Thomas Ellwood, Paradise Lost, and the Sons of Belial

Milton asked me how I liked it, and what I thought of it; which I modestly but freely told him: and after some further Discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, Thou hast said much here of Paradise Lost; but what hast thou to say of Paradise Found? He made me no Answer, but sate some time in a Muse: then brake off the Discourse, and fell upon another Subject. (246-47) Ellwood seems convinced that his response made an impact on his tutor and elder interlocutor. Indeed, he immediately describes how, during a later visit to Milton's residence in London, in the summer of 1666, Milton "shewed me his Second POEM, called PARADISE REGAINED; and in a pleasant Tone said to me, This is owing to you: for you put it into my Head, by the Question you put to me at Chalfont; which before I had not thought of" (246-47). These exchanges between Ellwood and Milton, very familiar to Miltonists, have helped textual scholars chart the development of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. And Ellwood's recollections have long afforded Milton's biographers a sense of the poet's activities after 1660. At the very least, the anecdotes serve as ligatures between the two poetic projects. But seldom do we consider Ellwood's comment on Paradise Lost as a critique.2 While the terms of the conversation are largely lost to us, Ellwood's claim—that "Thou hast said much here of Paradise Lost; but what hast thou to say of Paradise Found?"—suggests that the Quaker found Milton's poem somewhat unsatisfying, even inadequate. Milton undoubtedly wrote an intellectual epic, a philosophical anthropology, a study of sin and nature; his is a subtle approach to epistemology, emphasizing the ambiguous resources of error, both before and after man's first disobedience. But to Ellwood, a committed Quaker reader in 1665, Paradise Lost may not have adequately addressed salvation; it may not have satisfied his desire for relief from his ongoing persecution. Indeed, in his autobiography (published posthumously in 1714), Ellwood speaks of salvation, of Paradise Found, in remarkably different terms than does Milton in Paradise Lost. If his account of "the Divine LIGHT, which was now manifested in me" comports in many ways with sections of the epic or even select passages in Milton's prose, his Quaker testimony to "The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus" grates against Milton's investigations of freedom, knowledge, and error (54-55). More obvious are the differences between their respective approaches to evil—Milton, engaging in theodicy across Paradise Lost, Ellwood, preoccupied with more prosaic evils: the vain adornments of the body; the use of flattering or ennobling titles among men; and the customary gestures and expressions that unduly exalt some men above others (removing the hat, bowing, addressing one with the plural "you" instead of the singular "thou"). Practical piety of the Quaker variety is marginal in Paradise Lost. And what might have struck Ellwood as most alienating about Paradise Lost is not, strictly speaking, a matter of doctrine. In the mid-1660s—or, arguably, at any point before Robert Barclay's systematic works such as his Catechism and Confession of Faith (1673) or his Theologiae Vere Christianae Apologia (1676)—Quakers eschewed academic "theology" and the subtlety of university discourse and epic poetry. Their meetings and missives unfold in a different theological register, one quite remote from Paradise Lost. The poem would have struck Ellwood as a remarkable achievement by a learned man, and one who was no stranger to persecution. But Paradise Lost lacks the attention to mundane persecution and the promise of a future freedom from it that was so integral to Quaker life. It might be argued that Paradise Lost does address salvation at the level of doctrine, but Milton eschews any treatment of the promise of Christianity in a manner that might resonate with Quaker readers. Ellwood says as much in challenging the poet of Paradise Lost to say something about Paradise Found. At issue here is the matter of how one recognizes or identifies "Christianity." Scholars of historical works such as Paradise Lost tend to approach this matter by way of doctrine: is Milton adequately trinitarian? How does his peculiar Christianity relate to more established creeds or churches: the Church of England, Scottish Presbyterianism, Dutch Remonstrantism, or Arminianism, or to the expressed theology of myriad sectarians and Chrétiens sans Église? How does Paradise Lost fit into abiding exegetical debates, as a more or less orthodox interpretation of Scripture? They imagine, often quite perceptively, that doctrine is an integral aspect of devotion, and gauge Milton's Christianity, or whether Paradise Lost is a Christian poem, according to doctrinal criteria. But seventeenth-century Quakers as Ellwood use remarkably different criteria. Across their pleas, public addresses, histories, and testimonies, they affirm that Christians, the "Children of the Light," are identifiable in the first instance by their suffering and persecution as well as the witness of God "within." Milton, of course, writes vividly of the divine presence within. But whereas Milton inhabits familiar theological registers in Paradise Lost (God's commentary on predestination and foreknowledge in Book 3, for instance, which sounds at times like the matter of De Doctrina Christiana), the Quakers deliberately and repeatedly oppose attempts to translate their testimony or their persecution into familiar doctrinal terms. Samuel Fisher directed his Rusticus ad Academicos against "the Dimnes of the Divines, and meer Humanity of the Doctrines of the Academicall Doctors," recognizing "Christians" as those who "live in that Light which leads to Love, which abhors all cruelty." And Fisher is clear, that "'tis the dark places of the earth, in which such Christians dwell, that are full of the habitations of cruelty" (sig. a2v-a3r, a3v). Christians, in other words, are shaped and defined by their proximity to cruelty and their capacity for suffering. Moreover, for so many Quakers, the doctrinal approach to Christianity was a persecutory machine, measuring devotion in terms of abstract academic criteria and not in terms of lived affects and shared practices. If, say, Milton and Ellwood agreed on a majority of doctrinal points, even their experiences of persecution are remarkably different. Paradise Found is arguably at the heart of Quaker expression and Ellwood suggests that this core of Christianity is absent from Paradise Lost. To make sense of Ellwood's critique it is important to follow the course of his life between his initial encounter with Milton and his infamous comment on Paradise Found in 1665. The Quaker Isaac Pennington, a friend in common to both men, first introduced Ellwood to Milton in 1662. Pennington was integral to Ellwood's 1659 conversion to Quakerism, as Isaac and his wife Mary familiarized Ellwood with an emerging network of Quakers. In his autobiography he recounts how the Penningtons served as "affectionate Parents, and tender Nurses to him, in this time of his Religious Childhood" (100). It was at the Pennington home in Chalfont St. Peter in 1659 that he first met Edward Burrough (along with James Nayler), at which time he also attended his first Quaker meeting. Drawn to further meetings, Elwood was soon deeply committed to Quaker practices and ideas. Because of this, he quickly found himself alienated from his father, harassed by local officials as he traveled between meetings, and imprisoned in Oxford for several months in 1660 for refusing to swear the Oath of Allegiance. Ellwood contracted smallpox in early 1662 and, as he recovered, he attempted to work his way through the "pretty good Library of Books (amongst which were the Works of Augustine, and others of those Ancient Writers, who were by many called the Fathers)" available to him at his father's house in Crowell, Oxfordshire (152). For a variety of reasons, he found the books difficult to read, causing him to take stock of his abilities. Ellwood readily admits that, although he "had made some good Progress in Learning" in his youth, he "lost it all again before he came to be a Man"—something he lamented once he "came amongst the Quakers" (153). He complained to Pennington who, by way of the London physician Nathan Paget, recommended Ellwood to Milton in March or April of 1662—"not as a Servant to him … but only to have the Liberty of Coming to his House, at certain Hours, when I would, and to read to him what Books he should appoint me" (153-54; see also Campbell and Corns 321-22, 326-39; Parker 580-82, 597-98; and Lewalski 410). At which point Ellwood decamped from Oxfordshire to London and met with Milton daily ("except on the first Days of the Week" 156), reading works in Latin aloud to the elder poet while Milton, in turn, explained difficult passages and trained his new student's attention to grammar and elocution (155-59). Ellwood attests that Milton soon "conceived so good an Opinion of me, that my Conversation … was acceptable to him"; he emerges here as a dedicated student, defending the Quakers against the charge that "they despised and decried all Humane Learning" (158, 153).3 But, as Ellwood himself puts it, it was "as if Learning had been a forbidden Fruit to me" (158). His studies were interrupted, first, by illness and then by a prolonged and traumatic imprisonment. These were formative experiences for Ellwood, shaping his life between his initial meeting with Milton in London in 1662 and his acquisition of the Paradise Lost manuscript in 1665. After the Fifth Monarchist insurrection led by Thomas Venner in 1661, the government responded by prohibiting sectarian meetings. Even though Quakers such as Ellwood took pains to distinguish themselves and their brethren from the Fifth Monarchists, the Quakers were nevertheless subject to suspicion and barred from gathering (Greaves 52-85). This intensified with the passage of the Quaker Act in 1662—that is, the "Act for preventing Mischiefs and Dangers that may arise by certain Persons called Quakers, and others refusing to take lawful Oaths" (Sewel 326-32; Moore 181-81). Quakers were indeed punished for refusing to swear oaths, a conviction they based on Jesus's proscriptions against them in Matthew 5.33-37 (Davies 192-95). They were harassed and penalized, moreover, for repudiating the authority of the established church, and especially for refusing to pay tithes. As Burrough wrote in 1662, the Quakers were "accused as heinous Offenders, and imprisoned" even though "at this Day, we resist not the greatest of Afflictions and Tribulations that can be imposed on us" (qtd. in Sewel 330-31). Second-generation historians such as William Sewel recorded the "Inhumane Cruelties" visited upon Quakers across England, Scotland, New England, and the West Indies during this period, interpreting their suffering and persecution as a testimony to their righteousness. Ellwood's arrest at a Quaker meeting in Aldersgate on 26 October 1662 was such an event. The meeting was broken up by a host of armed soldiers, their muskets trained on the attendees "with Intent … to strike a Terror into the People"; Ellwood and others were led into the street where they encountered more soldiers "who with their Pikes, holden length-ways from one another, encompassed us round, as Sheep in a Pound" (159, 161; Sewel 352). Ellwood was taken to Bridewell and writes of hunger, discomfort, and want, of the desperate labor he performed for a hosier there as well as his fellow Quakers' corporal punishment and humiliation. But he also testifies to the kindness of friends—the Penningtons and Anne Travers, among others—who sent invaluable spiritual and financial aid (a type of Paradise Found, even in the midst of hell). Ellwood affirms, moreover, that he and his companions were illegally held "by an Arbitrary Power, not being Committed by the Civil Authority, nor having seen the Face of any Civil Magistrate" for nearly two months (177). He alleged that being held without any formal or official charge was a clear abuse of their rights. But when he was finally brought before the court, his complaint was dismissed and, after he refused to swear the Oath of Allegiance, Ellwood was committed to Newgate where, he laments, "the Breath and Steam that came from so many Bodies of different Ages, Conditions and Constitutions, pack't up so close together, was enough to cause sickness amongst us … and there were many Sick, and some very weak" (181-82). The elder Quaker Richard Hubberthorne died in such conditions in Newgate in August 1662, not long before Ellwood arrived; while Ellwood was there another friend died, after which the coroner himself testified that "I did not think there had been so much Cruelty in the Hearts of Englishmen, to use Englishmen in this manner! … We may rather wonder that they are not all dead: for this Place is enough to breed an Infection among them" (184; and Sewel 374-75). Due to these conditions Ellwood was moved back to Bridewell, but even there "a Sense of the Prophaneness, Debaucheries, Cruelties, and other horrid Impieties of the AGE fell heavy on me" (194). In prison, Ellwood had a prolonged encounter with the mutilated corpses of several men recently executed "for a real or pretended Plot" (191). Ellwood watched as the heads, which were to be preserved and displayed in sight of the inhabitants of London, were tossed about among his fellow prisoners who "made Sport with them," holding them "by the Hair, Flouting, Jeering and Laughing at them: and then giving them some ill Names, box'd them on the Ears and Cheeks" (191-92). These might have been the corpses of Quakers, imprisoned and executed for an alleged plot. Ellwood called his lodging in Newgate not only "the Worst part of that Prison" but nothing less than "a Type of HELL upon EARTH" (191). Ellwood was released from Bridewell in January 1663, but his experience of imprisonment ineradicably shaped his sense of Christianity, particularly after that "Great-good Man" Burrough died in prison, through the "Cruel Malice, and Malicious Cruelty of Alderman Richard Brown" and other magistrates (Loewnstein; see also Brown, Second Part 4 and Third Part). This was what it meant to be a Quaker, and a Christian, to travail in ways that contemporaries experienced only vicariously in martyrologies. Together with the Penningtons, Burrough had shepherded Ellwood into the light. And with more Quakers persecuted under the 1664 Conventicle Act and the 1665 Nonconformists Act, the trend would continue. Ellwood called directly upon Christ to "Awake" and "put to Flight / Those Sons of Belial, who do Despight / To the Upright" (237-38; and Sewel 458-59). The lines seem to recall the "Sons / Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine" from Book 1 of Paradise Lost—the crowds who "wander forth" "when Night / Darkens the Streets" (1.500-02), whom Milton identifies as the rapacious mobs at Sodom and Gibeah. Milton makes it clear here that he is collating scenes from Scripture, that when he describes these "certain sons of Belial" he is citing Judges 19.22 directly, even if many among his contemporaries still qualify as "sons of Belial." There is no such subtlety in Ellwood's poetic meditation (which he dates "1665" but which appears in print much later). His "Sons of Belial" are a more general class of persecutors, relentlessly effecting their cruelty on the Quakers. The poem commemorates a series of arrests and frames his encounter with Paradise Lost. Ellwood, together with Pennington and numerous others, was arrested again on 1 July 1665 and imprisoned at Aylesbury for a month. It was soon after his release from Aylesbury that Ellwood visited Milton in the cottage he had procured for the poet in the parish of Chalfont St. Giles. All these events transpired between Ellwood's first encounter with Milton in London in 1662 and their reacquaintance in the early autumn of 1665. Their discussions of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained must have been affected by Ellwood's formative experiences of imprisonment, integral to his understanding of "the different Kinds of Liberty and Confinement, Freedom and Bondage."4 He reflects on this in a few distiches inserted into The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood: first, a riddle "Some Men are Free, while they in Prison Lie: / Others, who ne'r saw Prison, Captives Die"; followed by a "Solution," "He only's free indeed, that's free from Sin: / And he is fastest bound, that's bound therein" (245). These poems immediately precede Ellwood's account of his 1665 visit with Milton. This is what he was thinking about when he encountered Paradise Lost. Even if they were written later, as Ellwood recalled his encounter with the poet, he juxtaposes their critical conversation about Paradise Lost with verse that memorializes the countless Quakers who languished in windowless gaols across the country, prior to 1688. It is difficult to square these remarkably different meditations on freedom and captivity; if early Whig interpreters championed Paradise Lost as a précis of Christian liberty, Ellwood probably found its abstract theses on freedom and choice only abstractly edifying. Neither captivity nor imprisonment figure prominently in Paradise Lost, at least in the concrete registers all too familiar to Quakers like Ellwood. Christopher Hill long ago recognized that, although they shared a trenchant critique of the established church and its mercenary clergy, Milton and the Quakers had very different notions of "church membership": "At the level of the church, the experience of the Quakers suggests that Milton may have been wise not to commit himself to any sect" (257). Would Ellwood understand faith and salvation—indeed, Christianity at large—in different terms if freedom from ongoing persecution (imprisonment, humiliation, poverty) were not a material type of salvation, of Paradise Found? Even if Paradise Lost articulates points with which his Quaker readers agreed, it belongs to an intellectual world at a significant remove from that of Ellwood in 1665. However intellectually stimulating, however ambitious an experiment—exposing the origins of sin, laying bare the continuities and discontinuities between Eden and our environs—Paradise Lost risks neglecting the register of Quaker theology, the mundane affects and mundane experiences that shaped their ideas of the Light within, the Christ within, and the language of salvation. In this famous comment on Paradise Found, Ellwood addresses Milton (à la Samuel Fisher) as Rusticus ad Academicos, seeking inspiration and edification from a tutor to whom he already looked for instruction. Not an admonishment but a provocation, Paradise Lost was impressive and authoritative, a poetic achievement and a contribution to Christian anthropology in a broadest sense. But it was not a work that spoke to the condition of Ellwood and his brethren. And what of Paradise Found, of Paradise Regained? Ellwood undoubtedly found this work more accessible and more indicative of a shared Christianity. To Quaker eyes Milton's perambulatory Jesus must have seemed familiar; at almost every turn, Milton emphasizes the relatable quotidian aspects of Jesus's life, from his confounded childhood meditations on his purpose and his earliest encounters with Scripture (1.196-226) to his joyful retirement to his mother's house "unobserv'd" (4.638-39), having resisted temptation. Even if Quakers are decidedly less interested in the historical Jesus than the "Light of Christ," Milton's Jesus is a human seeker who acts independently from any established church or creed; if Paradise Regained reflects Milton's engagements with biblical philology, he does not martial this learning in the interest of any particular confession or congregation. This independence undoubtedly appealed to Quakers (nota bene: Milton consistently underscores this independence to undermine sovereign power whereas his Quaker contemporaries invoke this independence to prove that they warrant tolerance, disinterested as they are in challenging any sovereign power). But in the end, what must have appealed to Ellwood about Paradise Regained is not, strictly speaking, doctrinal. It is instead the sense that the most quotidian temptations of the Quakers are not unlike Jesus's own encounters with Satan, that the affects and experiences that define Quaker suffering and triumph alike are as remarkable as those Jesus experiences in Paradise Regained.