HOW can finite man understand an infinite
God? How can an infinite God be communicated? These questions address one of the
most fundamental problems in Christian theology, as well as one of the central
ideas of the Renaissance. Throughout history theologians have struggled to
comprehend a deity who is a priori greater than human understanding, and artists
and writers have been at a loss to depict him. The focus of their attention has
inevitably been a close scrutiny of the scriptural account of God--a study which
engages two seminal aspects of the Bible as textual document and depository of
religious "truth." Yet the information concerning God in the Bible merely seems
to complicate the problem. On the one hand the Scriptures describe an
omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent deity, a spirit, indeed a being who is
all too often described via negativa in terms the opposite of which define
humanity--immutable, impassible, immaterial, immortal. On the other hand, and
simultaneously, the Bible depicts God as sitting on a throne, raising his right
hand, and striking down his enemies; he feels anger and regret, love and pity
and is known not only as divine creator, but also as father.
The theory
of accommodation is the traditional theological solution to these incongruities
and is an attempt to explain the difference between the nature of God and the
textual images or mental conceptions of him. It functions by expressing the
incomprehensibility of God in terms which "accommodate" God to human
understanding. Accordingly, it presupposes that language cannot adequately
describe God, while yet authorizing the attempt to depict him, conscious that
the resulting image is not a true representation of the deity. Accommodation is
thus both a method of writing and an hermeneutic principle. The scriptural
account of God wearing a crown is an example of accommodated writing--an image
that describes in comprehensible terms the divine majesty of God. The image is
not designed, it would seem, to be taken literally, and it is necessary for the
reader to exercise an accommodatory hermeneutic; this implies that the image is
not designed as a veridical representation, but should be understood as a
substitute for what otherwise could not be understood.
Yet, I would
contend, this is not how Milton understood the images of God contained in the
Bible. In Chapter II of De Doctrina Christiana, entitled "Of God," Milton
explored the question of accommodation and drew far differing conclusions which
isolated him from a lengthy theological tradition. The fact that this chapter is
conversational in tone rather than dialectical, and seemingly confused and
contradictory, is perhaps the reason why Milton critics have failed to form a
coherent interpretation and to comprehend that this is yet another theological
subject expounded in De Doctrina which suggests that Milton is a singularly
original thinker.(n1) I will argue that Milton envisages a synecdochic theory of
scriptural accommodation which diverges from the traditional theory in four
essential principles. The orthodox metaphorical relationship between the subject
God, and pictures of him, is rejected in favor of a synecdochic theory, which
claims that the image embodies the truth--but not the whole truth--and nothing
but the truth of God himself. As I shall show, Milton's radical point seems to
be that the biblical language used to describe man means the same thing when it
describes God; the pictures of God which Milton discusses in his treatise seem
at first merely to be symbols for what cannot be expressed, until one realises
that Milton intended these images to be taken seriously. In short, the
substitution of synecdoche for metaphor as an hermeneutic strategy changes the
way in which Milton interpreted the truths of the Bible.
The tradition from which Milton departed is surprisingly homogeneous. From the early Church Fathers Origen and Augustine (despite the fact that their method of biblical exegesis could not be more different: compare Augustine's endorsement of figura in De Genesi ad litteram which is in direct opposition to Origen's use of allegoria in Contra Celsum) to the Reformation thinkers Luther and Calvin,(n2) and through to Milton's contemporary theologians William Ames and John Wollebius (who were major sources for Milton's De Doctrina), the theory of accommodation had developed or changed little. In Contra Celsum--probably the greatest of all early Christian apologies--Origen discusses the question of divine accommodation, arguing that "the language of Scripture regarding God is adopted to an anthropopathic point of view" and concludes that "the word of God appears to have dealt with the history, making the capacity of the hearers, and the benefit which they were to receive, the standard of the appropriateness of its announcements [regarding him]."(n3) Origen characterizes such accommodation as "babytalk"--a metaphor which was to become a favorite of Calvin's--and this analogy of condescension became the standard interpretation of God's inscription of himself in Scripture: ". . . as we ourselves, when talking with very young children, do not aim at exerting our own power of eloquence, but, adopt ourselves to the weakness of our charge."(n4) Augustine concurred with Origen that "the Divine Being is beyond words and cannot be spoken of in any way without recourse to expressions of time and place";(n5) and he similarly argues that although the Scriptures by necessity communicate through anthropo-morphic/-pathetic images, it is essential for the exegete to distinguish between the literal image and the meaning which that image denotes: "Now, in order to try, as far as we can with God's help, to grasp this truth with our intellect, we must first drive from our minds all anthropomorphic concepts that men might have."(n6) The conclusion which Augustine draws during his meticulous and painstaking interpretation of the "literal" meaning of Genesis is the basis for all subsequent interpretations of the biblical deity--that God is accommodated in language through metaphor:
Now to think of God as forming man from the slime of the earth with bodily hands is childish. Indeed, if Scripture had said such a thing, we should be compelled to believe that the writer had used a metaphor rather than God is contained in the structure of members such as we know in our bodies.(n7)
This was the understanding of biblical accommodation which descended practically unchanged through the great Reformation theologians to those of Milton's own time. The depictions of God were a form of baby-talk of the Creator himself which thereby safeguarded the essential veracity of the biblical text, yet as anthropomorphic metaphors they were imperfectly suggestive of the far greater reality which could not be codified within language. According to one modern critic, "in Calvin's theology the principle of accommodation is his most widely used exegetical tool."(n8) Certainly Calvin habitually stressed God's condescension of divine attributes and objects, and placed emphasis upon his willingness to accommodate his transcendent truths, whereas Luther chose to dwell upon another aspect of accommodation--the childlike faculties of man and his intellectual incapacity to comprehend the Almighty. To Luther, the accommodation of Scripture was essential for God's revelation of himself: "If he should speak to me in his majesty, I would run away--just as the Jews did. However, when he is clothed in the voice of a man and accommodates himself to our capacity to understand, I can approach him."(n9) Appropriately, it is in Calvin's chapter on the Trinity in the Institutes that the locus classicus of accommodation appears:
For who, even of the meanest capacity, understands not, that God lisps, as it were, with us, just as nurses are accustomed to speak to infants? Wherefore, such forms of expression [i.e., anthropomorphisms] do not clearly explain the nature of God, but accommodate the knowledge of him to our narrow capacity; to accomplish which, the Scripture must necessarily descend far below the height of his majesty.(n10) <!--pagebreak-->It was within this homogeneous tradition that Milton was situated by critics from the eighteenth century to today. Since the publication of Paradise Lost in 1667 it would be fair to say that the critical appreciation of the depiction of God in the poem is directly commensurate with the reader's knowledge of the theory of accommodation. Historically this can be divided into three stages, although the first and second stubbornly coexisted at the same time, and indeed both are resolutely apparent today despite the existence of a third perspective. The majority of the critics who attack Milton's depiction of God--and these include critics as far apart as Dr. Johnson who seemed blissfully unaware of accommodation, and those New Critics such as John Peter and A. J. A. Waldock -- do so because they do not understand what Milton was attempting to achieve with his portrayal.(n11) This is explained by a comprehension of accommodation. The second stage is comprised of the vast majority of critics, who being aware of the theological problems of accommodation and their implications for a poet depicting scriptural material, attribute to Milton a traditional understanding and application of the theory. This has been the standard interpretation from Joseph Addison through to C. A. Patrides and still persists today.(n12) Finally, and headed by Hugh R. MacCallum's important study "Milton and Figurative Interpretation of the Bible" in 1961, critics have started to realize that Milton did not adhere to the traditional conception of the theory as developed by theologians, but that this was yet another subject about which Milton insisted upon developing his own idiosyncratic line of thought.(n13) However, hitherto they have been unable to present any form of coherent picture as to what indeed Milton did assert based on his explicit pronouncements in De Doctrina.
II
The correct appraisal of the depiction of God in the Scriptures was deemed by Milton to be of literally vital significance: "Why does our imagination shy away from a notion of God which he himself does not hesitate to promulgate in unambiguous terms? For God in his goodness has revealed to us in ample quantity those things which we need to understand about him for our salvation" (CPW 6.136).(n14) There is a reference here to the popular Protestant belief--to which Milton subscribed --that any point of doctrine or article of faith which was essential for salvation was expressed clearly and unambiguously in the Scriptures. It became necessary to cling to this principle--at least for those Protestants who believed in the inerrancy and sanctified status of the Scriptures--for by the time of the Renaissance the biblical scholarship of Erasmus, Beza, and others had revealed that there were many textual corruptions and problems of translation, as well as hermeneutical difficulties in the Bible.(n15) Even Milton, a fervent biblical fundamentalist, became aware that the biblical text was corrupt, especially the New Testament.(n16) However, he also clung to the tenet that "when God wants us to understand and thus believe in a particular doctrine as a primary point of faith, he teaches it to us not obscurely or confusedly, but simply and clearly, in plain words" (CPW 6.287).(n17) <!--pagebreak-->Whether Milton does consider the problems of divine accommodation simply and clearly, although he does use primarily plain words, is open to question. Chapter II of De Doctrina represents Milton's most comprehensive discussion of accommodation found anywhere in his prose. In this chapter Milton is clear from the outset that the aim of the inquiry is to "form correct ideas about God," and that in this endeavor one cannot be "guided by nature or reason alone, without the word or message of God" (132). At first sight the passage seems to approach the question of the nature of accommodation in an identical fashion to that followed in mainstream Augustinian and Renaissance theories, although it is noteworthy that unlike most of his predecessors Milton at no point apologizes for the anthropomorphic pictures of God in the Old Testament. Milton begins by reiterating the perspective which was Luther's basic accommodatory premise--an emphasis upon man's childlike faculties: "When we talk about knowing God, it must be understood in terms of man's limited powers of comprehension. God as he really is, is far beyond man's imagination, let alone his understanding" (133). Milton then notes on the same page that God "has brought himself down to our level," thereby "bringing himself within the limits of our understanding," which is a restatement of Calvin's axiomatic belief in God's condescension to man. However, after the reiteration of these accommodatory commonplaces, Milton's theory takes a number of startling and innovatory twists. This paper explores four enormously important differences in Milton's theory of scriptural accommodation.
Milton's first idiosyncratic principle is that the accommodated image --the picture of God which the Scriptures present to the reader--should be the locus of our understanding. This is in fact collating two separate points: first, that the textual image, and not the transcendent subject, is the locus of our attention; and second, that this image is the literal configuration presented in the text of Scripture. The central premise of traditional accommodation proposed that as God could be textually represented only in a crude manner, this image was merely a condescending fiction, or suggestive metaphor, for the real apprehension of God, which was not constrained within the medium of language.
As such, the focus of attention was the concept of God behind the veil and not the accommodated image which was the vehicle of communication. Thus in his commentary on Genesis Luther boldly states: "When God reveals himself to us, it is necessary for Him to do so through) some such veil or wrapper and to say: 'Look! Under this wrapper you will be sure to take hold of Me.'"(n18) However, in Milton's thinking, the accommodated image itself is the locus of comprehension:
It is safest for us to form an image of God in our minds which corresponds to his representation and description of himself in the sacred writings. Admittedly, God is always described or outlined not as he really is but in such a way as will make him conceivable to us. Nevertheless, we ought to form just such a mental image of him as he, in bringing himself within the limits of our understanding, wishes us to form. (CPW 6.133)
This is precisely the result which the traditional theory of accommodation was designed to refute: a concentration on the image instead of the reality. The history of the Israelites in the Pentateuch is one of the acceptance of idolatrous images instead of God himself--the transcendent Deity-- and the punishment which followed the worship of an anthropomorphized image which was deemed to be literally true.(n19) In a similar way traditional accommodation shifted the focus of comprehension from the pictorial image to the insubstantial subject in order to avoid the error of failing to see the wood for the trees, which ultimately is that of idolatry--the worship of a corporealized image. Milton, however, accepts the initial premise that the image of God is different from the reality of his being, but nevertheless maintains that it is the picture of God which the Scriptures present that should be the locus of our understanding, in order "to prevent our being carried beyond the reach of human comprehension, and outside the written authority of Scripture, into vague subtleties of speculation" (133-34). Accordingly the hermeneutic subject is what Milton describes in the original Latin as "nos capere possumus" (Columbia 14.30)--that which is conceivable--which in turn is the picture of God imprinted on the mind by God's revelation of himself in the scriptural text. Milton's Latin conveys far more graphically God's inscription of himself in the text than does John Carey's English translation, which fails to render the idea that God speaks ("dicere") about himself and becomes accessible through language--"quo id auctore dicimus, quod Deus non dicit" (Columbia 14.36; literally, "by what authority do we say what God does not say"). This is translated by Carey in the more abstract lexis as "on what authority do we contradict God?" (CPW 6.136). An essential component of this principle was Milton's unshakable belief in the Scriptures as the text in which God authorizes his own presentation. The Protestant view of the Scriptures as divinely inspired is integral to Milton's trust of God's self-inscription and his inerrant record in the Bible. As such, "Milton's hermeneutics is a hermeneutics of intentionality."(n20) <!--pagebreak-->NOTES
(n1) I do not intend to add to the current debate concerning the provenance of De Doctrina at this time. William B. Hunter's most recent publication, Visitation Unimplor'd: Milton and the Authorship of "De Doctrina Christiana" (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998) merely suggests circumstantial evidence to refute the latest thoughtful submission by Gordon Campbell and Thomas Corns, et al., in Milton Quarterly 31.3 (1997): 67-117. See also Neil Graves, "'Here let the Theologians take notice': A Note on the Provenance of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana," Notes and Queries 244 (1999): 332-34.
(n2) See Erich Auerbach, "Figura," in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature, trans. Ralph Manheim (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 11-76.
(n3) Origen, Contra Celsum, 4.71, in Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 23, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Edinburgh, 1872), 237.
(n4) Ibid.
(n5) Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, trans. John Hammond Taylor, 2 vols. (New York: Newman Press, 1982), 1:5.16.34.
(n6) De Genesi, 1:4.8.15.
(n7) De Genesi, 1: 6.12.20.
(n8) H. Jackson Forstman, Word and Spirit: Calvin's Doctrine of Biblical Authority (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 13.
(n9) Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar, 1883), 40:2.329.
(n10) John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols. (London: S.C.M.E, 1958), 1: 13.1.
(n11) See, among others, Samuel Johnson, "The Life of Milton," in Lives of the English Poets, ed. George B. Hill, 3 vols. (1905; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 1: esp. 178, 182, 184; Charles Leslie, in Milton: The Critical Heritage, ed. John T. Shawcross (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), 1:117; John Dennis, in ibid., 125-28, 240; John Clark, in ibid., 261; Shaftsbury, in ibid., 145; Byron, in The Romantics on Milton, ed. J. Wittreich (Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1970), 522; Shelley, in ibid., 534-57; A. J. A. Waldock, "Paradise Lost" and Its Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1947); John Peter, A Critique of "Paradise Lost" (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).
(n12) See Joseph Addison, in Milton: The Critical Heritage, 147-226; Wordsworth, Preface to "Poems" (1815), in William Wordsworth: The Oxford Authors, ed. Stephen Gill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 634; Walter Raleigh, Milton (London: E. Arnold, 1900), 83-123; C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost (London: Oxford University Press, 1942); C. A. Patrides, "Paradise Lost and the Theory of Accommodation," Texas Studies in Literature and Language 5 (1963-64): 58-63, Milton and the Christian Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), especially 7-25, and a number of essays collected together in Figures in a Renaissance Context, ed. Claude J. Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), esp. chaps. 9, l0, 12, 14; Roland Mushat Frye, God, Man, and Satan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), est). 7-17; William G. Madsen, From Shadowy Types to Truth: Studies in Milton's Symbolism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), esp. 54-74; Robert Van Volson Rice, "Heaven of Heaven Presumed: A Study of Milton's Use of Accommodation in Paradise Lost" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1969). <!--pagebreak-->(n13) Hugh R. MacCallum, "Milton and Figurative Interpretation of the Bible," University of Toronto Quarterly 31 (1961-62): 397-415; William Shullenberger, "Linguistic and Poetic Theory in Milton's De Doctrina Christiana," English Language Notes 19 (1982): 262-78; Marshall Grossman, "Milton's Dialectical Visions," Modern Philology 82 (1984): 23-39; Kathleen Swain, "The Mimesis of Accommodation in Book III of Paradise Lost," Philological Quarterly 63 (1984): 461-75; Robert L. Entzminger, Divine Word: Milton and the Redemption of Language (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985); Gale H. Carrithers, Jr., and James D. Hardy, Jr., Milton and the Hermeneutic Journey (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994). (n14) References to Milton's prose in English are to Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Don M. Wolfe, et al., 8 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953-82), cited as CPW, volume number, page number; references to Milton's prose in Latin are to The Works of John Milton, gen. ed. Frank Allen Patterson, 18 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931-38), cited as Columbia, volume number, page number. (n15) Cf. CPW 2.596. (n16) The orthodox Protestant perception was that while vernacular translations of the Scriptures were essential for every man to search out his faith individually--"Every believer is entitled to interpret the Scriptures; and by that I mean to interpret them for himself" (CPW 6.583) --yet the ultimate depository of "truth" was located finally in the Greek and Hebrew original texts; hence Wollebius in The Abridgement of Christian Doctrine (London, 1650)--a theological treatise to which the structure of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana owes much--states: "XIV. The search of Holy Scripture is injoined to all Christians. . . . XV. Therefore the Translation of the Bible into vulgar Tongues is necessary. XVI. Yet no translation is authentical, but that which agreeth with the Original fountains of the Hebrew and Greek" (9). Milton agreed with Wollebius (CPW 6.589), but was also aware that even the original texts were not without errors, corruptions, and canonical questions. Cf. CPW 6.221,586, 587-88. (n17) A similar passage from Of Reformation (1641)--CPW 1.566--proves that Milton held this tenet throughout his writing career. (n18) Luther, Lectures on Genesis, in Luther's Works, vol. 1: Lectures on Genesis, chap. 1-5, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), 42.12. (n19) Cf. Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (London: Allen Lane, 1993), 255: "It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance given in the Old Testament to rejection of idolatry. God's covenant with the Israelites insisted on an end to idol worship (Lev. 10: 1-3, Deut. 29). The Geneva Bible thus explained the flight of the Israelites from Egypt: 'Because Egypt was full of idolatry, God would appoint those places where they should serve him purely' (Exod. 3: 18)." (n20) Michael Lieb, "Reading God: Milton and the Anthropopathetic Tradition," Milton Studies 25 (1989): 213-43, quotation from 224. Cf. William Shullenberger, "Linguistic and Poetic Theory in Milton's De Doctrina Christiana," esp. 263. _______________ Source: University of Botswana.
