Milton and Augustine , Patterns of Augustinian Thought in Paradise Lost

Abstract

As religious reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries turned from the elaborate rituals and ecclesiastical hierarchy of Rome in an effort to recover the purity and simplicity of the Patristic Church, so they rejected the Scholastic theologians in favor of the early Fathers, especially Augustine. His sensitive treatment of the psychology of conversion made him attractive to the private, introspective side of Protestantism, while his emphasis on the word of God, revealed in Scripture and proclaimed by God's chosen ministers, provided support for the Protestant challenge to institutional authority and justified the evangelical activities that disseminated Reformation ideas so effectively. English Protestants felt Augustine's influence by transmission from Luther and Calvin, but they also encountered his work directly and acknowledged their debt openly. Indeed, as Peter Fiore points out in his introduction, "The significant thing is that these champions of the 'pure' word, who on principle rejected human authority, used Augustine more than any other writer, save Paul" (p. 11). Milton likewise, Fiore asserts, was heavily indebted to Augustine, whose works he would have read as a student in addition to hearing them quoted from the pulpit. It