DISMANTLING THE DIVINE



relationship. Since the action of the Family Divine is, at least in part, a
re-enactment of the story that was told in its midst, this action of closing
up the Messengers only until "the time of the End." implies some kind of
providential or prophetic vision on the part of the Family Divine that there
will be an "End." to time unlike the endless horrible space. On the other
hand, the enclosure of the Messengers could function as a denial by the
Family Divine that there is no satisfactory "End." in sight. In closing their
only source of information about these alienated regions of their own
being they are actually constituting the conditions of alienation to which
they are attempting to respond.
 When the narrative turns from the drawing up of the tent and the closing
of the Messengers in clouds to the more active functions of the Family
Divine, even more problems arise:
 Then they Elected Seven. called the Seven
 Eyes of God & the Seven lamps of the Almighty
 The Seven are one within the other the Seventh is named Jesus
 The Lamb of God blessed for ever
 (19:9-12)

The choice of imagery here is crucial, for "Eyes" have previously been the
source ofanatomization (5:5) and "lamps" have been associated with Uri-
zen's "Hosts" (11:17). This vision of Seven within one another does not
reconstitute but rather contradicts the harmonic incorporation of the
"Family" into the "One Man" as defined at 21:1-7: there "They call" the
"One Man" Jesus; now it is only one aspect of the system, the "Seventh,"
which is "named Jesus." By linking the name "Jesus" directly, for the first
time in the poem, to "The Lamb of God," who vanished from the narrative
after briefly appearing off-stage in his role as creator of Beulah (which is
the source of the Messengers' account), the narrator further blurs distinc-
tions that had seemed fairly secure and undermines the positive providen-
tial significance of this action at the moment he seems to be asserting it
most directly. Even the single action of this "Seventh" generates anxiety:
"he followed the Man" (19:12), he does not lead him; indeed, he seems at
the mercy of the Man's quest for a "Sepulcher" (19:13). The Seventh seems
helpless to avert the Man's fate, for (assuming the pronoun references are
to the Man and not to "Jesus") the passage ends with yet another recapitu-
lation of the fleeing that has dominated the surface of the war plot, just as
hiding and searching dominated the sexual plot: "His inward eyes closing
from the Divine vision & all /His children wandering outside from his
bosom fleeing away" (19:14-15). Jesus virtually disappears from the sur-
face of the narrative as the Man's eyes turn toward the children fleeing from
his bosom-one consequence of Enion's attempt to embalm Enitharmon
in her bosom and Tharmas' attempt to hide her in his bosom. Now the
"children" of the Tharmas/Enion bracket (Los and Enitharmon) are
redefined as the multiple children of the Man, back in the state of "wander-
ing" they inhabited prior to their ability to communicate through inter-
polated visions.


The problematic status
of "Jesus" in relation to
differing narrative con-
texts.