own throne, “affecting all equality with God” (5. 763). Satan has set up an
idolatry of himself, and his followers worship him as their false idol, the one who believes he
should have the station granted unto the Messiah. The Homily states that rebels “do make
rebellion for the maintenance of their images and idols” and clearly this is true of Satan and his
rebels who believe they have been “eclipsed under the name of King anointed” (5.776-777), that
their power is being undermined by the appointment of a new being to a rank above them all.
Rather than submit, Satan builds his palace so that he, like God, will have his “royal seat” (5.
756). Even in Hell, after the fall, Satan establishes himself as “possessor” (1. 253) of that realm,
with plans to “make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n” (1.254). When his demons construct
Pandemonium in Hell, a place “to which idolatry . . . will adhere” (Lyle), just as in the “palace of
great Lucifer”, he has set up yet another palace for himself to rule from, as God rules in Heaven.
Even in defeat, Satan will not give up his goal of being the Almighty, and still holds to his belief
that he is the equal of God.
The catalogue of demons who approach Satan from the lake of fire are cited as also
having temples built for them on earth and being the subject of idolatry. Moloch, the “horrid
king” (1. 392), who led Solomon “by fraud to build his temple right against the temple of God”
(1. 401-402), and Astoreth, who had her temple built “on the’offensive mountain” (1. 443) are
both worshiped by man, as are the others listed, and crimes such as human sacrifice and “wanton
rites” are committed in their names.
The Homily gives characteristics of the kinds of men apt to join in on rebellion. First and
foremost, “ambition and desire to be aloft, which is the property of pride” is the source of
rebellious impulses, and clearly this applies to Satan, whose “pride had cast him from Heaven” (1.
36-37). It is his spurned pride that gives rise to his rebellion. However, “as for envy, wrath,
murder, and desire of blood . . . these are inseparable accidents of all rebels” creates a direct
parallel to many of Satan’s followers, particularly as they are catalogued in Hell. It is envy and
wrath that feed Beelzebub’s proposition to wage a new attack on earth, and it is desire of blood
that Moloch represents to his followers, the Ammonites, and that he induces when he proposes a
new attack on Heaven after the fall.
When Cranmar writes in the Homily of those distinguished by their tendency towards
“covetousness of other men’s goods” and “riotousness, gluttony, drunkenness, excess of apparel,
and unthrifty games”, these same characteristics can be seen in Belial, who loves “vice for itself”
(1. 491) , whose followers wander the streets “flown with insolence and wine” (1. 502) and who
“reigns in luxurious cities, where the noise of riot ascends above their loftiest towers” (1.
497-499) and Mammon, who admired “the riches of Heaven’s pavement” (1. 682). These two
demons propose no direct action to regain Heaven or anger God, rather to keep what they now
have, and seek their own good for themselves (2. 252-253). It is at this point Mammon says that
Hell holds “gems and gold” (2. 271) and that the fallen angels possess the skills needed to create
their own kingdom.
A final characteristic of the rebel is the way in which “set at liberty from the correction of
laws which bridled them before” these men are now apt to abuse wives, daughters, virgins and
maidens “most shamefully, abominably and damnably”. Milton offers a fitting parallel, from
Cranmar’s human rebels to his own angelic ones as it relates to this aspect. The vice loving
Belial, as Erikson states, suggests to Satan that he “set women in his eye and in his walk” to tempt
Jesus into falling in Paradise Regained. Chemos convinces his followers to engage in “wanton
rites” (1. 414) and “lustful orgies” (1. 415). Baalim and Ashtaroth assume either sex and bestial
shapes to seduce the Israelites away from “his righteous altar” to worship beastly gods (1. 434).
Astarte uses idolatresses to beguile Solomon into building her a temple. Sion’s daughters engage
in “wanton passions” (1. 454) in the name of Thammuz. The list of the “prime order” ends with
Belial, who is now associated with the crimes at Sodom. The parallel here between Cranmar’s
and Milton’s works is that rebels are responsible, in some manner, for crimes of a sexual nature;
corruption, rape, and beastiality among others.
All of the ways in which Satan’s army reflect Cranmar’s depictions of rebels must be
tempered by the knowledge that they were angels, not men, and they were rebelling against God,
not a prince. That they were rebelling against God changes the nature of their rebellion to some
degree, if it be accepted that God would have foreknowledge of this rebellion, and was using this
rebellion for his own designs. It can hardly be said these rebels were defying God by doing
exactly as God wanted. By the same token, however, God’s knowledge of the rebellion and the
way in which he twisted it to serve his own ends does not necessarily mean that it was his will that
it should happen, just that it did happen and he used it for the best possible outcome.
Satan’s rebellion, taken as such, in Paradise Lost was very clearly the same sort of action
that Thomas Cranmar had in mind when he wrote An Homily Against Disobedience and Willful
Rebellion. Cranmar describes the actions and characteristics of rebels in a manner very much the
same as Milton describes the host of demons who attempted to usurp God’s throne. The
differences in the two interpretations of rebels seem to lie in the fundamental aspects of the rebels
themselves, namely Cranmar’s humans and Milton’s angels, that make them different from one
another, such as the power available to them, their knowledge and the influence of God. Insofar
as the angels act in human terms, and the characteristics inherent in each, however, Milton depicts
them in a nearly identical manner to Cranmar’s rebels. But as it relates to the full weight of the
effects of the actions these rebels take, and of how they would affect their lord, Cranmar’s
analysis takes a more stern view, perhaps giving the rebels more credit than Milton does, in
assuming they can do much more damage and defy God more fully than Milton, and Milton’s
God, allow his rebels to do.


















Works Cited

Boesky, Amy. “Milton’s Heaven and the Model of the English utopia”. Studies in English
Literature. Winter 1996, v36 i1, p91
Cranmar, Thomas. “An Homily Against Disobedience and Willful Rebellion.” The Norton
Anthology of English Literature, 7th Ed. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W.W Norton and
Company, Inc., 2000. 556-558
Erickson, Lee. “Satan’s Apostles and the Nature of Faith in Paradise Lost, Book 1”. Studies
in Philology. Summer 1997, v94 i3, p382
Lyle, Joseph. “Architecture and Idolatry in Paradise Lost”. Studies in English Literature.
Winter 2000, v40 i1, p139
Milton, John. “Paradise Lost.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th Ed. Ed. M.
H. Abrams. New York: W.W Norton and Company, Inc., 2000. 1815-2044
Wooten, John. “The Poet’s War: Violence and Virtue in Paradise Lost”. Studies in English
Literature. Winter 1990, v30 i1, p133