Catalogue Entry: THEM00313

Book I: Chapter 13

Author: John Milton

Source: A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Compiled from the Holy Scriptures Alone, vol. 1 (Boston: 1825).

[Normalized Text] [Diplomatic Text]

[1]

Pelagius, Socinus, Crellius, &c. 'That Adam should not have died if he had not sinned, is so manifestly the doctrine of the Scriptures, and of the church of God, both before and since Christ our Saviour's appearance in the flesh, that Pelagius of old, and Socinus in this latter age, are justly to be esteemed the most impudent of mortals for daring to call it into question.' Bp. Bull's Discourse on the State of Man before the Fall. See also Hopkins On the Two Covenants.

[2]

This opinion is maintained by Curcellæus, Instit. III. 13-21. See also his second dissertation De Peccato Originis, 59.

[3]

'The royal preacher in my text, assuming that man is a compound of an organized body and an immaterial soul, places the formality and essence of death in the disunion and final separation of these two constituent parts: Death is, when 'the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.' Horsley's Sermons, III. 189. The whole of the masterly discourse from which the preceding extract is taken, deserves to be compared with this chapter, as containing in a small compass the most philosophical, as well as scriptural refutation of its arguments. See also the end of the Sermon on John xi. 25, 26. Vol. III. p. 131.

[4]

See Bp. Bull's Discourse on the State of Man before the Fall, where this opinion is illustrated. Milton introduces it in the mouth of Raphael in Paradise Lost:

..... Time may come when men

With angels may participate, and find

No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare;

And from these corporal nutriments perhaps

Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,

Improv'd by tract of time, and wing'd ascend

Ethereal as we; or may, at choice,

Here or in heavenly Paradises dwell. V. 493.

[5]

..... Yet one doubt

Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die;

Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man

Which God inspired, cannot together perish

With this corporeal clod: then in the grave,

Or in some other dreadful place, who knows

But I shall die a living death ? O thought

Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath

Of life that sinn'd; what dies but what had life

And sin? the body properly had neither.

All of me then shall die: let this appease

The doubt, since human reach no further knows.

Paradise Lost, X. 782.

When Milton wrote Il Penseroso, his opinions respecting the soul seem to have been different. He there summons the spirit of Plato to unfold the mystery of the separate state in which he supposed it to exist after death.

..... unsphere

The spirit of Plato to unfold

What worlds, or what vast regions hold

Th'immortal mind, that hath forsook

Her mansion in this fleshly nook. Il Penseroso, 88.

[6]

'Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward?' —Authorized Transl. See Bp. Bull's Discourse on the Subsistence of the Soul of Man after death. His supposition is, that the words are spoken by an Epicurean (if he may be allowed to call him so by anticipation) who is deriding the notion of the soul's immortality.

[7]

'How much more rationally spake the heathen king Demophoön in a tragedy of Euripides, than these interpreters would put upon king David.' Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Prose Works, II. 280. It is related on the authority of one of Milton's daughters, that, after the Holy Scriptures, his favourite volumes were Homer, Euripides, and Ovid. The present Treatise contains nine quotations from the classics, seven of which are from the authors mentioned. Aristotle, whom he calls 'one of the best interpreters of nature and morality,'(Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, II. 279.) is likewise often expressly quoted, or alluded to; but not a single direct reference is made to Plato, who, as Mr. Todd justly remarks on the authority of the poet himself, was one of the principal objects of his regard. Some Account of the Life and Writings of Milton, p. 152.

[8]

This is the reading proposed by Porson, Adversaria, p. 235. Toup (in Suid. II. p. 6.) suggested τὸ ζῇν instead of τὸ σῶμ᾽, but the offence against metre was pointed out by Porson, Notæ Breves ad Toupii Emendationes, ad p. 234. In the next line the old reading was ἀπῆλθι. Gataker proposed ἀπιλθεῖν which emendation was adopted by Musgrave, and approved by Porson.

[9]

'Qui urgent propriam solvendi et dissolvendi notionem, hi adeant Duker. ad Florum IV. 11. extr. qui docuit, solvi etiam metaphorice apud Latinos pro mori poni.' Schleusner in voce ἀναλύω.

[10]

'Ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδ᾽ ἄνευ γε μεταβολῆς; ὅταν γὰρ αυτοὶ μηθὲν μεταβάλλωμεν τὴν διάνοιαν, ἤ λάθωμεν μεταβάλλοντες, οὐ δοκεῖ ῆμιν γεγονέναι ὁ χρόνος; καθάπερ οὐδὲ τοῖς ἐν τῇ Σαρδοῖ μθολογουμένοις καθεύδειν παρὰ τοῖς ἥρωσιν, ὅταν ἐγερθῶσι. σύναπτουσι γὰρ τὸ πρότερον νῦν τῷ ὕστερον νῦν, καὶ ἕν ποιοῦσιν, ἐξαιροῦντες διὰ τὴν ἀναισθησίαν τὸ μεταξύ. Nat Auscult. IV. 16. Edit. Duvall. Simplicius in his scholium on this passage explains the allusion at some length, but the most material part of his information is contained in the following note of Kuhnius. 'Paulo modestius agunt Græci cum loquuntur de heroibus in Sardinia dormientibus, quorum mentionem facit Aristoteles libro IV. &c. Ubi Simplicius —ex Herculis filiis, quos ex Thestii natis susceperat, nonnullos in Sardinia mortuos dici, illorumque corpora usque ad Aristotelis, forte et usque ad Alexandri Aphrodisiensis tempora mansisse integra et ἄσηπτα, et speciem dormientium præbuisse. Apud hos captabant dormientes somnia, et συμβολικοὺς somnos protrahebant, qui ab his heroibus corporis valetudinem commodam, vel alia quædam petitum venerant. Vide Schol. Græc. in Luciani Tom. I. pag. 3.' Kuhnii Observationes in Diogenis Laertii Lib. I. Segm. 109.

[11]

'Hanc vocem præcedentibus jungendam esse statuit cum aliis Hesychius, O. 49. qui citantur Schol. Codicis 34. Theophylactus. ἄλλοι δὲ ἐκβιάζονται τὸ ᾽ρῆμα, στίζοντες εἰς τὸ σήμερον, ἵνα ᾽ῇ τὸ λεγόμενον τοιοῦντον; ἀμὴν λέγω σοι σήμερον; ἐῖτα τὸ; μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ συνεπιφέροντες. Sever. Apologet 22.' Wetsten ad Luc. xxiii. 43. See the remarks of Whitby on this passage, and the reason which he gives against the punctuation proposed.

[12]

'Græci sic distinguunt, ut appareat eos statim mortuo Christo resurrexisse; verum non egressos e monumentis, nec apparuisse, priusquam resurrexisset Christus. Unde resurrexerunt positum est pro revixerunt.' Erasmus ad Matt, xxviii. 55. He proceeds to quote Jerome, Chrysostom, and Origen in support of this interpretation. Theophylact and Augustine are against it

[13]

'Arrepta occasione ex comparatione proxime præcedente, corpus istud, ut est in hac vita calamitosum, comparat cum caduco et fraglis tabernaculo; cui opponit cœleste domicilium, sic vocans firmam et perennem ejusdem corporis in cœlo glorificati conditionem..... est autem etiam hie locus, de futura gloria, isti tractationi de ministerii dignitate insertus,' &c. Beza ad 2 Cor. v. 1

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