As Christian is making his way along the highway that leads to the Celestial City, he finds his way barred by a foul fiend.
In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian has left his home, knowing it will be destroyed, and set out for safety in the Celestial City. Barring his way is Apollyon, a hideous, scaly monster with a dragon’s wings and a lion’s mouth, wreathed in smoke and fire. Christian’s polite request to let him pass so he can pay his respects to the Prince of all the lands only makes the fiend more angry.
When literary critics decide that a book is not worthy of their notice they expect the public to follow their lead, but ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ was different.
In 1672, Charles II relaxed the Conventicle Act that had imprisoned preachers who were not members of the Church of England. The authorities duly released John Bunyan (1628-88) from Bedford gaol, and at once he returned to preaching. Six years later he published ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, an immensely popular allegory of the Christian life for which literary experts had nothing but scorn.
John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ opens with Christian wondering how to convince his wife that their town and their family are in immediate danger.
John Bunyan’s groundbreaking allegorical novel ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ (1678) opens with John in Bedford County Gaol, where he was imprisoned for holding unlicensed Christian gatherings. He recalls the time many years earlier when it first came to him, with disconcerting conviction, that there should be more to a believer’s Sunday than playing tip-cat on the village green.