JESUS IN MILTON

Fogg Art Museum
Harvard University
The Resurrection
First Corinthians 15:3,4

Near the conclusion of Milton the Eight Starry Ones visit Blake's garden in Felpham. The Eight are the Seven Angels know as the Eyes of God plus Milton. The Eight are transformed into Jesus the Saviour who is united with Ololon as a man whose cloud folds around him as a garment. You will remember that Milton removed his garment as he began his pilgrimage in response to the Bard's Song.


Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 198)  
"Then Milton rose up from the heavens of Albion ardorous! 
The whole Assembly wept prophetic, seeing in Miltons face 
And in his lineaments divine the shades of Death & Ulro 
He took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God 

And Milton said, I go to Eternal Death!"

Milton has achieved his reunification; release from Eternal Death to Eternal Life. The work of Jesus continued as he entered Albion's  bosom. The account of the apocalypse which would follow, Blake related in Jerusalem.

Milton, Plate 42 [49], (E 143)
"Jesus wept & walked forth
From Felphams Vale clothed in Clouds of blood, to enter into     
Albions Bosom, the bosom of death & the Four surrounded him
In the Column of Fire in Felphams Vale; then to their mouths the Four
Applied their Four Trumpets & them sounded to the Four winds"

In Milton, Ololon and Milton passed through states which were required for their spiritual development. In the end they met Jesus the Imagination who is not a state but 'the Human Existence itself'. Together in the Universal Family, Milton with Ololon lived in Christ and he in them.

Jerusalem, Plate 34 [38], (E 179) 
"but mild the Saviour follow'd him,
Displaying the Eternal Vision! the Divine Similitude!
In loves and tears of brothers, sisters, sons, fathers, and friends
Which if Man ceases to behold, he ceases to exist:

Saying. Albion! Our wars are wars of life, & wounds of love,
With intellectual spears, & long winged arrows of thought:       
Mutual in one anothers love and wrath all renewing
We live as One Man; for contracting our infinite senses
We behold multitude; or expanding: we behold as one,
As One Man all the Universal Family; and that One Man
We call Jesus the Christ: and he in us, and we in him,        
Live in perfect harmony in Eden the land of life,"

In Golgonooza by Kathleen Raine we read on page 154:
"There is, besides, a 'supreme state', and this is the Divine Humanity, who is, for Blake, the God within.
...
But for Blake Jesus is something more specific: he is 'Jesus the Imagination', the 'supreme state' of humanity which transcends, and releases from, all the states of good and evil through which human souls pass. The presence of Jesus the Imagination is with every man at all times present, born with every birth, accompanying every soul throughout life as the 'saviour' who releases man from his present state. It is Satan, the Selfhood, who identifies the man with his present state; and who is therefore the Accuser who condemns; the Divine Humanity, Jesus the imagination, is the ever-present way of release from the states.
...
Human beings can be forgiven for they are not irrevocably 'evil' but can pass through many states, and the supreme state is the goal of all."

Milton, Plate 42 [49], (E 143)
"Then as a Moony Ark Ololon descended to Felphams Vale
In clouds of blood, in streams of gore, with dreadful thunderings
Into the Fires of Intellect that rejoic'd in Felphams Vale
Around the Starry Eight: with one accord the Starry Eight became 
One Man Jesus the Saviour. wonderful! round his limbs
The Clouds of Ololon folded as a Garment dipped in blood
Written within & without in woven letters: & the Writing
Is the Divine Revelation in the Litteral expression:
A Garment of War, I heard it namd the Woof of Six Thousand Years"