B L A K E ’ S J E R U S A L E M , S T . P A U L , A N D B I B L I C A L P R O P H E C Y EDWARD J. ROSE University of Alberta O n e well-known biblical scholar has written that “the certainty of being inspired by God, of speaking in His name, of having been sent by Him to the people, is the basic and central fact of the prophet’s consciousness. Other people regard experience as the source of certainty; what singles out the prophet in the world of man is that to him the source of his experience is the source of his certainty. To his mind, the validity and distinction of his message lie in the origin, not only in the moment of his experience.” 1 The distinctions that Blake draws and the points he emphasizes in outlining the characteristics of experience in the Songs and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell indicate clearly that he does not regard the experience of the natural man as the source of certainty. Instead what makes experience itself valuable and uniquely his experience, is that he has God’s word on it. It is not, there fore, any event or series of events or any knowledge gained from these events that is important. The experience that is valuable and unique takes place in the moment in each day that Satan cannot find. That is the moment that renovates the day. Neither the state of innocence nor the state of experience is, therefore, the origin of the prophet’s vision of the ground of his perspec tive on either side of the soul. Although what Blake describes in the Songs are both events and the mental perspective on each event, all meaning is grounded on the certainty of the source of his insight. In both the writings of the prophets and of Blake insight is the essential feature of the prophet’s consciousness. It is his insight that enables him to speak to man knowingly and convincingly. Confident of his source of inspiration he seeks to turn his people to God as he has been turned by God. Thus, he views the events of this world with an intellect informed by God. As I emphasized in an article in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criti cism2some years ago, Blake’s ideas and symbols are not devoted cabalistically to arcane sources open only to the initiate but are, instead, dedicated, as a biblical prophet’s ideas and figures of speech should be, to revelation, despite his use of the symbols of the Christian and Hebraic mystical tradition. How else could he wage the mental war about which he so often writes. Heschel E n g l is h St u d ie s in C a n a d a , x i, 4, December 1985 has observed that “The habit of the mystic is to conceal; the mission of the prophet is to reveal.” 3 “The prophet,” he continues, “is not a person who has had an experience, but one who has a task.” 4Thus, “prophetic illumina tion seems to take place in the full light of the mind, in the very center of consciousness.” 5 Of Blake nothing could be more true, but I shall return to this point in particular later in the essay. As to insight and the prophet’s task, readers of Jerusalem will recall the announced purpose of that poem: To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought. . . (/ 5 : E 146)6 Blake asks that the Saviour “Annihilate the Selfhood” in him, saying “Be thou all my life.” Briefly phrased, this is Blake’s Pauline commitment to Jesus. Like Paul, Blake is preoccupied with the condition of each man’s moral and social life in his brief space on earth. The worlds of thought that man is urged to explore inwardly must not be confused with abstract and philosophic formulae or an experimental attitude towards experience, the meaning of which is to be found in this world. Speaking from a...