Of Prelatical Episcopacy is a religious tract written by John Milton in either June or July 1641.
The tract was printed soon after, in either June or July 1641, under the title Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and Whether it may be deduc'd from the Apostolical times by vertue of those Testimonies which are alledg'd to that purpose in some late Treatises: One wherof goes under the Name of Iames Arch-Bishop of Armagh.
[4] Any misreading of the text is the fault of the reader who is unable to understand the Scriptural truth or who was misled by other works.
[5]During the tract, Milton discusses Ignatius's epistles and claims that some were faked:[6] Now come the Epistles of "Ignatius" to shew us first, that "Onesimus" was Bishop of "Ephesus"; next to assert the difference of "Bishop" and "Presbyter", wherein I wonder that men teachers of the Protestant Religion, make no difficulty of imposing upon our belie a supposititious ofspring of some dozen Epistles, whereof five are rejected as suprious, containing in them Heresies and trifles, which cannot agree in Chronologie with "Ignatius", entitling him Arch-Bishop of "Antioch Theopolis", which name of "Theopolis" that City had not till "Justinian's" time long after, as "Cedrenus" mentions, which argues both the barbarous time, and the unskillfull fraud of him that foisted this Epistle upon "Ignatius".
[7]The purpose of Of Prelatical Episcopacy is, to Elizabeth Wheeler, that it "reminds readers that truth is attainable, and that all nonscriptural authority - including their own - is fallible.