Season 5 Podcast 76 John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Episode 21 Chapter 4 E, “The Two Giants.”

In last week’s episode, Christian meets a company of Fiends or devils where his sword was insufficient; therefore, he called upon All Prayer. In this week’s episode things become even more perilous for our pilgrim for it is full of “snares, traps, and pitfalls.

Now was Christian much affected with his deliverance from all the dangers of his solitary way; which dangers, though he feared them much before, yet he saw them more clearly now, because the light of the day made them plain to him. And about this time the sun was rising, and this was another mercy to Christian; for you must note that, though the first part of the Valley of the Shadow of Death was dangerous, yet this second part, which he was yet to go, was if possible far more dangerous; for, from the place where he now stood, even to the end of the valley, the way was all along set so full of snares, traps, gins, and nets here, and so full of pits, pitfalls, deep holes, and shelvings down there, that, had it now been dark, as it was when he came the first part of the way, had he had a thousand souls, they had in reason been cast away. But, as I said just now the sun was rising. Then said he, "His candle shineth on my head, and by His light I go through darkness."

One of the purposes of Pilgrim’s Progress is to highlight the cunningly placed snares of Satan who, ‘as a roaring lion stalks about seeking whom he may devour.’ Bunyan is warning every Christian on his journey to the Celestial City that they must never let down their guard. Christian comes across the remains of previous pilgrims who also made it this far only to be crushed and destroyed. The cunning one is ever lying in wait to deceive. As Paul warned:

“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” (Ephesians 4:14-16)

Christian comes upon a graveyard of former Christians who were destroyed in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, meaning, of course, the world we live in.

“In this light, therefore, he came to the end of the valley. Now, I saw in my dream that at the end of the valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly;”

The Valley of the Shadow of Death was narrowed considerably by Bunyan who saw the Catholic Church as the enemy.  Bunyan, a Puritan, was born at the height of the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation is generally acknowledged to begin in 1517 with the dissent of Martin Luther and end in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia which concluded the thirty years war in which 8 million people were killed. The war was a result of the dispute between Catholics and Protestants. Bunyan was born in 1628 and died in 1688. That explains the following.

“and, while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave, where two giants, POPE and PAGAN, dwelt in old time; by whose power and tyranny, the men whose bones, blood, ashes, etc., lay there, were cruelly put to death.”

One of the effects of the Protestant Reformation was to make the Holy Bible available to everyone in their own language. Luther, for example, under threat of death, hid in Wartburg Castle where he translated the Bible into German.