It
can be seen that William Blake was indeed heterodox when considering his belief
in God, Jesus, and humanity. He held that all three of these concepts are united
into one reality. He coined a variety of terms for this reality, ranging from
‘The Poetic Genius’ to ‘the Imagination,’ and even ‘True
Man.’ For Blake, humanity existed as the form, or essence, of God, while
each person maintained a unique identity that emanated from this essence. While
exploring his self-made philosophy, Blake “was one who was continually
‘seeking the Eternal which is always present to the wise’”
(Ackroyd 240). He believed that the artist lives in the Eternal when he or she
uses the imagination to visualize the Spiritual realm. It is absolutely necessary
for a person to be an artist of some kind in his philosophy; for, otherwise
one cannot be a Christian. In the midst of this unorthodoxy, “Blake affirmed
his belief in the Bible and professed himself a Christian” (Hagstrum 129).
He proclaimed himself a disciple of Christ, but also a member of Christ’s
body. When speaking about the historical Jesus, he would say that “Jesus
was not only a teacher but a healer, and the true healer does not ‘cure;’
he helps the sick man to cure himself” (Frye, FSSWB 81). Thus, Blake used
the life of Jesus as an example for how all of humanity should act. Yet, Blake
would never want any person to be the historical Jesus precisely. He wanted
humanity to imaginatively visualize Jesus in the present as the power giver,
the catalyst for each individual to become his or her true self. In all of Blake’s
writing, his message is for humanity to realize that it is the essence of God
so that it can become empowered to change the world into heaven by the use of
artwork and spontaneous living.The second series of “There is No Natural Religion” and the third tract, “All Religions Are One,” contain Blake’s most straightforward affirmations of who God is. Blake states as his conclusion that the incarnation of God is eternal in all humankind. He writes, “The desire of Man being Infinite the possession is Infinite and himself Infinite” (Blake 2). Blake uses the present tense: “He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only, sees himself only. Therefore, God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is” (Blake 2). In other words, God becomes human in every man or woman, so that all humans can become God. Harold Bloom suggests that a vision of the infinite “in all things is to see God because it is to see as God sees, which Blake believes is the only way to see God. But to see as God sees, man must himself be infinite, a state to be attained only by the individual utterly possessed by the Poetic Character” (qtd. in Erdman, PPWB 807).
The third tract, “All Religions are One,” identifies the Poetic Genius, or the Poetic Character, as true man; it is the universal form of man, the Christ, or God, and it is expressed in the imagination of all human beings. Damon agrees. He says that “Blake with a customary reticence, leaves the reader to assume that the ‘Poetic Genius’ is God … This ‘Poetic Genius’ exists as a Universal, also as the central core of each man’s personality” (Damon, WBHPS 37). Indeed, all humanity is one in this Poetic Genius. In an annotation to Swedenborg’s Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, Blake writes, “Man can have no idea of anything greater than Man as a cup cannot contain more than its capaciousness[.] But God is a man not because he is so perceived by man but because he is the creator of man” (Blake 592). Here the idea of a Poetic Genius becomes more apparent. Still, Blake defines the Poetic Genius as a general form that creates a variety of different images: “As all men are alike in outward form, So (and with the same infinite variety) all are alike in the Poetic Genius” (Blake 2). To be an incarnation of God, a person must live according to the truth he or she imaginatively sees in the universal Poetic Genius. Since the Poetic Genius is the same as Divine humanity, it can also be said that “The lesson before man is to learn ‘to adore his humanity’ – his typical being, his essence as distinct form all else; ‘for that is God’s Spirit of Life’” (Hamblen 383). Blake says, “No man can think or write or speak from his heart, but he must intend truth” (Blake 2). This statement refers to a subjective truth; each person will see the Poetic Genius in his or her own way, and, therefore, live and think differently from the next person. In a letter to Dr. Trusler, Blake writes, “I know that This World is a World of Imagination and Vision … but Everybody does not see alike” (Blake 676-7). However, even though every person does not see alike, each person in all his or her diversity is God, or as Blake would say, the “Human Form Divine” (13). Northrup Frye views Blake’s perspective as one that sees God and Man as one in Jesus; for, “if the Son of God existed in eternity, God must have been human from the beginning…. And if always human, God must have been plural, for it is not good for either God or Man to be alone” (FSSWB 256).
In “The Laocoon” as well, Blake unveils his idea of who, or what, God is and how He relates to humankind. First of all, Blake affirms the idea that human beings, as animals, are only temporal and not eternal. He states, “What can be Created Can be Destroyed / Adam is only The Natural Man and not the Soul or Imagination” (Blake 271). Thus, human beings as creatures, or people who only perceive the physical/natural world, are mortal and capable of destruction. Indeed, the Natural Man lives in the state of Hell: “the self-hood ‘jealousy’ defined by Blake as ‘the being shut up in the possession of corporeal desires which shortly weary the man,’ and this is the only hell that Jesus spoke of” (Frye, FSSWB 81). Yet this is only a state of mind that can be escaped (Frye, FSSWB 80). Accordingly, Blake is quick to say in a letter to William Hayley that “every Mortal loss is an Immortal Gain. The Ruins of Time build Mansions in Eternity” (Blake 678). In other words, humans must leave their perception of the material world for a more permanent reality. For, when Blake says that Adam is not the Soul or Imagination, he sets up his idea that humans can be more than natural. This leads to Blake’s second main idea in the Laocoon: that humans can be Spiritual beings and, therefore, eternal. He writes: “The Eternal Body of Man is THE IMAGINATION / that is: God Himself, The Divine Body, {Yeshua} JESUS we are his Members” (Blake 271). According to Hagstrum, these lines proclaim that “God is Christ, Christ is Imagination, Imagination is Man … and all are equal and each ends up becoming the other” (130). Northrup Frye states that when Jesus “talked of God he did not point to the sky but told his hearers that the Kingdom of Heaven was within them [as it is not a place but a state of mind]” (FSSWB 80). Therefore, according to Blake, a human being who visualizes the Spiritual reality by using his or her imaginative faculty is part of the “Eternal Body of Man,’ the “Divine Body,” or the Body of Christ.
Blake more clearly represents this idea in “A Vision of the Last Judgment.” He writes: “I have seen when at a distance Multitudes of Men in Harmony appear like a single Infant sometimes in the Arms of a Female [they] <this> represented the Church” (Blake 546). As this image represents the true Church of Christ, it also represents the “Divine Body,” the Body of Christ, and “the Eternal Body of Man.”
More important, however, Blake suggests that each individual person who visualizes the Spiritual World is indeed either “God Himself” or a part of God. This idea is clarified “in a series of conversations recorded by the young journalist Crabb Robinson … ‘Christ he said – he is the only God – but then he added – and so am I and so are you.’ Here, clearly stated is his belief in the Divine Humanity of which the whole of creation partakes” (Ackroyd 325). This is repeated in “A Vision of the Last Judgment, where Blake writes: “All things are comprehended in their Eternal Forms in the Divine body of the Saviour ... the Images of Existences according to [their aggregate Imaginations]” (545). Blake would say that “the Imagination was the central faculty of both God and Man; indeed, here the two become indistinguishable” (Damon, ABD 195). Thus, Blake’s God is the collection of all man’s visions of God and Humanity combined. It can then be said that Human beings who visualize the Spiritual world become co-creators with God and contribute to his Divine nature.
Even though Blake was quick to affirm the unity of God and humanity, he still made room for some kind of individuality in the human person. For, “only in the individual being is life concretely ‘there’” (Leavis 81). Blake said that humanity has the same essence as God but that a person’s identity progresses from the essence of God and is unique in itself. In one of Blake’s annotations to Swedenborg’s Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, he writes:
"Essence is not Identity but from Essence proceeds Identity and from one Essence may proceed many Identities as from one Affection may proceed many thoughts … If the Essence was the same as the Identity there could be but one Identity. Which is false." (Blake 593)
When Northrup Frye read this verse, he understood that “God is not only the genius but the genus of man, the ‘Essence’ from which proceed the individuals or ‘Identities’ mentioned” (FSSWB 31). In other words, each individual person is made in the form of God but expressed in an infinite variety of identities or characteristics. These identities are not separate from God, but they are distinctive in each individual person. Furthermore, as each person is one with God, every identity that exists becomes eternal in the Poetic Genius: “A Universal Poetic Genius also exists, from whom the Poetic Genius in each man is derived” (Damon, WBHPS 37). In “A Vision of the Last Judgment,” Blake writes, “In Eternity one Thing never Changes into another Thing[,] Each Identity is Eternal consequently” (Blake 546). Thus, Blake “was much more ready to accept that ‘man is a microcosm, comprehending in himself partially everything which the world contains divinely and totally’” (Ackroyd 90). In other words, when a person comes to a full understanding of himself, he will understand everything about the divinity of the world that is possible for him to know. Ackroyd agrees: “’Each man has the essence of God, and all the wisdom and the power of the world within himself.’ This is the area in which all of Blake’s beliefs also come together” (210). At one point, Blake “alludes to ‘A Vision of the Eternal Now’ in which past and future are consumed” (Ackroyd 107). In this concept, Blake suggests that each person should come to an understanding of his or her identity in the present, and reflect on how that identity emanates forth from the very reality of God. He implies that once this is accomplished, a person can utilize the power that comes from his or her essence and become a fully actualized individual.
Blake puts love above all else as the most important element of the universal Poetic Genius that emanates into every individual person. In “The Divine Image,” Blake writes,
"For Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is God our father dear: …
Is Man his ch[i]ld and care …
And Love, the human form divine" (Blake 12)
In these lines, it can be seen that God’s attributes, “Mercy Pity Peace and Love,” are also Man’s attributes. Indeed, he even goes so far as to suggest that these attributes are God and Man. This is possible in his definition of the Imagination, wherein humanity envisions eternity in the present and lives according to the Divinity within itself. Blake is careful to emphasize “Love” as “the human form divine.” In other words, Love is the most sacred of all Divine attributes. In one of his annotations to Swedenborg’s Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, Blake writes, “He who Loves feels love descend into him and if he has wisdom may perceive it is from the Poetic genius which is the Lord” (592). Here, Blake is saying that love, originating with the universal Divinity, begets more love eternally. Surely this is the most uplifting image of God imaginable.
The above lines illustrate who and what God is and how an individual person relates to His reality, but they do not explain how one lives as or in God. The following lines give some indication of what an imaginative person may do to co-create with God:
"It manifests itself in his Works of Art (In Eternity All is Vision)
All that we See is VISION from Generated Organs gone as soon as come[.] Permanent in The Imagination; considered as Nothing by the NATURAL MAN" (Blake 271)
Blake’s God manifests “itself” (becomes evident, is readily perceived) in man’s “Works of Art.” All that man has to do is see and believe that what he sees is eternal in the Spiritual, or Imaginative realm. Then, he must create art in any form to express the eternal vision that he saw. Accordingly, “Man in his creative acts and perceptions is God, and God is Man, God is the eternal Self, and the worship of God is self-development … in his creative activity the artist expresses the creative activity of God, so all creators are contained in the Creator” (Frye, FSSWB 30). The following is one of Blake’s visions, from “A Vision of the Last Judgment,” that expresses how one may use art or language to express eternal vision: “What it will be Questioned When the Sun rises[:] do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea[.] O no no I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty[.] I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look thro it and not with it” (Blake 555). In this vision, Blake uses his physical organs to imaginatively see the Spiritual world. He would say that this vision is a testament to his membership in the Body of Christ. For, “the language of the Bible proclaims loudly that Jesus possessed and possesses a body. It is called a ‘temple’ as the body of his followers, for in his role as Redeemer he is also ‘the Savior of the body’ … Christians are mystically regarded as the several members of his one body” (Hagstrum 130). Thus, as a member, he is also God revealing a vision of Himself to the rest of the Human Body Divine. According to S. Foster Damon, “Vision,” for Blake, “is the perception of the human in all things. All nature is a projection of ourselves. ‘As a man is So he Sees.’ Each person sees the universe in his own way” (ABD 436). Thus, a person must cultivate his vision in order to understand himself and the universe as a whole. In Blake’s vision of the rising sun, he understands nature as the image of the Spiritual World that pays tribute to God throughout eternity.
In Blake’s philosophy, art becomes the whole purpose for existence: “The whole Business of Man is the Arts and All Things Common” (Blake 271). Northrup Frye agrees: “Blake’s view of art could almost be defined as the attempt to realize the religious vision in human society” (BTA 8). It is also relevant that Blake writes, “I must now express to you my conviction that all is come from the spiritual World for Good and not for Evil” in a letter to Thomas Butts (Blake 700). Here, Blake suggests that any Imaginative vision a person has, expresses as art, or shares with others is for the good of humanity. This belief can be quite an encouragement for a young artist worried about the affect he or she will have on the world. Believing in the positive affect of all art, a person who cultivates his vision and imaginatively understands what he sees as a projection of the God within himself, can create art that expresses himself to others. In other words, a person who shares his or her art with others can show that person God in a new way. To Blake, “art seemed to show heaven in the world, and the world in heaven; from his later reading he also came to believe that heaven longs to see itself in material form, while the world aspires to be reunited with its spiritual essence” (Ackroyd 56). Thus, for Blake, performing artwork is not only an expression of God, it is the action that brings about unity with God. Furthermore, since insights “come as soon as go,” expressing them as artwork and sharing them with others is the way Blake would suggest they become eternal in the imagination. In a letter to Flaxman, Blake writes, “The Kingdom of this World are now become the Kingdoms of God and his Christ, and we shall reign with him for ever and ever. The Reign of Literature and the Arts Commences” (Blake 686-7). It is in the same light that Blake says, “Art is the Tree of LIFE GOD is JESUS (Blake 271). Art becomes the purpose for life and the way that life is continued. It becomes the lifeblood of the Kingdom of God. It feeds the Imagination, the Eternal Man, God, Jesus, and the lives of every human being. It is only the “Natural Man” who does not see the Spiritual realm, or does not share in the creation and understanding of artwork. Blake suggests that such people do not use their imaginative faculty and are in danger of losing eternity. In a letter to Thomas Butts, he writes, “If Great things do not turn out it is because such things depend on the Spiritual and not on the Natural World” (Blake 688).
It seems as though the creation and distribution of art was indeed Blake’s religion. In “The Laocoon,” he writes:
"Prayer is the Study of Art
Praise is the Practice of Art
Fasting &c. all relate to Art
The outward Ceremony is Antichrist
Without Unceasing Practice nothing else can be done" (Blake 272)
Here, Blake uses religious terms to illustrate the way he thinks God should be worshipped. For Blake, “Prayer is the Study of Art” because one person can study the art of another and see God in the vision of this other person. “Praise is the Practice of Art” because creating art requires one to see God in one’s own vision first, before a work can be created. Practicing art also requires one to share it with other people. Any agreement between artist and observer gives credence to the vision of God seen by the artist. For, “the more unified the perception, the more real the existence” (Frye, FSSWB 21). Yet, “Perception is meaningless without an imaginative ordering of it” (Frye, FSSWB 25). Thus agreement between artist and observer must be imaginative for it to affirm truth. “Fasting” can relate to art because extended fasting may help a person to see visions, or hallucinate. In an annotation to Swedenborg’s Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, Blake writes, “The Whole of the New Church is in the Active Life and not in Ceremonies at all” (595). Blake denies the “outward ceremony” of traditional religion as the Antichrist. More directly, Blake is denying ritual, religious traditions, and pomp and circumstance as against the teachings of Christ because they become habit and hinder vision.
The active life for Blake has something to do with his statement that true “Christianity is Art” and “Jesus and his Apostles and Disciples were all Artists” (Blake 271). This is to say that Jesus and his followers, past and present, were all inspired by imagination while living in vision. For, “Christ did not hide his thoughts but transformed them into acts” (Erdman, BPAE 277). According to Blake, Art is the mode of life for the Godly man or woman, the follower of Jesus, and Jesus himself. Blake suggests that art must be an “Unceasing Practice;” it must be lived out in every day life and created anew at every opportunity. According to Ackroyd, “The Spirit said to him ‘Blake be an artist and nothing else. In this there is felicity’” (37). Correspondingly, Blake said that if a man or woman is not “A Poet a Painter a Musician an Architect” he or she “is not a Christian” (Blake 272). Despite the idea that Blake’s terms are meant to be taken as broad titles under which many types of art may fall, anyone not revealing Imagination, or God, through artwork of some kind is not living according to the Divine Plan (Damon, ABD 28-29). Blake would say that the more man imaginatively creates, the more pleasure results, and the more God is expanded in humanity. Perhaps this is because of his belief that “nothing was ever forgotten or abandoned, but remained in the continual present of his [own] creative labors” (Ackroyd 119). Blake believed that the creation of artwork was conducted in the Eternal Now, where true reality exists. This corresponds with the use of imaginative vision that he suggests is the only way to see the Spiritual realm. He would say that a person can look into the reality of God or the Poetic Genius in the Eternal Now through his or her imaginative perception of art and life in general.
Blake goes on to further illustrate the function and nature of art as imaginative vision in “A Vision of the Last Judgment.” He says, “The Last Judgment is not Fable or Allegory but Vision[.] Fable or Allegory are a totally distinct and inferior kind of Poetry. Vision or Imagination is a Representation of what Eternally Exists” (Blake 544). Thus, for Blake, the story of the Last Judgment is not an allegory for something that will occur in the future, it is eternal and occurs throughout the lives of every human being, and God. For, “Everything is to be exalted; the least event glorified; and the whole will be organized into one harmonious life” (Damon, WBHPS 142). Everything that occurs in every human’s life is eternal in the imagination; “it is the Divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the Vegetated body” (Blake 545). Yet, “This World <of Imagination> is Infinite and Eternal” (Blake 545); it is also present and perceivable during life in the “Vegetated body.” John Beer confirms this idea: “Blake is equally urgent that men should remind themselves of Eternity – but affirms that Eternity is constantly manifest here and now in this world” (265).
Blake also links his ideas on art to Scripture itself. He writes: “The Hebrew Bible and the Gospel of Jesus are not Allegory but Eternal Vision or Imagination of All that Exists” (Blake 544). In “The Laocoon,” Blake writes, “The Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art” (Blake 271). In this designation, Blake implies that all eternal forms are represented in the Bible: “The Bible is the vehicle of revealed religion because it is a unified vision of human life” (Frye, FSSWB 45). As “the Great Code of Art” it illustrates the way that all art should be composed in order to represent the eternal. It also serves as a guide for living under this title. Yet, Blake would say it is only a guide in the imagination: “The Bible tells the artist what the function of art is and what his creative powers are trying to accomplish” (Frye, BTA 13). In other words, a person can only learn from the Bible by envisioning it in a subjective way or by understanding it in his or her own heart and mind.
Correspondingly, Blake proclaims his unorthodox views of Jesus, compared to standard Christianity, in what Erdman editorially positions as the last stanza of “The Everlasting Gospel.” This stanza serves as a powerful conclusion to Blake’s ideas about Jesus included in this work, yet, it may do more justice here as an introduction. Blake writes: “The Vision of Christ that thou dost see / Is my Visions Greatest Enemy” (Blake 516). The word “thou” refers to either Christians at large or, more likely, the institutional orthodox Christian church. Here, Blake strongly suggests that he is opposed to the orthodox doctrines and way of thinking. Indeed, Blake “remained deeply nervous and resentful of any authority” throughout his entire life (Ackroyd 23). He emphasizes this idea further by writing, “Thy Heaven doors are my Hell Gates” (Blake 516). In this extreme statement, Blake implies that he would be subject to eternal damnation if he believed in the institutional doctrines of the church or the orthodox version of Christ. Damon writes, “In ethics, [Blake’s] Jesus was and an out-and-out revolutionist” (WBHPS 128-9). It can be seen in most of Blake’s work that Jesus takes on the same kind of rebellious attitude against convention that Blake himself exhibits in his writing.
According to Blake, Jesus comes to reshape the mind of humankind, not to affirm the Jewish law. In “The Everlasting Gospel,” Blake shows his perception of Jesus’ lack of gentility. According to Hamblen, “By gentleness or gentility, Blake meant submissiveness; disposition to bow the knee to the moral and the religious ideals of the time” (379). The following stanza refers to Jesus:
"Throughout the land he took his course
And traced diseases to their source
He cursd the Scribe and Pharisee
Trampling down Hypocrisy
Where e[v]er his Chariot took its way
There Gates of Death let in the day
Broke down from every Chain and Bar." (Blake 515)
It can here be seen that Jesus comes to rid humankind of the diseases that Satan created that are holding down their minds and bodies. He rids these diseases from the Spirit of God. He takes his words and teachings everywhere; he speaks out without cowardice. He diminishes the power of those supporting Jewish Law who could not uphold it in their own life by pointing out their hypocrisy. He condemns those who blame others for their transgressions. Wherever Christ took his Word, he broke down death and the law. He “is the remover of limits, and the resurrection from the dead” (Beer 251).
Blake illustrates the office of Divine humanity through Jesus’ example of humility before God and haughtiness towards man. He says that the pride Jesus possessed allowed him to curse rulers in both the religious and political establishment of his day. It enabled him to confront and challenge the idea of men over men while affirming equality of all.
"God wants not Man to Humble himself
This is the trick of the ancient Elf
This is the Race that Jesus ran
Humble to God Haughty to Man
Cursing the rulers before the People
Even to the temples highest Steeple." (Blake 511)
God does not want man to be humble unto other men. Blake believed such a posture was presented by “the ancient elf,” or Satan. Although “humility is considered a great virtue in all authoritarian religions, as it means submission to the authorities, Blake hated it, because it means the sacrifice of the God within man, the sin against the Holy Ghost. Forced Humility is spiritual murder” (Damon, ABD 191). For Blake, humility towards other men is doubt, the greatest and only sin that man can commit against God. Blake insisted that instead of being humble, humankind must recognize its true nature as God, and follow Jesus’ example: proudly unveiling eternal truths while denouncing the religious laws and traditions of the establishment. Accordingly, “humility involves a failure to recognize one’s own eternal identity and so leads to doubt” (Beer 285). Thus, humility is going against Jesus while falling under the oppression of men. In an annotation to Lavater’s Aphorisms on Man, Blake says that Christ was what Lavater called “the greatest of characters … who, free from all trifling accidental helps, could see objects through one grand immutable medium, always at hand” (Blake 573). In other words, he would spontaneously reveal eternity by the use of his imaginative faculty in everything he did. This is what Blake believes every Divine human should do. Beyond this, he believed that humanity should denounce all religious authorities, as Jesus denounced the Jewish religious authority. In the lines that follow, Blake says that Jesus would have gone against God…
"If he had been Antichrist Creeping Jesus
He’d have done any thing to please us
Gone sneaking into Synagogues
And not usd the Elders and Priests like dogs
But Humble as a Lamb or Ass
Obeyd himself to Caiaphas." (Blake 511)
In this passage, Blake negatively implies that Jesus did not try to please anyone by saying what he or she wanted to hear. He suggests that Jesus did not humble himself to the Jewish or Roman authorities, represented by “Caiaphas” and the “Synagogues,” but treated them like dogs. He affirms that Jesus did not obey any man other than his own true man, the Poetic Genius, or God. For Blake, “the spirit behind this is not blasphemy. It was the fierce bitterness of his attack on the false god worshipped under the divine name” (Damon, WBHPS 129). In “A Vision of the Last Judgment,” Blake writes, “The Modern Church Crucifies Christ with the Head Downwards” (Blake 554). Thus, in Blake’s experience, it is the Christian authority (or any other power structure) that undermines imaginative vision. Blake suggests that humankind must live as God by truthfully following the Poetic Genius while not allowing the established authorities to get in the way.
Yet there is one form of Jesus’ humility that Blake can respect and laud. Blake’s work can never be seen as a dichotomy, only a unity (Frye, FSSWB 346). Therefore, Blake does not contradict himself in denouncing Jesus’ humility in one respect, while praising it in another. The humility that is acceptable for Blake is that which is directed towards God. But when humanity humbles itself to God, He humbles Himself to humanity at the same time, for God is humanity:
"And when he Humbled himself to God
Then descended the Cruel Rod
If thou humblest thyself thou humblest me
Thou also dwellst in Eternity
Thou art a Man God is no more
For thy own humanity learn to adore
For that is my Spirit of Life." (Blake 511)
The “Cruel Rod” that descends when Christ humbles himself to God is a lightening rod, the symbol for awakening. This awakening was Jesus’ realization of his true self. Blake suggests that when Jesus humbles himself to God, God is humbled to humankind, bringing all men to a state of eternal life. For, as Blake does, to accept “Jesus as the fullness of both God and Man entails the rejection of all attributes of divinity which are not human” (Frye, FSSWB 32). The tone of the following may seem negative: “If thou humblest thyself thou humblest me;” however, this is only the case for an orthodox believer. By humbling Himself, God becomes the eternal-loving forgiver who no longer concerns Himself with vengeance. He takes the form of a human being in Jesus, then subsequently in all of humankind. He is no longer a being out in heaven somewhere away from humanity but a being who is humanity itself. This is why Blake can say that Jesus taught us to worship the best of humanity: “Real worship consists of honoring God’s gifts in … poets pure and simple, who have the courage to take their imaginings as truths … each according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best” (Damon, WBHPS 89). Indeed, Erdman claims that Blake called “to those who worship Christ to love him as the greatest man and to honor God’s gifts in all men” (BPAE 160). Honoring God’s gifts in humanity is honoring God in the greatest way. To envision these gifts in humanity is to see True Man, which at the same time is to see God. The True Man, the Christ, or Humanity, is God’s Spirit of Life under the influence of imaginative vision.
Finally, Blake writes about the legacy that Jesus left for humanity after his death and resurrection. He shows that Jesus died proudly for the Spirit of every man. He suggests that in death, Jesus did away with the prominence of the material world and in His resurrection, he brought about an eternal Spiritual life for all humanity:
"But when Jesus was Crusified
Then was perfected his glittering pride
In three Nights he devoured his prey
And still he devours the Body of Clay
For dust and Clay is the Serpents meat
Which never was made for Man to Eat." (Blake 514)
Blake’s
Jesus devoured his prey, he devours the material world, so that all can be lit
in the Spiritual light that he came to show to all. He confined “the physical
impulses and activities to their sphere – the Body; refusing to allow
them to color His intellectual [Spiritual] perceptions” (Hamblen 381).
The wording of the above passage shows that the process continues today and
is not yet complete. According to Northrup Frye, Blake’s Jesus is “a
compelling Word who continually recreates an unconscious floundering universe
into something with beauty and intelligence. The Son and the Holy Spirit are
therefore the same thing. And this Son or Spirit is also the universal Man who
is the unified form of our scattered imaginations, and which we visualize as
a Father” (FSSWB 52). In other words, Christ lives forever bringing eternity
to all souls. For, as Blake writes in “A Vision of the Last Judgment,”
“All Beams from him [<Because> as he himself has said All dwells
in him] He is the Bread and the Wine he is the Water of Life accordingly”
(Blake 551). Humanity was only meant to eat the Spiritual bread and wine of
Christ; it was never meant to eat of the material world, or live off of the
material world. If the need to eat only Spiritual bread, or only live in Spiritual
reality, and the need to dispose of reliance on the material reality is seen
as a problem, then the problem “of restoring man to his original sphere,
is … the problem of opening man’s Spirit again to the world of vision”
(White 190-191). Blake accentuates this point by harshly referring to the material
world as “prey” that must be “devoured.” He says that
Jesus died and was resurrected so that we might be saved; so that the problems
of the material world might be done away with. He resurrects in every heart
and soul that is born again in the Spirit. In other words, He lives in the hearts
and souls of those who understand the Word, or those who see with clear vision;
for, “when [their] imagination[s] become possessed by the Jesus of the
resurrection, [they join] the pure community of a Divine Man, [or] the absolute
civilization of the City of God” (Frye, FSSWB 389). This idea is emphasized
in “A Vision of the Last Judgment:” “Jesus is surrounded by
Beams of Glory in which are seen all around him Infants emanating from him[.]
These represent the Eternal Births of Intellect from the divine Humanity”
(Blake 552). The image of infants emanating from Jesus illustrates Blake’s
idea that when people are reborn in Jesus, or when Jesus resurrects in their
hearts, they can more easily imagine reality to be of a Spiritual nature.Therefore, Blake’s God is humanity’s greatest potential. Jesus was the True Man who brought this message to humanity. And now, Blake would say that it is up to humanity to recognize its true essence so that it can empower itself to bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to Earth. Yet, the Kingdom of Heaven is down on earth for the imaginative visionary, or the artist. Those who live with a cleansed perception, as Blake would say in his “Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” live in the Kingdom of Heaven in the Eternal Now. The present is the only reality for Blake. He says that it is our duty to recognize the Spirit of God that is life in this reality. Correspondingly, “Blake was the most thorough of anthropocentrists: heaven and hell and ‘all deities’ are within man; heaven consists of his capacities fulfilled, hell of his capacities denied, and God, created in man’s image, is the sum of all his potentialities” (Schorer 108). Perhaps the only amendment needed to this quote is that since God and man are one, and God is the greater concept, humanity must be created in God’s image. This is truly what Blake believed; yet, Schorer writes the way he does to emphasize the radical nature of Blake’s beliefs. Truly, Blake was a Christian Heterodox.