Paradise Regained

"I, who erewhile the happy Garden sung / By one man's disobedience lost, now sing / Recovered Paradise to all mankind, / By one man's firm obedience fully tried / Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled / In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed, / And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness”

The role of Milton’s narrator is made explicit in this early section of the epic. Aware of the events of the fall of Eden, this speaker will present a complementary but more optimistic element of biblical history—Jesus’s triumph over temptation.

"I, when no other durst, sole undertook / The dismal expedition to find out / And ruin Adam, and the exploit performed / Successfully: a calmer voyage now / Will waft me; and the way found prosperous once / Induces best to hope of like success”

Satan’s words here indicate much about his character, from his pride in his destructive acts to confidence that he will emerge victorious once more. However, Satan’s certitude is founded on a mistaken premise: Jesus seems similar to Adam, but is in fact superior.

 "This Man, born and now upgrown, / To shew him worthy of his birth divine / And high prediction, henceforth I expose / To Satan; let him tempt, and now assay / His utmost subtlety, because he boasts / And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng / Of his Apostasy. He might have learnt / Less overweening, since he failed in Job"

God here acknowledges—and even seems to sanction—Satan’s attempts to lead Jesus astray. Yet the stakes may not be especially high where Jesus is concerned, since God, the supreme authority, is confident that Jesus will choose well even when faced with Satan’s temptations.