EngL 3003W

I was also confused by this and have always grown up thinking the two were one and the same, but Milton seems to divide them into two personalities, almost similar to the Holy Trinity, and that Satan is the more powerful of the two.

Er... I didn't realize I had to post my name. That last comment was yours sincerely :)

I also have little knowledge of religion, but all I learned about devils I picked up from "Diablo".

Perhaps this will sound a little nerdy, and none of you will ever speak to me again...but...there is this computer game that came out when most of us were in high school called "Diablo". In the second game of the series the final level is set in hell, essentially. Much in Milton's style, the final gateway in the battle against hell is a place called the "Pandemonium Fortress". It is the last place that isn't ridden with demons and evildoers before entering the outermost circle of hell, also known as "cloisters". The angel (Azrael, I seem to recall) helps you to continue your quest as you descend through the cloisters of hell towards the deepest, darkest pit in which "Diablo" himself resides. (DIABLO=DEVIL for those of you not familiar with...um...education) But the most interesting part of it all is that you fight a number of demons on your way to Diablo, including "Mephisto" and "Baal". I saw these as most similar to Mephistophiles and Baalim, as we have encountered in our readings.

Well, if you're interested, give that game a shot and have fun living inside of Paradise Lost with only a sword, your willpower, and a little magic.

Yeah, I have been wondering about this stuff too. So I looked it up:

It seems like all of these various names such as Beelzebub and Satan are all names for the entity of the Devil, but according to classic demonology each name refers to a different supernatural entity.

As it turns out, the name Beelzebub is the name of a deity worshipped in Phillistine having to do with fertility rights. It eventually came to denote evil things and became interchangeable with the names Satan and the Devil, etc.

I don't know how this exactly pertains to Milton, but I think it is clear that it's going to continue to be confusing to figure out what he is attempting to do. If I had to venture a guess, I would say he is using both names for the same being, but perhaps in describing different aspects of "Satan's" persona.

Yup, I’m in the same state of confusion as you guys too, but being so far from Catholicism is helping a little bit, finally ^_^. For example, I didn’t even know that Satan is also known as Beelzebub >, so I just treated them as two separate entities; although there characteristics are very similar and that is confusing. Now that I’ve read this post, I’ll have to reconsider those characters again. But what trips me up more is Milton’s technique of superimposing pagan religion images to describe or explain Christianity. His abundance use of images likes the Styx River, Tartarus, Atlas, Zeus etc really doesn’t help me see or understand his Christian world. To me, Satan is starting to turn into a red version of Disney’s Hades in Hercules; he’s the younger sibling that got harassed by his older brother, Zeus. So I have all these images of the human like Olympians along with their world of lust and drama playing along side the Christian idea (something like abstinence and a God that’s split in three and does no wrong) that is hard to deal with. It’s hard not to confuse Jesus with Zeus. Plus, Milton’s constant referent to the East as the home of Satan, does explain the injustice of colonization for me.