8. Paradise Lost, by John Milton, pp. 163-201

Books VII and VIII

_____

Milton invokes Urania, the muse of astronomy, again to help with Raphael's account of the creation of the universe, though of course he doesn't want to be caught calling on a pagan source of inspiration: "The meaning, not the Name I call." His "Urania" is "Heav'nly born, / Before the Hills appear'd," and is the sister of Wisdom. He needs her help because

Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the visible Diurnal Sphere;
Standing on Earth, not rapt above the Pole,
More safe I Sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days,
On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compast round

He alludes here to both his political situation during the Restoration and his blindness, both of which put his life in some degree of danger. All he asks for is "fit audience, though few," and protection from "the barbarous dissonance" that some interpret as an allusion to the court of Charles II, but may simply reflect an aging man's desire for the contemplative life.

Raphael tells Adam and Eve about the Creation, engraving by Simon François Ravenet after Francis Hayman, 1749

Adam's curiosity is, naturally, unsated by what "The affable Arch-angel" has told them, "things to thir thought / So unimaginable as hate in Heav'n, so now he wants to know how all this got started. Raphael warns him that there are limits to what he can know, "Things not reveal'd, which th' invisible King, / Only Omniscient, hath supprest in Night, / To none communicable in Earth or Heaven." But he'll make a go at telling him what he can.

God, Raphael says, put the Son in charge of creating the universe:

My overshadowing Spirit and might with thee
I send along, ride forth, and bid the Deep
Within appointed bounds be Heav'n and Earth,
Boundless the Deep, because I am who fill
Infinitude, nor vacuous the space
Though I uncircumscrib'd myself retire,
And put not forth my goodness, which is free
To act or not, Necessity and Chance
Approach not mee, and what I will is Fate.

What that seems to mean is that God fills all space, but that he chooses to hold back some of himself to allow humankind free will. It's unorthodox and maybe heretical.

William Blake, The Ancient of Days

The creation of the world, by William Strang, 1896

So now the gates of Heaven open and the creator looks out on chaos, "the vast immeasurable Abyss / Outrageous as a Sea, dark, wasteful, wild, / Up from the bottom turn'd by furious winds / And surging waves." Using "the golden Compasses," he measures out a space for "This Universe, and all created things." And then

                                                   on the wat'ry calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infus'd, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid Mass, but downward purg'd
the black tartareous cold Infernal dregs
Adverse to life

The land appears from the waters, by Gustave Doré, 1866

So God says "Let there be Light," and creates the sun and moon on the first day. On the second he divides "The Waters from the Waters":  The concept here is that the universe is surrounded by water but separated from it by the firmament. On the third day the land emerges from the terrestrial waters, both the oceans and the rivers and streams which "With Serpent error wand'ring, found thir way." This seems to be descriptive of the motion of water through the land, but it's also a kind of anticipatory pun on what's to happen later when Satan tempts Eve. Next come the plants, and the fish

        that with thir Fins and shining Scales
Glide under the green Wave, in Sculls that oft
Bank the mid Sea; part single or with mate
Graze the Seaweed thir pasture, and through Groves
Of Coral stray, or sporting with quick glance
Show to the Sun thir wav'd coats dropt with Gold,
Or in thir Pearly shells at ease, attend
Moist nutriment

Creation of the birds and fish, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Then the birds, and here Milton takes sides in the old which-came-first debate: It was the egg.

Leviathan, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Creation of the birds, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Then on the sixth, the animals spring from the ground:

                      The Earth obey'd, and straight
Op'ning her fertile Womb teem'd at a Birth
Innumerous living Creatures, perfet forms,
Limb'd and full grown: out of the ground up rose
As from his Lair the wild Beast where he wons
In Forest wild, in Thicket, Brake, or Den;
Among the Trees in Pairs they rose, they walk'd:
The Cattle in the Fields and Meadows green:
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad Herds upsprung.
The grassy Clods now Calv'd, now half appear'd
The Tawny Lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from Bonds,
And Rampant shakes his Brinded mane

Insects, too, appear, including "The Parsimonious Emmet," the proverbial busy ant. And of course, "The Serpent subtl'st Beast of all the field, / Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen Eyes / And hairy Mane terrific, though to thee / Not noxious, but obedient at thy call." Somehow Raphael feels it necessary to point out to the unfallen Adam and Eve that the serpent is "Not noxious." (The mane seems to have come from Virgil's description of the sea-serpents that attacked Laocoon and his sons. Earlier he has also given prelapsarian serpents wings.)

The evening of the sixth day, by Gustave Doré, 1866

And finally God tells the Son, "Let us make now Man in our image," and gives him "Dominion" over "every living thing." And he takes Adam and his "consort" to the Garden and shows them "the Tree / Which tasted works knowledge of Good and Evil" and tells them that "Death is the penalty impos'd" for tasting its fruit. And then "the Creator ... up return'd / Up to the Heav'n of Heav'ns his high abode" and saw "how it show'd / In prospect from this Throne, how good, how fair, / Answering his great Idea." This is the only appearance of the word "idea" in the poem, and it has the import of the Platonic "form." The angels spend the seventh day singing the praises of this new creation, "Of amplitude almost immense, with Stars / Numerous, and every Star perhaps a World / Of destin'd habitation." Once again, Milton doesn't rule out the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.

So now Raphael asks Adam if he has any more questions: "if else thou seek'st / Aught, not surpassing human measure, say." Well, of course he does. He wants to understand celestial mechanics. But Eve has gotten tired of listening, and maybe a little resentful of the archangelic condescension: Back at the end of Book VI he referred to her as "Thy weaker," telling Adam to make sure she doesn't listen to Satan's temptations. So now, seeing that Adam "seem'd / Ent'ring on studious thoughts abstruse" excuses herself to go tend to her plants. (Come to think of it, isn't that Adam's job too, instead of sitting around listening to affable archangels?) If it weren't that Milton is so egregiously sexist elsewhere, we might be charmed by the observation that she knows Adam's account of what the archangel tells him will make for good pillow-talk later, that he "would intermix / Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute / With conjugal Caresses, from his Lip / Not Words alone pleas'd her."

To tell the truth, Eve doesn't really miss much in the archangel's account of the way the universe works, because Raphael pleads that a lot of it is known only to God, including whether it's geocentric or heliocentric -- once again Milton waffles between Ptolemy and Copernicus, even to the point of declaring that the debate is irrelevant:

God to remove his ways from human sense,
Plac'd Heav'n from Earth so far, that earthly sight,
If it presume, might err in things too high,
And no advantage gain. What if the Sun
Be Centre to the World, and other Stars
By his attractive virtue and their own
Incited, dance about him various round?

That's God's business, not man's, Raphael asserts: "Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid, / Leave them to God  above, him serve and fear."

                                Heav'n is for thee too high
To know what passes there; be lowly wise:
Think only what concerns thee and thy being;
Dream not of other Worlds, what Creatures there
Live, in what state, condition or degree,
Contented that ths far hath been reveal'd
Not of Earth only but of highest Heav'n.

Adam swallows this and admits that he is sometimes guilty of letting "the Mind or Fancy ... rove uncheckt," and that he'll remember that  "to know / That which before us lies in daily life, / Is the prime Wisdom." So he decides to talk about his own "daily life," and his experiences since the Creation. Raphael is willing to listen because on the day Adam was created he was busy elsewhere, checking on the Gates of Hell to make sure the devils were safely bound up there. He heard sound of "Torment, and loud lament, and furious rage" coming out of Hell, so he was satisfied.

Adam tells Raphael that he remembers waking up and seeing "the ample Sky, till ris'd / By quick instinctive motion up I sprung, / As thitherward endeavoring, and upright / Stood on my feet." (Eve's first sight, of course, was of her reflection in the pool.) He discovered that he had the power of speech and could give names to what he saw, but he wanted to know "how came I thus, how here?" He lay down to sleep again, thinking that he was reverting to his "former state / Insensible," but dreamed of a being that brought him "over Fields and Waters, as in Air / Smooth sliding without step" to the Garden, "whereat I wak'd, and found / Before mine Eyes all real, as the dream / Had lively shadow'd." The "Presence Divine" then explained about the Garden and warned him about "the Tree whose operation brings / Knowledge of good and ill.... Sternly he pronounc'd / The rigid interdiction, which resounds / Yet dreadful in mine ear." And then the animals passed by, and "I nam'd them, as they pass'd, and understood / Thir Nature."

But something was missing. "In solitude / What happiness, who can enjoy alone, / Or all enjoying, what contentment find?" The "vision" pointed out that he wasn't alone, that he had "various living creatures" to share the Garden with, but Adam wasn't satisfied: "Hast thou not made me here thy substitute, / And these inferiors far beneath me set? / Among unequals what society / Can sort, what harmony or true delight?" God replied that he was "alone / From all Eternity, for none I know / Second to mee or like, equal much less." (A reminder of Milton's anti-Trinitarianism.) But Adam argued that his job was to "beget / Like of his like, ... which requires / Collateral love, and dearest amity."

The creation of Eve, by William Blake, 1808

The creation of Eve, by William Strang, 1896

God admits that he was just fooling with Adam: "I, ere thou spak'st, / Knew it not good for Man to be alone." And he promises to deal with the problem. So Adam goes to sleep and dreams that a rib is taken from his side and fashioned into "a Creature ... Manlike, but different sex, so lovely fair, / That what seemed fair in all the World, seem'd now / Mean." He wakes to find her gone, but finally beholds her "not far off, / Such as I saw her in my dream." He tells Raphael that he knows Eve is his "inferior, in the mind / And inward Faculties, which most excel, / In outward also her resembling less / His Image who made both." But he loves her so much that this doesn't matter, "that what she wills to do or say / Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best."

The angel is bothered by this, and warns against becoming overinfatuated with Eve, especially sexually: "if the sense of touch whereby mankind / Is propagated seem such dear delight / Beyond all other, think the same voutsaf't / To Cattle and each Beast."

What higher in her society thou find'st
Attractive, human, rational, love still;
In loving thou dost well, in passion not,
Wherein true Love consists not; Love refines
The thoughts, and heart enlarges, hath his seat
In Reason, and is judicious, is the scale
By which to heav'nly Love thou may'st ascend,
Not sunk in carnal pleasure, for which cause
Among the Beasts no Mate for thee was found.

Adam assures Raphael that it's not just sex that binds him to Eve but "Those thousand decencies that daily flow / From all her words and actions." But he also asks about angelic sex: "Love not the heav'nly spirits, and how thir Love / Express they, by looks only, or do they mix / Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch?" Raphael blushes and says, "Let it suffice thee that thou know'st / Us happy." And he leaves Adam with a warning: "take heed lest Passion sway / Thy Judgment to do aught, which else free Will / Would not admit."

Engraving by Charles Grignon after Francis Hayman, 1749

Raphael departs, by Gustave Doré, 1866

7. Paradise Lost, by John Milton, pp. 138-163

Book VI

_____

Raphael continues to tell Adam and Eve about Satan's rebellion and the war in Heaven. Abdiel, having defied the rebel angels, returns to tell God what has happened and is applauded for his obedience. He now joins in the effort

                                                                 to subdue
By force, who reason for thir Law refuse,
Right reason for thir Law, and for thir King
Messiah, who by right of merit reigns.

"Right reason," like "Christian humanism," is one of those phrases that have an oxymoronic ring to modern ears, but it goes back to Plato and the Stoics and is the basis of the concept of natural law. "Right" is the operative word: Reason alone is not a moral concept.  Of course, for Adam and Eve, who are supposedly not yet aware of the distinction between good and evil, Raphael is getting a little bit ahead of himself in the lesson.

Milton was a pacifist, and the very concept of war was anathema to him, so he depicts it as anarchy and chaos brought on by the false heroics of Satan, who arrives with his hordes in a vainglorious display:

                                     exalted as a God
Th' Apostate in his Sun-bright Chariot sat
Idol of Majesty divine, enclos'd
With Flaming Cherubim, and golden Shields

The war begins with a verbal contest, just as it does in Homer and Virgil. Abdiel comes forth to denounce Satan as a fool for thinking that God wouldn't meet his challenge. Satan in response taunts the faithful angels for giving up their "Liberty" in serving God, accusing them of servility and sloth, and as "Minist'ring Spirits, train'd up in Feast and Song," not proud warriors. Abdiel counters that Satan "deprav's it with the name / Of Servitude to serve whom God ordains, / Or Nature: God and Nature bid the same, / When he who rules is worthiest, and excels / Them whom he governs." And having said this, "a noble stroke he lifted high ... On the proud Crest of Satan." It rocks Satan back "ten paces huge," amazing Satan's troops. The battle begins.

Abdiel smites Satan, by Gustave Doré, 1866

The battle begins, by Gustave Doré, 1866

The wounded Satan, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Satan and Michael have words in the midst of battle, with Michael promising to send Satan "to the place of evil, Hell," and Satan retorting that "we mean to wind, / Or turn this Heav'n itself into the Hell / Thou fabl'st." And Michael deals Satan a blow that "deep ent'ring shear'd / All his right side; then Satan first knew pain ... but th' Ethereal substance clos'd / Not long divvisible, and from the gash / A stream of Nectarous humor issuing flow'd / Sanguine, such as Celestial Spirits may bleed." He is borne away by his troops

Back to his Chariot, where it stood retir'd
From off the files of war: there they him laid
Gnashing for anguish and despite and shame
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbl'd by such rebuke, so far beneath
His confidence to equal God in power.
Yet soon he heal'd; for Spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man
In Entrails, Heart or Head, Liver or Reins,
Cannot but by annihilating die

It's nice that Raphael explains all this, except that it once again raises the issue of his audience: How could Adam and Eve understand the concepts of things they haven't experienced, like pain and death? In fact, as Milton reminds us, these concepts were new to the angels as well, especially the rebels, "to such evil brought / By sin of disobedience, till that hour / Not liable to fear or flight or pain."

Night comes on after the first day of battle, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Michael and the other angels keep watch, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Night comes on and the armies return to their camps, where Satan suggests that "perhaps more valid Arms, / Weapons more violent, when next we meet, / May serve to better us, and worse our foes." And so he urges them to create the first weapons of mass destruction from materials found

Deep under ground, materials dark and crude,
Of spiritous and fiery spume, till toucht
With Heav'n's ray, and temper'd they shoot forth
So beauteous, op'ning to the ambient light.
These in thir dark Nativity the Deep
Shall yield us, pregnant with infernal flame,
Which into hollow Engines long and round
Thick ramm'd, at th' other bore with touch of fire
Dilated and infuriate shall send forth
From far with thund'ring noise among our foes
Such implements of mischief as shall dash
To pieces, and o'erwhelm whatever stands
Adverse, that they shall fear we have disarm'd
The Thunderer of his only dreaded bolt. 

He even foresees the possibility that in the future, if they triumph, "Some one intent on mischief, or inspir'd / With dev'lish machination might devise / Like instrument to plague the Sons of men / For sin, on war ad mutual slaughter bent."

So the next day they wheel out their cannons and blast the unsuspecting angels: "down they fell / By thousands, Angel on Arch-Angel roll'd." Satan mocks them by commenting that it looked like "they would dance, yet for a dance they seem'd / Somewaht extravagant and wild." But as the rebel angels "Stood scoffing, highth'n'd in thir thoughts beyond / All doubt and victory," God's troops

           pluckt the seated Hills with all thir load,
Rocks, Waters, Woods, and by the shaggy tops
Uplifting bore them in thir hands: Amaze,
Be sure, and terror seiz'd the rebel Host,
When coming towards them so dread they saw
The bottom of the Mountains upward turn'd

So the rebels start flinging mountains back, "and now all Heav'n / Had gone to wrack, with ruin overspread," except that God had foreseen all this and let it take place in order "To honor his Anointed Son aveng'd / Upon his enemies, and to declare / All power on him transferr'd." The whole two days of war, it seems, was just to set the stage for the Son's triumph on the third day -- a pattern to be repeated in the crucifixion and resurrection.

So on the third morning, the Son rides forth in a chariot "Flashing thick flames, Wheel within Wheel," accompanied

By four Cherubic shapes, four Faces each
Had wondrous, as with Stars thir bodies all
And Wings were set with Eyes, with Eyes the Wheels
Of Beryl, and careering Fires between;
Over thir heads a crystal Firmament,
Whereon a Sapphire Throne, inlaid with pure
Amber, and colors of the show'ry Arch. 

The destroyed landscape is restored "At his command ... And with fresh Flow'rets Hill and Valley smil'd." Telling the assembled angels to stand aside, the Son bears down on the enemy, and "under his burning Wheels / The steadfast Empyrean shook throughout, / All but the Throne itself of God." (Satan had boasted in Book I that he shook that throne.) The rebel angels retreat,

                                                     for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of Heav'n:
The overthrown he rais'd, and as a Herd
Of Goats or timorous flock together throng'd
Drove them before him Thunder-struck, pursu'd
With terrors and with furies to the bounds
And Crystal wall of Heav'n, which op'ning wide,
Roll'd inward, and a spacious Gap isclos'd
Into the wasteful Deep

(Samuel Johnson observed that the flock shouldn't have been described as "timorous" by Raphael before the Fall, but as we've seen, consistency has long been absent from the narrative.) Hell opens up and "Yawning receiv'd them whole, and on them clos'd." And the Son rides in triumph back to "the Courts / And Temple of his mighty Father Thron'd / On high."

Engraving by Francis Hayman, 1749

William Blake, 1808

Gustave Doré, 1866

And Raphael ends his narrative by pointing the moral:

        let it profit thee to have heard
By terrible Example the reward
Of disobedience; firm they might have stood,
Yet fell; remember, and fear to transgress. 

6. Paradise Lost, by John Milton, pp. 113-137

Book V

_____

Morning arrives, and Adam addresses a kind of aubade to Eve. But she's had a troubling dream, presumably caused by Satan's whispering in her ear last night. In it, she heard a voice she thought at first to be Adam's, urging her to go walking in the night. She went to the "Tree / Of interdicted Knowledge," where an angelic figure argued that she should taste of its fruit, and sampled some himself. Though "mee damp horror chill'd / At such bold words voucht with a deed so bold," eventually she yielded to the invitation and "Forthwith up to the Clouds / With him I flew." But she assures Adam that she was "glad ... To find this but a dream!" Adam tells her the "uncouth dream" was "of evil sprung I fear."

Engraving by Francis Hayman, 1749

Adam awakens Eve, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Okay, how does Adam know anything about evil? Isn't the whole point of the Tree of Knowledge that it awakens Adam and Eve to the concept of evil? Yet here we have Adam recognizing it right off, and Eve feeling something like guilt -- a consequence of the ability to know evil when you see it. In Eve's case, the reaction can be likened to a child's fear of the unknown, but Adam specifically identifies the dream as "evil," and questions where it could have come from: "Yet evil whence? in thee can harbor none, / Created pure." He decides that it's a product of "Fancy":

Evil into the mind of God or Man
May come and go, so unapprov'd, and leave
No spot or blame behind: Which gives me hope
That what in sleep thou didst abhor to dream,
Waking thou never wilt consent to do. 

He cheers her up, but nevertheless she weeps "a gentle tear ... From either eye," which he kisses as "the gracious signs of sweet remorse / And pious awe." "So all was clear'd," Milton assures us, though what isn't cleared is the fact that prelapsarian Adam and Eve seem to have a far more sophisticated knowledge of good and evil than they are supposed to have, including a concept of "remorse." How can you have that without the knowledge that you are supposed to feel remorseful for doing something wrong? 

Anyway, they set off to work after their morning prayers, which are "In various style, for neither various style / Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise / Thir Maker" -- in other words, they don't have a liturgy to follow by rote, but their praise of the maker flows out of untrained and spontaneous awe, unlike the scripted prayers of the established church. And in the conclusion of their prayers, the problematic note of awareness of evil arises once again:

                                            and if the night
Have gather'd aught of evil or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.

Adam and Eve see Raphael approaching, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Meanwhile, God summons Raphael, "the sociable spirit," and sends him to "Converse with Adam." Milton follows Raphael's flight until he finds Adam sitting at the door of the bower while Eve prepares their dinner. Finding that they have a guest, Adam sends Eve off to get some more food and set another plate, which she does without complaint. This idealized domesticity does get a little heavy-handed, especially when Milton observes, "A while discourse they hold; / No fear lest Dinner cool."

Adam, Eve, and Raphael, by William Blake, 1808

Raphael lectures on cosmology, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Eve, Raphael, and Adam, by William Strang, 1896

Raphael goes on a while about the way all nature nourishes itself, and when Adam observes that Raphael seems to enjoy earthly food even though it must not be comparable to "Heav'n's high feasts," Raphael replies with a lecture on cosmology. All things, he says, proceed from "one first matter," which grows increasingly "more refin'd, more spiritous, and pure" as one ascends the great chain of being. Milton's concept of the chain is dynamic: The universe is a process of perpetual becoming:

                                                         So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
More aery, last the bright consummate flow'r
Spirits odorous breathes

Matter constantly passes into spirit, which is, Douglas Bush observed,  a kind of "optimistic monism."

And from these corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improv'd by tract of time, and wing'd ascend
Ethereal, as wee

Adam thanks him for the lesson, but he's bothered -- rightly -- by the command of obedience. Raphael explains that

God made thee perfet, not immutable; 

And good he made thee, but to persevere 

He left it in thy power, ordain'd thy will 

By nature free, not  over-rul'd by Fate 

Inextricable, or strict necessity; 

Our voluntary service he requires, 

Not our necessitated....

....

... freely we serve, 

Because we freely love, as in our will 

To love or not; in this we stand or fall: 

And some are fall'n, to disobedience fall'n, 

And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell; O fall

From what high state of bliss into what woe!

Again, this is knowledge of good and evil. What more can they learn from the fruit of the Tree?

Adam wants to know more, and points out that they have a lot of time for the story, as it's only midday. So Raphael launches into the story of the war in Heaven, though he points out that it was a spiritual conflict, not a physical ones, and that he's only describing it in physical terms because Adam wouldn't understand it otherwise:

                                 yet for thy good
This is dispens't, and what surmounts the reach
Of human sense, I shall delineate so,
By lik'ning spiritual to corporal forms. 

So he tells Adam about the day when God summoned all the "Angels, Progeny of Light, / Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers," to tell them that he has begotten a Son and put him in charge of all of them. There was much jubilation, including a

Mystical dance, which yonder starry Sphere
Of Planets and of fixt in all her Wheels
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolv'd, yet regular
Then most, when most irregular they seem:
And in thir motions harmony Divine
So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear
Listens delighted. 

A dance to the music of the spheres, which is about as mystical as you get. But not everybody was dancing, especially "Satan, so call him now, his former name / Is heard no more in Heav'n." He who must not be named is usually identified as Lucifer, the light-bearer, who was "of the first, / If not the first Arch-Angel, great in Power, / In favor and preëminence, yet fraught with envy against the Son of God." (Again, Raphael is tipping Adam and Eve off about evil: the sin of envy, which presumably they have had no experience of.)

So Satan assembles his followers, which constituted "the third part of Heav'n's Host," to foment rebellion. God warns the Son about the uprising, and the Son assures his Father that he has things under control. In "The Palace of great Lucifer," Satan charges the Son with a power grab, and urges his followers to "cast off this Yoke." The speech goes over well with everyone except the seraph Abdiel (a character invented by Milton, using a biblical name that means "servant of God"), who accuses Satan of blasphemy. God, he says, "made / Thee what thou art, and form'd the Pow'rs of Heav'n / Such as he pleas'd, and circumscrib'd thir being," and who is Satan to challenge that? "Cease this impious rage," he orders, "but his zeal / None seconded." So he departs, "through hostile scorn, which he sustain'd / Superior":

Among the faithless, faithful only hee;
Among innumerable false, unmov'd,
Unshak'n, unseduc'd, unterrifi'd
His Loyalty he kept, his Love, his Zeal.

It's a heroic moment equal or superior to Satan's more familiar heroic moments.