JESUS, THE LAMB, AND THE SON OF MAN


Jesus enters in Night IX
to perform a separation
that parallels the events
surrounding the watery
 delusion in Night III.














 The Lamb of God
becomes associated with
 a male/female cycle in
 which Jerusalem is
 appropriated as the
 Lamb's "bride & wife."


of sexual division itself, thus re-enacting the primary plot of the poem
within the narrative framework of the now multiple Eternal Men.

 Possible Resolution through Redemptive Figures
 Explicit appearances of Jesus and the Lamb of God (who, as we have
seen, operate fictionally in different contexts in The Four Zoas) are
infrequent in Night IX, and their roles are even more problematic than the
infrequency of their appearances. Jesus makes a fleeting appearance with
Los and Enitharmon in the opening lines of Night IX, "Separating / Their
Spirit from their body" (117:4-5). This act directly points back to the
division of the "Spirit" from the "Body" at the descent of the Son of Man
from the cloud in Night III (41:1-16) and parallels those divisions in the
poem that create the conditions of the primordial hiding/searching dialec-
tic that informs the poem. Jesus appears by name only one more time in
Night IX in the phrase "Brother ofJesus," a plea for mercy and forgiveness
(123:25), a plea which is summarily denied. One context of this plea is the
Eternal Man's lecture to Urizen concerning the cyclic sexual nature of
Eternity, with passing reference to the agricultural imagery that will
occupy much of the later sections of Night IX. This speech by the Eternal
Man is tantalizingly dominated by positive images and relatively uncom-
plicated syntax. The Eternal Man begins his speech: "Behold Jerusalem in
whose bosom the Lamb of God / Is seen tho slain before her Gates he self
renewed remains / Eternal" (122:1-3). Instead of perceiving Jerusalem as
his own Emanation, the Eternal Man proceeds to expound his vision of
sexual regeneration in his confident belief that "the Lamb of God Creates
himself bride & wife" (122:16),Jerusalem. This information gives a new
twist to the Lamb's primal division of the sexes in creating Beulah in
Night I (5:29-33), for it now opens the possibility that the creation of
Beulah and its sexual delusions has obfuscated the Eternal Man's percep-
tion ofJerusalem in such a way that (with the Eternal Man's tacit consent)
the Lamb can achieve sexual consummation with the Eternal Man's own
Emanation.
 Urizen, persisting in his evasion of sexual implications, simply ignores
the Eternal Man's speech whose doctrines concerning the Lamb are
neither confirmed nor denied by the events that follow it (except perhaps
quite subversively and indirectly in the multiple Eternal Men's glimpse of
the separate female at the feast). More surprisingly, the subsequent events
do not analyze the speech perspectivally either. Instead, the universe
explodes, unleashing imagery dictated by motives of vengeance and
retribution-a total absence of forgiveness. No trace remains of the cyclic
sexual joy upon which the Eternal Man bases his belief in the renovating
power of the Lamb. Instead, the central image of this section is "the Cloud
of the Son of Man / Descending from Jerusalem with power and great
Glory / All nations look up to the Cloud & behold him who was Cruci-
fied" (123:27-29).