Page:William Blake (Chesterton).djvu/190

WILLIAM BLAKE there should be no curtains of gold or scarlet round the shrine of the Holy Spirit. But there is stronger instances in his theology and philosophy. Thus he imbibed the idea common among early Gnostics and not unknown to Christian Science speculators of our day, that it was a confession of weakness in Christ to be crucified at all. If he had really attained divine life (so ran the argument) he ought to have attained immortal life; he ought to have lived for ever upon the earth. With an excess of what can only be called impudence, he even turned Gethsemane into a sort of moral breakdown; the sudden weakness which accepted death. The general claim that vices are poetical is largely unfounded; and this is an excellent example of how unpoetical is the vice of profanity. Blasphemy is not wild; blasphemy is in its nature prosaic. It consists in regarding in a commonplace manner something which other and happier people regard in a rapturous and imaginative manner. This is well exemplified in poor Blake and his Gnostic heresy about Jesus. In holding that Christ was weakened by being crucified he is certainly a pedant, 178