HOLY WEEK

John 12

[12] On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,

[13] Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.

[14] And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written,

[15] Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt.

Mark 14

[32] And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray.

[33] And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;

[34] And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.

[35] And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

Mark 22

[14] And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him.

[15] And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:

[16] For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

[17] And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:

[18] For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.

[19] And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

[20] Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

Matthew 26

[30] And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.

[31] Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.

[32] But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.

Matthew 26

[47] And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

[48] Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

[49] And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.

[50] And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him.

Matthew 27

[21] The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.

[22] Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.

[23] And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.

[24] When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.

Luke 23

[39] And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

[40] But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

[41] And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

[42] And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

[43] And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Luke 24

[1] Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

[2] And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.
[3] And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.
[4] And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:
[5] And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
[6] He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,
[7] Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
[8] And they remembered his words,

Four Zoas Summary 4

Blake Archive

Four Zoas, Night ix, Page 128

Four Zoas, Night ix, Page 128, (E 397)
"Vala awoke. When in the pleasant gates of sleep I enterd
I saw my Luvah like a spirit stand in the bright air
Round him stood spirits like me who reard me a bright house
And here I see thee house remain in my most pleasant world"   

In the last Night Blake let all of his feelings out in a magnificent vision of apocalypse that bears comparison with the one John wrote: 

"Los his vegetable hands 
Outstretch'd; his right hand, branching out in fibrous strength, 
Siez'd the Sun; His left hand, like dark roots, cover'd the Moon, 
And tore them down, cracking the heavens across from immense to immense. 
Then fell the fires of Eternity with loud and shrill
Sound of Loud Trumpet thundering along from heaven to heaven 
A mighty sound articulate Awake ye dead & come To judgment from the four winds Awake & Come away"
(Four Zoas, Night ix, E 386)

     And on and on it goes, much too imposing to describe in this short review. But two things will be said:

     First, Blake draws on John's Apocalypse as he already has in Night viii. The strangest book in the Bible, utterly incomprehensible to the literal mind, has much to offer to the trained imagination. To read the end of 4Z with complete attention gives one a purchase on Blake's great source; Revelation begins to come alive in an exciting new way.

Second, as great as it is, Blake simply wasn't able to 'Christianize' his apocalypse as he had done the two previous Nights. Perhaps it was already too deeply stamped with his pre-Christian mind. Forgiveness is the soul, virtually the alpha and omega of Blake's Christ, but Night ix shows little or no evidence of this new spirit. Only in Jerusalem, in its last plates, do we find a thoroughly Christian apocalypse. Neither Revelation nor Night ix has much of forgiveness; what they do have is vengeance and retribution. Both writers had suffered much at the hands of the ungodly, and both looked with anticipation to the Day of Vengeance. So we must say that Night ix is a modern redoing of John's Apocalypse, while the end of Jerusalem is a Christian recreation of it.

     Blake's epic ends with the eternal man awake, his four Zoas back in union, each carrying out his appointed function in the harmonious consummation of the Age. In the last harvest Urizen reaps, Tharmas threshes, Luvah tramples out the vineyard and Urthona bakes the bread.

     Night ix contains much magnificent poetry. A few lines near the end will provide an appropriate end to this all too inadequate description of Blake's great poem:

"The Sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning, 

And the mild moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night, 

And Man walks forth from the midst of the fires: the evil is all consum'd.
... He walks upon the Eternal Mountains, raising his heavenly voice, 

Conversing with the Animal forms of wisdom night and day, 

... They raise their faces from the Earth, conversing with the Man:

"How is it we have walk'd thro' fires and yet are not consum'd? 

"How is it that all things are chang'd, even as in ancient times?"
The Sun arises from his dewey bed, and the fresh airs 

Play in his smiling beams giving the seeds of life to grow, 

And the fresh Earth beams forth ten thousand thousand springs of life."

(Four Zoas, Night ix, E 406) 

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Blake's myth is stated concisely in Blake's Four Zoas: The Design of a Dream by Brian Wilkie and Mary Lynn Johnson: 

"Albion is the whole person and mankind. His Emanation is Jerusalem, who represents the perfect freedom enjoyed by man in the unfallen state (called by Blake Eden or Eternity) where he is in harmony with himself and the world. The fallen state is a condition in which each of the four primal powers betrays what is best in himself and wars with the others." 

In The Four Zoas Blake follows the disintegration of Albion's original unity, his struggles as a divided self and the final resolution of Albion reborn as his constituent Zoas, each serving the whole. 

Four Zoas Summary 3

Four Zoas, Night v, Page 60, (E 340)
"But when fourteen summers & winters had revolved over
Their solemn habitation Los beheld the ruddy boy
Embracing his bright mother & beheld malignant fires
In his young eyes discerning plain that Orc plotted his death"

       As Night ii begins, the Fallen Man, on the point of falling asleep, commissions Urizen as his regent. Urizen soars with pride but immediately falls into the fearful fantasies of the future which dominate all of his attempts at creation. He casts Luvah into the furnaces of affliction and proceeds to build the Mundane Shell, giving Blake a chance to expatiate at great length on how wrongly the world is made.

       Tharmas and Luvah are now thoroughly fallen and estranged from their emanations, and Urizen's turn comes in Night iii. Ahania, Urizen's emanation, reacts to his fearful aggressions with  her own vision of the Fall, and the infuriated Urizen casts her out and promptly falls himself like Humpty Dumpty, an eloquent comment on the fate of all the 'strong' who in fear cast out the 'weak'. With the fall of Reason Tharmas rises to power from the depths of the sea, although he is mentally incompetent in the extreme. He commissions Los to create endlessly and futilly: "Renew these ruin'd souls of Men thro' Earth, Sea, Air & Fire,/To waste in endless corruption, renew thou, I will destroy."

       Los proceeds to bind Urizen with the chains of time and space in the parody of Creation which we have already studied from Book of Urizen, but "terrified at the shapes enslav'd humanity put on, he became what he beheld". ( The second extended Christian interpolation occurs in the midst of this story.)

      Los begins Night v with a sort of St. Vitus Dance to "put on the shape of enslaved humanity", a convulsion which Enitharmon shares, leading to the birth of Orc, a manifestation of Luvah, who at this point represents fallen human feeling. Immediately, "The Enormous Demons woke and howl'd around the new born King,/Crying 'Luvah, King of Love, thou art the King of rage & death'".

       As in Book of Urizen, Orc is bound in the Chain of Jealousy, but his tormented cries awaken Urizen, who concludes Night v with the "Woes of Urizen". His suffering has brought him to a point of self-recognition; he has come to himself in a way reminiscent of the Prodigal Son's moment of truth: "I will arise", which Blake took directly from the story in Luke. Urizen thus shows himself to be human. Unfortunately it's only a temporary lapse, for in Night vi he explores his dens, faces all the brokenness and horror of a ruined universe and as his solution comes up with the  "Net of Religion ". Since pure political tyranny won't work, he turns to a form of religious control.

       We come to the climax of this epic in Night vii when Urizen has approached Orc's prison and induced him to climb the  "Tree of Mystery ", turning into a serpent. This sets the stage for the Genesis account of the Fall, which Blake sees as the beginning of the Return. Enitharmon, attracted by the cries of her son, Orc, comes down to the "Tree of Mystery", where she meets the Spectre of Urthona (FZ, Night  vii, E 358). The Spectre closely corresponds to Jung's 'shadow', and like a skilled analyst Blake brings about the reconciliation of shadow and anima on the way to wholeness).

       From the union of Spectre and Enitharmon two things ensue. The good news is that Los begins to get himself together with his Spectre and his Emanation. From this integration comes forth Jerusalem and from Jerusalem will proceed the Lamb. The bad news is the immediate birth of Rahab, the most sinister female of Blake's pantheon. She personifies all the evils of deceit, treachery, and hateful female pride that most appalled Blake about life. Blake's Rahab is the same character whom John of Patmos called "Mystery, the Whore of Babylon"; Blake eventually gives her these names--and several others as well.

       The Spectre of Urthona, a new idea on Blake's imaginative horizon, foreshadowed the Moment of Grace which was to revolutionize his spiritual world.  Suffice it here to say that the appearance of the Spectre marks Man's (and Blake's) dawning awareness that the evils of the world, which he had so deplored, exist in his own psyche. It marks what Jung referred to as the withdrawal of the projections, which Jung considered vital to the survival of the world. Blake agreed about the seriousness of the process; he stated it with great poetic intensity in the reversed writing found in the illustration to Jerusalem, Plate 41 (E 183) :

"Each man is in his Spectre's power Until the arrival of that hour When his humanity awake And cast his Spectre into the Lake."

       But in Night vii Los doesn't cast his Spectre into the lake; he embraces it, which in a manner of speaking is the same thing. Los doesn't (yet) cast his Spectre into the lake because his humanity is not yet fully awake, but only beginning to awaken. As Blake aptly put, it complete redemption "was not to be effected without Cares & Sorrows & Troubles of six thousand years of self denial and of bitter Contrition". That beautiful line points to the redemptive dimension of all the fallenness and horror we have been reading about. It was Blake's way of saying what Paul said in Romans: "All things work together for good to them that love God...." Blake and Jung and probably Paul would agree that we begin to love God (and stop trying to be God!) when we recognize and accept our own involvement in the horror around us. That's the moment when the six thousand years of change begins.

       The birth of Rahab and the integration of Los lead to an intensification of a drama that has already stretched out for seven nights of excruciating intensity. In Night viii the drama has not only intensified, but it has clarified so that we can no longer fail to understand that the forces of life and of death are in bitter conflict. It has become the old, old story, and Blake leaves no doubt about who represents light and who darkness. Urizen resumes his war for control and out of his ranks of War comes Satan. Rahab conspires to put to death the Saviour who has come down from Heaven and emerged from Jerusalem. The Christian knows that this death is foreordained for final victory, but neither Rahab nor Jerusalem has that awareness, and near the end of Night viii we read these richly evocative words:

"Jerusalem wept over the Sepulcher two thousand years.
Rahab trimphs over all; she took Jerusalem
Captive, a Willing Captive, by delusive arts impell'd
To worship Urizen's Dragon form, to offer her own Children
Upon the bloody Altar. John saw these things Revealed...."(FZ, Night viii, E 385)

    Blake never forgot the involvement of the Christian Church in two thousand years of bloodshed, but here, under the influence of grace, he has a more understanding view of it than he has expressed elsewhere.

TO BE CONTINUED

Four Zoas Summary 2

Four Zoas, Night ii, Page 36, (E 326)
"When Urizen slept on his couch. drawn thro unbounded space
Onto the margin of Non Entity the bright Female came
There she beheld the Spectrous form of Enion in the Void 
And never from that moment could she rest upon her pillow"

       Other accounts of this decisive event occur at various places throughout the poem. The most definitive is that of Ahania. Her dream relates the central event, the primary fall, to an idolatrous worship; just so Blake evaluated organized religion. Albion's worship of his shadow has two immediate consequences: he breaks out with the boils of Job, a biblical symbol of the Fall of Mankind, and he exiles Luvah and Vala from their rightful place in the psychic economy.

   

        This central event of the Fall gives the key to the meaning of The Four Zoas. Before we proceed with the outline of the poem, we need to look at one other central fact: the identity of Los, the fourth Zoa (in Eternity called Urthona). Whereas the central event gives the key to six thousand years of fallenness, the identity of Los gives the key to redemption. This becomes clear in the end when we read about Jesus, the Imagination, but from the beginning we should be aware that Los is the fourth who makes Man whole. Blake derived the first three Zoas in part from Daniel's three friends who were cast into the fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar. Los was the fourth, whom the king saw walking in the furnace "like the Son of God". Like the other Zoas Los has a chequered career, but he is always moving toward this ultimately revealed identity. Near the end of Jerusalem Blake put the finishing touches on Los's Eternal identity with these words:
"Therefore the Sons of Eden praise Urthona's Spectre in songs, 
Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble." (Jerusalem, Plate 95, E 255)   

And on the following plate of Jerusalem:
"Then Jesus appeared.... And the Divine Appearance was the likeness and similitude of Los."     

The clue to this identity appears at the very beginning of 4Z where the poet states his theme:

"Four Mighty Ones are in every Man; a Perfect Unity 
Cannot Exist but from the Universal Brotherhood of Eden, 
The Universal Man, to Whom be Glory Evermore. Amen. 
.... Los was the fourth immortal starry one, and in the Earth 
Of a bright Universe, Empery attended day and night, 
Days and nights of revolving joy. Urthona was his name 
In Eden.... 
Daughters of Beulah, Sing 
His fall into Division and his Resurrection to Unity: 
His fall into the Generation of decay and death, and his Regeneration by the Resurrection from the dead."
(Four Zoas, Night i, E 301)

       Here Blake has made the antecedent of 'his' deliberately ambiguous: Albion, the Ancient Man, of course, but also Los. It is Los's career that we follow most intently. Blake deeply identified with Los, and so do we if we read the poem with imagination.

       But "Begin with Tharmas, Parent power dark'ning in the West". Tharmas represents the body, or in the psychic realm the instinct, and in Eternity he's a glorious shepherd. But "darkening in the West" beneath the jealous attack of his emanation, Enion, he sets in motion the Circle of Destiny (Four Zoas, Night i, E 302) and sinks into the sea where he becomes an insane old man. From his "corse" arises the ravening spectre, a most gruesome embodiment of pure egocentricity. A loveless embrace of Enion leads to the birth of Los and Enitharmon, the divided earthly form of Urthona. (Note that all this happens after the 'central event', although in the poem we read about it first.)

       This first earthly family displays the ubiquitous dialectic of Blake (and of universal experience): the angelic and demonic processes go on side by side. Enion's intense mother love turns her daughter, Enitharmon, into a teasing and heartless bitch and drives Enion to the abyss where she becomes a disembodied voice of pure consciousness. We hear her voice at the end of Nights i, ii, and viii sounding the purest prophetic judgment on what has transpired. In a real sense Enion is Blake. 

       When Enitharmon signs her Song of Death (quoted a few pages back), Los strkes her down and then gives his own, more prophetic account of the Fall. Enitharmon retaliates by calling down Urizen. This precipitates the first encounter between these two adversaries in one of the relationships that dominates the poem--and Blake's life as well. In this initial confrontation Los weakens through his pity or remorse over Enitharmon and joins the  Nuptial Feast of fallenness (FZ Night i, E 307). In the New Testament the marriage of the Lamb inaugurates the Kingdom of Heaven; this demonic parody of it announces the Kingdom of Satan. Enion responds with her first stirring prophetic utterance, concluding the first night in the earlier draft.

       At this point Blake, in a later revision of 4Z, made his first obvious attempt to Christianize his myth. The Daughters of Beulah in their "Wars of Eternal Death" give what is probably the most straightforward, impartial account of the Fall.

TO BE CONTINUED

Four Zoas Summary

Four Zoas, Night i, PAGE 9, (E 304)

"And then they wanderd far away she sought for them in vain

In weeping blindness stumbling she followd them oer rocks & mountains"

       The Four Zoas is a very exotic masterpiece and most definitely an acquired taste. The reader initially encounters an appalling mass of strange ideas and much that appears to be sheer gibberish. But with perseverance the strange ideas become familiar bit by bit, and the gibberish clarifies into some of the most exalted thought forms of the human mind. To the seasoned reader 4Z is a treasure house of imaginative delights. Or call it a mine that releases its gold to the pertinacious. The same could be said of the Bible. 

      Blake wrote the poem over a period of years while his mind and spirit were rapidly developing and changing. It began as the story of Vala, the incarnation of the Female Will. Later it became an account of cosmic and psychic history written in terms of the four Giant Forms--their breakup and struggle for dominion. At Blake's spiritual crisis this seed bed gave birth to Jesus and Jerusalem, his bride. Blake then made an attempt to rewrite 4Z to reflect his new spiritual orientation, but after a while he gave up. 4Z was aborted because Blake's world had fundamentally changed, and he was ready to start over. After many years of looking for the New Age he had become a New Man. The new man wrote Milton and Jerusalem using 4Z as a quarry. 4Z is fascinating in its own right, although unfinished, but most significant as a platform from which to rise to the ethereal glory of the mature poems.

       Focusing on The Four Zoas Milton Percival, who wrote William Blake's Circle of Destiny, tells us that ten characters make up his myth: Two Albions (man), the Eternal One and the One who fell asleep down here in this vale of tears; Four Zoas (Urizen, Luvah, Los, and Tharmas) and their feminine parts (Ahania, Vala, Enitharman, and Enion).

       The first four nights of this aborted masterpiece recount the fall of each of the four Zoas: Tharmas, the body; Luvah, the feelings; Urizen, the mind; and finally Urthona (Los), the imagination or spirit. These four steps in the fall of Man contain a wealth of rich detail, but  one central event Blake described repeatedly in the words of various characters: Urizen and Luvah (Mind and Feeling) struggle for dominion over the sleeping man, Albion. Luvah seizes Urizen's steeds of light and mounts into the sky. Urizen retreats into the north, the rightful place of Urthona, the imagination. 

These mistakes lead to a long series of cataclysmic disasters that condemn mankind to his fallen condition. For six nights we read an almost unrelieved account of the Fall; we read about falling, about fallenness, described in voluminous detail in a hundred ways. Blake felt intensely that we have come a long, long way from the Garden, and he explored with exceeding minuteness every step of the dismal journey, down and out. (You might notice that as extensive as this negative mood is, it closely resembles the Old Testament, a great deal of which consists of flagellations of Israel by the prophets.)

       To begin our orientation to the poem look closely at the central event of the Fall. Blake put it in the mouths of several characters and each one has his or her own particular slant. The reader has to decide for himself whose account to believe. This may depend upon the reader as much as it does upon Blake.

       The earliest description of the central event comes in the words of Enitharmon, a notoriously untrustworthy character at this point; we may call her the queen of fallen space. In a conversation with her consort, Los, the prophetic boy, she gives her interpretation of the Fall:

"Hear! I will sing a Song of Death! it is a Song of Vala! 
The Fallen Man takes his repose, Urizen sleeps in the porch, 
Luvah and Vala wake and fly up from the Human Heart 
Into the brain from thence; upon the pillow Vala slumber'd, 
And Luvah siez'd the Horses of Light and rose into the Chariot of Day. 
Sweet laughter siez'd me in my sleep..." (Four Zoas, Night i, E 305)

      Always fiercely eclectic, Blake has gathered his symbols here from a number of sources into a new creation: sleeping man equals fallen man living in darkness; this most general symbol fills the New Testament. For example, "Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light". We live by the light of reason (not always Christ's light!). Urizen, the Sun God, must be asleep to allow Luvah, like the Greek adolescent, Phaethon, to seize his Horses of Light and rise into the Chariot of Day. Zeus struck Phaethon down with a thunderbolt. In Night ii we find Urizen casting Luvah into the furnaces of affliction, where there is much heat but no light. What was once eternal delight has become unmitigated hell.

       Luvah and Vala personify the masculine and feminine dimensions of feeling, and separated from Luvah Vala becomes the goddess of fallen nature. Luvah's seizure of the sun and Vala's dalliance on the pillow express in different ways the same event. The Prince of Love is bound to get his wings scorched, and the sleeping Albion is rather foolish to allow this to happen; he has lost his head over a part of himself.

       Blake used this double event to say many things to us at many levels. Fundamentally Blake is saying that Man has lost his heavenly wholeness (which he calls the Divine Image) and begun to worship the material, a relatively insignificant part of himself. In his dream of Vala he turns his back upon the Divine Vision. The former is Eternal Death and the latter Eternal Life. The dalliance of Albion with Vala leads to the Eternal Death (fallenness) that we read about in the first six nights. Blake described it symbolically in many ways, for example, "to converse in the wilds of Newton and Locke". We find here Blake's primary dialectic, between eternal vision and fallen materialism.

TO BE CONTINUED

TRUE MAN

Wikipedia Commons

Illustrations to Blair's The Grave

Death of the Good Old Man

In the physical world - the world of time and space - we are conditioned to think of ourselves as physical beings. The body which provides the senses and feeds information to the mind and spirit is a physical body which is transitory. Temporarily associated with the physical body is a spiritual body which is perceived by Blake as the 'true man.'

Underlying the material body is the 'lineaments divine' from which the character is derived. It is up to the individual to 'explore' his 'Eternal Lineaments' in order to allow his Spiritual Body to thrive. The release of the Spiritual Body at physical death is perceived as Resurrection.

This is a passage from William Blake by Kathleen Raine: 

"The spirit is already free; and 'the spiritual body or angel' is the true man, released from its 'excrementitous husk and covering'. Here Blake is close to Swedenborg, whose disembodied spirits are fully human but released from the restrictions of a material body. Swedenborg taught that the Resurrection of the Dead is the freeing of the spiritual body from its earthly envelope, the rotten rags' of mortality...The physical body was beautiful to Blake in so far as it reflected the lineaments of an informing soul or spirit, the 'celestial body' of a famous passage of St Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, which Blake invokes in his emblem accompanying the poem 'To Tirzah' (c, 1801): It is raised a spiritual body." (Page 112)

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ALL RELIGIONS are ONE (E 1)

"PRINCIPLE 1st  That the Poetic Genius is the true Man. and that
the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic
Genius.  Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from
their Genius. which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel & Spirit
& Demon."

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 257)
"North stood
The labyrinthine Ear. Circumscribing & Circumcising the excrementitious
Husk & Covering into Vacuum evaporating revealing the lineaments of Man
Driving outward the Body of Death in an Eternal Death & Resurrection"  

Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108)

"The loud voic'd Bard terrify'd took refuge in Miltons bosom

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! The Nations still
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam; in pomp               
Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come; to deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility: O when Lord Jesus wilt thou come?"

Milton, Plate 21 [23], (E 115)

"And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Miltons descent.
But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive               
Than any other earthly things, are Mans earthly lineaments."

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 117)

"for not one Moment
Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent
But all remain: every fabric of Six Thousand Years               
Remains permanent: tho' on the Earth where Satan
Fell, and was cut off all things vanish & are seen no more
They vanish not from me & mine, we guard them first & last
The generations of men run on in the tide of Time
But leave their destind lineaments permanent for ever & ever.    

So spoke Los as we went along to his supreme abode." 

Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 132)

"And thou O Milton art a State about to be Created
Called Eternal Annihilation that none but the Living shall
Dare to enter: & they shall enter triumphant over Death
And Hell & the Grave! States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.

Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore       
What is Eternal & what Changeable? & what Annihilable!

The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself"

Jerusalem, Plate 38 [43], (E 185)

"Humanity, who is the Only General and Universal Form         
To which all Lineaments tend & seek with love & sympathy
All broad & general principles belong to benevolence
Who protects minute particulars, every one in their own identity.

Jerusalem, Plate 59, (E 211)

But the Divine Lamb stood beside Jerusalem. oft she saw          
The lineaments Divine & oft the Voice heard, & oft she said:

O Lord & Saviour, have the Gods of the Heathen pierced thee?"

Four Zoas, Night II,  Page 25, (E 314)

"And the leopards coverd with skins of beasts tended the roaring fires
Sublime distinct their lineaments divine of human beauty   
The tygers of wrath called the horses of instruction from their mangers
They unloos'd them & put on the harness of gold & silver & ivory
In human forms distinct they stood round Urizen prince of Light
Petrifying all the Human Imagination into rock & sand" 

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 541)

" He who does
not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in stronger
and better light than his perishing mortal eye can see does not
imagine at all.

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 544)

"The Beauty proper for sublime art, is lineaments, or
forms and features that are capable of being the receptacles of
intellect; accordingly the Painter has given in his beautiful
man, his own idea of intellectual Beauty." 

Vision of last Judgment, (E 560)

"I intreat then that the Spectator will attend to the 
Hands & Feet to the Lineaments of the Countenances they are all
descriptive of Character & not a line is drawn without intention"

First Corinthians 15 - Phillips Translation

15:35-38 - But perhaps someone will ask, "How is the resurrection achieved? With what sort of body do the dead arrive?" Now that is talking without using your minds! In your own experience you know that a seed does not germinate without itself "dying". When you sow a seed you do not sow the "body" that will eventually be produced, but bare grain, of wheat, for example, or one of the other seeds. God gives the seed a "body" according to his laws - a different "body" to each kind of seed.
15:39 - Then again, even in this world, all flesh is not identical. There is a difference in the flesh of human beings, animals, fish and birds.
15:40-41 - There are bodies which exist in this world, and bodies which exist in heaven. These bodies are not, as it were, in competition; the splendour of an earthly body is quite a different thing from the splendour of a heavenly body. The sun, the moon and the stars all have their own particular splendour, while among the stars themselves there are different kinds of splendour.
15:42-44 - These are illustrations here of the raising of the dead. The body is "sown" in corruption; it is raised beyond the reach of corruption. It is "sown" in dishonour; it is raised in splendour. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. As there is a natural body so will there be a spiritual body.
15:45 - It is written, moreover, that: 'The first man Adam became a living being'.
15:46-49 - So the last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. But we should notice that the order is "natural" first and then "spiritual". The first man came out of the earth, a material creature. The second man came from Heaven and was the Lord himself. For the life of this world men are made like the material man; but for the life that is to come they are made like the one from Heaven. So that just as we have been made like the material pattern, so we shall be made like the Heavenly pattern.
15:50 - For I assure you, my brothers, it is utterly impossible for flesh and blood to possess the kingdom of God. The transitory could never possess the everlasting.
...
15:54 - So when the perishable is lost in the imperishable, the mortal lost in the immortal, this saying will come true: 'Death is swallowed up in victory' 'O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?'

Biblical Truth

Wikipedia Commons

Jacob's Dream

Genesis 28

[10] And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran.
[11] And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
[12] And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
[13] And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

Larry was fond of saying that the Bible is all poetry, and poetry is the highest form of truth. If one goes to the Bible looking for literal truth he/she will be disappointed for the truth of the Bible is spiritual truth which is of a different nature than what be stated can be stated literally. Poetry uses symbols, metaphors and allusion to suggest more than is overtly stated. The words rock, water, awake, earth, fire do not necessarily refer to physical entities; they point toward realities with larger, deeper  meanings. When we read the Bible as poetry, we find the meanings that reveal truth about ourselves, our families, our societies, and our relationship to the world of spirit.

From Larry Clayton's Blake Primer:  

"In reality the biblical truth is just as relevant to 18th Century England as it is to first century (or any century) Palestine. The same spiritual events continue to unfold today that Ezekiel, John and the others saw and described in their day. The same choices are to be made by 18th Century Britons (or 20th Century Americans!) as were made by first (or any) century Palestinians, and these choices have the same consequences. Truth is spiritual and timeless; the passing scene is only a shadow of the eternal reality.

...

Having said all this how can we summarize Blake's relationship to the Bible? First we recall that he didn't read it literally but symbolically, not historically, but poetically. ...

It should be said however that Blake found inspiration for his myth from many other sources beside the Bible; the secular critics have pointed them out in great detail. He drew impartially on everything in his experience, but found the Bible his richest fountain. The other sources were secondary and for the most part commentaries on or elaborations of the biblical truths. 

 Much as he loved the Bible, Blake ascribed paramount authority to his visions. The true man of God has visions which refine, bring up to date, and correct the earlier visions of the earlier prophets. This is where Blake departed from the orthodox attitude to the Bible, which he called reading it black. This is where he acted on the heritage of English dissent. This is how he saw the New Light and became a man of the New Age."

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God is Love

First John 4

[16] So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

God Forgives

Colossians 3

[13] forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Awake

1st Thessalonians 5

[5] For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.
[6] So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

Thanksgiving

2nd Corinthians 4

[13] Since we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, "I believed, and so I spoke," we too believe, and so we speak,
[14] knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
[15] For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
[16] So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.

Still Small Voice

1st Kings 19

[12] and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

Within

Luke 24

[30] And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.
[31] And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.
[32] And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

Incarnate - Human Form

John 13

3] Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God;

Fear no Evil

Matthew 6

[25] And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
[26] And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

Christ

Hebrews 8

[6] But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

Heaven

Hebrews 11

[16] But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.