Season 3 Podcast 128 John Milton's Paradise Lost Pt III The Wiles of the Devil

The Wiles of the DevilIn Paradise Lost John Milton analyzes the methods Satan uses to tempt man. Satan’s second in command is Beelzebub. Beelzebub is a flatterer, an extension of Satan, an alter ego and entirely gives up his agency to Satan. He is a mirror image of Satan.In this podcast, we are introduced to the second tier of Satan’s leaders. They are Moloch, Belial, and Mammon.These chief devils symbolize the primary temptations Satan uses against man. In this Podcast we shall analyze each one.The first is Moloch, the God of war. He symbolizes wrath, rage, hate, anger, fury, ferocity, and fanaticism. He is for absolute victory or personal annihilation.  He is ruled by passion and personal pride and will not compromise. He is a destroyer. These are all attributes of Satan himself. First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with bloodOf human sacrifice, and parents’ tears;Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,Their children’s cries unheard that passed through fireTo his grim idol. The second is Belial. Belial represents subterfuge, lies, deception, machinations, conspiracies, sloth, laziness, idleness, indolence, inertia, inactivity, negligence, ease, complacency, indifference, lewdness, vice, grossness, insolence, lust. drunkenness, and violence.Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewdFell not from Heaven, or more gross to loveVice for itself. To him no temple stoodOr altar smoked; yet who more oft than heIn temples and at altars, when the priestTurns atheist, as did Eli’s sons, who filledWith lust and violence the house of God?In courts and palaces he also reigns,And in luxurious cities, where the noiseOf riot ascends above their loftiest towers,And injury and outrage; and, when nightDarkens the streets, then wander forth the sonsOf Belial, flown with insolence and wine.Witness the streets of Sodom, and that nightIn Gibeah, when the hospitable doorExposed a matron, to avoid worse rape.Though perhaps less in power, equal in fame was Mammon, the god of wealth, who even in hell, built a kingdom of gold, imitating heaven.  Mammon is content to remain in hell surrounded by tormented luxury and “precious bane.”   Mammon led them on—Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fellFrom Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughtsWere always downward bent, admiring moreThe riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,Than aught divine or holy else enjoyedIn vision beatific. By him firstMen also, and by his suggestion taught,Ransacked the centre, and with impious handsRifled the bowels of their mother EarthFor treasures better hid. Soon had his crewOpened into the hill a spacious wound,And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admireThat riches grow in Hell; that soil may bestDeserve the precious bane. As we move to Book II, Satan calls a council in hell which counterfeits the grand council held in heaven in which Satan rebelled against God, for Satan is determined to continue his fight with God. Milton describes Satan, during Satan’s private meditations, as he appeared to the myriad of evil spirits who fell with him.They wait in silence as they “observed their dread commander.” Satan addresses the vast multitude of suffering spirits.