Handelingen van het Nederlandsche Philologen-congres 13

Zaterdag 6 april.

De rij der sprekers wordt geopend door Dr. J. Veldkamp, met een rede over:

Milton's Philosophy.

1. Milton was a Puritan, no Calvinist.

These words have widely different meanings.

Puritan in the present popular sense of the word: a man of stern views, who has forsworn what he considers to be specially wordly pleasures.

Historical meaning (in religion): Puritans were people who wanted to purify the Church of England from what in their opinion savoured too much of the Church of Rome; they maintained that the Bible was their only guide for their faith and their lives, thus opposing subjection to the priesthood and to ecclesiastical authority; consequently: absolute subjection to the Word of God on the one hand, and a strong desire for liberty, a strong impatience of all arbitrary bonds laid on them by man, on the other. Historical meaning in politics: The Puritans were the party who defended the rights and the liberties of the people against the encroachment made on them by the crown, especially by Charles I.

To the Puritans belonged: the Presbyterians, Independents or Congregationalists, Millenarians, Quakers, Baptists, etc. And also John Milton, who may be said to have a place of his own. Of these Puritans only the Presbyterians and to a certain extent the Independents or Congregationalists proper, were Calvinists, that is adherents of the doctrine of the election of sinners to eternal life by the free grace of God, this in connection with the doctrine of the fundamental and unmitigated sinfulness of human nature in all men before their regeneration, and the perseverance of redeemed man in grace. For some time Milton was considered one of them, because from c. 1636 to c, 1646 he was counted more or less among the Presbyterians. But in his maturer period (after the fall of the Puritan cause) he is certainly no Calvinist, as appears from the posthumous De Doctrina Christiana, and his great works of that time: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson

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Agonistes. He could not even agree with the Nicene Creed; and had decidedly Arian principles.

In his views of the origin of things he is influenced by Renaissance Neo-Platonism and Pantheism (see e.g. the chapter on Creation in De Doctrina Christiana). But matter is ‘intrinsically good, and the chief productive stock of every subsequent good.’ There is no essential difference between spirit and matter, between soul and body. So it is but natural that Milton denies the immortality of the soul (in this Milton disagrees with his older contemporary Descartes, with whom he agrees in laying much stress on reason as the guiding principle of man). Body and soul die together and in the day of resurrection they rise together again. Milton was a Mortalist or ‘Soulsleeper’.

In his definition of man ‘a body or substance individual, animated, sensitive and rational’, Milton uses the same words as another older contemporary of his, John Hobbes, the great prophet of Materialism. In his cosmological conceptions and their consequences Milton got on materialistic lines, though he started from a purely Theistic spiritualism and treated matter only as something secondary.

He denied the doctrine of predestination and recognized (to a certain extent) free will in man. In the question of the perseverance of man in grace he took sides with the Arminians.

In his views of baptism Milton was a Baptist; by setting, in practice, more value on the ‘inner light’ than on Scripture (though he declares to accept only the lead of the latter) and also by rejecting a regular clergy, he joins hands with the Quakers; in his looking forward to the Millennium he proves himself a Millenarian; in his notions of church-rule he is more independent than the Independents, more individualistic than the greatest Individualists.

In a word: there is only one suitable name for his philosophy: Miltonism; it has one adherent: John Milton.

There is a ‘nouvelle école’ (the word is from Denis Saurat) in Miltonic studies. It is represented among others by the Frenchman Denis Saurat, the Swede Liljegren, the German Mutschmann, the Americans Hanford, Greenlaw, Thompson and Baldwin, and is partly a reaction against critics like Sir Walter Raleigh, who had called, Paradise Lost a ‘monument to dead ideas’. The general tendency is to claim Milton as a genuine son of the Renaissance, as a Humanist in whom there are only some traces of the Puritan left.

This cannot be granted. Undoubtedly there are strong Renaissance influences in him. But first and foremost Milton takes his stand on the Bible. That is always the basis from which he reasons. This is typically Puritan. And he is more a man of the Old Testament than of the New. That is characteristic of the Puritans of the 17th century. So Milton is a Puritan with a Humanistic strain in him.

As to the influence of the Stoa on Milton, Saurat only considers it as an element in the formation of his mind, Liljegren proclaims him to be ‘less of a Christian than a disciple of Roman Stoicism’ and thinks that

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‘Roman Stoicism (is) the chief foundation of his modes of thought and action,’ while Mutschmann throughout his strange book Der andere Milton treats Milton as a heathen Stoic, if not as a devil with Stoic tendencies.

No doubt Saurat is nearest the truth here.

The revindication of Milton's place as a teacher of mankind is the great result and the great merit of the work of the ‘New School’. Mr. Hanford, the American critic, proclaims Paradise Lost to be ‘richer in human truth than anything in English imaginative literature outside Shakespeare.’ A remarkable change for the better from Sir Walter Raleigh's ‘monument to dead ideas’, though it cannot be denied that some of the ‘New School’ read their own ideas into Milton.

Prof. Dr. A.A. van Schelven vraagt, of sprekers conclusie ‘Milton is Milton’ wel juist is. Dat kan man van geen enkel mensch zeggen. Hij kan Milton slechts zien, in verband met wat vóór en achter hem ligt. Ook is hij van oordeel, dat we de zaak niet gemakkelijker maken, door den naam Puritein te gebruiken. Deze naam hebben ze immers aan hun tegenstanders te danken. Ook zijn de denkbeelden, die Milton over het huwelijk verkondigd heeft, nu juist niet puriteinsch. In de derde plaats hadden we de kwestie moeten hebben, of Milton zich enkel formeel op den Bijbel beroept, dan wel ook in materiëelen zin. Dat hij zich enkel op-den Bijbel baseert, zegt ons niets, alle Christenen doen dat. De Spreker antwoordt, dat de beperkte tijd hem belet heeft op de door Prof. van Schelven genoemde punten dieper in te gaan. Hij meent, dat deze punten ook nog lang niet uitgemaakt zijn. De naam Puritein heeft wel degelijk een positieven inhoud, zooals hij aangetoond heeft. ‘Milton is Milton’ is meer een oratorische uitdrukking om aan te duiden, dat Milton een geheel eigen en eenige plaats inneemt onder de verschillende schakeeringen der Puriteinen. Of Milton zich materieel op den Bijbel grondt, òf niet, zal altijd een kwestie van overtuiging blijven.

Prof. Dr. A. Pompen O.F.M. zegt, dat Dr. Veldkamp in zijn rede de logische conclusie heeft getrokken uit de Milton-litteratuur van de laatste jaren. Hij meent, dat onze beoordeeling van Milton's De Doctrina Christiana hoofdzakelijk ons oordeel over Milton bepaalt. Van dit boek is in ons land slechts één exemplaar aanwezig, n.l. op de bibliotheek der Groninger Universiteit. Er is ook een Engelsche vertaling van Bohn, doch dit is een zeer slechte. Het verband van Milton met zijn voorgangers is nog niet gelegd kunnen worden. Men zal deze studie moeten opschorten, totdat De Doctrina Christiana behoorlijk is uitgegeven en dit is in de eerste plaats een werk van theologen. Hij acht ook den titel van het referaat verkeerd. Hij heeft het betoog gevoeld als een, waarvan de strekking was aan te toonen, dat Milton geen philosophy had. De Spreker antwoordt, dat de titel nog niet beteekent dat Milton een bepaalde philosophie aanhing. Trouwens het Engelsche woord philosophy is veel minder bepaald dan het Nederlandsche philosophie.