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California State University, Northridge CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE THE HERMENEUTICS OF JOHN MILTON A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English by Kurt Lynn Hild r~ay, 1983 The Thesis of Kurt Lynn Hild is approved: Professor Catherine M. Dunn, Chairperson California State University, Northridge DEDI CATION To Tammi My wife, my soul mate, and my best friend whose mind is knit with mine as we walk together in Christ. Her constant love, faith and encouragement cannot be measured in the completion of this work. ' d iii ACKNOWLE DGt~ENTS It has been said that if a student is fortunate, he encounters two or at most three teachers who truly touch his life. For me, one of those teachers is Dr. Catherine Dunn. Her enthusiasm for learning, her command of her subject matter, and her encouragement to me as a student have provided me with inspiration in no small degree, and I count it a privilege to have studied under her guidance and direc­ tion. A "thank you" is insufficient to acknowledge what she has meant to me in my academic training. I also wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Thomas Wright for his time and willingness to serve as one of my readers and to Dr. Elaine Plasberg for her time and her helpful suggestions as a reader of my thesis. • j) iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION • • . • • iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv TABLE OF CONTENTS • • • • • • • v ABSTRACT •• • • vi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTERS I History of Interpretation • • • • • • 5 II - The Antiprelatical Tracts • . 29 III - The Divorce Controversy • . 44 IV - Christian Doctrine • 70 CONCLUSION • . 87 NOTES • • • 98 BIBLIOGRAPHY . .103 v ABSTRACT THE HERMENEUTICS OF JOHN MILTON by Kurt Lynn Hild Master of Arts in English John Milton•s hermeneutics developed over a period of years. He embraced the Protestant position that accepted the Bible as the sole arbiter in issues affecting man•s relationship to God and other men. However~ a study of Milton•s Biblical interpretation reveals a changing development as he practiced his hermeneutics in his prose writings. He devoted his early tracts to the antiprelatical controversy, the conflict concerning ecclesiastical a-uthority. As a Puritan, Milton believed that the Scriptures clearly taught a presbyterian church government structure or rule by the assembly rather than the episcopacy of the Anglican Church, which imposed a hierarchy of bishops on people regardless of those bishops• qualifications. In these tracts Milton held that Scriptures were clear and could be understood by anyone who read with an open heart and mind. A few years after the ant ipre 1at i ca 1 tracts, Mil ton wrote a series of tracts discussing divorce. He believed that men should be allowed the right and responsibility to divorce if they found that vi their minds were incompatible with that of their marriage partner's. He believed that God desired a mutual communion of reason for a proper marriage between a man and a woman. Incompatibility of minds could be grounds for divorce. In these tracts Milton saw himself as the sole advocate for a discountenanced truth and as one who had the proper medicine to heal men's eyes so that they could see the truth clearly. In the divorce tracts Milton's ·hermeneutics changed from holding to a literal interpretation to an interpretation that needs to be made by someone enlightened with the proper understanding. He believed that he was so enlightened. Milton's theological compendium, De Doctrina Christiana, or, Christian Doctrine, summarizes his years of Biblical studies; and this work shows clearly yet another development in his hermeneutics. Milton said that the rule and canon of faith are the Scriptures. He sounded like an orthodox Protestant in this statement, but he believed that Scripture was two-fold: the external record of the written Scriptures and, almost more significantly, the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, the inner Scripture. Milton thought the external Scriptures had suffered corruption, but the inner Spirit could not. Therefore, a man was to accept the witness of the inner Scripture above all outside human sources since the Spirit would teach the truth to the believing heart. The position that Milton presented in his Christian Doctrine is the underlying premise of his three major poetic works: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. His inner Scripture ·principle affects his view of God, Christ, and man, since he sought to justify the ways of God to man. He said that he depended upon the Spirit to teach him as he wrote so that God might be seen more clearly. His last two major poems give a different picture of their subjects, Christ and Samson, than the Scriptures portray; but Milton depended upon his inner light to conclude that man was to obey as he was taught from Scripture. vii; INTRODUCTION John Milton is perhaps better known as a poet than he is as a prose writer. However, he poured a great deal of his energy and learning into his work as a pamphleteer for the Protestant cause in seventeenth century England. Much of the work Milton produced cen­ tered around his vast knowledge of the Bible and his understanding of how sacred Scripture should be interpreted, since his view of its teaching would affect how he governed himself and, in a larger sense, how society governed itself. Milton generally believed in a kind of liberty for the self, a belief carried over into his interpretation of the Scriptures; and he entered the religious controversy of his day with a great deal of Protestant zeal and patriotic intensity. Milton's belief that man should be free to make decisions inde­ pendent of any religious authority came from his understanding of the Bible's teachings. "Sola fidei regula" summarized the Protes­ tant Reformation position that the Bible is the only authoritative voice of God to man. The sixteenth century reformers, whose posi­ tion Milton embraced a century later, had rejected the "prima fideo regula" of the Roman Catholic Church which regarded the Bible as first among such other authorities as the moral unanimity of the Fathers, ancient creeds, decisions of ecumenical councils, and oral tradition. The reformers' position which Milton followed said that there were no secondary means of making clear the meaning of the 1 2 Bible. As Milton is very much a product of the Reformation, he fol­ lowed, at least in the earlier years of his prose work, the Protestant position of a literal, historical, grammatical interpre­ tation of the Bible. He had prepared for his close literal and grammatical reading by mastering the languages used in the Scriptures, Greek, and Hebrew, as well as the Latin translation. He had further steeped himself in the theological works of the Church Fathers--Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, and Clement--and was aware of their practice in interpreting Scripture. Milton had access for comparison to all versions of the Bible then existing. His English Bibles were probably the Authorized Version of 1611 and the Geneva Bible, a Bible with Calvinistic anno­ tations and marginal notes by the Swiss theologian Zwingli, widely used in England. The Vulgate, Jerome's Latin version of 385 A.D., as well as the Greek New Testament and Septuagint provided him with the two languages for studies. In 1624 Milton owned a copy of Buxtorf•s rabbinical Tenach, the Hebrew Scriptures; and he occa­ sionally referred to it in later years. The Tenach included the Hebrew text paralleled by the Targums in Aramaic, the paraphrased renderings of Scriptures of the Jews. All this indicates that Milton had access to the greatest of all Hebrew texts before he ever moved to Cambridge for his university education.1 The Protestant reformers rejected the long standing practice of an allegorical interpretation of the Bible. As will be seen in the first chapter, the Jews had for years before Christ been influenced by Greek allegorists. Furthermore, an allegorical interpretation also generally dominated Biblical exegesis in the Catholic Church until the Reformation came in the sixteenth century. However, not all exegetical practice was allegorical, as some devout Jews and later Christian expositers held to a more literal, historical interpretation of the Bible. Milton would almost certainly have been familiar with some of the allegorists since his education would have exposed him to their commentary; however, he chose to align himself with those who interpreted the Bible literally since it is the only authoritative voice of God to man. The intent of the present study is to show that John Milton went through a progressive development in his practice of interpreting the Scripture, as may be seen by an examination of several of his prose writings which appeared over a period of approximately twenty years from 1641 to 1660. An analysis of Milton's use of the Bible is valuable in recalling how important a thorough knowledge of it· and the attendant theology was at the time, not only to the trained scholar but even to undergraduates, for whom it was an integral part of their education. Going beyond this, Milton had as much training in theology as those students who later took ecclesiastical orders.2 Closely examining Milton's use of the Bible provides a valuable insight into his major prose as well as some suggestions about his application of Scripture to his poetry, in addition to providing a type of measuring rod of his general education. Before an analysis can be made of Milton's interpretation of the 4 Bible and its application to his poetry, a brief survey of the history of hermeneutical practice is necessary to show the source and development of the Protestant practice of Milton and the theolo­ gians of his day.
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