It has become an arduous inquiry whether MILTON has not drawn largely from the obscurity of this monkish Ennius? "In reading Cædmon," says SHARON TURNER, "we are reminded of Milton--of a 'Paradise Lost' in rude miniature." Conybeare advances, "the pride, rebellion, and punishments of Satan and his princes have a resemblance to Milton so remarkable that _much of this portion might be almost literally translated by a cento of lines from the great poet_."[4] A recent Saxonist, in noticing "the creation of Cædmon as beautiful," adds, "it is still more interesting from _its singular correspondence even in expression with 'Paradise Lost_.'"
The ancient, as well as the modern, of these scriptural poets has adopted a narrative which is not found in the Scriptures. The rebellion of Satan before the creation of man, and his precipitation with the apostate angels into a dungeon-gulf of flame, and ice, and darkness, though an incident familiar to us as a gospel text, remains nothing more than a legend unhallowed by sacred writ.
Where are we, then, to seek for the origin of a notion universal throughout Christendom? I long imagined that this revolt in heaven had been one of the traditions hammered in the old rabbinical forge; and in the Talmudical lore there are tales of the fallen angels; but I am assured by a learned professor in these studies, that the Talmud contains no narrative of "the Rebellion of Satan." The Hebrews, in their sojourn in Babylon, had imbibed many Chaldean fables, and some fanciful inventions. At this obscure period did this singular episode in sacred history steal into their popular creed? Did it issue from that awful cradle of monstrous imaginings, of demons, of spirits, and of terrifying deities, Persia and India? In the Brahminical Shasters we find a rebellion of the angels before the creation, and their precipitation from light into darkness; their restoration by the clemency of the Creator, however, occurs after their probationary state, during millions of years in their metamorphoses on earth. But this seems only the veil of an allegory designed to explain their dark doctrine of the metempsychosis. The rebellion of the angels, as we have been taught it, is associated with their everlasting chains and eternal fire; how the legend became universally received may baffle inquiry.[5]