Hidden message about ‘humanity’s fall to Satan’ uncovered in famous 350-year-old English Bible poem
FAMOUS English poet John Milton weaved a treasure trove of secrets into his 17th Century epic Paradise Lost – so many in fact that new ones are still being found today.
A hidden message about the devil has been uncovered by scholars among the ten thousand lines of verse penned by the London-born wordsmith in 1667.
Poets of the time often used literary patterns to spell out new meanings of their work, and Milton scattered them throughout Paradise Lost, which tells the story of Adam and Eve.
And it seems one acronym, found by student Miranda Phaal, of Tufts University in Massachusetts, had been missed by scholars for 350 years.
In Book Nine of the poem, at a point where Adam is arguing with Eve, an acrostic appears that alludes to Satan, according to Miranda.
A series of lines read FFAALL ("fall" twice) from top to bottom, with another FALL weaved in from the bottom of the passage upwards.
Miranda reckons the hidden message is a clear reference to humanity's fall to Satan.
It shows how Satan tempted Adam and Eve, or how pride tempted all three of them, she said.
"Ultimately, the acrostic distils the entire poem down to its essence: three contingent falls, two paradises lost," Phaal wrote in an essay about her finding.
'Fall' sequence in full
The hidden message is found by reading the first letter of each line...
From his surmise prov'd false, find peace within,
Favor from Heav'n, our witness from th'event.
And what is Faith, Love, Virtue unassay'd
Alone, without exterior help sustain'd?
Let us not then suspect our happy State
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise
As not secure to single or combin'd.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so
"Like many well‐known acrostics, it operates in counterpoint to the explicit text that couches it, foreshadowing that all is not as it seems."
It's not the first devil-themed pattern found in Milton's masterpiece.
A now-famous acrostic spelling of SATAN wasn't found in the poem until 1977.
The research was published in the .
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In other news, archaeologists recently claimed to have found the lost grotto of an ancient seductress from Homer’s Odyssey.
Mysterious "secret drawings" by Leonardo da Vinci were found last month hidden beneath one of his famous paintings last month.
And, tiny penises were a "sign of intelligence" by the Ancient Greeks.
What do you think Milton's hidden passage means? Let us know in the comments!
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