After God brought forth His Messiah, as John Milton tells in Paradise Lost, Satan rebels and with him a third of the hosts of heaven. Among the masses is the zealous Abdiel, a flaming Seraphim, who is caught up in the throng but does not share the rebellious heart of the malevolent. He condemns Satan’s folly to his face and foretells his doom. Satan responds, undeterred in his malcontent, and garners the thunderous applause of the hordes behind him. Yet Abdiel stands alone, fearless, encompassed round with foes.
Milton describes this steely-eyed angel thus:
So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found
Among the faithless, faithful only hee;
Among innumerable false, unmov’d,
Unshak’n, unseduc’d, unterrifi’d
His Loyaltie he kept, his Love, his Zeale;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single. From amidst them forth he passd,
Long way through hostile scorn, which he susteind
Superior, nor of violence fear’d aught;
And with retorted scorn his back he turn’d
On those proud Towrs to swift destruction doom’d.
Abdiel flies back to heaven to warn God of the coming assault, and finds the vast host of heaven alreaded arrayed in glorious formation for battle. He is received into the ranks with joyous applause and lead to the supreme seat, the Golden Cloud from which God Almighty spoke these words.
Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought
The better fight, who single hast maintained
Against revolted multitudes the Cause
Of Truth, in word mightier then they in Armes;
And for thy testimony of Truth has born
Universal reproach, far worse to beare
Then violence: for this was all thy care
To stand approv’d in the sight of God, though Worlds
Judg’d thee perverse
Oh to be like this dreadless angel, unpursued by the darkness and unwinnable to their side, burning with zeal for his One Love and Loyalty. And to hear those words of God “for this was all thy care, to stand approved in the sight of God, though Worlds judged thee perverse.”
Thought Butter 