FOUR ZOAS VIII-IX / 111:19-135:34


Foregrounding the
 Eternal Man


Division of Satan versus
 division by Jesus


in the parallel crux involving the "Cloud of the Son of Man" (123:27-39).
 The conspicuous absence from Night IX of other possible bearers of
external salvation-not only the central "Council of God," the "Saviour,"
and the "Divine Vision," but also such marginal figures as "the ever pity-
ing one" or the "Universal hand" -and the infrequent appearance of those
agents who do enter the poem throws much of the narrative burden onto
the suddenly important "Eternal Man" figure, the character-landscape
most systematically suppressed in the previous Nights and known by
many names (as if through different aspects) such as the "Man," the "Fallen
Man," "the awful Man," "Albion," and so on. His dramatic comeback in
Night IX, where he functions as an agent more often than in the previous
eight Nights together, does not mean that he is a redeeming figure resur-
rected to replace the vanished redemptive framework hovering through-
out the first eight Nights: his primary functions in Night IX are sitting,
periodically delivering doctrinal speeches, and feasting; he interrupts his
inertia only to become wrathful toward Urizen's dragon form and to make
frustrated attempts at walking through fires to achieve "Consummation."
The Eternal Man's failure to act seems to emanate from his unstated pre-
supposition that he is wholly unable to save himself by direct action
because of the war within his members (119:32) and thus must mediate his
renovation through characters whom he sees at times (sometimes dimly)
as exteriorized aspects of himself, and at times as completely separate
beings: he first calls on Urizen, later Luvah, and eventually Tharmas and
Urthona. The Eternal Man's greatest need and what he constantly seeks
outside himself with repeated frustration, is to be saved.
 Unlike these scattered possible agents of redemption, the events of Night
IX follow immediately upon the resolution of Synagogue of Satan to burn
the Mystery and form another from her ashes:

 The Ashes of Mystery began to animate they called it Deism
 And Natural Religion as of old so now anew began
 Babylon again in Infancy Calld Natural Religion
 (111:22-24)

Night IX could have begun with Los responding to this act of "Satan
divided against Satan" (111:19), but instead Los responds to a divisive act
ofJesus ("Separating / Their Spirit from their body." [117:4-5]). Because
one of the chief effects ofLos's act of tearing down the Sun and Moon at the
outset of Night IX is the burning of Mystery (119:1) and of Rahab and
Tirzah associated with Mystery (118:7), the reader senses that the events
early in Night IX are an analysis of the burning of Mystery by the
Synagogue glossed at the end of Night VIII and that Night IX as a whole
may re-enact the emergence of "Natural Religion as of old" rather than
function as a response to it. In 119:2-3, the phrasing "Rattling go up the
flames around the Synagogue / Of Satan" leaves open the possibility that
the Synagogue is at the center of the flames but may be exempt from them,
in contrast to "In the fierce flames the limbs of Mystery lay consuming