But say I could repent and could obtain
By act of grace my former state; how soon
Would heighth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feigned submission swore: ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
(John Milton, Paradise Lost Book 4, ll. 93-97)
This is what is going through Satan’s mind in the fourth book of Milton’s Paradise Lost. We hear him arguing with himself whether he should have repented for challenging God in order to gain more power. He concludes that if he would repent, he would commit the same acts all over again because this ambition, this thirst for power is just part of him. In other words: he can’t change who he is.
Last Monday morning, the trial against Robert M. started in Amsterdam. He is accused of molesting/abusing 67 young children while working at a daycare facility in Amsterdam. During that first day of trial, Robert M. said that it (his paedophilia) is simply a curse talking about it like he just has to deal with the cards he has been dealt with.
If this really is the case, he basically says that it’s just who he is and that he can’t change it. What’s the use of locking him up in prison, only to release him back into society again? What’s the use of putting him into (expensive) psychiatric/psychological treatment programmes, if it’s of no use because he is unchangeable?
As a matter of fact, in Paradise Lost, shortly after Satan concludes that he is, in fact, unchangeable, he proceeds to disrupt the peace of Eden after which Adam and Eve are kicked out.
Satan Contemplating Adam and Eve in Paradise by John Martin (1827)
