»Truth shall retire«

Abstract

»Truth shall retire«: Religious Wars, Postlapsarian Epistemology and Concepts of Toleration in John Milton’s Writings Taking up Alexandra Walsham’s observations about early modern »cultures of coexistence«, this article sketches John Milton’s concept of toleration against the background of the English Civil War and Restoration, taking into account his (heterodox) Protestantism and political service for the commonwealth under Cromwell. Examining the pronounced if not absolute shift in Milton’s epistemology from his pre- to post-Restoration writings, the article revisits his early Bacon­ian stance towards education as a means of (partially) repairing the biblical Fall and juxtaposes this with his plea in Areopagitica (1644) for searching out the Christian reformed ›truth‹ in active confrontation with – and thus toleration of – hostile religious and political positions. I then turn to Milton’s post-Restoration literary works, focusing centrally on the vision of history offered to Adam by archangel Michael in Paradise Lost (1667/1674). Here a more pessimistic outlook on knowledge formation and Christian reformation is presented via the recurring voice of the »one just man« who defends, and frequently dies in, the cause of ›truth‹. This vision of »suffering« as passive toleration replaces Areopagitica’s optimistic »warfaring Christian« who engages in open intellectual debate. In sum, Milton’s toleration was always conditional: it had a pragmatic function and a temporal dimension, coterminous with a suspension of judgement and avowal of incomplete knowledge – incomplete, that is, until the moment of revelation at Christ’s ›Second Coming‹.