what is the theme for the fall of satan (book I) in paradise lost?

Answer 1

In ancient Jewish tradition Satan is simply an angel doing the work that God assigned to Satan to do.

The word Satan means challenger. With the idea of Satan challenging us, or tempting if you will. This description sees Satan as the angel who is the embodiment of man's challenges. This idea of Satan works closely with God as an integral part of Gods plan for us. His job is to make choosing good over evil enough of a challenge so that it becomes clear to us that there can be only one meaningful or logical choice.

Contrast this to Christianity, which sees Satan as God's opponent. In Jewish thought, the idea that there exists anything capable of setting itself up as God's opponent would be considered polytheistic or setting up the devil to be an equally powerful polarity to god or a demigod.

Oddly, proof for The Christian satan/devil mythology is supposedly found in the ancient Jewish texts that were borrowed to create the bible. One can’t help but wonder how Christians came up with such a fantastically different interpretation of Gods assistant Satan in their theology.

Other hints about Satan’s role in human relations can be seen if you look at the name Lucifer. It’s meaning in the original tongue translates as Light bearer or light bringer. Essentially the bringer of enlightenment. The temptations of the Satan idea bring all of us eventually into Gods light. Hardly the Evil entity of Christian mythology.

Love and blessings
don

Answer 2

Don H's explanation of the ancient debate on the nature of Satan is accurate and interesting, but it is not a statement of the theme of the fall of Satan in Paradise Lost. Furthermore, it unfortunately reduces the Christian concept of Satan to the Manichaean doctrine: "The most striking principle of Manichaean theology is its dualism. Mani postulated two natures that existed from the beginning: light and darkness." [2] Such a view was long since rejected by Christian theologians. Neither of these views of Satan is quite accurate in characterizing Milton's Satan.

Most people forget that Milton was a Puritan, a supporter of the Puritan revolution in England in the 17th century. His ambition with Paradise Lost was to produce (a) a great epic in the English language, in the nature of and on a par with Homer's Iliad in classical Greek and Virgil's Aeneid in classical Latin and (b) to produce a Christian epic with the literary depth and interest of these predecessors. In the latter instance, his stated theme was "to justify the ways of God to man."

Based on Milton's biography, theology, and the text itself, there are three principal competing interpretations of the poem, especially with regard to the fall of Satan and his attempt to revive his power.

(1) The romantic or psychological interpretation. "Looked at from a modern perspective it may appear to some that Milton presents Satan sympathetically, as an ambitious and prideful being who defies his tyrannical creator, omnipotent God, and wages war on Heaven, only to be defeated and cast down. Indeed, William Blake, a great admirer of Milton, and illustrator of the epic poem, said of Milton that 'he was a true Poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.' Some critics regard the character of Lucifer as a precursor of the Byronic hero." [2] This interpretation sees the revolutionary Milton defying the tyrannical monarch.

(2) The orthodox, Christian interpretation. Perhaps the most outspoken opponent of the romantic view that Satan is heroic, and the genuine protagonist of the poem, is C. S. Lewis in his Preface to Paradise Lost. Lewis sees Milton as having dramatized Satan's sin of pride and his limited view of reality: "In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, [Lucifer] could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige." In his view Satan's pride is unjustified, hence deceitful and petty. "Everything except God has some natural superior; everything except unformed matter has some natural inferior." Lewis puts more emphasis on Adam and Eve as the protagonists (after all, it is they who lost Paradise) and upon their "fortunate fall."

(3) The political, philosophical interpretation. "The political angle enters into consideration in the underlying friction between Satan's conservative, hierarchical views of the universe and the contrasting 'new way' of God and the Son of God as illustrated in Book III. In contemporary critical theory in other words, the main thrust of the work becomes not the perfidy or heroism of Satan, but rather the tension between classical conservative 'old testament' hierarchs (evidenced in Satan's worldview, and even in that of the archangels Raphael and Gabriel), and 'new testament' revolutionaries (embodied in the Son of God, Adam, and Eve) who represent a new system of universal organization based not in tradition, precedence, and unthinking habit, but in sincere and conscious acceptance of faith on the one hand, and on station chosen by ability and responsibility. Naturally, this critical mode makes much use of Milton's other works and his biography, grounding itself in his personal history as an English revolutionary and social critic." [1]