De Doctrina Christiana (Milton)

On Christian Doctrine) is a theological treatise of the English poet and thinker John Milton (1608–1674), containing a systematic exposition of his religious views.

In favor of the theory of the non-authenticity of the text, comments are made both over its content (it contradicts the ideas of his other works, primarily the poems "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained"), and it is difficult to imagine that such a complex text could be written by a blind person (Milton was blind by the time of the work's creation, thus it is now assumed that an amanuensis aided the author).

The most common nowadays point of view on De Doctrina Christiana is to consider it as a theological commentary on poems.

Critics have argued about the authority of the text as representative of Milton's philosophy based on possible problems with its authorship, its production, and over what its content actually means.

The only manuscript of Christian Doctrine was found during 1823 in London's Old State Paper Office (at the Middle Treasury Gallery in Whitehall).

[3] The work was one of many in a bundle of state papers written by John Milton while he served as Secretary of Foreign Tongues under Oliver Cromwell.

[3] Because Milton was blind, the manuscript of De Doctrina Christiana was the work of two people: Daniel Skinner and Jeremie Picard.

[5] In 1675, Skinner attempted to publish the work in Amsterdam, but it was rejected, and in 1677 he was pressured by the English government to hand over the document upon which it was then hidden.

[14] The manuscript itself is patterned on the theological treatises common to Milton's time, such as William Ames's Medulla Theologica and John Wolleb's Compendium Theologiae Christianae.

[16] However, the actual pattern of discourse found within the treatise is modeled after Ames's and Wolleb's works even if the content is different.

I am only to assist the reader's memory by collecting together as it were, into a single book texts which are scattered here and there throughout the Bible, and by systematizing them under definite headings in order to make reference easy.

[33] However, some claim that Milton did believe that the Son is eternal, since he was begotten before time, and that he represents part of the Logos.

[32] But this cannot be, as Kelley points out, "Milton concludes, the Son was begotten not from eternity but 'within the limits of time.

"[39] The style of organisation has been identified as (in large part) Ramist, or at least compatible with the elaborate charting by Ramean trees common in some of the systematic and scholastic Calvinist theologies of the early seventeenth century.