DIARY ACCOUNT OF BLAKE
nothing about. In the same tone he said repeatedly the 'Spirit told me.' I took occasion to say—You use the same word as Socrates used. What resemblance do you suppose is there between your Spirit & the Spirit of Socrates?[1] The same as between our countenances. He paused & added—'I was Socrates.' And then as if correcting himself, A sort of brother. I must have had conversations with him. So I had with Jesus Christ. I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them—It was before this, that I had suggested on very obvious philosophical grounds the impossibility of supposing an immortal being created, an eternity a parte post, witht. an eternity a parte ante. This is an obvious truth I have been many (perhaps 30) years fully aware of. His eye brightened on my saying this And he eagerly concurred. To be sure it is impossible. We are all coexistent with God, Members of the Divine body. We are all partakers of the divine nature." In this by the bye Bl[ake] has but adopted an ancient Greek idea, Qy. of Plato. As connected with this idea I shall mention here (tho' it formed part of our talk walking homeward) that on my asking in what light he viewed the great question concerning the Divinity of Jesus Christ, He said—He is the only God—But then he added—'And so am I & so are you.' Now he had just before (and that occasioned my question) been speaking of the errors of Jesus Christ. He was wrong in suffering himself to be crucified. He should not have attacked the govt. He had no business with such matters. On my enquiring how he reconciled this with the sanctity and divine qualities of Jesus, he said 'He was not then become the father'—Connecting as well as one can these fragmentary sentences it would be hard to fix Blake's station between Christianity, Platonism and Spinozism. Yet he professes to be very
- ↑ [Reminiscences, 1825, add:] "He smiled, & for once it seemed to me as if he had a feeling of vanity gratified."
