“Against... the Bishops” 1639–1642opinion should thus idolize them” (535).^52 He also imagines himself as prophetic
bard, singing in the Millennium. The argument and art of this treatise are discussed
on pages 141–5.
Of Reformation came in for a passing rebuke in a pseudonymous treatise, A Com-
pendious Discourse, Proving Episcopacy to be of Apostolicall and Consequently of Divine
Institution, published on May 31, 1641 under the pseudonym Peloni Almoni.^53
Almost immediately Milton took up his pen again, to answer Ussher’s tract directly
and incidentally Almoni’s and Hall’s. In June or July, 1641 his brief anonymous
treatise appeared: Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and Whether it may be deduc’t from the
Apostolical times by vertue of those Testimonies which are alledg’d to that purpose in some
late Treatises: One whereof goes under the name of James, Arch-bishop of Armagh. The
ground of Milton’s argument is, again, sola scriptura, that only scripture has divine
authority, its “brightnesse, and perfection” furnishing an “all sufficiency” of spir-
itual knowledge that needs no “supplement” from tradition or patristic testimony
to determine church government.^54 Since Hall and Ussher have conceded that the
terms “bishop” and “presbyter” are used interchangeably in the New Testament,
Milton need not argue that point here,^55 so he simply declares victory on the first
page. In strict logic, then, the rest of the tract is irrelevant.^56 But since Milton hopes
to persuade those confused or undecided about eliminating bishops, he continues
the argument. He presents himself as a learned historical and textual scholar who
has uncovered manifold problems with the ancient authorities, and so has decided
“that I could do Religion, and my Country no better service for the time then
doing my utmost endeavour to recall the people of God from this vaine forraging
after straw, and to reduce them to their firme stations under the standard of the
Gospell” (CPW I, 627). Thomas Corns observes that by refusing to engage on its
own terms the historical evidence for bishops presented by Hall and Ussher, Milton
fails to live up to the scholarly claims he makes for himself.^57 But Milton undertakes
here to discredit all such evidence en masse, catching up individual items in that
sweeping dismissal.
Milton’s strategy is to denigrate all the patristic authorities and texts cited by
Ussher – Ignatius, Leontius, Polycarp, Eusebius, Photius, Polycrates, Irenaeus, Papias,
and others – by showing their insufficiency, inconvenience, and impiety, so as to
leave scripture standing alone as the only authority on church government. Giving
most attention to the topic of “insufficiency,” he heaps up historical circumstances
and textual problems that, he insists, reveal the patristic texts to be unreliable, ob-
scure, contradictory, mistaken, absurd, heretical, corrupt, or spurious. They are also
“inconvenient” for Protestants in that many who testify for bishops also support the
office of pope. Their “impiety” lies in defying Christ’s injunction that “no tittle of
his word shall fall to the ground” by creating an unscriptural ecclesiastical structure
(652). Poetic language is less prominent here than in Of Reformation, but Milton
again wields degrading images and adjectives as a polemic weapon. Tradition is a
“broken reed” (624); antiquity is “an indigested heap, and frie of Authors” (626), a