Rice University

Milton and the Idea of the Restoration of the Jews

Author(s): N. I. Matar
Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 27, No. 1, The English Renaissance
(Winter, 1987), pp. 109-124
Published by: Rice University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/450643
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 SEL 27 (1987)
ISSN 0039-3657

Milton and the Idea of the Restoration

of the Jews
N. I. MATAR

In Book III of Paradise Regained, Satan urges Jesus to use force

towards the establishment of the messianic kingdom. The means
needed to fulfil such a goal, he adds, are armed struggle against the
Romans and the liberation of the ten lost tribes of Israel from the
Medes.Only by "conquest or by league," he concludes, will Jesus be
able to rule in "David'sroyal seat" (lines 370, 373).'
Jesus opposes the militaristic zeal of Satan. He declares that the
appointed time of this kingdom "is not yet come" and impresses
upon Satan the weakness of using "politic maxims" and "fragile
arms" in such a cause (lines 397, 400, 388). Although he recognizes
that his kingdom cannot be established until afterthe Restoration of
the Jews, Jesus rejectsSatan's urgency and affirms that the Restora-
tion is a divine act to be implemented by God alone in his own due
time:

Yet he at length, time to himself best known,

Rememb'ring Abraham, by some wondrous call
May bring them back repentant and sincere,
And at their passing cleave the Assyrian flood,
While to their native land with joy they haste
As the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft,
When to the Promised Land their fatherspassed;
To his due time and providence I leave them.
(lines 433-40)

This passage has been viewed by critics as an echo of the Isaianic

prophecy, specifically relevant to Milton apropos of the publication
of Manasseh Ben Israel's The Hope of Israel in 1650, and of the
Sabbatai Sevi commotion in the mid-1660s.2 Such criticism is

Nabil Matar is Associate Professor of English and Civilization Sequence at the

American University of Beirut. He has just completed an edition of select
writings from Peter Sterry(1613-1672) and is writing on the controversy over the
Restoration of the Jews in English Protestant thought.
110 RESTORATION OF THE JEWS

supported by the available historical data about Milton and reflects

his awareness of the Jewish issue in those years. But what is more
significant than the circumstantial source of the above passage from
Paradise Regained is Milton's theological position regarding it: for
the idea of the Restoration of the Jews, much as it was discussed in
the 1650s and 1660s, was not a theological principle on which all
Englishmen agreed. Although a cursory look at the literature of the
seventeenth century shows how popular the idea was, it also reveals
how seriously it was opposed by numerous theologians and polemi-
cists. Indeed, since its appearance on the theological scene in the
Reformation, the idea of Restoration had been a bone of constant
contention between Restorationists and anti-Restorationists. Three
factors were instrumental in generating this novel principle in
English thought: the military Turko-Catholic threat to Protestant
Christendom; the Puritan millenarian speculations between 1640
and 1660; and England's moral responsibility to the Jews. During the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the fear of Catholic and Turkish
military power led English theologians to the view that the Jews'
conquest of Palestine would necessarily be preceded by victory over
Islam and Catholicism Protestantism's two main enemies. And
although they had never met a Jew in their lives, English theologians
supported the Restoration as a means to their religio-national end.
Moreover, they believed that the Restoration of the Jews would lead
to the fulfilment of the Pauline expectation of the millennial
kingdom, and the inauguration of England's messianic age. Finally,
and by concentrating on Romans 11, some English evangelists felt
that they owed the Jews a debt which they could repay only by
converting them to Christianity and then restoring them to Palestine.
This became the Englishman's burden of responsibility to the Jews
whose rejection of Christ in the first century had allowed the
salvation of the Gentiles.3
The fact that at the publication of Paradise Regained Milton
supported the idea of the Jews' Restoration suggests that, theological-
ly, he had opted for the Restorationist stand. Although Milton did
not become involved in the debate on the settlement of the Jews in
England in the mid-1650s, he eagerly took a stand on the
Restoration-a highly controversial issue then. Indeed, by putting
lines 433-40 into Jesus' mouth, Milton was not echoing a standard
biblical view but positing a highly polemical interpretation of the
Isaianic prophecy. That the Jesus of Paradise Regained upheld the
Restorationist position towards the Jews indicates that he was not
only opposing Satan, but some of Milton's contemporary theologians
who rejected the Restoration and its varied theological implications-
 N. I. MATAR Ill

namely those regarding its relationship to Christ's second coming

and the millennial kingdom. The questions that loom large at this
point are the following: why did Milton support the Restorationist
position, and how does that position clarify his views on the Jews
and on their relationship to Christ'smessianic kingdom in England?
Furthermore,and as Milton's name is conspicuously missing from
the list of Cromwell's supporters on the project of the Jews'
admission in 1655, is it possible to shed light on the causes of his
nonparticipation in the Conferenceafterexamining his view on the
Restoration?

II
Although ParadiseRegained was published in 1671, the date of its
composition is far from certain. Critical opinions vary on whether
Milton had written some of the Jesus-Satan debate between 1646-
1648, or in the early or mid-1650sand then grafted the passages into
the short epic completed after the publication of Paradise Lost.4
When the Restoration lines (433-40)were written cannot be exactly
determined,but that theybelong to the immediatelypre-Interregnum
or to the Interregnumperiods would not be surprising, since many
in Milton's circle then were Independents who fully supported the
idea:Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, PeterSterry,and Henry Jessey
were chaplains and aides to Cromwell with whom Milton is known
to have communicated in meetings and convocations, and with
whose preaching he was familiar. Thomas Goodwin, whose sermons
Milton had attended in Cambridge during the 1630s, advocated in
1639 the Restoration and directly linked it to the advent of the
messianic kingdom in England. Less than a decade later and in a
sermon preached before the House of Commons, John Owen
proclaimed with referenceto the Books of Isaiah and of Revelation
"that the Promises of the Restauration of God's people into a
glorious condition after all their suffering, is perpetually in the
Scripture held out," and that the "time is come, yea the full time is
come [for] the King the Lord Christ"to appear. On 5 November 1649
PeterSterryechoed Owen's sermon, and because he believed that the
Restoration of the Jews had alreadystarted("to which, perhaps the
Affairs of Constantinople, as they now stand, may make way"), he
identified 1652as the year of England's millennial kingdom. Sterry
repeated his calculations with more detail in his 1651 sermon,
"Beforethe SupremeAuthorityof this Nation," and again pointed to
the Jews' Restoration as the signal to the Messianic event. By the
early 1650s, the idea of the Restoration was so theologically
112 RESTORATION OF THE JEWS

established in revolutionary circles that it was noted as the official

Protestant interpretation of Romans 11:11-18 in the Annotations.5
Goodwin, Sterry, Owen, and others of Cromwell's circle, including
the Lord Protector himself, were instrumental in crystalizing
Milton's theology of the Restoration.6 This is not to underestimate
the influence of Milton's Cambridge tutor, Joseph Mede, whose
writings about the Jews were extremely influential. Milton was
familiar with the corpus of this Restorationist, specifically "The
Mystery of S. Paul's Conversion: or, The Type of the Calling of the
Jews." So must he have been familiar with the work of Thomas
Brightman, as influential on seventeenth-century eschatology as was
Mede, and equally supportive of the Jews' Restoration.7 Furthermore,
between 1647 and 1653, the prospect of the Jews' Restoration was
bandied about among visionaries and millenarians, scholars and
preachers: from Mary Cary and John Robins, to Theuravjohn Tany,
Samuel Gott, George Foster/Jacob Israel, Nathaniel Homes, John
Canne, Moses Wall, Henry Oldenburgh, and Henry Jessey. Milton
knew in person, and is known to have shared opinions with, a
number of these writers.8
Clearly, there was enough contextual influence on Milton to align
him with the idea of the Restoration. Furthermore, like all supporters
of the idea, Milton viewed the Restoration as a signal of the
inauguration of the messianic kingdom. The early 1640s witnessed
in England the beginning of the political and military confrontation
between king and parliament, and between Canterbury Anglicans
and London and Edinburgh Puritans. Such tension led opposition
theologians to interpret the times as eschatological: the kingdom of
Christ was imminent and King Jesus would soon descend to England
to wrench his promised monarchy from the papistical king and his
archbishop. Between 1641 and 1643, writers of Puritan leanings like
Thomas Goodwin, John Archer, Nathaniel Homes, John Cotton,
Robert Lord Brooke, Edward Calamy, and William Bridge all
expressed their anticipation of Christ's second coming: "the Time is
at hand"; "Yet but for a little while"; "It is but one hour and the work
is done."9 Like these contemporaries in opposition Milton was also
waiting for King Jesus, and in his Animadversions, declared that
God had "manifestly come downe among us" (Prose, 1:703). He then
turned to the Book of Revelation to support his plea to Jesus whose
"Kingdom is now at hand:" "Come forth out of thy Royall
Chambers, 0 Prince of all the Kings of the earth, put on the visible
roabes of thy imperiall Majesty, take up that unlimited Scepter
which thy Almighty Father hath bequeath'd thee" (Prose 1:707).
 N. I. MATAR 113

Like numerous preachers after the outbreak of the civil wars in

1642, Milton recognized the crucial role of England in the drama of
Christian reformation. This "Britannick Empire . . . with all her
Daughter Ilands" was at the center of opposition to the Popish
anti-Christ, and to all the forces of Catholicism (Prose 1:614).With
imagery that derived from Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation,
Milton joined the opposition chorus which associated the Great
Whore with the Catholic church, and anticipated the destruction of
the Papacy just before "the shortly-expected King" ruled over the
earth (Prose 1:616).Also in the strain of Brightman and others, he
criticized the English church as Laodicean-a reference to its
lukewarm reformatoryzeal (Prose 1:690).10
Although Milton's language was consonant with the messianic
mood of the Puritan opposition in the 1640s, his expectations of
Christ's kingdom did not lead him to speculations about dates, to
clamors for war, nor to a Fifth Monarchy position. Much as he
became imbued with the apocalyptic imagery of confrontation with
the Catholics and with the English monarch (Prose 1:496-97)he did
not develop millenarian schemes to justify contemporaryhistorical
changes. But like his Cromwellian colleagues who had associated
Christ'scoming with the Restoration of the Jews, Milton supported
the principle that the kingdom of Christ was predicatedon the Jews'
Restorationfrom theircaptivity. Since the appearanceof Brightman's
The Revelation of Saint John and Mede's Clavis Apocrafica, the
Jews' Restorationhad been viewed-although not unanimously-as
the signal for Christ's second coming. This theological position
proliferated widely after the early 1640s and became a favored
position for the Puritan opposition. In 1647 this view was con-
solidated among Cromwellian and pro-Cromwellian theologians as
a result of propitious news that had reachedLondon about the Jews'
movement in "Illyria, Brithania and Cappadociafor the conquering
of the Holy Land.""1Preachers both at Westminster and on street
pulpits responded to the news as a confirmation of the Brightman/
Mede interpretation of the Book of Revelation and the imminent
advent of King Jesus to England. The Jews' Restoration, it was
believed, was the signal for England's revolution of the saints. In
1649, Peter Sterrypreached in celebration of Cromwell's victory in
Ireland. He was certain that the news about the Jews and the
massacreof Drogheda heralded the much-awaited "Comings Forth
of Christ": "But such Calamities, and Confusions, as the World
never saw to this day, must follow, when once Jesus Christ shall
begin to appearefor His People, and the Return of the Jewes.... The
Late Providenceof God in this Island and Irelandseem to give a Rise
114 RESTORATION OF THEJEWS

to the fulfilling of this part of the Revelation." A few years later,

John Canne repeated the same principle in a sermon addressed to
Cromwell: "As the time of the end is neerer at hand [the year 1655 will
mark the] . . . time designated for the rising and beginning of the
Jewes, after their long dispersion [and]... entring into the Land of
Judea. "12 It was in this context that Milton composed lines 433-40 in
Paradise Regained: Jesus informs Satan, and Milton the anti-
Cromwellian opposition, that once the Restoration of the Jews is
completed, Christ's Kingdom will be inaugurated in England. At the
writing of Christian Doctrine, Milton affirmed his creed in Christ's
kingdom and the idea of the Restoration:

The special signs are extreme carelessness and impiety,

and almost universal rebellion....
Secondly, the revelation of antichrist, and his destruction
through the spirit of Christ's mouth . . .
Some authorities think that a further portent will herald
this event, namely, the calling of the entire nation not only of
the Jews but also of the Israelites.
(Prose 6: 616-17)13

The reference to'"some authorities" in the above passage points to

the Restorationist theologians with whom Milton was closely
involved during the Interregnum and to the lay preachers and
authors who had supported that position. That it is a doctrine which
only "some" accept indicates Milton's familiarity with the anti-
Restorationist argument and with the polemics surrounding the
whole issue. That it was to be a Restoration of all the twelve tribes
shows Milton's accord with the near-to-unanimous aspirations of
Restorationists. But Milton's concern with the Restoration was not
confined to its connection with the millennium: given the association
which preachers had established between Christ's kingdom and the
Jews, Milton recognized the contemporary relevance of the Restora-
tion to the English revolutionaries. Throughout the late 1640s and
early 1650s, Cromwell and his theologians had described their
military victories as miraculously ordained, and had treated their
upheaval against the king as a preparation for the advent of Christ.
Consequently, they learnt to appreciate the significance of the
fulfilment of the Jews' Restoration-a prophecy that had been
associated with the second coming. The Cromwellians needed
concrete proof from biblical history to demonstrate that their
messianic expectations in England were being realized: as they
pointed to the execution of the king and to the declaration of the
commonwealth as heralds of the second coming, they concluded that
 N. I. MATAR 115

the Restoration of the Jews would historically confirm their messianic

anticipations. Because the Jews were physically being restored, then
the messianic kingdom was physically being inaugurated. In this
respect, the Jews' Restoration retroactively justified the Independents'
revolution and their eschatological view of events. Owen preached in
1652: "Look what Kingdome soever, the Lord Christ will advance in
the World, and exercise amongst his holy Ones, the beginning of it
must be with the Jewes."'4 Thus to be a Restorationist towards the
Jews meant to support the messianic interpretation of the civil
upheavals against Charles, the "little home," and the Papacy, the
"great whore." The theological position towards the Jews indicated
a political position towards the revolution of the saints. For Milton,
at the center of Whitehall strategy, it was only consistent that he
affirm the Restoration of the Jews as a signal of the messianic
kingdom in England. If the Jesus of Paradise Regained had said
otherwise than what he did in lines 433-40, Milton would have
demonstrated his opposition to the Cromwellian regime.
Understandably, criticism of the idea of the Restoration came from
those who neither viewed Cromwell's ascendancy to power as
divinely legitimized, nor identified Interregnum England with the
shortly-expected kingdom of Christ. Specifically, Presbyterians in
the Assembly of Divines were hostile to Cromwell's regime and to the
whole millenarian heresy on which the justification of the civil wars,
Pride's Purge, the regicide and Cromwellian dictatorship rested. As
early as 1644 Robert Baillie had condemned the millenarian politics
of the Independents and of the Army. And so had Thomas Hayne,
John Lightfoot, William Gouge, and many others.'5 As millen-
arianism was linked with the idea of the Restoration of the Jews, the
English and Scottish Presbyterians opposed the latter idea, and
treated it as a revolutionary slogan. Equally hostile to millenarianism
were the Anglicans who had seen their church and monarch
destroyed by Christ-expecting fanatics. In 1653, Henry Hammond
published his Paraphrase, and Annotations Upon all the Books of
the New Testament in which he violently attacked Thomas Bright-
man and the whole allegorical method of interpretation. Implicit to
Hammond's emphasis on the historical reading of the apocalyptic
texts rather than the prophetic was a rejection of millenarian theories
and prospects of Jewish Restoration.'6 By opposing Cromwell,
Presbyterians and Anglicans rejected all the theological arguments
which he and his aides used to justify their revolutionary and
sectarian actions-specifically the argument of the Jews' Restoration.
By defending the idea of the Restoration, as he does in lines 433-40
of Paradise Regained, Milton was defending theologically the
 116 RESTORATION OF THEJEWS

Interregnum politics of the saints. At the writing of the Jesus-Satan

debate, Milton was not echoing ideas picked from his contemporary
readings, but was proposing a polemical position against the anti-
Restorationists who were anti-Independents. As he had defended the
Cromwellian upheaval against European critics, so would he
support it against its Presbyterian and Anglican enemies. The
Restoration of the Jews proved England's messianic role, and
pointed to the coming of Christ. In advocating that position towards
the Jews, Milton was not only justifying his and Cromwell's and the
Independents' actions in the past decade, but their expectations of
Christian history which was to end, and to begin anew among them,
the English Zion.
If we turn to 1671, the date of the publication of Paradise
Regained, the situation had changed. The Cromwellian hopes had
failed, monarchy had returned, and England had gone back to
"Egypt." Milton, however, kept lines 433-40 and probably sharpened
them in light of the implications of the idea of Restoration on the
defeated saints. Although the idea could not have kept its earlier
Cromwellian associations, it was still relevant to the view which
nonconformists held of themselves. The question that must be
addressed at this point is the following: what does the idea of the
Restoration of the Jews in lines 433-40 signify to Milton in 1671, at a
time completely different from when he had composed the dialogue
between Jesus and Satan?
The 1660s constituted a period of trial and extreme hardship to
nonconformists as a whole, and to Milton in particular. From the
political involvements of the Interregnum, Milton found himself in
a condition of incapacitation and mortal danger. He was now
confined to his house, and like other ex-Cromwellians and non-
conformists, ostracized from the intellectual life of London and of
the universities. The shock of England's return to monarchy, the
repression of the Cavalier Parliament, and the restrictions of the
various acts impressed upon Milton a sense of defeat: in meeting with
friends of the Interregnum, Milton could not but have wondered
about God's ways with the saints, and about the once-promised
kingdom that had never come. It was in this period of trial that he
completed Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.
The retention of the lines on the Restoration of the Jews in
Paradise Regained fits with the prevailing theological attitude of
nonconformists between 1660-1671. It is no coincidence that all the
writers who supported the idea of the Restoration in these eleven
years were nonconformists: John Eliot, Arise Evans, Increase
Mather, Edward Bagshaw, William Sherwin, and the anonymous
 N. I. MATAR 117

author of The Restauration of the Jews (1665). All these figures

shared in the opposition to the Anglican establishment and also in a
Restorationist position toward the Jews. Whether Quaker, Congre-
gational, or Presbyterian, with or without previous Cromwellian
association, nonconformists reaffirmed the Restorationist position;
and so did Milton. Although the major surviving Restorationists of
the past decades were no longer addressing the issue-Sterry, for
instance, or Goodwin-others were keeping it alive, and a curious
assembly of nonconformists it was: John Eliot, the missionary to the
Indians; Increase Mather, the Congregationalist in Boston; Vavasor
Powell, a Welsh millenarian; Arise Evans, a self-proclaimed prophet;
and the author of The Restauration, one among many who wrote
apropos of the Sabbatai Sevi commotion.'7 Evidently, they all
recognized the relevance of this idea to their own cause: the Jews'
Restoration was still a polemical issue, now between the non-
conformists and the Anglicans, as earlier between the Cromwellians
and the Presbyterians. No wonder that Sir Paul Rycaut and John
Evelyn, both staunch Anglicans, blamed the millennial craze of 1666
and the enthusiasm for the Restoration of the Jews on "the heads of
Fanatical Enthusiasts."'8 The Restoration of the Jews, they seemed
to suggest, was not a doctrine to which respectable and law-abiding
churchgoers subscribed. For orthodox members of the Church of
England, the idea was firmly associated with an anti-
establishmentarian stand: and Milton, who was still hopeful that
God would justify His way to the saints, reaffirmed his anti-Anglican
antimonarchical attitude by allowing lines 433-40 to stand as
written.
The reason why nonconformists clung to the idea of the Restoration
as a slogan of opposition rested on their enduring eschatological
expectations: especially in their private meditations and sermons,
nonconformists still awaited Christ's coming, although they no
longer attached millennial or politically subversive implications to
that advent. The Quakers internalized eschatology, while others like
Sterry and Owen continued to await the advent albeit without
calculations or militaristic threats.'9 In similar fashion, Milton
expected the kingdom: as he put lines 433-40 into Jesus' mouth he
emphatically associated the Restoration with the messianic kingdom
and specified the conditions under which such a Restoration would
be carried out. Only when the conditions were divinely sanctioned
would the Restoration take place and serve as God's sign for the
inauguration of Christ's kingdom on earth. Milton did not wish to
misinterpret God's plan for the English Zion, as perhaps it had been
in the early 1650s. The Restoration was no simple event which
118 RESTORATION OF THE JEWS

anybody could speculate about; by 1671, Milton believed, the

Restoration had not taken place because theologians had failed to
identify its distinctive characteristics.A Restoration with no divine
sanction, like that proposed by George Foster or attempted by
SabbataiSevi was not the fulfilment of biblical prophecy, but merely
a false endeavor which stemmed from a false interpretation of the
Isaianic verses. Consequently, Milton tried to identify the true
Restoration because that alone would herald the true messianic
kingdom.
Although there is little in Milton's 1670s writings to define his
attitude to the Jews, it is veryprobable that he continued to view the
Restoration as an act of divine confirmation: if he and other
nonconformists could witness before them the fulfilment of the
Isaianic prophecies, then they would possess tangible proof that God
was still pursuing His goal among the saints. This use of the
Restorationas proof of divine power had long beforebeen established
by Thomas Brightman: "the Jewes shall be here gathered together
who now live as exiles, and out of their owne Country... [so] that the
admirable goodnesse of God might openly appeare unto all men,
now againe, pitying his people whom he had estranged from
himself, with so long a divorce."20 Over half a century later,
Brightman's view was still gaining ground, especially among
nonconformist Restorationists. If the God who restoredIsrael from
Babylon would now restore the Jews to Palestine, then He was
preparing that Restoration as a sign of the saints' own return from
the Babylonish captivity of Anglicanism. If God could be seen to
fulfill His Isaianic promises to the Jews, then He would certainlynot
forget the promises made to the once-victorious but now defeated
saints. Like the Jews, the nonconformists viewed themselves as
theological exiles awaiting God's divine and supreme intercession.
The Restoration of the Jews now would demonstratethat God was
preparing a similarly victorious restoration of the saints to their
messianic kingdom. Only a Restoration under such conditions was
truly God's action and was preparatoryfor Christ'struekingdom. In
light of such convictions, Milton must have felt the urgency of lines
433-40:a decadeafterthe failure of the Puritan trial in England, a few
years after the Sevi fiasco, Milton hoped to correct the previous
mistakes of the Restorationists. Only after a Restoration with the
following four distinctions would Christ's messianic kingdom be
truly proclaimed:
1. The Restoration of the Jews was to be effected "by some
wondrous call." Milton urged that the Restorationwas a miraculous
act initiated by God, not a migration of a purely social nature. "This
 N. I. MATAR 1
119

is a mighty wonder," wrote Increase Mather in 1669.21 In this

corrective, Milton was completely opposed to the English Protestants
who had earlier proposed-and attempted-themselves to lead the
Jews on their journey. Tany declared in 1650: "Now unto ye Jewes,
my Brethren, am I sent to proclaime from the Lord of Hosts, the God
of Israel, your Returne from your Captivity in what Nation soever ye
are Scattered. From thence ye shall be Gathered into your own Land:
and JERUSALEM shall be built in Glory, in her owne Land."22 In
contrast to the above, Milton adopted the standard position of Mede,
Brightman, and Archer which treated the Restoration as an act of
God, not of self-proclaimed prophets or fanatics. Only after God
effected the Restoration would Christ's kingdom be proclaimed. A
Restoration under any other leadership was null and void, and
signified nothing about the kingdom: God was the restorer of the
Jews, not man.
2. The Restoration would take place after the conversion of the
Jews, "repentant and sincere." The issue of the Jews' conversion was
always associated with their Restoration: no sixteenth- or seventeenth-
century English theologian was willing to condone the Jews' Restor-
ation to Palestine without their prior conversion to Christian-
ity. That the Restoration was associated with conversion was
unanimously accepted, and the debate among writers was not as to
whether the Jews would give up their Judaism for Christianity, but
as to the timing of their conversion: would it precede or succeed their
Restoration? Unlike Thomas Cooper and Increase Mather, and in
the tradition of Mede, Brightman, Archer, and Sterry, Milton
affirmed the safer theological position:23 only after the Jews converted
would they be restored. This was the "safer" position because it
completely disqualified the false messianic claims of any Jew who
might proclaim himself king of the Jews before converting: Sabbatai
Sevi was clearly for Milton the notorious case in point.
3. The Restoration of the Jews was to take place across the
"Assyrian flood," the river Euphrates. This is an ambiguous passage
only because its interpretation in seventeenth-century commentary
took on either of two possibilities: the Euphrates could mean the
river in Mesopotamia which identified the Restoration in its Isaianic
sense as a return of the ten lost tribes from Babylon. This was the
prevalent interpretation. Brightman wrote: "the Euphrates must be
drawne drie... [so] that the Jewes may have nothing to hinder them,
when they returne into their Countrey againe." And Bagshaw
explained: "When the sixth Vial is poured out, which I take to be the
time when the Jews (who are called the Kings from the East) shall have
their way prepared for them over Euphrates to return into their own
120 RESTORATION OF THE JEWS

Land, at which time Christ himself shall appear at the Head of

them."24
Alternatively, however, the Euphrates could be understood
"mystically" to refer to the whole "Pontifician hierarchy" of the
Catholic church or to the Papacy and the Turks together. In this case,
the drying up of the Euphrates meant the destruction of both these
powers-an event that necessarily preceded the inauguration of
Christ's kingdom.25
Milton's position regarding the interpretation of the "Assyrian
flood" is clear: his reference two lines later to "the Red Sea and
Jordan" in a literal-historical sense suggests that he was in favor of
the first view. Milton's Jesus did not favor the allegorical interpre-
tation of the Isaianic prophecies: the Restoration of the Jews
addressed a concrete situation that would take place among the tribes
in Babylon, across the Euphrates which separated them from
Palestine.
4. Finally, that the Restoration will take place in "God's due time
and providence" and by implication, that the messianic kingdom,
which is to succeed the Restoration, will be in God's appointed time
is the central thesis in Jesus' whole argument against Satan. As Satan
had started the debate by tempting Jesus to proclaim the kingdom
and restore the Jews, he now receives from Jesus a crushing defeat:
Jesus refuses to seize the kingdom either at the wrong time or by the
wrong means.26 This affirmation draws Milton's Jesus close to the
Restorationists who admitted the Restoration of the Jews and the
advent of Christ as mysteries known only to God. Although at the
height of the Cromwellian revolution theologians rashly ventured
with dates and threats, in the period after 1660 Restorationists were
satisfied to renege on their earlier proclamations and to leave the
whole matter to God's providence. Milton's Jesus was confirming
New Testamental orthodoxy: the Restoration of the Jews is a
mystery, which, like the messianic kingdom, is foreknown only to
God.
Lines 433-40 situate Milton at the center of a theological debate
about the Restoration of the Jews. Whether in the Interregnum or in
1671, the passage in Paradise Regained points to a polemical
position that Milton had taken, one which specified his religio-
political allegiance. To be a Restorationist in the late 1640s or in the
1650s pointed to a pro-Cromwellian interpretation of the messianic
kingdom in England; to be a Restorationist in 1671, at the
publication of Paradise Regained, meant expectation of tangible
proof of God's continued involvement in the history of his previously
chosen people, the Jews, and his presently chosen Zion, the
 N. I. MATAR 121

nonconformists. In both periods, the Restorationist position clarified

Milton's view of contemporary events, whether towards the revolution
under Cromwell, or towards the continued messianic expectations of
nonconformists during the period of the "great persecution."

III
As was noted above, Milton did not contribute to the debate on the
settlement of the Jews in England-an issue that busied Cromwell
and many of his theologians in the 1650s. That silence, Don M.
Wolfe correctly maintains, stemmed from Milton's limits of toleration
which did not extend to Catholics or to unconverted Jews.27 Not
surprisingly, Milton's support for the Restorationist position in the
early 1650s confirms this view: like many of his mentors and
contemporaries, Milton did not view the Jews as a community with
an individual history and religion, but as delayed Christians. And
because he hoped for the Jews' conversion he showed interest in their
Restoration: for the Restoration was to be necessarily subsequent
upon their conversion. Unconverted Jews, however, like the ones
pleading for settlement in 1655 did not interest him. Manasseh Ben
Israel, who was conducting the negotiations with Cromwell and
author of The Hope of Israel, mentioned nothing, to Milton's
dismay, about the forthcoming conversion of the Jews before or once
they arrived in England. Milton thus showed no concern for these
Jews. Not surprisingly and in that same year, Milton lamented the
Protestant Piedmontese in a Hebraic tone, comparing their suffering
with the Babylonian exile, but he ignored the contemporary Jews in
London for not accepting Christ.28

NOTES
'All poetry references are to Douglas Bush, ed., Milton: Poetical Works
(Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1969). The prose passages are from the Complete
Prose Works, gen. ed. Don M. Wolfe, 8 vols. (New Haven and London: Yale
Univ. Press, 1953-1983).
2See Michael Fixler, Milton and the Kingdoms of God (Evanston: North-
western Univ. Press, 1964), pp. 237-40; Barbara Lewalski, Milton's Brief Epic
(Providence: Brown Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 271-73.
3See my "The Idea of the Restoration of the Jews in English Protestant
Theology: From the Reformation until 1660," DUJ 78 (1985):23-36.
4SeeJohn T. Shawcross,"The Chronology of Milton's Major Poems," PMLA
76(September 1961):345-58.See also William R. Parker, Milton, 2vols. (Oxford:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), 2:1140.
5Thomas Goodwin, An Exposition of the Revelation (1639), in The Works of
Thomas Goodwin, Nichol's Series of Standard Divines, 28 vols. (Edinburgh,
1861-1865), 3:62ff., and Parker, 1:42.
 122 RESTORATION OF THE JEWS

See also T.G. [Thomas Goodwin?], A glimpse of Syons glory (London, 1641),
passim; John Owen, The Shaking and Translating of Heaven and Earth. A
Sermon Preached to the Honorable House of Commons, April 19, 1649
(London, 1649), pp. 12, 40; Peter Sterry, The Comings Forth of Christ In the
Power of His Death (London, 1650), pp. 1 ff., and England's Deliverance from
the Northern Presbytery (London, 1652, preached on 5 November 1651), pp.
33ff.; Henry Jessey, An Information Concerning the Present State of the Jewish
Nation in Europe and Judea (London, 1655);Annotations Upon all the Books of
the Old and New Testament By the Labour of certain Learned Divines, 2 vols.
(London, 1651), 2, on Rom. 11:11-18. For a study of Milton's interaction with
these writers, see ch. 12 of Arthur E. Barker, Milton and the Puritan Dilemma,
1641-1660 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1942).
6For Cromwell and Milton, see Antonia Fraser, Cromwell our Chief of Men
(London: Panther, 1975), pp. 87, 391, 455-86; Austin Woolrych, "Milton and
Cromwell, 'A Short but Scandalous Night of Interruption'?" in Michael Lieb
and John T. Shawcross, eds., Achievements of the Left Hand (Amherst: Univ. of
Massachusetts Press, 1974), pp. 185-218.
7For Milton and Mede, see Marjorie Nicolson, "Milton's 'Old Damoetas',"
MLN 41 (May 1926):293-300,and the various references in Michael Lieb, Poetics
of the Holy (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1951). For Mede's and
Brightman's influence on Milton and others, see Peter Toon, ed., Puritans, the
Millennium and the Future of Israel. Puritan Eschatology, 1600-1660(Cambridge
and London: James Clarke, 1970), pp. 26ff. and 60ff. See also R. Clouse, "The
Influence of John Henry Alsted on English Millenarian Thought in the
Seventeenth Century" (Ph.D. Diss., State Univ. of Iowa, 1963), ch. 2; Frederick
Plotkin, "Sighs from Zion: A Study of Radical Puritan Eschatology in England,
1640-1660" (Ph. D. Diss., Columbia Univ., 1966), ch. 2.
8Mary Cary, The Little Horns Doom and Downfall (London, 1651),
pp. 139ff., John Robins, The Declaration of John Robins the false Prophet
(London, 1651), p. 5; Joanna and Ebenezer Cartwright, The Petition of the
Jewes for the Repealing of the Act of Parliament for their banishment out of
England (London: 1649); Theauravjohn Tany, I Proclaime from the Lord of
Hosts the Returne of the Jewes from their Captivity (London, 1650); Samuel
Gott, Nova Solyma, the Ideal City, ed. Walter Begley, 2 vols. (London: John
Murray, 1902, first pub. 1649), 2:89ff. For possible Gott-Milton contact, see
Christopher Hill, Milton and the English Revolution (London: Faber and
Faber, 1977), p. 147; George Foster, The Pouring Forth of the Seventh and Last
Viall (London, 1650), pp. 63ff.; Nathaniel Homes, The Resurrection-Revealed,
Raised (London, 1661), pp. 52, 97, 101, 154-55, 195, 217-20. Homes was closely
associated with the Cromwell regime and Nathan Paget, Milton's doctor, owned
MSS by him. See Hill, Milton, p. 494; John Canne, A Second Voyce from the
Temple to the Higher Powers (London: 1653), pp. 25-31. For the Canne-Milton
contact, see George Wesley Whiting, Milton's Literary Milieu (New York:
Russell and Russell, 1964), pp. 311-23. Moses Wall, "Considerations Upon the
Point of the Conversion of the Jewes," cited in Lucien Wolfe, Menasseh Ben
Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell (London: Macmillan, 1901), pp. 55-61. For
the Milton-Wall contact, see the letter by Wall in Prose, 7:510-13. Milton and
Oldenburgh were friends and correspondents; see Prose, 7:489-92, 495-96, 498-
500,502-505, 513-15, and Fixler, pp. 243-44. For general studies on this issue, see
Christopher Hill, Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England (London and
 N. I. MATAR 123

New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 114ff. and 179ff.;and Bryan W. Ball, A
Great Expectation (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), ch. 3.
9T. G., A glimpse, p. 31; Robert Lord Brooke, A Discourse Opening The
Nature of That Episcopacie Which Is Exercised in England (London, 1642),
p. 63; William Bridge, Works, 5 vols. (London, 1845), 4:345. The sermon was
preached on 29 November 1643.
'0Thomas Brightman, The Revelation of Saint John (Amsterdam, 1644, first
pub. 1609), p. 41; Samuel Gibson, The Ruine of theAuthors and Formentors of
Civill Warres (London, 1645), p. 33; see also Sterry's use in England's
Deliverance, p. 40. For studies on Milton's eschatology, see Hill, Milton, ch. 21;
Barker, ch. 12;and Paul Christianson, Reformers and Babylon (Toronto: Univ.
of Toronto Press, 1978), pp. 193-95.
"Doomes-day: or, The Great Day of the Lords Judgement, proved by
Scripture (London, 1647), p. 2. See also Alan Macfarlane, ed., The Diary of
Ralph Josselin 1616-1683 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1976), pp. 219, 227.
'2Sterry,The Comings Forth, pp. 11-13; Canne, pp. 9, 26-27.
"In Prose, 7:617, n. 9, the editor draws attention to Wollebius, Compendium
Theologiae Christianae, I, xxxiv , p. 170, and to Zanchius, "De Fine," Operum
Theologicorum, vol. 3, tome vii, col. 88 as possible sources.
'4ASermon Preached to the Parliament, Octob. 13.1652 (Oxford, 1652), p. 16.
'5Robert Baillie, A Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time (London, 1645),
ch. 11; see also his sermon on Errours and Induration (London, 1645);Thomas
Hayne, Christs Kingdome on Earth Opened according to the Scriptures
(London, 1645); John Lightfoot, A Sermon Preached Before the Honorable
House of Commons . . . 26 Aug. 1645 (London, 1645); William Gouge, The
Progresse of Divine Providence (London, 1645), pp. 29ff.; Thomas Edwards,
The First and Second Part of Gangraena (London, 1646), p. 19. John Frederick
Wilson, in Pulpit in Parliament: Puritanism during the English Civil War,
1640-1648 (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), maintains that millenarian-
ism was one of the distinctions that separated the Independents from the
Presbyterians. For a study of the transformation of eschatology in the late 1640s
and the 1650s, see Tai Liu, Discord in Zion (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1973).
'6Henry Hammond, A Paraphrase and Annotations Upon all the Books of the
New Testament, in The Miscellaneous Theological Works of H.H., 3rd edn., 3
vols. (Oxford, 1847-1850), 4:502.
17TheLearned Conjectures of Reverend Mr. John Eliot in Jews in America, by
Thomas Thorowgood (London, 1652), pp. 1,20; Increase Mather, The Mystery
of Israel's Salvation (London, 1669), passim; Vavasor Powell, A New and Useful
Concordance to the Holy Bible (London, 1671), "A Collection of the Prophesies
which concern the Calling of the Jews, and the glory that shall be in the latter
days"; and The Life and Death of Mr. VavasorPowell (London, 1671), pp. 44-45;
Rhys (Arise) Evans, Light for the Jews (London, 1665); William Sherwin,
Aoyof irepv Aoyov: or the vvord vvritten. Concerning the World Everlasting
(London, 1670), pp. 5-13, and A Paper shewing that the great Conversion and
Restauration of all Israel and Judah will be fulfilled at Christs second coming
(London, 1674).
'8Sir Paul Rycaut, The Turkish History, 3 vols. (London, first pub. 1668, 6th
edn. 1687), 2:174; John Evelyn in 1669 included Rycaut's account of Sevi in his
The History of the Three late Famous Imposters (London, 1669), pp. 42ff.
'9SeeJohn Owen, Works, ed. William Goold, 6 vols. (London and Edinburgh,
1851), 9:322,489,506,510. It is surprising to find Christopher Hill commenting
124 RESTORATION OF THE JEWS

on Owen and Milton that "they became less certain that the Second Coming was
imminent," Milton, p. 284. As late as 1676, Owen was warning about "these last
days." See also Sterry, MS III, catalogue no. 292 in Emmanuel College Library,
Cambridge, pp. 149-50. See my "Peter Sterry, the Millennium and Oliver
Cromwell" in The Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society 2
(October 1982):334-43.Nathaniel Homes, The Resurrection-Revealed, Raised,
Above Doubts, and Difficulties (London, 1661), "The First Exercitation."
William Bridge, 5:352-57; the sermon was preached in 1668. See also Bernard
Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), pp. 203,
215-23.
20Brightman, p. 314.
21Mather,p. 82.
22Tany, I proclaime from the Lord of Hosts the return of the Jews from their
Captivity (London, 1650), broadsheet.
23ThomasCooper The Blessing ofJapheth (London 1615)p. 53; Mather, p. 97;
Brightman, p. 267; Mede, The Works of Joseph Mede (London, 3rd edn., 1672),
p. 891, and Bk. V, ch. 11; John Archer, The Personall Raigne of Christ upon
Earth (London, 1642), p. 52; Sterry, The Comings Forth, pp. 1lff.
24Joseph Mede, Clavis Apocraphica, trans. R. Bransby Cooper (London,
1833), pp. 427-31;Brightman, p. 357; Goodwin quotes Brightman in Exposition,
pp. 62-63; Bagshaw, p. 31; Jessey, p. 7; Henry Finch, The Worlds Great
Restauration (London, 1621), passim.
25Hugh Broughton, The Seven Vialls (London, 1628), p. 48; John Cotton,
The Pouring Out of the Seven Vialls (London, 1642), vial 6, pp. 30ff.; see also
Thomas Matthews, Clavis Apocalyptica (London, 1651), p. 111, and Sterry,
England's Deliverance, pp. 38-39.
26Lewalski, p. 265.
27Don M. Wolfe, "Limits of Milton's Toleration," JEPG 60 (October
1961):834-46. For perceptive analyses of Milton's attitude to the Jews and
Judaism, see Samuel S. Stollman, "Milton's Dichotomy of 'Judaism' and
'Hebraism'," PMLA 89 (January 1974):105-12,and "Milton's Understanding of
the 'Hebraic' in Samson Agonistes," SP 69 (July 1972):334-47.
28CharlesE. Goldstein, "The Hebrew Element in Milton's Sonnet XVIII,"
MiltonQ 9 (December 1975):111-14.