Notes to Chapter 1shame unto him.”
59 In a postscript to Bucer he comments that his divorce argument did “not find a permis-
sion to the Presse” (479) Since Bucer was licensed, this suggests that he attempted to
obtain a license for DDD 2 at the outset or (as Parker, I, 163, supposes) when he
wanted to reprint it. The print run was exhausted before Bucer appeared and DDD 2
was not reprinted for more than five months – still without license.
60 In Bucer he again expresses gratitude to parliament but declines to specify just what he is
grateful for – presumably because they did not act on the numerous calls to suppress his
divorce tract and prosecute him (CPW II, 435).
61 Page 224. Rosenblatt, Torah and Law, 98.
62 In 1654 he expressed the wish “that I had not written it in the vernacular, for then I
would not have met with vernacular readers, who are usually ignorant of their own
good, and laugh at the misfortunes of others” (CPW IV.1, 610).
63 Page 331. He also adds several passages on the nature of the Law and the meaning of
hardness of heart, especially Book II, chapters 3–7.
64 He cites the Guide to the Perplexed by Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides (1135–1204),
to the effect that the Jews were permitted divorce to preserve peace in the family. He
cited Grotius and others to the effect that the magistrate may permit divorce to promote
civil peace (344); Fagius “so eminent in England once,” he cites on several occasions to
the effect that the Deuteronomic law allows magistrates to permit divorce to Christians
(239, 243, 344). Fagius (1504–49) was a German Protestant reformer and a noted Hebraist
who briefly held a lectureship in Hebrew at Cambridge University. Milton refers to his
Thargum, Hoc Est, Paraphrasis Onkeli Chaldaica in Sacra Biblia (Strassburg, 1546). He also
finds support in “Fagius, Calvin, Pareus, Rivetus” for his assertion that a meet and happy
conversation is the chief end of marriage, but he stretches a point to claim that they “as
willingly and largely assent as can be wisht” (246). For Grotius, see chapter 4, p. 89.
65 Page 350. John Selden (1584–1654) was a jurist, legal scholar, Hebraist, member of
parliament for Oxford, and delegate to the Westminster Assembly. Milton praises his
De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam Hebraeorum (London, 1640) as more useful
than all the canon lawyers to “whoever studies to be a great man in wisdom, equity, and
justice” (CPW II, 350). Also, Milton may have consulted in manuscript Selden’s Uxor
Ebraica [The Hebrew Wife] seu de Nuptiis & Divortii ex Jure Civili, Id Est, Divino &
Talmudico (London, 1646); in 1654, in the Defensio Secunda (CPW IV. 1, 625), Milton
claims to have found support for his divorce argument from “our distinguished coun-
tryman Selden... in his Hebrew Wife, published about two years later.” See Elvion
Owen, “Milton and Selden on Divorce,” Studies in Philology 43 (1946), 233–57.
66 Page 292. Another remarkable sequence reads God’s Creation and Judgement as di-
vorcing actions, separating enmities and contrarieties in nature: “by his divorcing com-
mand the world first rose out of Chaos, nor can be renew’d again out of confusion but
by the separating of unmeet consorts” (272–3).
67 Page 225. See Patterson, “No Meer Amatorious Novel,” 95–6.
68 Yet another allegory rewrites the story of Eros and Anteros, as if told by another Diotima
to another Socrates: “Thus mine author sung it to me” (255–6). Eros (Love), not blind
but with only one eye, loses all his “fierie virtue” when he mistakes disguised imposters
for his twin brother Anteros (reciprocal Love); he is restored upon finding Anteros,
“showing us that Love in mariage cannot live nor subsist, unless it be mutual” (255–6).
Notes to Chapter 6