“Domestic or Personal Liberty” 1642–1645And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his
wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder.
They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorce-
ment, and to put her away?
He saith unto them. Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to
put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
And I say unto you. Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornica-
tion, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is
put away doth commit adultery. (AV)Milton’s strategy is to overwhelm the literal terms of this text, which he does not
quote in full, by reading it in terms of his governing exegetical principle, that every
text must be interpreted with reference to its specific context and circumstances,
and its consonance with the gospel’s overriding purpose and spirit, charity:
There is scarse any one saying in the Gospel, but must be read with limitations and
distinctions, to be rightly understood; for Christ gives no full comments or continu’d
discourses, but scatters the heavnly grain of his doctrin like pearle heer and there,
which requires a skilfull and laborious gatherer; who must compare the words he
finds, with other precepts, with the end of every ordinance, and with the general
analogy of Evangelick doctrine: otherwise many particular sayings would be but strange
repugnant riddles. (182)The explicit context for Christ’s statements is Deuteronomy 24:1, the Mosaic
permission to divorce and remarry. Milton argues that Christ cannot have meant to
label that permission adultery and to rescind it, for this would mean that God
allowed sinful adultery to his chosen people for two millennia (168–72). It is “ab-
surd to imagine that the covnant of grace should reform the exact and perfect law of
works, eternal and immutable” (173), since Christ himself promised not to abro-
gate “the least jot or tittle” of it. The Mosaic permission is “a grave and prudent
Law, full of moral equity, full of due consideration toward nature,” and it therefore
remains applicable to Christians (168). Also, Milton establishes a philological con-
text for defining “fornication” in Matthew 19:9 and “some uncleanness” in Deu-
teronomy 24:1 to mean not simply unchastity but any obstinacy, headstrong behavior,
or stubbornness leading to irreconcilable dislike.^50 Citing Josephus, the Septuagint
and Chaldean texts of the Bible, and the rabbinical commentary of Kimchi, Levi
ben Gerson, and Rashi (180–1), Milton here begins a reliance on the Hebrew Bible
and Hebraic scholarship that will greatly increase in the later divorce tracts.^51 He
also quotes from Grotius, but, characteristically, calls attention to “what mine own
thoughts gave me, before I had seen his annotations” (178).^52 In addition, he analyzes
the immediate circumstances of Christ’s prohibition and concludes that it was