Show notes
William Blake used his infernal methods subtly to critique Christmas via his illustrations to Milton's ode, On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity. He sought to reveal how its message of eternity is distorted by worldly vision.Blake objected to the gentle Jesus, meek and mild, of the stable. He pushed against the humble child, pointing out that Jesus disobeyed and dismayed his parents, not in rebellion, but because his vision was divine.Blake writes in The Everlasting Gospel:"If Moral Virtue was Christianity Christs Pretensions were all Vanity The Moral Christian is the Cause Of the Unbeliever & his Laws For what is Antichrist but those Who against Sinners Heaven close."This meditation ponders what Blake objected to, how it applies now, and the nature of his inspired sense of Jesus the divine imagination.In Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, he implores:"“Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divineI am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:Lo! we are One."1:16 Why is Blake wary of Christmas3:35 Nativity traps: Jesus is born and instantly forgotten10:05 Shepherds see: the place for divine vision12:32 How the infinite is enclosed15:10 How the passions are lost17:02 How the overthrow of darkness is missed19:28 The illusory peace of repressed Christianity21:41 Blake’s Christmas: Was Jesus gentle?23:35 Blake’s Christianity: overcoming sin or opening paradise?25:30 Blake’s imperative: rejecting the distant God, separated by sin26:05 Blake’s Antichrist: Christianity and the wastes of moral law27:00 “I am not a God afar off. Within your bosoms I reside”28:50 Knowing Eden/Eternity, transcending Beulah32:45 Knowing fourfold vision: “realities of intellect, passions emanate, eternal glory”