bible3 Faith 3

Sin and Forgiveness

      "Whosoever of you are justified by the law: ye are fallen from grace"

       Just as he redefined hell, so Blake redefined sin. The only sin for Blake consisted in hindering, oneself or another: "Murder is Hindering Another, Theft is Hindering Another." To subvert one's individuality is the sin against the Holy Spirit. "He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence".

       The responsibility for hindering another falls upon the Lawmaker and Enforcer, who has polluted life with his prohibitions: "over the doors Thou shalt not". One could say that Blake took Paul's letters to the Romans and to the Galatians too seriously. Luther had taken those epistles seriously enough to throw off the Roman yoke. Blake took them more radically and threw off the mosaic yoke--as Paul had suggested.

       Paul had identified the Law with the flesh and opposed it with the Spirit. Our poet took with utmost seriousness these stirring passages calling the Christian to freedom from the Law. He didn't have the benefit of the 'interpretations' of such ideas afforded by the educational process. Sin stems from our ideas of morality, which Blake called hindering. When we presume to know what someone else should or must do, we have entered the state of Caiaphas, the Pharisee, who crucified Jesus, but "was in his own Mind/a benefactor to Mankind."

Jerusalem Plate 1

       We lay down the law to another--our law--and thus violate the other's nature: "One law for the Lion and Ox is Oppression". We tell him what to do, and then we use the power of the Accuser, the God of this World, to compel him to do it and to punish him for his failures. This is sin, the way life happens in Ulro. As we have seen, Blake didn't call it life, he called it Eternal Death. Paul had said, "The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life."

       The categories of sin and righteousness divide mankind. The division often proceeds to the point of physical violence. Corporeal war always rests upon a base of self righteousness and condemnation of the sins of the enemy. Religion too often allies itself with those attitudes and their violent results. Long before the peaceniks of the sixties Blake said in effect, "Make love, not war!" He said it at great length in dozens of different ways. He saw war as the ultimate end of hindering another.  In the Book of Urizen we read how Urizen, the great Lawgiver (who lives in all of us!) discovers that none of his children can obey his laws, "for he saw that no flesh nor spirit could keep His iron laws one moment".

       So we see that Blake opposed the idea of sin; he opposed morality; he opposed Law. Parodoxically Blake lived a very law abiding life. Only such a person can afford the luxury of antinomianism without losing his integrity. For example Blake despised the marriage laws--and lived as a faithful and dutiful husband for forty years. But beyond the surface absurdities of his anarchism Blake tells us something profound about life: Goodness cannot be compelled; goodness grows only in a context of freedom. "To the pure all things are pure". Blake was basically pure; one of his mottoes was "everything that lives is holy". That in itself would have been enough to make him famous.

       If we can suspend our judgments about people's conduct and stop tormenting ourselves because of our failures to do the good which we have laid upon ourselves, if we can accept what we have called bad, but which may be simply disowned facets of our true nature, in Blake's terminology if we can forgive, then we can put sin behind us and receive the gift of eternal life. Blake, drinking deeply from the primary fountains of scripture, intuitively expressed these universal truths in poetic terms. 100 years later Jung came along and clothed them with the respectability of a scientific jargon.)

      From what has been said it is obvious that Blake didn't believe in Sin as it is commonly understood: "Satan thinks that Sin is displeasing to God; he ought to know that Nothing is displeasing to God but Unbelief & Eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil".  (VLJ)

Jerusalem, Blake's symbol of the redeemed and pure consciousness, speaking to Vala, his symbol of the fallen mind, expressed Blake's candid evaluation of Sin as such: "Oh Vala...what is sin but a little error & fault that is soon forgiven?" (Jerusalem 20:23-25)

      If the primary moral wrong is hindering, the primary grace is forgiveness. Redemption came for Blake when forgiveness first entered the horizon of his vision; it increasingly came to dominate it. Prior to 1800 with all his denunciations of Urizen, the Restrainer, and of morality Blake was growing more and more into the role of judge. He was becoming in fact a judge of judges. The later Lambeth books witness the resultant decrease in vitality; in the language of Zion he suffered a loss of faith. It coincided with a slowly dawning realization that Urizen had infested his own mind all the while he was denouncing him in others. There awakened in his mind a new awareness of sin, a sin more basic than hindering others, or rather an awareness of the inner cause of hindering. He called it the Selfhood, the Spectre, Satan. As many of us have since that day, Blake realized that he saw the God-playing in others because he was so good at it himself. This new vision of his Selfhood led to the Moment of Grace.

     At Felpham, in the major crisis of his life, he faced the need to forgive both the impositions of his corporeal friend, Hayley, and the resentful thunderer, William Blake, as well. The appearance of his first Vision of Light marks the coming of Christ into his life with the power of this forgiveness; henceforth he called him Jesus, the Forgiveness.

      The old urizenic monstrosity that had haunted him, first in the outer world and increasingly as a component of his own psyche, was recognized, accepted, subdued, and forgiven. It was undoubtedly the greatest event of his life, a new birth of hope at the age of 43. He shared with us the psychic unfolding of this experience in Night vii of 'The Four Zoas' where Los embraces his Spectre (equivalent to Jung's acceptance of the shadow) and soon thereafter finds Urizen miraculously changed:

       Startled was Los; he found his Enemy Urizen now In his hands; he wonder'd that he felt love & not hate. His whole soul loved him; he beheld him an infant Lovely....

       Has anyone better portrayed the psychodynamics of forgiveness? In order to forgive you first withdraw the projection, then you forgive yourself. It's your baby!

       We can't say that's the end of the story; in Night viii Urizen continues to afflict life with his judgments, hostility and violence; Satan comes forth from his War. The Saviour dies for him, and we are still waiting for the ultimate victory. Nor was Blake himself fully delivered from the resentments and self justifications of the old man. Hard times ahead, the deceitfulness and opprobrium of others continued to afflict and to warp his psyche and caused him to participate in sin (mostly by suffering through the sins of others against him), but now he knew the answer: through recurring awareness and Self-annihilation he could forgive again and again. The wheat and tares continued to grow together.

Garments

We may suppose that the Eternals are naked. Falling down the right path

they are provided with a garment as shown in The Arlington Tempera






This picture is more or less 'the whole deal:

In the case of the nymphs they have diaphanous clothing; after descending to the Sea they receive their worldly garments at the hands of the 'writhing group' (Digby's term) busy with their spinning and weaving. You might call the garment they provide your personhood.




(George W. Digby with his Symbol and Image in WB has an extended discussion of the Arlington Tempera. It shows much clearer than my posts the relationship of spinning and weaving to Garments.)


Four Zoas Erdman 302:

Wondring she saw her woof begin to animate. & not

As Garments woven subservient to her hands but having a will

Of its own perverse & wayward Enion lovd & wept

Nine days she labourd at her work. & nine dark sleepless nights"

"Terrified & drinking tears of woe

Shuddring she wove--nine days & nights

Sleepless her food was tears





Milton "PLATE 18 [20]

......

And thus the Shadowy Female howls in articulate howlings

I will lament over Milton in the lamentations of the afflicted

My Garments shall be woven of sighs & heart broken lamentations

The misery of unhappy Families shall be drawn out into its border

Wrought with the needle with dire sufferings poverty pain & woe

.......................

For I will put on the Human Form & take the Image of God

Even Pity & Humanity but my Clothing shall be Cruelty

And I will put on Holiness as a breastplate & as a helmet

And all my ornaments shall be of the gold of broken hearts

And the precious stones of anxiety & care & desperation & death

And repentance for sin & sorrow & punishment & fear

To defend me from thy terrors O Orc! my only beloved!


Ephesians 6:

[14] Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

[15] And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

[16] Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

[17] And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:


Milton Plate 18 (Erdman 111-12):

"Orc answerd. Take not the Human Form O loveliest.

........

Wherefore dost thou Create & Weave this Satan for a Covering[?]

When thou attemptest to put on the Human Form, my wrath

Burns to the top of heaven against thee in Jealousy & Fear.

Then I rend thee asunder, then I howl over thy clay & ashes

When wilt thou put on the Female Form as in times of old

With a Garment of Pity & Compassion like the Garment of God

His garments are long sufferings for the Children of Men

Jerusalem is his Garment & not thy Covering Cherub O lovely

Shadow of my delight who wanderest seeking for the prey.

So spoke Orc"


PLATE 26 [28] of Milton

These are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage

Thou seest the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in

summer

Upon the sunny brooks & meadows: every one the dance

Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave:

Each one to sound his instruments of music in the dance,

To touch each other & recede; to cross & change & return

These are the Children of Los; thou seest the Trees on mountains

The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro' the darksom sky

Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons

Of men: These are the Sons of Los! These the Visions of Eternity

But we see only as it were the hem of their garments

When with our vegetable eyes we view these wond'rous Visions

(Erdman 123)


Matthew 14:

32] And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.

[33] Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.

[34] And when they were gone over, they came into the land of Gennesaret.

[35] And when the men of that place had knowledge of him, they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto him all that were diseased;

[36] And besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.


Jerusalem Plate 66:

The Daughters of Albion clothed in garments of needle work

Strip them off from their shoulders and bosoms, they lay aside

Their garments; they sit naked upon the Stone of trial.

Los beheld in terror: he pour 'd his loud storms on the Furnaces:

(Erdman 218)

bible3 Eternity

The Couch of Death in Poetical Sketches
" The traveller that hath taken shelter under an oak, eyes
the distant country with joy! Such smiles were seen upon the
face of the youth! a visionary hand wiped away his tears, and a
ray of light beamed around his head! All was still. The moon
hung not out her lamp, and the stars faintly glimmered in the
summer sky; the breath of night slept among the leaves of the
forest; the bosom of the lofty hill drank in the silent dew,
while on his majestic brow the voice of Angels is heard, and
stringed sounds ride upon the wings of night. The sorrowful pair
lift up their heads, hovering Angels are around them, voices of
comfort are heard over the Couch of Death, and the youth breathes
out his soul with joy into eternity."
(Erdman 442)


Marriage of Heaven and Earth, Proverbs of Hell, 
"Eternity is in love with the productions of time."
(Erdman 36)

Notebook Title Eternity"
"He who binds to himself a joy 
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise"
(Erdman 470)

In the Preface of Milton:
"Rouze up O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads
against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the
Camp, the Court, & the University: who would if they could, for
ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War. Painters! on you I
call! Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the fash[i]onable Fools
to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for
contemptible works or the expensive advertizing boasts that they
make of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles that there is a
Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying. We do not
want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to
our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall
live for ever; in Jesus our Lord."
(Erdman 95)
(A wonderful passage! He's saying that 'our own imaginations' are
Eternal and Immortal.)

And in Plate 14 of Milton we read:
"And Milton said. I go to Eternal Death! Eternity shudder'd
For he took the outside course, among the graves of the dead
A mournful shade. Eternity shudderd at the image of eternal death"


Milton, Plate 23 [35], (E 132) 
"Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated Forms cannot 
The Oak is cut down by the Ax, the Lamb falls by the Knife 
But their Forms Eternal Exist, For-ever. Amen Halle[l]ujah 
Thus they converse with the Dead watching round the Couch of Death. 
For God himself enters Death's Door always with those that enter 
And lays down in the Grave with them, in Visions of Eternity 
Till they awake & see Jesus & the Linen Clothes lying 
That the Females had Woven for them, & the Gates of their Fathers House"

bible3 Great Eternity

The Four Zoas begins in Night 1 with an altercation  of Tharmas and his 'wife', Enion in Erdman 303:
"A Frowning Continent appeard Where Enion in the Desart

Terrified in her own Creation, viewing her woven shadow
Sat in a dread intoxication of Repentance & Contrition           

There is from Great Eternity a mild & pleasant rest
Namd Beulah a Soft Moony Universe feminine lovely 
Pure mild & Gentle given in Mercy to those who sleep
Eternally. Created by the Lamb of God around
On all sides within & without the Universal Man
The Daughters of Beulah follow sleepers in all their Dreams
Creating Spaces lest they fall into Eternal Death 

from The Independent
5 Dec 02013

The figure of Albion, a personification of humanity and of 

Britain, is freeing himself from the shackles of materialism.

(From British Museum)

The Circle of Destiny complete they gave to it a Space
And namd the Space Ulro & brooded over it in care & love
They said The Spectre is in every man insane & most
Deformd     Thro the three heavens descending in fury & fire
We meet it with our Songs & loving blandishments & give          
To it a form of vegetation But this Spectre of Tharmas
Is Eternal Death What shall we do O God pity & help             
So spoke they & closd the Gate of the Tongue in trembling 

fear
What have I done! said Enion accursed wretch! What deed."  Well this is a mouthful! Follow these links, and you will get a new understanding of William Blake. The second appearance of Eternal Death casts it in a new light.

bible3 sin -

Although we frequently read about 'sin' in Blake's myth, Blake did not believe in sin: it was related to the Fall, to materiality, to the fallen world, so every time he spoke of 'sin' or anything else concern how things are in the 'world', from which we are scheduled to escape in due course.

                                 In Milton

PLATE 5
 Palamabron with the fiery Harrow in morning returning 
From breathing fields. Satan fainted beneath the artillery 
Christ took on Sin in the Virgins Womb, & put it off on the Cross 
All pitied the piteous & was wrath with the wrathful & Los heard it.

In Plate 13 he wrote

 pity the repentant Leutha. My            

Sick Couch bears the dark shades of Eternal Death infolding
The Spectre of Satan. he furious refuses to repose in sleepI 
humbly bow in all my Sin before the Throne Divine.
Not so the Sick-one; Alas what shall be done him to restore?
Who calls the Individual Law, Holy: and despises the Saviour.
Glorying to involve Albions Body in fires of eternal War--
Now Leutha ceas'd: tears flow'd: but the Divine Pity), supported her. 
All is my fault! We are the Spectre of Luvah the murderer.Of Albion: 
O Vala! O Luvah! O Albion! O lovely Jerusalem 
The Sin was begun in Eternity, and will not rest to Eternity
Till two Eternitys meet together, Ah! lost! lost! lost! for ever!
So Leutha spoke

From Milton Plate 29:
But in the Optic vegetative Nerves Sleep was transformed
To Death in old time by Satan the father of Sin & Death
And Satan is the Spectre of Orc & Orc is the generate Luvah
(Erdman 127)

From Milron Plate 39:
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine surrounded by 
His Cherubim & Seraphim in ever happy Eternity 
Beneath sat Chaos: Sin on his right hand Death on his left 
Ancient Night spread over all the heavn his Mantle of Laws

                                  And in Jerusalem

Plate 13 (Erdman 163)
Cast! Cast ye Jerusalem forth! The Shadow of delusions!
The Harlot daughter! Mother of pity and dishonourable forgiveness
Our Father Albions sin and shame! But father now no more!
Nor sons! nor hateful peace & love, nor soft complacencies
With transgressors meeting in brotherhood around the table,
Or in the porch or garden. No more the sinful delights
Of age and youth and boy and girl and animal and herb,
And river and mountain, and city & village, and house & family.


Plate 20
Jerusalem answer'd with soft tears over the valleys.
O Vala what is Sin? that thou shudderest and weepest
At sight of thy once lov'd Jerusalem! What is Sin but a little
Error & fault that is soon forgiven; but mercy is not a Sin
Nor pity nor love nor kind forgiveness! O! if I have Sinned
Forgive & pity me! O! unfold thy Veil in mercy & love!
Slay not my little ones, beloved Virgin daughter of Babylon
Slay not my infant loves & graces, beautiful daughter of Moab
I cannot put off the human form I strive but strive in vain
When Albion rent thy beautiful net of gold and silver twine;
Thou hadst woven it with art, thou hadst caught me in the bands
Of love; thou refusedst to let me go: Albion beheld thy beauty
Beautiful thro' our Love's comeliness, beautiful thro' pity.
The Veil shone with thy brightness in the eyes of Albion,
Because it inclosd pity & love; because we lov'd one-another!
Albion lov'd thee! he rent thy Veil! he embrac'd thee! he lov'd thee!
Astonish'd at his beauty & perfection, thou forgavest his furious love:
I redounded from Albions bosom in my virgin loveliness.
The Lamb of God reciev'd me in his arms he smil'd upon us: 
He made me his Bride & Wife: he gave thee to Albion.
Then was a time of love: O why is it passed away!(Erdman 165)

In Descriptions of the Last Judgment at Erdman 556:

……………………………………………...another demon with a
Key has the charge of Sin & is dragging her down by the hair 
beside them a figure is seen scaled with iron scales from head 
to feet precipitating himself into the Abyss with the Sword

The Spectator may suppose them Clergymen in the Pulpit Scourging 
Sin instead of Forgiving it

(Edman 557)

bible3 Jesus

Blake wrote Tirzah:                              

Whate'er is born of mortal birth

Must be consumèd with the earth,

To rise from generation free:

Then what have I to do with thee?

The sexes sprung from shame and pride,

Blowed in the morn, in evening died;

But mercy changed death into sleep;

The sexes rose to work and weep.

Thou, mother of my mortal part,

With cruelty didst mould my heart,

And with false self-deceiving tears

Didst blind my nostrils, eyes, and ears,

Didst close my tongue in senseless clay,

And me to mortal life betray.

The death of Jesus set me free:

Then what have I to do with thee?"

From UNC Analysis

The art bordering the poem provides the reader with an incite to what the poem means. In the picture, there are two women leaning over a naked man or looks weak or dead. They seem to be trying to pull him up to sit. On the other side, an old man with a long beard bows over the man on the ground while holding a pitcher to him. On the old man’s clothing, the phrase “It is Raised/a Spiritual Body” is written from 1 Corinthians 15:44 of the King James Bible (Eaves). The people standing around the weak man resemble those present when Jesus was about to rise from the dead, implying that the man laying before the women is a representation of Jesus. The Bible states in several places that women found Jesus. It looks as if they are trying to lift him up so the old man, possibly symbolizing God, can pour everlasting life into him. The way the weak man is laying signifies Jesus’ body on the cross. His legs are crossed and straight, and his head is limp. In the background, the apple tree represents the sin that created the situation. Jesus had to come down to save mankind after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. There are seven fruits on the tree, in Blake’s illustration, perhaps portraying the seven deadly sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride (King James Bible)

                   A Memorable Fancy

  Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire. who arose before an
Angel that sat on a cloud. and the Devil utterd these words.
  The worship of God is.  Honouring his gifts in other men
each according to his genius. and loving the [PL 23] greatest men
best, those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there
is no other God.
  The Angel hearing this became almost blue but mastering
himself he grew yellow, & at last white pink & smiling, and then
replied,
  Thou Idolater, is not God One? & is not he visible in Jesus
Christ? and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of
ten commandments and are not all other men fools, sinners, &
nothings?
  The Devil answer'd; bray a fool in a morter with wheat. yet
shall not his folly be beaten out of him: if Jesus Christ is the
greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now
hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten
commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the
sabbaths God? murder those who were murderd because of him? turn
away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of
others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making
a defence before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples,
and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against
such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist
without breaking these ten commandments: Jesus was all virtue,
and acted from im[PL 24]pulse: not from rules.
  When he had so spoken: I beheld the Angel who stretched out
his arms embracing the flame of fire & he was consumed and arose
as Elijah.

(Erdman 43; MHH)

---

---

Then those in Great Eternity met in the Council of God
As one Man for contracting their Exalted Senses
They behold Multitude or Expanding they behold as one
As One Man all the Universal family & that one Man
They call Jesus the Christ & they in him & he in them
Live in Perfect harmony in Eden the land of life
Consulting as One Man above the Mountain of Snowdon Sublime
(Erdman 310-11)


1 Corinthians 15:44
King James Version (KJV)
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.

Bible3 Satan

The two words 'devil' and Satan are often used interchangeably in the Bible and in Blake.

Job.2  (In this passage it would appear that Satan was numbered among 
the sons of God.)

1. [1] Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves 
2. before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
3. [2] And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered 
4. the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down 
5. in it.
6. [3] And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is 
7. none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and 
8. escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me 
9. against him, to destroy him without cause.
10. [4] And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath 
11. will he give for his life.
12. [6] And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
13. [7] So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore 
14. boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

Zech.3

1. [1] And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
2. [2] And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?

Matt.4

[1] Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
[2] And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
[3] And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
[4] But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
[5] Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
[6] And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
[7] Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
[8] Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
[9] And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
[10] Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
[11] Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

---

From The Marriage of Heaven and Earth we read:

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.
And being restrain'd it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire.
The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, & the Governor or Reason is call'd Messiah.
And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, is call'd the Devil or Satan and his children are call'd Sin & Death.
But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan.
For this history has been adopted by both parties.
It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out, but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell, & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss.
(Erdman 34-5)

From The Four Zoas (Erdman 367):

And all the Songs of Beulah sounded comfortable notes
Not suffring doubt to rise up from the Clouds of the Shadowy
     Female 
Then myriads of the Dead burst thro the bottoms of their tombs
Descending on the shadowy females clouds in Spectrous terror
Beyond the Limit of Translucence on the Lake of Udan Adan
These they namd Satans & in the Aggregate they namd them Satan

(Erdman 672) Inscription for Our End is Come:

Satan's holy Trinity The Accuser The Judge & The Executioner

Plate 3 of Milton (Erdman 97):
They Builded Great Golgonooza Times on Times Ages on Ages
First Orc was Born then the Shadowy Female: then All Los's Family
At last Enitharmon brought forth Satan Refusing Form, in vain
The Miller of Eternity made subservient to the Great Harvest
That he may go to his own Place Prince of the Starry Wheels

bible3 Daughters of

Gen.5

1. [4] And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
2. [7] And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters:
3. [10] And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:
4. [13] And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters:
5. [16] And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters:
6. [19] And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
7. [22] And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
8. [26] And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters:
9. [30] And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:

Blake used 'daughters of ...  freely, strictly comparable to 'sons of...
It occurs often in his poetry, but several of them are of special significance.

  VISIONS of the Daughters of Albion:

   MILTON                  

PLATE 1 [i] Preface.
The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid: of
Plato &
Cicero. which all Men ought to contemn: are set up by
artifice
against the Sublime of the Bible. but when the New Age is at
leisure to Pronounce; all will be set right: & those
Grand Works
of the more ancient & consciously & professedly Inspired Men,
will hold their proper rank, & the Daughters of Memory shall become the Daughters of Inspiration.

PLATE 2  MILTON
Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspired the Poets Song
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro' your Realms
Of terror & mild moony lustre, in soft sexual delusions
Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer...

PLATE 5 (of Milton)
And this is the manner of the Daughters of Albion in

their beauty:

To the beautiful Daughters of Albion! they sport before the Kings
Clothed in the skin Of the Victim! blood! human blood! is the life
And delightful food of the Warrior: the well fed

Warriors flesh
Of him who is slain in War: fills the Valleys of

Ephraim with    
Breeding Women walking in pride & bringing forth under green trees

Plate 14

What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation?
With the daughters of memory, & not with the daughters of
     inspiration[?]
I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One! He is 
my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death

PLATE 10 of Jerusalem:                                                       

Into the Furnaces & into the valleys of the Anvils of Death
And into the mountains of the Anvils & of the heavy Hammers
Till he should bring the Sons & Daughters of Jerusalem to be
The Sons & Daughters of Los that he might protect 
Albions dread Spectres; storming, loud, thunderous & mightyThe Bellows & the Hammers move compell'd by Los's hand.



Here are some daughters of Jerusalem:

Rosenwald LOC
Jerusalem plate 32

Notice that on the right hand bottom is something like the Westminster Cathedral (a symbol of creativity), while the bottom left has St. Paul's Church a symbol of conventionality or conformance. The naked woman is Jerusalem of course with three 'daughters', and the veiled woman is Vala, her shadow or contrary.

bible3 Death

If you study Blake you will soon find that he uses the word ‘Death’ in many different ways. He used the most common use,  the end of physical life in his earliest works. But in his mature thought and poetry he turned the idea on its head:

Physical birth was expressed as Eternal Death or wherever we find some one leaving Eternity for the world.

In the Book of Milton Blake wrote that Milton was walking among the 'Eternals', but when he heard the Bard's Song,

"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?
Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave.
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks!
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate
And I be siez'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood.
The Lamb of God is seen thro' mists & shadows, hov'ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim
A disk of blood, distant; & heav'ns & earth's roll dark between
What do I here before thè Judgment? without my Emanation? 

Speaking of Blake's physical death we have a record of it in Poet's Graves:
"Bake died in poverty in 1827 in a room in Fountains Court (off The Strand). It is reported that on the afternoon of his death Blake burst out singing due to the joy of the things he saw in heaven."

In some cultures lamentation at a funeral is not found; instead people are expected to rejoice in a kind of testimonial that a person's physical death is not the end, but a new beginning. That was certainly Blake's faith.

A young man at his father's funeral gave directions  to the organist for several hymns with a spritely tempo. In spite of specific orders she played "Holy     holy   holy" etc.  That demonstrated a clash of cultural values.  Blake also (rather continuously) clashed with his contemporaries.

bible3 faith

False  Faith:The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.

And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.

Everything that lives is holy (end of MHH)

The most striking tenet of Blake's faith was his vision of the Eternal; it was also his 

primary gift to mankind. Blake lived in an age when the realm of spirit had virtually disappeared from the intellectual horizon. This single fact explains why he stood 

out like a sore thumb in late 18th Century England and why for most of his 

contemporaries he could never be more than an irritant, an eccentric, a madman; 

their most common term of depreciation was 'enthusiast'. His primary concern 

was a world whose existence they not only denied, but held in derision.
It was a world that most of his contemporaries had deliberately closed their minds to. 
He spent his life furiously trying to strike off their mind forged manacles.

The man of faith believes some things; other things he knows by experience. 
Blake had experienced the Eternal from earliest childhood. At times the vision clouded, 
but its reality remained the one unshakeable tenet of his faith.

Blake perceived the five senses as "the chief inlets of Soul in this age" (MHH plate 4). 
The rationalists had imposed upon their world the view that life consists exclusively 
of the five senses. Blake knew better:

"How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, 
clos'd by your senses five?" (MHH plate 7)

Blake was keenly alive to another world, a world of Vision, of Imagination, of God, 
which he called the Eternal.

Every child begins in Eternity. Jesus said, "Except you become as little children...."
(From Blake Primer)

Bible3 Devil

For Blake as well as in the Bible Evil is sometimes called the Serpent and sometimes the Devil and sometimes Satan.
In the Old Testament 'devils' appears three times in the Pentateuch and once in Psalms.




In the N.T. the outstanding use of the Devil came in Matthew:
Matt.4:
[1] Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
[5] Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
[8] Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
[11] Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
[24] And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
Notice that we read about the Devil in the Temptation of Jesus, but devils regarding the healings.


How Blake used Devil, etc.





PLATE 4 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

(This is an atypical use of the word Devil, written when Blake
spoke as an angry young man.)



The voice of the DevilAll Bibles or sacred codes. have been the causes of the following Errors. 1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul. 2. That Energy. calld Evil. is alone from the Body. & that Reason. calld Good. is alone from the Soul. 3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies. But the following Contraries to these are True 1 Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets of Soul in this age 2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy. 3 Energy is Eternal Delight
________________
He had more to say about it in Plate 6 of MHH.
After MHH the Devil represented more conventional meanings.



The epitome of Evil in Blake occurs in the
"Great Red Dragon
with Seven heads & ten Horns [who] <he has Satans book
of Accusations lying on the rock open before him>"
(Blake's Last Judgment; Erdman 558)
(From Revelation)






Commons Wikipedia




The Devil is the Mind of the Natural Frame Annotations Bacon75; E625
This work (Erdman 620-32) is well worth reading.
Blake cordially despised Bacon's thought re the natural and mechanical
'frame' of the universe.

[Epilogue to Gates of Paradise] To The Accuser Who is The God of This World Truly My Satan thou art but a Dunce And dost not know the Garment from the Man Every Harlot was a Virgin once Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan Tho thou art Worshipd by the Names Divine Of Jesus & Jehovah thou art still The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline The lost Travellers Dream under the Hill (Erdman 269)


Jerusalem PLATE 77:
To the Christians Devils are False Religions
(Erdman 231)

Bible3 God

God is a three letter word. It means a great many things to a great many people.

For example many people use it constantly in profanity.

There are many visions of God.

William Blake spent his life developing his Vision of God.

As a dissenter and contrarian he wrote in MHH Plate 4:
 3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his
Energies. (speaking for the Devil)

(Erdman 34)

As he grew and matured spiritually he spoke often in what he

conceived to be false ‘visions of God.

      To Nobodaddy                                           
Why art thou silent & invisible
Father of jealousy                                             
Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds
From every searching Eye

Why darkness & obscurity      
In all thy words & laws
That none dare eat the fruit but from
The wily serpents jaws
Or is it because Secresy                                        
gains females loud applause                                     

There is a wealth of Blake’s ideas about God in Chapter Five of the Blake Primer:
"Thinking as I do that the Creator 
of this world is a cruel being, and
being a worshipper of Christ, I have to
say: "the Son! oh how unlike the Father":
First God Almighty comes with a thump on
the head; then J.C. comes with a balm
to heal it".
 on A Vision of the Last Judgment [Erdman 565])

      Each person's ultimate reality is his God. 

There is no known objective God (the Russian cosmonauts 

assured us of that many years ago); there are only images of God. 

Some of the outstanding images of God that have shaped the life of 

the world came to us from Moses, Isaiah, Buddha, and Mohammid. 

Finally we have the vision of Jesus, whom Christians consider to be 

an incarnation of God. But perhaps equally influential upon the course 

of history have been the visions of Alexander, Napoleon, and Stalin. 

Their common vision of the dominion of power is near the opposite pole 

from that of the gentle Galilean.

From the British Museum
in Wikipedia