When we think that the Holy One, blessed be He, is infinite and that he fills everything, it is easily understood that any creation would have been impossible without the "zimzoum" (retraction). How could it be possible to put more water into a cup which is already filled to the brim? The Holy One, blessed be He, has therefore contracted the Holy Light which is his essence, not that he diminished himself God preserve us from such an idea!-being all things, he can neither increase or decrease. Only since the light of God is of such purity and strength that it eclipses all things, even the higher angels, even the Hayoth, even the Seraphim 13 and the Cherubim, the Holy One, blessed be He! to make possible the existence of celestial and material works, withdrew his almighty light from a part of himself. ... dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim Approach not but with both wings veil their eyes. If we go back to the complete passage in Milton, in its very construction we shall find an exact reproduction of these few lines of the Zohar: Boundless the deep, because I am who fill When we think that the Holy One -is infinite and that he fills every Infinitude, nor vacuous the space." thing. Though I uncircumscribed myself it is easily understood that any retire creation would have been impossi And put not forth my goodness, ble without the zimzoum (retrac which is free To act or not, Necessity and chance Approach me not, and what I will is fate. tion)-the Holy One has therefore contracted the holy Light which is his essence. not that he diminished himselfGod preserve us from such an idea -being all things, he can neither increase nor decrease. In the two texts, we find, in the same order: 1. The assertion that God is infinite, repeated twice: "I am who fill infinitude" rendering "the Holy one is infinite" and "nor vacuous the space" rendering "he fills everything." 13 Note Milton's insistence on this theme "God is light" and this particular trait, P. L. II, 383: 14 Many editions erroneously put a comma here, instead of the necessary full stop. 66 2. The idea of retraction: the English "retire" rendering "" zimzoum ("retrait" in the French of de Pauly), and "put not forth my goodness" rendering "contracted the Holy Light "since "goodness" and "Light" are two names of the Shekhina, the essence that plays the principal part in the Zohar. 3. The assertion that, in spite of this "retraction," God remains all powerful, his greatness undiminished. It appears, therefore, that the passage from Paradise Lost is a mere adaptation, or properly a sort of free translation from the passage in the Tiqoune Zohar. Milton has only omitted the comparison to the cup of water, which was a hindrance to the logical impetuosity of his period. It must be considered also that this is not a sidepoint but that these six lines are the most important passage in Paradise Lost from the philosophical point of view, also the most characteristic.15 Here Milton expresses his most striking, and as it seems, his most original idea, from which is derived his conception of matter: since matter is that "space not vacuous even after the contraction of God, what remains of God's powers in space when God has withdrawn his will. It can therefore be asserted that Milton has derived from the Zohar his philosophical system. Pantheism, materialism, doctrines of free will and of Fate as God's will: by a truly remarkable tour de force, Milton has logically knotted these four somewhat antagonistic conceptions into one solid knot; he has done it in six lines, but only because the Tiquone Zohar had done it in ten. Should even some source at present unknown, have transmitted second hand to Milton this idea of "retraction," the close correspondence of the two passages seems to me to prove that anyhow in this particular case Milton had gone back to the original text, whatever other inspiration that may be found having only pointed it out to him. This central point once fixed, everything else derives from it. A volume would be necessary to study precisely the relationship between Milton's ideas and the ideas of the Zohar, and even such a study would be incomplete because other elements than either Milton or the Zohar would have to be taken into account; these are only two strands of a rope that is made up of many more 15 See La Pensée de Milton, p. 134 ff. besides. I shall here only point out the chief resemblances, and therefore, practically, only open the discussion. I do not assert in what follows that this or that particular passage of the Zohar has inspired this or that passage in Milton; but only that the same ideas exist in the two systems.16 To Milton, God is the infinite, immutable, unknowable, nonmanifested. That is the "En-Sof," the End-less of the Zohar, which is also " Ayin," "Nothingness," so inconceivable it is. Fountain of Light, thyself invisible (P. L., III, 374.) "But God, as he cannot be seen, so neither can he be heard" (Treatise of Christian Doctrine, p. 109).17 "The phrase 'he did not think' is not applicable to God" (T. C. D., p. 145). Within the Supreme Thought," says the Zohar,18 "no one can conceive anything whatsoever; it is impossible to know the Infinite which does not come under the senses; every question and every meditation is vain to reach the essence of the Supreme Thought, centre of all, secret of secrets, without beginning or end, infinite." In both systems, God is the absolute of the metaphysicians, equally incapable of manifesting itself and of being conceived. Consequently, in both systems there is a Demiurge, an inferior God who is at once the creator and the creation since there is some sort of pantheism in the two schemes. In Milton, this Demiurge is the Son, who is the Finite, the Expressed, "the first of the whole creation, by whom afterwards all other things were made" (T. C. D., p. 80) not co-eval with the Father (83) "not from everlasting, but from the beginning" (109) "the secondary and instrumental cause" (91). In the Zohar, the part of the Demiurge is played by the "World of Emanation" the first three Sephiroth taken as one whole, Crown, Wisdom and Intelligence, because the Zohar carries the idea further and puts several steps between God and the World.19 Milton follows suit on the few occasions when he feels 16 10 To allow some sort of method in this rapid survey, I shall follow here the systematized scheme of Milton's thought I have drawn up in "La Pensée de Milton." Bohn edition. 18 I, 21a, vol. I, p. 129; see also Karppe, pp. 342, 352, etc. "See Karppe, p. 377, 378, etc. The quotations are too numerous to be given here; among others, see de Pauly, vol. I, p. 98, and vï, p. 119. inclined to admit of the Holy Ghost; he makes of that being a third step, between the Son and the World, quite precisely inferior to the Son.20 The three higher Sephiroth seem to have inspired Milton in his invocation to Urania, at the beginning of Book VII: Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed, We know "Eternal Wisdom": it is the Logos, the Creative Son; but who is Urania, who has a place with Wisdom in the presence of the Father? A purely poetical personification? It would seem very bold here on Milton's part. Besides, Milton insists on her reality: "Thou art heavenly, she (the Muse) an empty dream." The Zohar explains her. The Father is the Crown, the first Sephira, too near as yet to the En Soph to be creative; Wisdom is, by name, the Wisdom of the Kabbalah. Urania then is the third Sephira "Intelligence," the sister of the second, as Milton well knows, and Milton applies to this "Intelligence which he disguises as Urania, to be inspired by her: the proper power to be inspired by.21 And from these divine "recreations" the Creation came. Milton ascribes to these doings within the bosom of the divinity the sexual character which is so well marked in the Zohar; and that is the meaning of that terrible passage in Tetrachordon in which Milton invokes God's own example to justify man in his need of woman: God himself conceals not his own recreations before the world was built; I was, said the Eternal Wisdom, daily his delight, playing always before him” and Solomon "sings of a thousand raptures between these two lovely ones, far on the hither side of carnal enjoyment." 22 No doubt Milton is quoting holy texts; but he adds another text: "before the world was built" and this is a relationship of cause to effect in the Zohar: the world is the outcome, the child 20 La Pensée de Milton, p. 145. See Karppe, p. 375. "Tetrachordon, pp. 329-330; see La Pensée de Milton, pp. 74-75; p. 170, etc. of sexual life within the divinity, and Milton makes use of another kabbalistic law: life here below is the image of the Life within God: that is why man has need of woman.23 But let us pass on to less delicate subjects. Free-will is a natural consequence of the "retraction" of God, both in the Zohar and in Milton.24 cases is that of the usefulness of evil. celebrated: A connected idea in both Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably. What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil?—I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed.25 Thus also the Zohar: Had not the Holy One-blessed be He!-created the spirit of good and the spirit of evil, man could have had neither merit nor demerit; that is the reason why God created him a mixture of the two spirits. 20 In both systems God has foreseen the use his creatures would make of their free will, and has provided for all the consequences, by his "preliminary decree," so that, as the Zohar has it: "The Spirit of Evil works his Master's will." Thus Milton's Satan is himself an instrument of God, and it is "fondly" that he thinks he can do anything to "damage" his Master.27 The ontology is thus in complete concordance: God-Absolute and unmanifested, Demiurge, "retraction" of God and free will, necessity and usefulness of evil, preliminary decrees of God, are both in the Zohar and in Milton. The same harmony exists in the cosmology, but for the difference insisted upon earlier. In the two systems, the Universe is made of one substance, and that unique substance is God himself. The theories of the Zohar on the emanation" are well known and all through the Zohar flows a current of pantheism.28 "All 66 "Zohar, vol. I, pp. 173, 353, 391; II, 432, etc., and passim, for the sexual life God-Matrona. "Karppe, pp. 466, 478, etc. Areopagitica. * Vol. 1, p. 142. * Zohar, vol. iv, p. 105; Pensée de Milton, p. 136, “My damage fondly deemed," says God of Satan's activities (P. L., VII, 152). "Karppe, pp. 375, 407, etc. "One first matter all," says Milton, etc.; see Saurat, pp. 146 to 153 and Zohar, vol. v, 366. |