Milton and Augustine: Patterns of Augustinian Thought in Paradise LostThe first complete study of the influence of Augustine--"the most judicious of all the Church Fathers" --on Milton's epic of the Fall of Man, this book presents a detailed investigation of the principal dogmatic concepts in Paradise Lost studied against the background of Augustinian theology. Professor Fiore shows how Milton--unlike most other Puritans, and like Augustine--always emphasized the hope in "God's infinite mercy." Both men were fundamentally optimists. This study concentrates mainly on Augustine's and Milton's teaching on the Fall of the Angels, preternatural Adam and Eve, Original Sin, The Incarnation, Christology, and Redemption. Man, despite Original Sin, "still retained an intellect which could judge right from wrong, and a freedom whereby he could choose between right and wrong." Just as man, like Lucifer, was free to fall, so too is he free to choose salvation. This pattern of free will dominates the whole of Milton's epic, and is, Fiore argues, very Augustinian. Fiore concludes that Milton, like many humanists, Christian philosophers, Reformers, and theologians of every variety in the early seventeenth century, drew widely from Augustine and that such indebtedness gave a richer and fuller theological dimension to his epic of lost paradise and enhanced the meaning of the poem. |
From inside the book
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... Redeemer as king . The spiritual kingdom of Christ is the Church , and the Church again is a separate dogmatic study which theologians entitled De Ecclesia and Milton develops as De Ecclesia Visibili . In Paradise Lost , when we read ...
... redeemer but as king and head of God's mystical and visible church . And , when Milton argues that " Christ is the head of the mystical church , so no one is rightly or can possibly be at the head of the visible church , except Christ ...
... Redeemer . " Studies in Philology 56 ( 1959 ) : 214-25 . " Milton and Patristic Tradition : The Quality of Hell - fire . " Anglia 76 ( 1958 ) : 116-28 . Milton and the Renaissance Hero . Oxford : The Clarendon Press , 1967 . Stein ...
Contents
The Angelic Fall | 12 |
Preternatural Life | 23 |
Original Sin | 42 |
Copyright | |
4 other sections not shown