gination is
the first to resume its liberty; it takes possession of its own
inheritance, it dreams of its gods and demigods, as Benvenuto dreamt
of the Virgin, and it re-shapes the priest's traditions in noble and
beautiful forms. Homer and the Greek dramatists would not have dared
to bring the gods upon the stage so freely, had they believed Zeus and
Apollo were living persons, like the man in the next street, who might
call the poet to account for what they were made to do and say; but
neither, on the other hand, could they have been actively conscious
that Zeus and Apollo were apparitions, which had no existence, except
in their own brains.

The condition is extremely peculiar. It can exist only in certain
epochs, and in its nature is necessarily transitory. Where belief is
consciously gone the artist has no reverence for his work, and
therefore can inspire none. The greatest genius in the world could not
reproduce another Athene like that of Phidias. But neither must the
belief be too complete. The poet's tongue stammers when he would bring
beings before us who, though invisible, are awful personal existences,
in whose stupendous presence we one day expect to stand. As long as
the conviction survives that he is dealing with literal truths, he is
safe only while he follows with shoeless feet the letter of the
tradition. He dares not step beyond, lest he degrade the Infinite to
the human level, and if he is wise he prefers to content himself with
humbler subjects. A Christian artist can represent Jesus Christ as a
man because He was a man, and because the details of the Gospel
history leave room for the imagination to work. To represent Christ as
the Eternal Son in heaven, to bring before us the Persons of the
Trinity consulting, planning, and reasoning, to take us into their
everlasting Council Chamber, as Homer takes us into Olympus, will be
possible only when Christianity ceases to be regarded as a history of
true facts. Till then it is a trespass beyond the permitted limits,
and revolts us by the inadequacy of the result. Either the artist
fails altogether by attempting the impossible, or those whom he
addresses are themselves intellectually injured by an unreal treatment
of truths hitherto sacred. They confound the representation with its
object, and regard the whole of it as unreal together.

These observations apply most immediately to Milton's 'Paradise Lost,'
and are meant to explain the unsatisfactoriness