Christian Cyclopedia

(1608–74). B. London, Eng.; educ. Cambridge; studied classics at home at Horton 1632 to 38; traveled in Fr. and It. 1638–39; assoc. with scholars including H. Grotius,* G. Galilei,* and Holste(nius)*; returned to Eng. 1639; supported civil and religious liberty; Lat. (or for.) secy. to O. Cromwell's* Council of State 1649; blind 1652; arrested, fined, and imprisoned several months at the Restoration 1660 (see also England, C 1); last yrs. spent in literary seclusion.

1st period (ca. 1626–37) works include On the Morning of Christ's Nativity; L'Allegro; Il Penseroso; Comus; Lycidas. 2d period (ca. 1641–60) Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England; Of Prelatical Episcopacy; The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; Of Education; The Tenure of Kings; Areopagitica: for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing; Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes; De doctrina Christiana. 3d period (ca. 1663–74) Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained; Samson Agonistes.

In De doctrine Christiana Milton spells out precisely the theol. operating in Paradise Lost. He insists on man's rational freedom and responsible power of choice; denied J. Calvin's* view of predestination; espouses Arminian and Arian theol.; asserts that God created the world out of His own substance, that the Trin. is not coequal but a descending order, and that the soul dies with the body until revived at the resurrection; favors polygamy. EEF

See also Masen, Jakob.