The Work
The Holy War Made by Shaddai upon Diabolus for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World, or the Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul was published in 1682 by Dorman Newman and Benjamin Alsop (London). John Bunyan, then in his early fifties, had completed The Pilgrim's Progress in 1678 and was at the height of his literary powers. The Holy War is a full-length allegorical epic approximately twice the length of The Pilgrim's Progress, written in the tradition of epic warfare narratives. Charles Spurgeon called it the greatest allegory ever written after The Pilgrim's Progress, and claimed that if Bunyan had not written The Pilgrim's Progress, The Holy War would have established him as the supreme English allegorist.
Biblical Engagement
Ephesians 6:11-18 (the armor of God) provides the structural framework for the entire work. Bunyan depicts the cosmic spiritual warfare Paul describes not in the life of an individual (as in The Pilgrim's Progress) but in the corporate life of a community -- the town of Mansoul (the human soul in its social and institutional dimensions). The armor of Ephesians 6 becomes the armor of Emmanuel's army in the siege narratives.
Revelation 12:7-9 (war in heaven: "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not") is the cosmic background for Bunyan's war narrative. Diabolus (the devil) captures Mansoul because its inhabitants opened the gates to his deception, echoing both the cosmic fall of Satan and the individual fall of Genesis 3.
Romans 7:23 ("I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members") provides the psychological account of Mansoul's internal division. After the town has been redeemed by Emmanuel (Christ), it remains subject to continuing Diabolite incursions -- the remaining corruption of the regenerate soul that continues to war against the Spirit (Galatians 5:17).
2 Corinthians 10:4 ("For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds") is the Pauline text that frames the spiritual nature of the warfare. Bunyan's allegory depicts genuine cosmic conflict while insisting on its spiritual (rather than material) character -- a distinction essential to his Puritan theology.
Author and Context
John Bunyan (1628-1688) was born in Elstow, Bedfordshire, to a tinker (a mender of pots and pans). He received only a basic education and served in the Parliamentary army during the Civil War (1644-1647). His spiritual crisis, conversion, and calling to Baptist preaching are described in his spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666). He was imprisoned for twelve years (1660-1672) for unlicensed preaching under the Clarendon Code and again briefly in 1677, during which second imprisonment he wrote or completed The Pilgrim's Progress.
By the time Bunyan wrote The Holy War in 1682, he was the most famous Nonconformist preacher and writer in England. The Holy War was written in a period of renewed persecution of Nonconformists (the Exclusion Crisis and its aftermath) and can be read partly as an allegory of the Nonconformist experience of religious persecution by the established church.
Critical Reception
The Holy War has always stood in the shadow of The Pilgrim's Progress, which is structurally simpler, more memorable, and more focused on individual salvation. Critics have noted that The Holy War's allegory is more complex and sometimes more mechanical than The Pilgrim's Progress, reflecting the demands of depicting a corporate rather than individual drama. Nevertheless, its theological depth -- its treatment of communal apostasy and restoration, of the continuing warfare within the regenerate community -- has been consistently recognized.
Theological Significance
Where The Pilgrim's Progress depicts individual salvation as a journey, The Holy War depicts the corporate and cosmic dimensions of the same drama. Mansoul is the human soul in its social totality -- the community of conscience, will, memory, and desire. Its capture by Diabolus is the Fall; Emmanuel's siege and victory is the Atonement; the subsequent history of internal rebellion and restoration is the ongoing life of the church. This corporate dimension -- often neglected in the Puritan tradition's emphasis on individual conversion -- gives The Holy War its distinctive theological contribution.
Legacy
The Holy War has been continuously in print since 1682, though always in the shadow of The Pilgrim's Progress. Its influence on Puritan and evangelical preaching -- particularly on the tradition of spiritual warfare preaching -- has been substantial. Its allegorical method influenced later writers including C.S. Lewis, whose The Screwtape Letters and That Hideous Strength develop similar allegorical treatments of cosmic spiritual conflict.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should study Ephesians 6:10-18 (the armor of God), Romans 7:14-25 (the internal warfare of the regenerate soul), Galatians 5:16-25 (the conflict of flesh and Spirit), Revelation 12:7-12 (war in heaven), and Nehemiah 4 (the rebuilding of Jerusalem against opposition -- an Old Testament type for the corporate spiritual warfare of The Holy War).
Further Reading
- Roger Pooley, English Prose of the Seventeenth Century (1992) -- situates Bunyan within the broader context of Puritan prose style. - Michael Mullett, John Bunyan in Context (1996) -- the best modern biography, thoroughly contextualizing Bunyan's life and work. - N.H. Keeble, ed., John Bunyan: Conventicle and Parnassus (1988) -- a collection of scholarly essays on Bunyan's life and writings.