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Wikipedia Commons Songs of Innocence and of Experience Garden of Love |
Late 18th Century Europe existed in a state of rapid
transition from medievalism to modernity. The old arrangement of
society, a divinely ordained king, a land owning aristocracy, and a
marriage of Church and State came increasingly under the attacks of
political, economic, and religious progressives. The American Revolution
pointed toward the outcome of the struggle. In Europe the decisive
event came with the French Revolution and its aftermath.
William Blake lived through those stirring times. His work has great
significance as political commentary. Now two centuries later its
spiritual dimension has assumed even greater moment. Blake participated
passionately in the social and political debates of the day, although
few contemporaries heard his voice. It is his place in the spiritual
dialogue that exercises the greatest fascination and will probably
endure when the other dimensions of his thought have passed into the
dust of time. Blake radically redefined the Christian faith and offered
to his own and later generations a religious perspective that takes
fully into account the corruptions of the past and the psychological
sophistication of the future.
It was during Blake's age
that religious faith in Europe began to lose its grip upon the minds of
men. His generation saw the final breakdown of the Medieval Synthesis
and the triumphant emergence of the Age of Reason. He participated in a
decisive battle of the eternal war between conservative religionists and
liberal rationalists. Though without the bloodshed of earlier days, it
was a conflict in which quarter was neither given nor expected. The
battle pitted the community of faith, which in the 18th Century suffered
an eclipse, against the rationalists, critical men of great brilliance.
But none of the rationalists surpassed the brilliance of William Blake,
a critical man of faith; their contribution to modern thought had its
day; we are still far from catching up with his.
In the
battle between faith and reason Blake occupied a unique middle ground.
On one hand he constantly attacked an oppressive politico-religious
establishment; on the other he just as steadfastly defended a spiritual
orientation against the rationalists. This meant for Blake a lifetime
engagement on two fronts.
This book describes and
explores the various dimensions of Blake's vision of Christianity. One
overriding consideration determined that vision: Blake saw freedom as
the primary and ultimate value. The attitudes he expressed toward all
institutions, his evaluation of them, the comments he made about them
with his poetry and pictures, all these things were determined by the
institution's relationship to that supreme value of freedom. He believed
from the depths of his being that coercion in any form is the primary
evil. It outweighs and in fact negates any benefit that an established
religion may afford. Blake believed that regardless of his professed
faith, the leader who uses coercion thereby shows himself to be a
follower of the God of this World, the Tempter with whom Jesus dealt in
the wilderness.
As a religious thinker Blake customarily
receives the designation of radical Protestant. The seeds of his
protest go back far beyond Luther. In his day a more common term was
dissenter. Blake protested against and dissented from the authority of
the orthodox Christian tradition. We can best understand Blake as a
thinker, as a Christian, and as a man in terms of this dissent from
orthodoxy. His intellectual life in many ways summarized the history of
Christian dissent. His art evoked and drew upon the earlier occurrences
of dissent through the centuries.
Blake defined God in
terms of vision. Every man has his own vision of God, and no two are
exactly alike. Blake spent much of his time and energy describing the
superstitious images of God embraced by men in his day as in our own.
With his usual extravagant language he was capable of saying something
like 'their God is a devil'. He's referring to their vision, their image
of God. Think for a moment about the vision of God of the Inquisitors,
of for that matter of Bin Laden. Their God gloried in blood, but not my
God, Blake's or yours!
Jesus was an obvious dissenter
from the orthodox tradition into which he was born. He blithely ignored
many of the requirements of respectable Judaism. He repeatedly violated
the Sabbath. He felt perfectly free to initiate conversation with
unfamiliar women, a gigantic taboo; in fact he spent hours with
disreputable characters of both sexes. He ate without washing his hands.
All these acts seriously violated the laws of his religious tradition.
In 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'
Blake claimed that Jesus broke all of the ten commandments and "was all
virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules" (See Chapter Five ).
Going beyond mere dissent Jesus attacked the established religious
leaders. He called them whited sepulchers, poked fun at them, and
encouraged all sorts of insubordination among their followers. Worst of
all he set himself up as an alternative authority. In all these ways he
directly challenged the religious leaders and provoked them to bring
about his execution as a revolutionist.
Jesus perceived
death as the ultimate authority or power of the world. On behalf of his
ideals and with spiritual power he challenged death, and according to
the Christian faith he defeated it; he conquered death. In the words of
Paul he "abolished death". Blake understood this in a more existential
way than do most Christians. One of his primary themes, running from the
very beginning of his poetry until the last day of his life, was the
redefinition of death in accordance with the Christian gospel.
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Ephesians 2
[8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
[9] Not of works, lest any man should boast.
[10]
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
[8] Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
[9] Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
[10] But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:
Vision of Last Judgment, (E 565)
" Angels are happier than Men <&
Devils> because they are not always Prying after Good & Evil in
One Another & eating the Tree of Knowledge for Satans
Gratification
Thinking as I do that the Creator of this World is a very
Cruel Being & being a Worshipper of Christ I cannot help saying
the Son O how unlike the Father First God Almighty comes with a
Thump on the Head Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it" 
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