Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/61

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THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL.
47

and so absorb him in the delusions of Nature and live in his absorption. But the Divine element in man does not leave him when he enters into lust, but accompanies his three regions of Head, Heart, and Loins, as the Form of the Fourth accompanied the three men in the furnace. It takes Man in all men into this vegetable fire, and comes out of it with him. Satan also sacrifices himself in the vain attempt to sacrifice others to himself. So he also becomes a Redeemer while still the contrary of the great Self-Sacrificer, and his suicide, with its evil intent, complements the good suicide of the crucifixion. This latter suicide began when God allowed his Image to be of two sexes, and when "Male and Female created he them," whose name was called " Adam " — red earth.

Thus as the final unity results from a thousand divisions, so paradox and contradiction create truth.

The paradox of the Two Redeemers lies deep and is difficult to disentangle. Still deeper is that of the two Creators. As there is a mortal body and a spiritual body, and they are not the same, and as neither was First Cause of the other, so also there is the Creator who is the Lamb's Father, and is the ultimate Eternity, and the Creator who is the Dust's Father, and is the ultimate death. Both are the Father of Christ. One is the father of his Satanic body; one of himself. He is the Son of Man, son of the Image of the Eternal, on the spiritual side. This is the meaning of the phrase, " Thou art a Man. God is no more." The word is can only be applied to Man, for Man is a word meaning Mind or that which Exists. Is applies only to existence. There can be "no more" in God, for more than Mind, or than that which Exists, must be inconceivable as an existence. That "more" would be a portion of Nonentity or of outer Nature, that is to say, delusion, and finally therefore Satan, and not God. Humanity, the abstract noun containing the same idea, is thus mentality. The lines —

" Thou art a Man: God is no more.
Thine own Humanity learn to endure,"