[Milton-L] Query: Adam's 'Heroic' Self-Sacrifice for Love?

[Horace Jeffery Hodges]

Yes, the reasoning from 1 Tim 2.14 is present in Milton and also in sermons paralleling Milton, as you note. I've even heard such sermons twice in my life (once at about 12 years of age, another time just a week ago).
   
  Milton, however, seems to present Adam as already 'falling' in his reasoning even before he accepts the fruit, and his act is interpreted as that of one "fondly overcome with Femal charm" (PL 9.999), so I'd suggest that Milton presents Adam's 'heroic' self-sacrifice as due to lower motives.
   
  Thanks for the suggestions on the Church Fathers. I'll have to find a way to do that efficiently from here in Korea.
   
  Jeffery Hodges

James Rovira <jamesrovira at gmail.com> wrote:
  Adam's fall as sacrifice is also probably extrapolated from Paul -- 1
Tim. 2:14 argues that Adam wasn't deceived in the fall, but Eve was,
and on that basis (along with the order of creation) women should be
in submission to men in the church. It's not hard to infer from the
assertion that Adam was not deceived that Adam sinned deliberately.
Milton making it into a sacrifice attributes positive motives to Adam
for this decision, which is necessary if he wants to maintain that
Adam's prelapsarian sin was in a state of innocence (no "fall before
the fall"). Before the fall you can only sin from right motives --
you have to be fooled, or you have to be noble.

I wouldn't doubt that period sermons on Genesis made assumptions along
these lines but I can't point you to any. Probably in the church
fathers as well if you look up sermons on 1 Timothy.

Jim R
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University Degrees:

Ph.D., History, U.C. Berkeley
(Doctoral Thesis: "Food as Synecdoche in John's Gospel and Gnostic Texts")
M.A., History of Science, U.C. Berkeley
B.A., English Language and Literature, Baylor University

Email Address:

jefferyhodges at yahoo.com

Blog:

http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/

Office Address:

Assistant Professor Horace Jeffery Hodges
School of English, Kyung Hee University
1 Hoegi-dong, Dongdaemun-gu
Seoul, 130-701
South Korea

Home Address:

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Gunyoung Apt. 102-204
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Jungnang-gu
Seoul 131-771
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