Reprobate

First posted Saturday, August 30, 2014

New York Public Library
Milton
Plate 8

Palamabron, Rintrah and Satan

'Reprobate' appears 7 times in Milton and once in Jerusalem. When Blake wrote Milton he had a developed new concept of the sorts of people.

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The conventional understanding of the classes if men: 

1. The Elect are best known and admired class; they more or less run things in the materialistic culture in which we, like Blake, live. The Elect live in the top rung of society. 
2. The redeemed are middle class people who obey the Elect, but with some reservations. They are conventional people who lack 'their own system' of values and more or less follow the herd of the materialistic majority of the population.
3. The reprobates are thought of as lower class of people, very much like Jesus was thought of by the privileged class.

In this post we will attempt to show what Blake meant  by these classes.

From an earlier post:
"Orthodox religion designated three positions which man may have in relation to God. The Elect were those were accepted by God because they were obedient to his Laws. The Redeemed were those who may be saved if they repented of their wrongdoing and believed. The Transgressors had broken the Law and were condemned to eternal punishment. 

Blake redefined the three types. The Elect to him were the conventional law-abiders like the pharisees who prevented the entry of the spirit. The Redeemed were oppressed by the Elect because they were led by the spirit and not the law. The Transgressors or Reprobate were willing to break the law or move outside of the orthodox structure for the sake of the oppressed."   

In this way Blake's category of the Elect was linked to Satan, the Redeemed was linked to Palamabron, and the Reprobate to Rintrah. 

(Following in the train of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell which reversed Angels and Devils, the three classes are a general reversal of ordinary ideas.)

Milton, Plate 13: (E 107)
"The Elect shall meet the Redeem'd. on Albions rocks they shall meet

Astonish'd at the Transgressor, in him beholding the Saviour."

Jerusalem, Plate 83, (E 241) 
"O Albion, my brother!
Jerusalem hungers in the desart! affection to her children!
The scorn'd and contemnd youthful girl, where shall she fly?
Sussex shuts up her Villages. Hants, Devon & Wilts
Surrounded with masses of stone in orderd forms, determine then
A form for Vala and a form for Luvah, here on the Thames
Where the Victim nightly howls beneath the Druids knife:
A Form of Vegetation, nail them down on the stems of Mystery:
O when shall the Saxon return with the English his redeemed brother!
O when shall the Lamb of God descend among the Reprobate!"

Milton, Plate 8, (E 102)
"But Rintrah who is of the reprobate: of those form'd to destruction                                       
Milton, Plate 11 [12], (E 105)
"the Class of Satan shall be calld the Elect, & those
Of Rintrah. the Reprobate, & those of Palamabron the Redeem'd
For he is redeem'd from Satans Law, the wrath falling on Rintrah"

Milton, Plate 13 [14], (E 107)
"He died as a Reprobate. he was Punish'd as a transgressor! 
Glory! Glory! Glory! to the Holy Lamb of God 
I touch the heavens as an instrument to glorify the Lord! 
And the Elect shall say to the Redeemd. We behold it is of Divine 

Mercy alone! of Free Gift and Election that we live.

Our Virtues & Cruel Goodnesses, have deserv'd Eternal Death."

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John 1
[14] And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

First John 2

[1] My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
[2] And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.